Salient Polymaths R Us

Well, not really--I thought this article was going to touch on Illich and de Soto more, but it expounded a strikingly different point of view:

http://www.libertyhaven.com/regulationandpropertyrights/tradeandinternationaleconomics/newliberation.shtml

A few comments. Firstly:

The tragedy of the old liberation theology is not only that it penalizes individual enterprise, but that it requires sweeping away all traditional religious structures in Latin America.

This doesn't take into account the liberated reformers we met with.

Here's a neat lead:

...true to Schumpeter's prophecy that capitalism would create many idle critics of the very system that enriched them.

Better yet:

...quoting John Wesley: "Make as much money as you can. Save as much money as you can. Give away as much money as you can."

And best so far:

We live at a time when all respectable churchmen are supposed to be exercising a "preferential option for the poor" and hostility towards the rich. But I submit that the proper Christian attitude is to show a preferential option for human beings, rich or poor, East or West, South or North, without regard for class or condition. And, like Wesley and Schuller, we need to encourage all people to discover the possibilities within them, to become everything God means for them to be. They must start where they find themselves, or where God finds them.

This is over ten years old, yet sounds quite fresh.

Comments to come later hopefully. Gotta leave work now.