Early this morning Pope Francis tweeted: “Inequality is the root of social evil.” He earlier stated that capitalism was a sham foisted upon the poor, because “there was the promise that once the glass had become full it would overflow and the poor would benefit. But what happens is that when it’s full to the brim, the glass magically grows, and thus nothing ever comes out for the poor.”
In these statements there is a measure of truth, but they leave out other truths that make for a rounded opinion. In all movements throughout the world there is a truth, and that truth varies with every group. Take the Occupy movement: they believe that Wall St. and Big Business is out to screw over the majority of people. But they don’t think this of some of the biggest tech companies, like Apple and Google, which have founders worth billions (and that’s billions with an “R”(Sorry, just tired of people saying “Billions with a “B”(but i digress))). And this divergence in how Occupy view super rich people is more of the truth than their “truth” contains.
Now as for what the pope tweeted, he is correct we he says “Inequality is the root of social evil.” But he left out that there will always be inequality, no matter the system, because no matter the leader, they will help those that they know. All large societies throughout history have shown this. In some cases this is not due to a malicious intention, it just comes from knowing one of the people that can get it done. Why search when your neighbor could do it? And this is one of the many ways that inequality is born.
As for the other quote from the pope, he is also technically correct. He forgets that there are adjustments that can be made to ensure that the working class and the poor are not as poor as they used to be. One of these ways is union labor, because they can ask for more of the profits, and they have a proven track record of getting this done.
Now the pope, and many others, including the unions and company executives, may think that unions are part of communism, but they are wrong. When Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin were consolidating power they abolished the unions, just so you know. Unions are actually an element of capitalism, and an essential one at that. The market economy that Adam Smith wrote about had labor being able to set the cost of their labor, and that cost would go into the price of finished item. Of course there are other elements involved, but in the Industrial Revolution this was not happening; it was the company owners that were setting the price of labor, and the only possible outcome that allowed the system to continue was unions. One of the few owners who saw the disparity was Henry Ford, and whatever his faults he was in a league of his own amongst large company owners.
We can even see this fight going on today. Look at the tech companies colluding to keep wages down. This sort of thing will probably last a bit longer, but unions, hopefully a less corrupt version, will rise again, because workers need a way to set the price of their labor.
To me, this is more of the truth than the pope’s, because it does not follow communist nor capitalist dogma.