5 surprising elements of Catholic Social Doctrine

[jwinch2]

For example, the Church states clearly that the government should establish a just family minimum wage in a nation if the non-governmental associations and corporations persistently fail to and if the lowest paid head-of-household workers are, over a long period of time, continuing to be paid too little to enable the family to survive with basic human dignity and have a large number of children as promoted by the Church.

That is a moral doctrine, a social moral doctrine. How it might be implemented, and the amount of the age, and the ways the wage might be calculated and adjusted, and to whom it might apply (no teenagers, for example), are all a matter of prudential judgment. The Church doesn’t attempt to tell anyone how to implement this moral principle.

But, many Catholics come along and endorse the Austrian School of Economics or Ayn Rand social morality principle that says that under NO circumstances is it EVER moral for the government to intervene in the economy to set wages or prices in any way. Thus, they are dissenting.

Personally, I have not seen anyone advocating for an Ayn Rand approach to social justice or saying that government has no role in regulating the economy or in helping the poor.

What I have seen, are people who believe that the USA spending approx. $300,000 on welfare programs for every single man, woman, and child who lives below the poverty line is more than enough government assistance. I have seen people who note the fact that despite ever increasing amounts of money and governmental programs being put in place to help the poor, our poverty rates have stayed roughly the same since the time of the New Deal. Finally, what I have seen, are people who note the fact that the government does not tread lightly. Whenever they come in under the guise of trying to help some people, it quite often has consequences beyond what was promised by the people implementing the program to begin with (HHS mandate; forcing the Church out of adoption services; forcing the Church our of her work on human trafficking, etc.).

Noting those things, and coming to the conclusion that perhaps more government involvement is not the answer, particularly when you can see examples of Social Democracies all over the world in dire financial situations, is not even remotely against the doctrine of the Church and does not make people dissidents in anyway.

There are many Catholics who believe that we have abandoned our individual responsibility when it comes to solidarity and allowed the government to take the lead. Catholic social doctrine teaches us that one of the primary roles of government is the pursuit of justice. However, that is far, far from being the same thing as saying that the government should take the primary role. In short, a preferential option for the poor, does not, and never has, implied a preferential option for government.

I’ll take my Social Justice from the Church, thank you very much, and from those who have done it well within the Catholic Tradition. I doubt that you, or anyone else, would accuse Dorothy Day of not espousing proper Catholic teaching when it comes to helping the poor. Yet it was her, in her social justice ministry who warned us repeatedly that we as Catholics must not abandon our duties to the poor to “Holy Mother Government”.

 

[Bartolome_Casas]

Personally, I have not seen anyone advocating for an Ayn Rand approach to social justice or saying that government has no role in regulating the economy or in helping the poor.

What I have seen, are people who believe that the USA spending approx. $300,000 on welfare programs for every single man, woman, and child who lives below the poverty line is more than enough government assistance…

Noting those things, and coming to the conclusion that perhaps more government involvement is not the answer, particularly when you can see examples of Social Democracies all over the world in dire financial situations, is not even remotely against the doctrine of the Church and does not make people dissidents in anyway…

I doubt that you, or anyone else, would accuse Dorothy Day of not espousing proper Catholic teaching when it comes to helping the poor. Yet it was her, in her social justice ministry who warned us repeatedly that we as Catholics must not abandon our duties to the poor to “Holy Mother Government”.

Dear Catholic Friends,

(1) The comment above says the government spends $300,000 per years on welfare per person under the poverty line. I could not find any validation of that figure, however. The Cato Institute, a conservative think tank, puts that number at $20,610. See: cato.org/pubs/pas/PA694.pdf And by no means does most of that go directly in cash to poor persons. That is for funding for programs, and includes things like school lunches. And that is even assuming that the Cato Institute is correct. More research might reveal a quite different number. If looked at figures of how government-funded public infrastructure (roads, bridges, air traffic control, weather forecasting, scientific research, unnecessary military hardware contracts, excessive, no-bid military contract for “private security” companies, etc.) benefits certain private industries, I think we’d see that rich people get a lot more out of government than poor people do. President Eisenhower warned against the “military-industrial complex,” not socialism. There are 12,533 registered lobbyists in Washington, D.C. alone. See: reuters.com/article/2009/09/13/us-obama-lobbying-sb-idUSTRE58C1NX20090913 There are many more in state capitols. Virtually all of these lobbyists are there advocating for legislation to benefit private corporations, not people below the poverty line. Those lobbyists must be getting a return on the corporations’ investment, or they surely wouldn’t be there year in and year out. Lobbyists are very highly paid. Poor people can’t afford lobbyists, generally. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops does lobby for the poor however.

(2) If there was a Just Family Wage in the USA and everywhere in the world, all social welfare programs could be dropped immediately. A Just Family Wage gives dignity to the poorest workers, and allows them to pay for things by the money they earn from their labor. It relieves them having to beg for handouts from government or from private charities. A Just Family Wage only goes to people who work hard, take personal responsibility, and obey the laws of the land (stay out of prison). The Just Family Wage is a WORK solution to everything. Both private charities and government social programs are “handout” solutions.

