Catholic science of Economics

In Protestant, conventional Economics the market process has been regarded as a discovery mechanism and the source of innovation in society. This is also the view of the Austrian school of Economics which, despite her country of origin, has been cultivated over the last century predominantly in Protestant countries, mainly through the works of Mises and Hayek.

The view of the market process as a mechanism of social innovation is true in a Protestant society. It is not true in a Catholic society where the source of all social innovation is authority, that is, government. As I have been arguing in recent posts, in a Catholic culture people are not used to think by themselves. Any innovation by a man in this culture will immediately be put down by his fellow-citizens who do not recognize in him the ability for innovative thinking and action, because this is an ability they do not recognize to themselves. In a Catholic culture the only innovations that have a chance of being widely accepted by society are those which come from authority.

Over the last thirty years there have been two innovations originating in Portugal which became widely accepted by society, not only in this country but, to some extent, abroad. I refer to Via Verde and Multibanco. It should be noted, though, that these innovations did not result from the free competitive process of the market. Actually, Via Verde was created by a government-owned monopoly - Brisa - and Multibanco was created at a time when all banks were state-owned banks, that is, a government cartel.

It is the authority of government the main mechanism of discovery and innovation in a Catholic society, not the free market process of Protestant society. This point reinforces the need to develop some kind of a Catholic science of Economics, as opposed to conventional Economics which is predominantly Protestant Economics and whose results, for the most part, do not apply to a predominantly Catholic environment.

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May I add that the great Discoveries by the Portuguese in the fifteenth and and sixteenth centuries were not the work of private initiative, or pirates. They were conducted under the authority of the Crown, that is, of government.