Gotti Tedeschi says again
'BXVI deserves Nobel Prize'
Translated from the French service of
ROME, February 23 (ZENIT.org) – Theologian Joseph Ratzinger deserves the Nobel Prize for Economics, said Italian economist-banker Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, editorial writer and commentator for L'Osservatore Romano on fiscal and economic affairs and president of the Vatican's IOR.
[He first made this sugegstion the day after the publication of Caritas in veritate. See below.]
He spoke to present his new book
Le Ragioni dell'Economia, at the LEV bookstore named after Paul VI located in the Propaganda Fide headquarters in Piazza di Spagna. The book is a collection of articles he has written for the Vatican newspaper since the autumn of 2007.
He calls the articles "technical editorials, conceived and written from the Catholic viewpoint, with the conviction that natural law is the essential premise for economic laws, and that the latter will not function unless natural law is taken into account".
He says he will allow the reader, freely and realistically, to draw any moral lessons from his analysis of facts.
But why should the Pope get the Nobel for economics? "Because he is the greatest economist - for knowing what man needs. And being the one who knows man best, he knows what the economy means".
Gotti Tedeschi stressed anew one of the major premises of Benedict XVI's encyclical
Caritas in veritate, and one which Gotti Tedeschi himself reiterates on every occasion - the link between the economic crisis and the demographic winter in the West.
"Lack of children leads to a lack of growth," he says. "How is it possible for the gross national product of any country to increase if, say, the population remained stable over 30 years [a generation]?"
Further about his idea of a Nobel Prize for the Pope: "Benedict XVI's third encyclical , dated June 29, 2009 - and which took into account the banking and financial crisis that began in the autumn of 2008 - approaches the questions of the economy and development from the view point that its subtitle indicates, "On integral human development in charity and in truth".
The Pope has not ceased to recall the principles that should be followed to emerge from the crisis, sending messages to the leaders of the world's richest nations who meet each year in the G20 summits.
Gotti Tedesci first made the suggestion about the Nobel Prize for Economics on July 7, 2009, in an interview that appeared in Corriere della Sera the day after CIV was released on July 7, 2009. At the time, he said:
I welcomed the encyclical as a professional economist, not just as a Catholic who fol.lows the Church's moral teaching/ I believe this is an opportunity not just to take another look at the rules and problems of governance, but the capacity of economic instruments themselves to realize their own major purposes, namely: to use available natural resources with the maximum care and efficiency; to assure the most timely and balanced economic growth that allows true global wellbeing for mankind; and to assure the distribution of this wellbeing to all men.
Have these objective been realized ? Not at all. Many resources have been wasted. Economic growth has proven to be largely fictitious and illusory. Wellbeing has not been extended to all even where it has been possible to do so.
So I think this is the right time to ask ourselves whether, instead of imagining new expedients or studying new decrees, it would not be more worthwhile to reflect on the crisis as the Pope invites us to do.
No one has clarified as he does what homo economicus ought to do about the crisis: apply the rules of economics instead of going around them. And if you will allow me to say it, they should give him the Nobel Prize for economics.
Gotti Tedeschi was echoed by Riccardo Cascioli, president of the European Center for Studies on Population, the Environment and Development, and an editorial writer of La Bussola Quotidiana.
benedettoxviforum.freeforumzone.leonardo.it/discussione.aspx?idd=8527...
And a few days after that, there was this article in the Times of London that I found so good I introduced it this way - and will re-post now - as we sometimes tend to forget how momumental an undertaking CIV was:
If the Nobel Prize juries weren't so ideologically driven, I would send this article as a nominating letter for Benedict XVI to be considered for the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economics...
Pope Benedict is
the man on the money
The best analysis yet of the global economic crisis,
tells how people, not just rules, must change
by Brian Griffiths
July 13, 2009
Lord Griffiths of Fforestfach is a trustee of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lambeth Trust and Vice-Chairman of Goldman Sachs International. He was an economic adviser to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. A devout evangelical Christian, he is, by virtue of his title, a member of the House of Lords.
When Cardinal Ratzinger was elected Pope, his strengths and weaknesses seemed clear. Here was an eminent theologian, philosopher and guardian of Christian truth, but a man unlikely to make the Church’s message relevant to the world today.
How simplistic this now looks in the light of his third encyclical, in which Pope Benedict XVI confronts head-on the financial crisis that has rocked the world.
The language may be dense, but the message is sufficiently rewarding. The encyclical analyses modern capitalism from an ethical and spiritual perspective as well as a technical one.
As a result
it makes the (UK) Government’s White Paper on financial reforms published two days later look embarrassingly one-dimensional and colourless.
