The growing gap between rich and poor has been the subject of recent comment by the Pope. He has called for a fairer distribution of wealth. Some people have accused him of being a socialist and criticised him for not being an economist. They believe that market forces will suffice. But market forces are unable to produce a just outcome without prior equity. This means that everyone must have equal access to land and other natural resources which are God-given. Whilst Marxist systems of economics produce tyranny and poverty, and Socialist ones have the same effect but do it in a softer way, the mode of economic organisation usually referred to as "Capitalist" invariably leads to a division between a small number of very rich and a mass of poor. In the absence of free access to land and a genuinely free market, the notion of "Free Market" is a cover-up for a fundamentally unjust state of affairs. Free markets would, for example, rule out things such as restrictions o...
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