Nov 16 2009
No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he’d only had good intentions - he had money too.
Dr Rowan Williams said that taxation should not be seen as a way of stifling business or redistributing wealth but helping to make the world a better place in which to live. He called for new levies to be introduced on financial transactions and carbon emissions, and an end to the idea that unlimited economic growth is desirable.
The above quote from The Telegraph should shock me, but it doesn’t. Dr Williams, the most senior cleric in the Church of England and a self-confessed “hairy lefty”, is just the latest in a series of barmey bishops making moralising judgements over economics.
I’m reminded however by that quote from Margaret Thatcher: “No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he’d only had good intentions - he had money too.”
Quite how a World without economic growth and with excessive taxation would be better I cannot understand - unless envy is your primary emotional influence - and evidently I am not alone. People vote with their feet, and the C of E hardly needs crowd control. Perhaps they should stick to their job and be a Church rather than a leftist economics think tank.