It is highly critical of today’s global economy but always positive. Its major concern is how to promote human development in the context of justice and the common good.
Despite heavy competition from some of the world’s finest minds, it is without doubt the most articulate, comprehensive and thoughtful response to the financial crisis that has yet appeared. It should strike a chord with all who wish to see modern capitalism serving broader human ends.
The Pope makes it clear that the encyclical takes its inspiration from
Populorum Progressio, the encyclical published by Paul VI in 1967, at the height of anti-capitalism in Europe. It attacked liberal capitalism, was ambivalent about economic growth, recommended expropriation of landed estates if poorly used and enthused about economic planning.
It was in stark contrast to
Centesimus Annus (1991), the most recent encyclical dealing with economic matters, published after the fall of communism by a Polish Pope.
John Paul II affirmed the market economy as a way of producing wealth by allowing human creativity and enterprise to flourish.
Pope Benedict is highly critical of modern capitalism.
- He believes that the international economy is marked by “grave deviations and failures”.
- Economic growth is weighed down by “malfunctions and dramatic problems”.
- Businesses that are answerable almost exclusively to their investors have limited social value.
- The financial system has been abused by speculative financial dealing and has wreaked havoc on the real economy.
- Globalisation has undermined the rights of workers, downsized social security systems and exploited the environment.
- As global prosperity has grown, so has “the scandal of glaring inequalities”.
Despite these criticisms, the encyclical has a positive view of profit, providing it is not an exclusive goal.
- It recognises that more labour mobility resulting from deregulation can increase wealth.
- It accepts that economic growth has lifted billions out of poverty and enabled some developing countries to become effective players in international politics.
- Globalisation offers an unprecedented chance of large-scale redistribution of wealth worldwide.
The kind of market economy Pope Benedict defends is much closer to the European social model than the “spontaneous order” of Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek.
For him, market capitalism can never be conceived of in purely technical terms. Development is not just about freeing up markets, removing tariffs, increasing investment and reforming institutions. It is not even about social policies to accompany economic reforms.
At the heart of the market is the human person, possessing dignity, deserving of justice and bearing the divine image. The market needs to be infused with a morality emanating from Christian humanism, which respects truth and encourages charity.
The encyclical suggests six major ways to make global capitalism more human.
First, it calls for “the management of globalisation” and a reform of international economic institutions. They are needed “to manage the global economy, to revive economies hit by the crisis, to avoid any deterioration of the present crisis . . . to guarantee the protection of the environment and to regulate migration”.
Not surprisingly, for this huge task we need
“a true world political authority” through reform of the United Nations.
Next, there needs to be greater diversity among the enterprises that create wealth: mutual societies, credit unions and hybrid forms of commercial organisation.
Third, globalisation has weakened the ability of trade unions to represent the interests of workers, something that needs to be reversed.
Fourth, the scandal of inequality requires countries to increase the proportion of GDP given as foreign aid.
Fifth, because the environment is the gift of the Creator we have an intergenerational responsibility to tackle climate change.
Finally, everyone involved in the market, traders, producers, bankers — even consumers — must be alert to the moral consequences of their actions.
“Development is impossible without upright men and women, without financiers and politicians whose consciences are finely attuned to the common good.”
Pope Benedict’s words are not just platitudes. They affect every person at work every day. In the City [London's financial center], they are a challenge to management to create a culture of prudence, responsibility and integrity.
There has to be zero tolerance for misleading clients, fudging conflicts of interest and inflating valuations. However great the revenue they produce, those who deviate must be disciplined. This kind of ethos cannot be imposed by regulation alone.
Elsewhere, I had mused about the fact that Benedict XVI is actually someone who could be nominated for three categories of the Nobel - Peace, Literature and Economics. But for now, he has no particular claim on any single area of peace promotion, and the secular panjandrums in Stockholm and Oslo would never consider the universal fight for religious freedom, freedom aqainst persecution, and freedom of conscience as 'legitimate' a cause to grant the Peace Prize as, say, fighting for women's rights in Liberia or Iran...Besides, think how the Nobel lefties completely ignored John Paul II, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher for their collective strategy and resolve to bring down the Communist empire! - and yet, they gave Arafat half a Peace Prize just because he signed some pact he never intended to honor! Not to mention the Peace Prize to Obama for what the jurors expect him to do - and whatever it is they expected, he hasn't accomplished]... As for the Literature Prize, he would deserve it richly for his entire theological oeuvre - or even just for the unique literary genre he devised for the JESUS OF NAZARETH books. I am thinking of the precedent set by Winston Churchill who was given the Nobel in Literature for his 6-volume History of the Second World War...
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 25/02/2012 17:52]