Interesting Discussion, Acton Institute PowerBlog notes

Taking place at MOJ. Get the links here.

In particular, they discuss the preferential option for the poor. Mark has concerns about the POP's "elasticity":

What does the phrase add to how we make choices about economic policies and the legal infrastructure for supporting and expressing them if it can be used so promiscuously? What sense does it make to talk about Michael Novak and a Catholic socialist both being able to invoke the preferential option for the poor? I tend toward a pragmatism on this question -- whatever works for the poor works. Sometimes the solution is market-based, sometimes it requires government intervention. I am troubled by the reflexive anti-statism of the arguments on the right; it is a categorical hostlity that cuts far too broadly. What distinguishes the Option is its radical insistence upon attention to the poor in policymaking. What mechanism does the market possess that will ensure such attention without the state?

Rick offers him a satisfying response:

I want to say that, in my view, and notwithstanding its "elastic[ity]", it does make sense to talk about "Michael Novak and a Catholic socialist both being able to invoke the preferential option for the poor?" The Preferential Option disciplines -- at least it should! -- the economic-policy thinking of both the left and right: It requires those on the "right" (like me, I suppose) to always ask, "do we support non-intervention, or resist government intervention, in this case because we believe that it will serve the common good, properly understood, and -- in particular -- will serve the special needs of the poor? What reasons, grounded in those needs, support non-intervention in this case?" On the other hand, I think that "Catholic socialist[s]" need discipline, too. They need to be challenged: "Is it really the case that this intervention or regulation actually serves the needs and promotes the authentic flourishing of the poor? Or, are we simply assuming -- perhaps out of ideology, perhaps out of habit -- that command-and-control strategies and regulatory policies accomplish these ends, notwithstanding evidence to the contrary?"

Both of them responded to Against the Grain's post on the POP, which I discussed here.

Read them. They're worth it.