Libertarians get social teaching wrong in book on Francis

https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/libertarians-get-social-teaching-wrong-book-francis
MGB: I suspect that Whaples thinks the term slave labor is not apt, because no one was forcing these workers to come back to work.  I don't think Whaples understands work in that part of the world. He certainly does not understand hierarchical capitalism, whether it be in Bangladesh or in the factor in Carolina where everyone died in a fire because the exit doors were padlocked, although I am sure the libertarian plant manager saved his own skin first.

Capitalism is capitalism, whether it is in Bangladesh or the now defunct state capitalism of Russia (where success was based on political skill, not results). They all extract value from workers and give it to owners and the CEO. He who makes the rules gets the gold (the corollary to the golden rule). 

CEOs are not fellow workers that bid for their jobs based on pure information against other interested bidders, preferably among fellow managers. They are celebrities who, more often than not, manipulate the operations of the firm to maximize their own wealth.  That they are necessary is an article of faith from Edmund Burke to Hayek to Rand to Trump, for which they skim wages below what a free economy would pay.  Why? Because they can.  Freedom for the one over the all. Nice.
Samuel Gregg knows nothing of economics, although he is good at mouthing the ideology.  The fact is that Argentina would have recovered quickly with a bit sounder money but also with higher taxes on its libertarian elites and more social spending.  Those ideas work in Argentina as well as they do here (they did under Obama and will under the huge deficits Trump is about preside over).  Austerity and its evil twin, supply side economics leading to asset inflation, both lead to ruin, the latter more quickly than the former.  Actually, austerity is great at keeping the assets of the rich protected, so it is the same mess.

Martinez needs to actually read Catholic Social Teaching.  While the pining for the traditional Catholic family of two opposite sex parents and a good job for the father is quaint, from Leo through Benedict, there is a unifying thread of social democracy that gets stronger with time, highlighting the responsibility of the state to use taxation to fill in gaps in family income.  Even libertarian Milton Friedman agreed with that strategy in his Negative Income Tax, although social democracy gives such payments to everyone, not just the poor.  Conservatives resist the VAT because they fear such a thing would be expanded to everyone and would therefore reduce the available stock of low wage labor who could be commanded in the workplace with impunity.  Inequality, you see, is a requirement in the libertarian mind for power by the elites and Libertarianism is nothing if not elitist. Regardless, Francis seems to understand this bit of economics. The authors of this volume do not.  Austrian economics is for those who do not really understand economics at all. Also, if Trump is not a wannabe totalitarian, there is no such thing as one.

(and lest any Trolls argue, I was a contributing editor in a libertarian journal, so I know of what I speak)

The Fall is a mythical parable about blame. We have private property because two people cannot own the same thing at the same time, unless they agree to joint ownership.  That has to do with political theory about the need for the state to record and defend property, lest people take up arms against each other.  Locke, not Pope Leo.  The state also allows capitalistic limited liability ownership, which is the 14th Amendment and corporate personhood and dutch tulip markets.  Romney, not Benedict.

This book is not about the idolatry of the market, as capitalism controls rather than relies on such things.  It is about idolatry for wealth, and we all know what Jesus said about the difficulty of the wealthy man achieving the Kingdom of God.  These writers do not help the wealthy man do that, they egg him on into perdition.

These authors are not doing their patrons any favors. You cannot bluff God.