In The Spirit of Enterprise, George Gilder…critiques Adam Smith’s ‘concept of the economy as a great invisibly guided “machine” in which capitalists are tools of the “market”.
Fr Percy, as a diocesan priest in Canberra-Goulburn, emphasises:
“In rejecting the notion that the entrepreneur is simply an instrument of the market, Gilder expounds for us what Kirzner means by alertness. The entrepreneur is protagonist, a man who creates and sustains markets by developing business opportunities. All of this is far removed from the ‘unintentional’ and ‘unknowing’ entrepreneur Smith portrays. Rather the entrepreneur’s activity is intelligent and focused.” [Refer Entrepreneurship in the Catholic Tradition, Fr Anthony G Percy, Connor Court Publishing, 2011, p 21].
Apart from the developing demographic winter with below replacement birth-rates virtually worldwide, the sensible solution to poverty is Christianity which “holds that the poor qua poor have as good a chance of reaching beatitude as the rich qua rich, probably a better one. Unless this end is understood, no amount of discussion of wealth and poverty in this world will make much difference. But when the question of the poor does arise, as it should, the main question should not be identification with it, but what really alleviates their condition.” [Fr James A Schall, S.J.]
See: http://www.catholicworldreport.com/Item/2503/do_christians_love_poverty.aspx
The teaching of Pope Benedict XVI confirms the relevant truth: “Society does not have to protect itself from the market, as if the development of the latter were ipso facto to entail the death of authentically human relations…Therefore it is not the instrument that must be called to account, but individuals, their moral conscience and their personal and social responsibility.” (Caritas et Veritate, Benedict XVI, 2009, #36).
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