Inflation is profoundly socially unjust. Its causes lie above all in an expansionary monetary policy, and this must be stopped. If policymakers want to prevent the inevitable recession that will follow, they will only make the problems worse.
Economists and researchers in the U.S. agree: the Earned Income Tax Credit helps millions of households stand on their own two feet. Work is rewarded, and with the help of this program, one million children have escaped child poverty.
The Covid-19 crisis threw many out of work, many suffered accordingly, and labor markets were also damaged. Depending on the situation, some governments fared better than others. In any case, policymakers can learn a few things from the pandemic.
Did the rich get rich by robbing the poor? Theology and Catholic social teaching have long known that wealth generation is not a zero-sum game, but a process from which everyone benefits.
Pope Francis never called for a “universal basic income” as a new socio-political model. He asked for financial assistance for those on the margins who have been harmed by the quarantine. Even so, the idea of a “basic income” is only feasible, if at all, in a country with strong protection of property rights and a market economy.
We could be facing the biggest economic crisis of all time. Will politicians be able to learn the lessons from this and use the crisis as an opportunity for a new beginning in economic and public health policy?
Even though few self-identify as Marxists, many of the Marx’s ideas remain in fashion. In particular, his denigration of capitalists and entrepreneurs as stealing from workers, and his failure to identify their effective beneficence, remain quite popular.
