Quote of the Week: Pope John Paul II
It is the task of the State to provide for the defence and preservation of common goods such as the natural and human environments, which cannot be safeguarded simply by market forces. Just as in the time of primitive capitalism the State had the duty of defending the basic rights of workers, so now, with the new capitalism, the State and all of society have the duty of defending those collective goods which, among others, constitute the essential framework for the legitimate pursuit of personal goals on the part of each individual.
Here we find a new limit on the market: there are collective and qualitative needs which cannot be satisfied by market mechanisms. There are important human needs which escape its logic. There are goods which by their very nature cannot and must not be bought or sold. Certainly the mechanisms of the market offer secure advantages: they help to utilize resources better; they promote the exchange of products; above all they give central place to the person’s desires and preferences, which, in a contract, meet the desires and preferences of another person. Nevertheless, these mechanisms carry the risk of an ‘idolatry’ of the market, an idolatry which ignores the existence of goods which by their nature are not and cannot be mere commodities.
– John Paul II, Centesimus Annus 40.
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You hopeless statist, you! Get with the program…
I’m sure this part didn’t make the abidged version of the encyclical circulated by Neuhuas and Weigel.
I still can’t get over the fact that they ABRIDGED the encyclical! What guts!
As even a short quote like this indicates, the Catholic Church and its spiritual allies make up the only big force in the world today standing in the way of the complete triumph of globalizing consumerism, now that the only commies left are either trying to make themselves presidents for life or shooting missiles into the ocean.
We should be glad the Cold War is over. What is this war we are in now? It does not have a name, but the Church is fighting it on behalf of humanity; or perhaps I should say that it offers the ideas and spiritual resources to fight the war, because I’m not sure if enough committed soldiers are there as of now to really make it a real fight.