Why Prosperity?

"Your grandfather scratched the mill out of the naked earth."
--Mary Rafferty (The Valley of Decision)

The dicta of Pope Francis includes blaming capitalism for many problems of the poor. Capitalism is seen as creating or extending conditions of poverty among "the poor."

Thomas Sowell observes that review of history shows that it is not poverty that needs explaining. We know why poverty exists. It is the default condition of the human species due to axiomatic scarcity.

Instead, what needs explaining is prosperity. Prosperity stems from production--the combination of labor with other factors of production to generate goods and services that, through their consumption, alleviate scarcity.

But how to determine which goods to produce and how to get them to market? In socialistic systems bureaucrats make those decisions for consumers. In capitalistic systems it is the consumers themselves who guide production and distribution decisions. It should be apparent that people making their own choices and voluntarily cooperating with others are superior to central planners when determining what production enhances prosperity.

It is capitalism that explains man's climb out of poverty into more prosperous conditions. Capitalism enlarges the economic pie much more effectively than alternative designs.

The Pope suggests that the best way to help the less fortunate is to forcibly cut them a bigger slice of pie. But which has a better track record of helping the less fortunate over time: fighting for a bigger slice of pie, or producing a bigger pie?