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Did the Pope Mean "Capitalism''? Msgr. George G. Higgins March 31, 1999  The Wall Street Journal, fearful that Pope John Paul II during his visit to St. Louis might criticize neoliberalism as he had done a few days earlier in Mexico, and fearful that his U.S. audience might take this to mean that he was critical of capitalism, tried to rescue to pope from what it obviously thought was his careless use of the English language.  In a pre-emptive-strike editorial, "The Good News,'' published the day the pope arrived in St. Louis, the Journal opined that though the pope sometimes leaves the impression that by "neoliberalism'' he means "capitalism,'' "or the excesses of capitalism,'' at its core what he means is materialism. A few days later, a Journal letter to the editor questioned the editors' authority to make themselves the official interpreters of the pope's criticism of neoliberalism. "I think,'' he wrote, "you should check ... with the pope before putting words in his mouth.'' I second the motion. This is not the first time U.S. commentators on both the left and the right have put their own spin on papal statements about capitalism. Before the Soviet Union's decline, this sort of exegesis usually took the form of an ideological debate about democratic capitalism vs. socialism. That was particularly true of reaction in the United States to Pope John Paul II's 1981 encyclical "On Human Labor.'' I thought then that the black-and-white debate over the encyclical was a great distraction. I felt we were getting bogged down again in the perennial either/or, black-and-white debate about capitalism and socialism, and that presumably never the twain shall meet.  In short, I thought it regrettable that the debate about the encyclical took such an ideological turn. In that context democratic capitalism and socialism carried so much partisan baggage and were fraught with so much ambiguity that they had become, at least in North America, little more than shibboleths. While shibboleths are fun to argue about, they don't get us far.  We would have been better advised to analyze the encyclical on human labor on its own terms, for the fact is that, in certain key respects, it is critical of both socialism and capitalism in the historically situated and commonly accepted meaning of these ambiguous terms. The same can be said about the argument over the pope's use of "neoliberalism.'' I think we ought to let him speak for himself on this issue and not try to imprison him in an ideological straitjacket debate about capitalism vs. socialism. At the very least I think any fair reading of the pope's references to neoliberalism will show that, while supportive of market economics, he is most certainly critical of "the excesses of capitalism.''  U.S. economist Edward Luttwak has complicated this ongoing debate about capitalism by changing its name to "turbo-capitalism'' in a new book by that title. Luttwak discusses the global economy in factual rather than purely theoretical or ideological terms. He concludes his study as follows: "As compared to the slavery of the defunct communist economics, despiriting bureaucratic socialism and the grotesque failures of nationalist economics, turbo-capitalism is materially altogether superior, and morally at least not inferior, in spite of all of its corrosive effects on society, families and culture itself. Yet to accept its empire over every aspect of life, from art to sport in addition to all forms of business, cannot be the culminating achievement of human existence. Turbo-capitalism too shall pass.'' I have no way of knowing whether or not John Paul II would agree with this assessment of the global economy. In my opinion, it makes good sense.   Papal Social Encyclicals   Other Catholic Social Teachings General Articles of Interest  Catholic Worker Connection Msgr. George Higgins  Home Page E-Mail: Fr. Sinclair Oubre