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Last weekend, the pope called for “a universal wage, so that every person in this world can have access to the most elementary goods of life.”
The pope stressed the need to change the current socio-economic system and asked governments, politicians, businesses, and religious leaders to help in this goal, while demanding “the release of patents” on vaccines, the cancellation of the debt of poor countries, and the cessation of the destruction of “forests, wetlands and mountains” by large extractive corporations, the pollution of rivers and seas, and the poisoning of “people and food.”
Although he called for a “universal salary”, he did not explain how it would be paid, nor how a society in which all people receive money without the need to work could function.
The 84-year-old also called on governments and politicians to “work for the common good” and “be servants of the people who cry out for land, housing, work and a good life” and to religious leaders that “we never use the name of God to foment wars or coups d’état.”
He mentioned “concrete measures that may allow some significant changes”, such as “urban integration, family agriculture, popular economy.”
“To these, which still require us to continue working together to make them concrete, I would like to add two more: the universal salary and the reduction of the working day,” both political initiatives that have been promoted by extreme left-wing parties in different countries.
