Pope Leo XIV Cuts Off the Invisible Hand

Pope Leo XIV, in his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, compressed here from Paragraphs 163-168, asserts that:“More than ever, in the age of AI and robotics, it is no longer possible to rely solely on the ‘invisible hand’ of the market. Politics has the task of orientating economies and technologies to the common good ... to ensure equity: taxation, social protection and industrial policies must correct the imbalances created by the concentration of wealth and power” (emphasis mine). Can the Pope reasonably hope to achieve these aims by relegating Adam Smith’s invisible hand illustration to the dust bin of history? Pope...