Free markets celebrate individualism

Individualism is the root of all evil if you believe many theologians and sociologists today. For example, Philip bond wrote in First Things,

Liberalism finds its quintessential form in a market state that enforces individualism. The market state must abolish anything that stands in the way of unconstrained freedom; it must eliminate solidarity or shared associations with other people, places, or things. This gives liberalism a curious Maoist cast, as it seeks to dispel our settled notions, be they sexual, biological, or even of who counts as human. 

The current Pope has been a leading critic of individualism, according to a Catholic writer:

The Pontiff acknowledged that our Western culture ”has exalted the individual to the point of making him an island, almost as if one could be happy on one’s own.” Stemming from it are ideological visions and political powers that “have squeezed the person, have standardized him, thus making room for economic powers that wish to exploit globalization, instead of fostering greater sharing among men, simply to impose a global market of which they themselves dictate the rules and draw the profits...the concept of person, born and matured in Christianity, helps in fact to pursue a fully human development.” Moreover, the word “person” always means relation, not individualism; it affirms inclusion, not exclusion, a unique and inviolable dignity and not exploitation, freedom and not constriction.

Distributism ideology always leads to socialism

Christians are concerned about the rise to dominance of transgenderism and same-sex marriage in the US. But they shouldn’t worry because R.R. Reno, editor-in-chief of First Things, has the solution: a kinder, gentler capitalism. His essay last October spawned a series of rigorous rebuttals at Public Discourse, the last of which is here. Reno lamented the economic “freedom” that Michael Novak promoted in his classic book, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism, has destroyed morality in the country:

The “new birth of freedom” that Michael championed largely came to pass. And it has tended to weaken the two other legs holding up society: democratic institutions and a vital religious and moral culture. Michael observes that “greater incentives will stimulate greater economic activism.” True, but he did not recognize that ever-greater economic activity can crowd out political engagement and sideline religious and moral authority. This is what has happened. Capitalism, now global in scope, is swallowing up more and more of civic life, so much so that in some contexts economists and policymakers present free market principles as ironclad laws about which we have no choice. Dwindling manufacturing jobs, technological displacement, global flows of labor and capital—we are told we have no alternative. This is a cruel reversal of what Michael commended as the source of freedom and openness...We are drowning in freedom... Age-old expectations of marriage and children have become choices. We can even choose to become male or female.