Issues - Economy - Capitalism, The Cure for Poverty

As Pope Francis tours the Americas, his economic message about capitalism and redistribution is coming into sharper focus. While there's a strong spiritual dimension to his message, there just isn't much in the way of factual evidence to back it up.

Quite the contrary, the evidence is abundantly clear that it has been the spread of free market capitalism across the world that has done more to eradicate poverty than any other effort — government or charitable.

The world poverty rate fell by an eye-popping 80% in just 36 years. Where 26.8% of the world lived on a $1 or less a day in 1970, only 5.4% did by 2006. In East Asia alone (not including Japan and Hong Kong), the poverty rate dropped by 97%.

"In short," he said, "it was the free enterprise system, American style, which is our gift to the world. It is the best anti-poverty measure ever invented."