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Pope Francis’s Theory of Economics

It would make for some pretty amazing headlines if Pope Francis turned out to be a Marxist.

Between his hints at rehabilitating liberation theology—condemned by his predecessors—and talk about casting off “the economic and social structures that enslave us,” Marxism isn’t totally out of the question.

But happily for nervous church leaders, Francis’s first Apostolic Exhortation, issued Tuesday, doesn’t quite suggest someone who would get “Marx” in an Internet-style “Which Economic Theorist Are You?” quiz. Granted, he wouldn’t exactly get Friedrich von Hayek or Ayn Rand, either.

But you know whom he might plausibly be matched with, though? A favorite political economist of anti-free market academics: Karl Polanyi.

Read more. [Image: Reuters/Giampiero Sposito/Wikimedia Commons]