Some Chicago Boyz know each other from student days at the University of Chicago. Others are Chicago boys in spirit. The blog name is also intended as a good-humored gesture of admiration for distinguished Chicago School economists and fellow travelers.
Make of it as you will: Chicagoboy Fogel says:
there were hardly a hundred economists employed by the federal government in 1931, even if one counted statistical clerks. By 1938, the middle of Roosevelt’s second administration, the number of economists employed by the government had risen to five thousand. Today that number stands at over twenty thousand. (130)
Last week, in my Sunday School class, the substitute teacher argued that those who linked “liberation theology” with communism were wealthy landowners hoping to tar legitimate complaints of the poor with that brush. The sermon quoted Fr. Martin: “Congressman Ryan – or any of us – can say of a budget plan that slashes supplemental funding for basic economic needs to those in poverty, that it’s a Democrat plan or Republican plan, but no one can ever say that a plan with such likely repercussions is consistent with Church teaching or is a plan Jesus would endorse or approve.” Clearly, that church voice agrees with the letter from some of the Georgetown faculty.
To my mind, Ryan has the better argument. For one thing, he is more descriptive than self-righteous. In both speech and questions, Ryan respects human dignity & human nature – why subsidiarity works. More importantly, he is honest: productivity of all helps all, free lunches aren’t really free, and we have taken from our children to make our lives easy. Implicit is a sense few acts have more questionable ethics than forcing charitable contributions from others or infantilizing those we help.