Pope criticizes neoliberal economic policies in encyclical citing Vinicius de Moraes | World

The encyclicals are the most important papal texts. It’s about brotherhood.

It covers topics such as immigration, the gap between rich and poor, economic and social injustices, imbalances in health care, and increased political polarization in many countries.

The document was signed by Francis in Assisi, Italy, on Saturday (3).

The title Todos Irmãos was criticized for not using inclusive language. In Italian, the word “fratelli” means brothers, but, as in Portuguese, it can be used to refer to a group with brothers and sisters. According to the Vatican, the name of the encyclical was taken from a text by Saint Francis of Assisi written in the 13th century and cannot be changed.

At one point in the text, when talking about how different cultures should coexist, Francisco, who is Argentine, quoted the Brazilian composer, poet and diplomat Vinicius de Moraes.

He made reference to the song Samba da Bênção: “Life is the art of encounters, although there is so much discord in life.”

The context was an incentive for a culture of encounter, in which everyone can learn something and in which no one is useless. “This implies including the peripheries. Those who live in them have another point of view, they see aspects of reality that cannot be discovered from the centers of power where the most decisive decisions are made.”

Criticisms of neoliberal economic policy

Francisco said that the right to private property cannot be considered absolute in all cases, since there are those who live extravagantly and others who have nothing.

“The right of some to freedom of business or to the market cannot be above the rights of the peoples and the dignity of the poor, nor above respect for the environment,” he wrote.

The Pope directly attacked an idea of ​​economic thought known by the English expression “to drip.”

Literally, it means to spill or drip. In practice, it means that tax cuts for wealthy companies or individuals will benefit the whole of society.

In the encyclical, the Pope writes the following: “The market, by itself, does not solve everything, although sometimes they want us to believe in this neoliberal dogma of faith. It is a poor, repetitive thought that always proposes the same recipes before any challenge that arises. ”

According to the highest authority of the Church, “neoliberalism always reproduces itself, using the magical ‘spill’ or ‘trickle’ theory – without naming it – as the only way to solve social problems. They do not realize that the supposed redistribution does not solve inequality, which is the source of new forms of violence that threaten the social fabric ”.

He said that an active economic policy is essential increase jobs rather than reduce them.

“Financial speculation, with the lust for easy profits as its primary goal, continues to wreak havoc.

The market cannot fully fulfill its own economic function, he says, without internal forms of solidarity and mutual trust.

“And today, it was precisely this trust that was lacking. The end of the story was not as predicted, with the dogmatic prescriptions of the prevailing economic theory showing that they themselves are not infallible.”

The Pope then quotes the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic: “The fragility of world systems in the face of the pandemic has shown that Not everything is resolved with market freedom and that, in addition to rehabilitating a healthy policy that is not subject to the dictates of finance, it is necessary to put human dignity back at the center and on this pillar the alternative social structures that we need must be built ”.

Francisco also criticized the lack of coordination between governments to solve Covid-19 problems: “When I was writing this letter, the Covid-19 pandemic that left our fake security guards unexpectedly exposed. given by the different countries, the inability to act together became evident. Although we are super connected, there was a fragmentation that made it more difficult to solve the problems that affect us all ”.