Editor:

In his Jan. 21 article, “Free market would alleviate poverty and strengthen family relations,” Professor Walter Block has displayed uncommon idealism. In Block’s world, the unfettered “free market” is the effective solution to poverty and income inequality. He even takes to task Adam Smith for placing government restrictions on a pure market economy.

I would liken Block’s faith in the unfettered market to those who describe how materials function in a pure vacuum. In the real world, such utopias do not exist. Modern Catholic social teaching, which Block has taught, acknowledges the important role of market mechanisms and also insists on government’s necessary role in promoting the common good.

Modern Catholic social teaching developed in response to the cruel, dehumanizing excesses of laissez-faire capitalism. People may disagree about what specific government measures are called for to curb pollution and to enforce fair labor conditions and a just code of taxation, but only someone with ideological blinders would repudiate government’s role altogether in the “fallen” world that we humans inhabit.

It is ironic that for libertarians like Block, government seems to be the one institution still characterized by what theologians term “original sin,” while powerful multi-nationals like the oil corporations only need to get government off their backs in order to eliminate poverty and achieve a fairer distribution of income.

Uncommon idealism, indeed.

The Rev. Peter J. Bernardi, S.J.Associate professor of religious studies