Rick Garnett has posted a reply to my piece this morning. I think we are largely in agreement on many issues and, most importantly, on the kinds of moral framework a Catholic can and must bring to the examination of political issues. I do think Garnett is too kind to modern economics, but will leave that discussion to another day. And, I do invite him to address the questions I posed about the pervasiveness of economic ideas in our culture and why they can be as troubling as life issues, even though their content is not as immediately repulsive. This, to me, is a very important problem with U.S. culture, the whole homo economicus worldview, that enables the culture to view children and workers alike as commodities rather than people.