The Silence of the Lamb

The Nobel Prize-winning economist William Nordhaus estimated that technology producers capture only a small share of the social value they create—roughly 2%—with the rest accruing to consumers as surplus.

That means, for example, Elon Musk has produced $50 trillion in total value for society.

But Christianity is totally ignorant about this effect. Most Christians don't understand wealth, because most Christians have not studied economics. Certainly, Jesus may have loved helping the poor, but he never said, "Blessed are the job-makers, for they shall enrich the poor." The Lamb is silent about the methods through which the poor are truly helped. 

This is ironic, because Christianity is based around the sacramental oikonomeia, the sacramental economy. Part of that economy of grace is supposed to empower Christians, result in Christians having a better understanding of, and willingness to, help the poor.

But it doesn't do that. Christians don't understand basic economics. To be fair, grace builds on nature. Being empowered by grace to understand a subject is not the same thing as training that power so as to understand a subject. I can, as a one-year old, have all the power in my legs necessary to run a 100-yard dash, but be unable to do it because, as a one-year old, I have not practiced it. Even if I can run well (which one-year olds are not necessarily adept at doing), I will be distracted, fall down a lot. I won't complete the race. 

Perhaps Catholics have the grace to understand economics via the sacraments, but they sure haven't trained that understanding well enough to accurately perceive or apply the reality. None of the Popes in living memory have had such economics training. Pope Leo has a BA in math, but knows nothing about how to apply that math training to economics. 

He doesn't understand what Nordhaus demonstrated, nor does he understand that the best way to help the materially poor is not to give them money, the best way to help the poor is to:

• provide inexpensive goods for everyone, rich or poor,
• in part by providing the cheapest possible energy to the largest possible number of people,
• require the poor to become qualified to earn money,
• strongly enforce private property laws, which means
• lowering government taxes and regulations to the lowest possible levels.

Now, Christianity DOES understand that crime must be reduced. Poverty is caused by criminal behaviour, so if you can get criminals to reject sin and criminal behaviour, those criminals and everyone around them can be lifted out of poverty. 

But giving the poor money directly just enables sloth: "He who does not work, shall not eat." (2 Thess 3:10) is a verse that absolutely no Christian emphasizes anymore. Perhaps it is time for Catholic bishops the world over to read some Thomas Sowell and Milton Friedman.