Pope Francis, public policy and 21st century wealth creation

In comments to Congress and at Independence Hall, Philadelphia, Pope Francis articulated reciprocity as public policy for 21^st century, egalitarian wealth creation.

With rhetoric so exquisite that best-behavior admonitions pealed as appreciative acknowledgements, Pope Francis encouraged legislators charged with crafting institutions and overseeing implementation and citizens with holding lawmakers accountable to secure liberties and sustain equality to act on their highest ideals.

{mosads}In Congressional remarks, the pontiff unambiguously reaffirmed Roman Catholic Church doctrine of free enterprise and commerce as means toward broadly held wealth. “Business is a noble vocation, directed to producing wealth and improving the world…. especially if it sees the creation of jobs as an essential part of its service to the common good….. The right use of natural resources, the proper application of technology and the harnessing of…enterprise are essential elements of an economy which seeks to be modern, inclusive and sustainable…,” Francis said.

Public policy should emulate the Golden Rule  “rejecting a mindset of hostility in order to adopt one of reciprocal subsidiarity…,” the Pope indicated. “Let us remember the Golden Rule: ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’”

Similarly, speaking at Independence Hall, Philadelphia, Francis underscored reciprocity by asserting “globalization is not evil. On the contrary, the tendency to become globalized is good… What can be evil is how it happens. If a certain kind of globalization claims to make everyone uniform…,  that globalization destroys the rich gifts and uniqueness of each person and each people. But a globalization which…bring[s] everyone together while respecting the uniqueness and gifts of each person or people is a good globalization; it helps all of us to grow…. I like to use a geometrical image…. If globalization is a sphere, where every point is equidistant from the center, it cancels everything out; it is not good. But if globalization is like a polyhedron, where everything is united but each element keeps its own identity, then it is good; it causes a people to grow, it bestows dignity and it grants rights to all.”

Essentially, Pope Francis strove to unify Americans with global citizens by charging Americans to make sure U.S. enterprises sustain fidelity to founding ideals to liberate and empower. He employed the historical space where William Penn and Quakers introduced toleration to public policy during colonial settlement, American revolutionaries declared independence from arbitrary authority in 1776 and founders crafted the Constitution of 1787 to caution against a 21^st century mercantilism exploiting technological capabilities.

In terms of global Internet and e-commerce, the great anxiety is that Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft, among others, will exert dominant, first mover advantages in search, social networking, retail, mobile communication and operating systems to impose more extensive oligopoly power in global commerce than enterprises in earlier industrial capitalism. Search, social networking and retail sale business models are so dependent on advertising that their users are but fodder for conformity and cultural extinction, the Pope essentially forecautions. By creating efficiencies buying and selling goods and services – the Internet’s inherent, disintermediation functionality —  and wealth vending consumer and user experience data to advertisers, dominant, first mover Internet enterprises rely disproportionately on advertising.  “Data has emerged as a mechanism of securing value but, thus far, its “transactionalization” has primarily been related to advertising,” the World Economic Forum observed in a January, 2015 report.

In 21^st century commerce, reciprocity and transparency go hand in hand. Available technologies enable institutions and individuals to reciprocate monetary and/or strategic advantage for digital risk data that they reveal and disclose voluntarily. The more transparent the digital data and information, the greater the reciprocal rewards. In the U.S. alone, risk transparency would revitalize U.S. residential mortgage backed securities, Treasury and corporate bond markets. High tech employment would grow with new technicians and technologists to handle so many more active users. STEM education would flourish training them. The multi-point to multi-point design would spur global commerce through clearer investment risk assessment in developing nations. And, the advertising model would be infused with fresh data and information for its practitioners to anonymize and vend.

Donahue is with the History Department at Rowan University, Glassboro, New Jersey.