Drug scams, janitor pay, and the war for the soul of 21st Century capitalism

You probably missed it in all the hoopla over Pope Francis -- especially since the seemingly tireless 78-year-old pontiff was running around making some new, headline-worthy pronouncement every 45 minutes or so during his exhausting North American tour that wrapped up in Philadelphia. But the first-ever pope from the Americas actually said some pretty nice things about our capitalism.

It was just this summer, after all, that Francis called capitalism's excesses "the dung of the devil." It sounds kind of bad when you put it that way. But on Wednesday, the pope found himself before the millionaires-financed-by-billionaires known as the U.S. Congress. As Francis shows us time and time again, the man knows his audience:

"It goes without saying that part of this great effort is the creation and distribution of wealth. The right use of natural resources, the proper application of technology and the harnessing of the spirit of enterprise are essential elements of an economy which seeks to be modern, inclusive and sustainable," he said. "'Business is a noble vocation, directed to producing wealth and improving the world. It can be a fruitful source of prosperity for the area in which it operates, especially if it sees the creation of jobs as an essential part of its service to the common good."

Of course, Francis quickly tempered that with the usual caveats -- that caring about making a profit comes with the need for also caring about the world's environment and about the poor people who live within it. I guess you don't go from dung to daisies overnight, huh? Besides, even as Francis was speaking, the world got another Grade A example of how that "spirit of enterprise" can be hijacked by those seeking not to uplift the masses of consumers but, in Biblical terms, rip them off.

You probably heard (although maybe not in Philly where it's been all-pope-all-the-time) about Martin Shkreli, the 32-year-old "pharma bro" and former hedge-fund guy (schooled at the right hand of our own Jim Cramer) who -- when he's not quoting his favorite hip-hop artists on social media or playing eSports (whatver that is) -- was busy taking an AIDS drug that helps keep people alive and making it pretty much unaffordable.

Shkreli damn near got away with his scheme to buy the rights to the 62-year-old medication Daraprim and jack up the price from just $13.50 a tablet to $750 a tablet -- until some AIDS activists tipped off the New York Times and it ended up on the front page. "There's no doubt — I'm a capitalist," Shkreli told CBS News, not long after he called the first journalist who questioned him on Twitter "a moron" and said the astronomical price hike was "a business decision that benefits all of our stakeholders."

Except the stakeholders known as "sick people," who even with health insurance would often see their own out-of-pocket cost skyrocket. It should be noted that while Shkreli and his Turing Pharmaceuticals were heaped with scorn and abuse (Shkreli's almost Hollywood portrayal of an obnoxious "bro" didn't help), other drug companies have gotten away with the same kind of outrageous price hikes. Under pressure, Shkreli promised to reverse course....we'll see

But what's happened since last week has been instructive. Our comatose political system sprung to something resembling life. While to his credit, Vermont senator-turned-Democratic-presidential-candidate Bernie Sanders and a few others were already fighting pharmaceutical ripoffs, others jumped on the bandwagon. Even Donald Trump criticized Shkreli as greedy! Hillary Clinton also lashed out at the young capitalist by name, then released a more substantive plan to channel more pharmaceutical profits into research and to approve more generics that would lower prices.

In response, Wall Street said it was going to take its football and go home. The mere suggestion that bio-pharma companies might be blocked from gouging sick people (or insurance companies, which pass the cost along to us) caused their stocks to plummet in value, implying that these businesses aren't worth so much unless they're allowed to act like Martin Shkreli. Maybe this is what Pope Francis has been talking about? Anyone else picking up the not so faint aroma of dung?

And yet it's complicated. Everyone from Francis to Shkreli agrees on some level that innovation -- and the profit motive that drives some of it -- has made society better, including the invention of new drugs and medical treatments. But there needs to be some balance, and finding that balance is hard work. We came close in the couple of decades after World War II, and a lot of that was because middle-class workers had a) politicians who represented them and not billionaires and b) they had a seat at the table of prosperity, through collective bargaining.

When unions were crushed (and Reagan's firing of striking air-traffic controllers in 1981 was a big part of that), you saw things like CEO's who once made 20 times the average worker suddenly making more than 300 times as much -- and Congress backing pharmaceutical billionaires over their customers. It has been only recently that labor has pulled itself off the canvass.

You'll see a flash of that in Center City on Wednesday, when thousands of janitors and other commercial cleaning staff -- members of their local 32BJ of the SEIU, which has 75,000 members on the East Coast --  are scheduled to hold a rally in front of a Chestnut Street apartment building whose new owners recently fired union workers. They will hear from the presumptive next mayor, Jim Kenney, then march to Love Park. Unlike their brothers and sisters in other fields that aren't yet unionized -- most notably fast-food workers -- these janitors have been able to win better pay and benefits by standing together, and they are not letting up now. Anyone who supports a strong middle class should should support their efforts.

Because that's the thing. Nobody -- especially anyone who's seen the failures of purely Communist states over the last century -- wants to throw capitalism in a ditch. But a lot of people want to fight to make it better, by making it fair. Pope Francis is one of them, and at least on this issue, he has been an inspiration. It will be interesting to see how many Americans really got his message.