Un-Civilizing America

Chapter 8Government—The Ultimate Win‐Loser

Society, however, cannot subsist among those who are at all times ready to hurt and injure one another. The moment that injury begins, the moment that mutual resentment and animosity take place, all the bands of it are broke asunder, and the different members of which it consisted are, as it were, dissipated and scattered abroad by the violence and opposition of their discordant affections. If there is any society among robbers and murderers, they must at least, according to the trite observation, abstain from robbing and murdering one another … Society may subsist, though not in the most comfortable state, without beneficence; but the prevalence of injustice must utterly destroy it.

—Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments¹

In a speech in May 2018, Pope Francis called credit default swaps “a ticking time bomb.” He was not the first to hear the tick‐tock coming from derivatives. Maybe they will blow up. And maybe they won't. But how would Pope Francis know?

God's man at the Vatican used an old Ford Focus to get around Rome and prided himself on his humility. But what a remarkably arrogant and conceited idea—to think that he knows better than thousands of seasoned investors with skin in the game.

“What do you think of Pope Francis?” we asked an Argentine friend. “He's a Peronist,” was the reply. Nothing more needed to be said.

Peronism is a political ideology with economic pretentions. Juan Domingo Perón described it himself in ...