I don’t think the Pope is the best source of inspiration about how to structure the world but I certainly respect the fact that’s he’s sincerely interested in alleviating suffering and is a very sharp fellow.    Here, the Pope has suggested we need major structural changes in the global economy to stem the tide of poverty.

My working assumption has been that globalization is, on balance, a hugely positive force as well as an inevitable one.   In simple terms I believe this because as I travel and look around me it is the highly capitalistic and globalized environments of the USA and western democracies that  provide for their people better than the “anti capitalistic, anti westers globalization” economies of Cuba, North Korea, etc.

Socialists suggest that our higher standards are a result of exploitation of the underdeveloped countries, but if this were true we’d tend to see a LOT more flow of goods and capital from, for example, Africa to the USA.   In fact we see that Canada and Europe, Japan and China are the huge trading and economic partners of the USA rather than the suffering countries.  In fact the striking thing about US interaction with the poor is that it’s non-existent rather than exploitative.

The Pope’s comments notwithstanding, clearly it seems we should be working to bring the poor into the globalization loop, rather than do things that might destabilize the capitalistic global goose that lays so many golden eggs.

We don’t have a crisis of economy, we have a crisis of indifference.