Our friends at Jubilee USA have been working with a group of banks and investors to devise proposed reforms that would prevent a repeat of the Argentine foreign debt showdown with the vulture funds that epitomize everything that is evil in current capitalist practice. The other day, I mentioned that some of our friends on the right try and draw too stark of a contrast between moral principles and prudential judgment. The faith-inspired work of JubileeUSA is a perfect example of how the moral principles can, indeed must, be applied in prudential ways to real world situations. But, the key is that the principles have to go all the way down, indeed prudence is itself a moral virtue. Our friends on the right too often treat prudential judgment as a get-out-of-jail-free card and end up with morality-free zones around policies they care about, like protecting private property rights at all costs, even when the cost is the further impoverishment of millions of poor people around the globe.
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