Why Conservatives Need To Make Economics A Moral Issue

The following excerpt is taken from a speech delivered by Michael Knowles at the Club for Growth on Saturday, April 22.

One of the most persuasive defenses of economic liberty in recent memory came from the pope — not this pope, granted, a prior pope. In his 1991 encyclical “Centesimus Annus,” Pope John Paul II declared, “The free market is the most efficient instrument for utilizing resources and effectively responding to needs.” His predecessor pope Leo XIII used even blunter language. He called socialism a “pest,” “a plague,” and a “wicked confederacy” that “seeks to steal the very gospel itself.” Lots of other popes followed suit. Even the relatively liberal pope John XIII warned that a Christian could not “subscribe even to moderate socialism.”