The Pope’s Laughable – and Dangerous – View of Nature by Donald J. Boudreaux
Here’s a letter to the Washington Post:
On the opening page of your website today you ask readers to register their agreement or disagreement with this statement of Pope Francis: “This is our sin: Exploiting the Earth and not allowing her to give us what she has within her.”
This claim is laughable. History testifies unmistakably that the earth is extremely stingy in volunteering to humans “what she has within her.”
Indeed, what the earth has within her are mere raw materials, by themselves useless unless and until human creativity discovers not only how to transform them into actual resources and outputs that improve human well-being (ever try fueling your jet with crude oil?) but also how to “exploit” the earth so that she releases her materials to us at a reasonable cost.
The Pope is vocal about helping the world’s poor. I believe that he’s sincere.
So I sincerely hope that he comes to realize that the greatest of all sins against humanity would be the suppression of those capitalist institutions that have proven to be the only practical means of transforming what the earth has within her into a bounty of goods and services that allows the masses, for the first time in history, to live lives of material abundance and dignity upon her.
Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
Martha and Nelson Getchell Chair for the Study of Free Market Capitalism at the Mercatus Center
George Mason University
Donald Boudreaux is a professor of economics at George Mason University, a former FEE president, and the author of Hypocrites and Half-Wits.
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