How the Pope ‘Defeated Communism’
Friday, April 8th, 2005I’ve been seeing a lot of news stories that have talked about how the Pope defeated, or at least helped defeat, communism. “How?” I wondered.
Here’s Anne Applebaum with the answer.
In essence, the pope made two contributions to the defeat of totalitarian communism, a system in which the state claimed ownership of all or most physical property — factories, farms, houses — and also held a monopoly on intellectual life. No one was allowed to own a private business, in other words, and no one was allowed to express belief in any philosophy besides Marxism. The church, first in Poland and then elsewhere, broke these two monopolies, offering people a safe place to meet and intellectually offering them an alternative way of thinking about the world.
Read the whole thing.
(Thanks to Virginia Postrel for the link)
