rt.com/op-edge/164156-piketty-pope-marx-back/



Piketty and the Pope, and why Marx is back

Santiago Zabala is ICREA Research Professor of Philosophy at the
University of Barcelona. He is the author of The Remains of Being
(2009), Hermeneutic Communism (2011) and other publications.

The criticism of income
inequality that Thomas Piketty exposes in his bestselling “Capital in
the 21st Century” is not very different from Pope Francis’s views on
capitalism in his apostolic exhortation “Evangelii Gaudium” last year.


The Financial Times is trying to demonstrate that
the French economist’s theory is wrong, and Rush Limbaugh, among
other conservatives, has accused both men of Marxism, which for him is synonymous with
being wrong, of course. But being labeled a Marxist
is not offensive anymore; it’s simply a sign that Marx has
returned from the remnants of communism to invite academics, activists, and
even clerics to seek in his thought solutions to the ongoing
global recession.

Even though Piketty and the Pope (formerly Cardinal Jorge Mario
Bergolio) have denied any interest or faith in Marxism, they will not be forgiven
anytime soon because anyone who points out capitalism’s social
flaws pulls a fire alarm in our state of exception.

The good aspect of this alarm is that it indirectly gathers together people concerned with such
vital matters as the distribution of wealth, health and
education, as demonstrated by UNASUR and the Occupy
Movement.

The Pope has called for redistribution, and Piketty has suggested
a way that this can be implemented through a progressive global
tax on capital or wealth. And has also (indirectly) become the
papal economist. In order to explain why the French economist’s
solution is appropriate for the pope’s concerns, let’s quickly
recall both theses.

The most interesting feature of “Evangelii Gaudium” is
not that the Pope calls for a more equitable distribution of
wealth but rather that he makes this call in the spirit of
Gustavo Gutiérrez’s liberation theology.

According to Pope Francis, a “financial reform” is
necessary not only “because the socioeconomic system is
unjust at its root” but also because “today’s economic
mechanisms promote inordinate consumption.” When this
unbridled consumerism is combined with inequality it proves
particularly damaging to our society, where the “excluded are
not the ‘exploited’ [anymore] but the outcast, the
leftovers.”

As we can see, the Pope is opposing not just an economic system
where exclusion is possible but one where it has become the norm,
that is, the “result of ideologies which defend the absolute
autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation.” As a
true postmodern philosopher, Pope Francis concludes his
observations by pointing out how far “we are far from the
so-called ‘end of history’” because economic growth,
encouraged by a free market, instead of bringing greater
prosperity for all, has increased “widespread corruption and
self-serving tax evasion, which have taken on worldwide
dimensions.”

Piketty seems to have provided both historical and economic
justification for the Pope’s concerns over an “economy of
exclusion” and a “financial system which rules rather
than serves.” If capitalism has become such an economic
system it is not simply because of its natural drift toward high
inequality, which the author demonstrates through detailed
historical analysis, but also because capitalism permits the
concentration of wealth to perpetuate from one generation to the
next (as the Spanish royal family has just demonstrated).

This occurs when the “rate of return on capital exceeds the
rate of growth of output and income” and “capitalism
automatically generates arbitrary and unsustainable inequalities
that radically undermine the meritocratic values on which
democratic societies are based.” The French economist
suggests a “progressive annual tax on capital” that
would contain the “unlimited growth of the global inequality
of wealth, which is currently increasing at a rate that cannot be
sustained in the long run and that ought to worry even the most
fervent champions of self-regulated market.”

If Piketty seems to have become Francis’s economist, it is not
simply because he provides a solution the Pope would most likely
endorse, but also because he has moved away from the scientific
nature of his discipline, that is, economic determinism. After
all, the French economist believes that the “resurgence of
inequality after 1980” was not caused simply by capitalism’s
inevitable drift towards inequality but also by “the
political shifts of the past several decades, especially in
regard to taxation and finance.” The Pope’s call for a
financial system that “serves instead of rules” is
directed against this political shift, which has always avoided
financial reforms such as those suggested by both men.

Although Piketty will probably continue to teach economics in
France instead of moving into the Vatican, the Pope now has an
economist whom he can rely upon when he pontificates from Rome,
regardless of all accusations of Marxism. These accusations,
then, are not only necessary to bring together economists and the
Holy See but also serve to mark a turning away from capitalism’s
acceleration of inequality for anyone so accused, regardless of
our faith or social status.


Santiago Zabala for RT