The above comment said a lot, but it never expressed submission to and acceptance of the Catholic Social Doctrine concerning the Just Family Wage.

Catholic Social Doctrine has many, many elements. But I’ve come to focus on the Just Family Wage doctrine, since it is so clearly conflicts with popular rival non-Catholic social doctrines, such as those taught by Ayn Rand, the Austrian School of Economics, Libertarianism, and so on. It seems like a valuable litmus test. If someone won’t endorse and promote the Just Family Wage Doctrine under any circumstances, at any time, in any nation, then I think it is easy to see that they are dissenters from some elements of the Magisterium’s official Catholic Social Doctrine.

(3) Contrary to the above comment, I have seen many people in the USA express total commitment to the Ayn Rand social doctrine, and to the social doctrine of the Austrian School of Economics. I understand those doctrines to be identical in key respects. The Chairman of the Federal Reserve for many decades, Alan Greenspan, was a vocal supporter of Ayn Rand’s “philosophy” of total selfishness. Just search for Ayn Rand on YouTube and you’ll see many national leaders professing allegiance to the Ayn Rand’s solution to every problem in the world. I was shocked to see a video on YouTube of a leading national Catholic layperson saying that he his whole outlook was shaped by Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged. Her books continue to sell in the millions, and clubs and meetings for her disciples are meeting in towns and cities all across the nation. We in the USA live in a country whose founders were not Catholic. The nation was very anti-Catholic for much of its history. So, we live amidst many of our fellow Americans who advocate for social doctrines that are in many respects very different from Catholic Social Doctrine. One can almost get the impression that to be a good Patriotic American one must adopt the social doctrines espoused by certain leading Evangelical, Protestant and Mormon leaders.

CONTINUED BELOW…

 

[Bartolome_Casas]

…CONTINUED FROM ABOVE

(4) Dorothy Day was a former committed Communist who converted and became a committed Catholic. But she was also a lifelong committed pacifist who protested the USA fighting in World War II. She also continued to quote Vladimir Lenin favorably all of her life. The soundness of her judgment is dubious. The legacy she’s left is mixed. Many of the Catholic Worker centers provide needed food, friendship, & clothing to the homeless. I have personally visited Catholic Worker locations in Los Angeles and Connecticut. But at the same time, the Catholic Worker centers mostly seem to be hotbed of extreme left-wing dissent from Catholic teachings. At one Catholic Worker House I visited, they named their cat Ratzinger, and they didn’t mean it as a compliment. Many Catholic Worker young people are now serving 15 and 20 year prison terms in federal prison for protesting at U.S. nuclear silo sites. Their aim seems noble, yet their prison terms seem like a waste of life. Their are other ways to advocate for peace. Yet, the radical milieu of the Catholic Worker culture holds such people up as heroes and martyrs, even though the children of these inmates have to group up without a parent.

(5) The comment above says social democracies all over the world are in dire circumstances. Actually, only a few like Greece and Spain are in bad shape. Others in northern Europe continue to have, on a per capital basis, much stronger and richer economies than the USA.

Pope Benedict has spoken very approvingly of social democracies. He wrote: “In many respects, democratic socialism was and is close to Catholic social doctrine and has in any case made a remarkable contribution to the formation of a social consciousness.” See: firstthings.com/article/2008/04/europe-and-its-discontents—50#

Pope Benedict also said: ““In order to be true peacemakers, we must educate ourselves in compassion, solidarity, working together, fraternity, to being active within the community and concerned to raise awareness about national and international issues and the importance of seeking adequate mechanisms for redistribution of wealth.” See: news.va/en/news/pope-benedict-2012-peace-message-focus-on-youth

(6) All this pales in comparison to the ongoing Abortion Holocaust in Western, formerly Christian countries. Yet, my humble brain keeps wondering if we couldn’t make new and more progress against the grievous, unbearable, ongoing mass murder of the unborn if we uncoupled the Pro-Life Agenda from the pure Laissez Faire Agenda, and instead recoupled the Pro-Life Catholic Agenda to the Pro-Social Catholic Agenda.

 

[Bartolome_Casas]

…CONTINUED FROM ABOVE

CODA: All these matters are upsetting. It seems like the world is falling apart. Fools everywhere on the Internet and everywhere espouse error. I am certainly such a fool, to a degree at least, and so exasperate anyone who happens to read my scribblings. What can I say? All I know is that I am sincere. I am trying to love God and love neighbor per the teachings of the Church as best as I can understand them.

God bless us all. He will, if we let Him. He will correct my errors and my vices, and those of my friends. There is hope. Right?

 

[SuperLuigi]

I’m thinking if poor countries like India (a largely Hindu nation, with per capita income of $1,527 in US dollars) can establish rights to food and rights to work – even if the ration rice is not at all tasty and the work is some ditch-digging job – why can’t rich nations like the U.S. (largely a Christian nation with a per capital income of $41,560) do so?

Methinks it’s not due to lack of resources…

Establishing rights beyond the very basic equal opportunity as demonstrated in our Constitution is very dangerous.

You may also be interested to know it leads to much greater materialism.

Look at the marriage issue. People think there is a right to marry in this country.

There isn’t.

There also isn’t a right to a bail-out, an abortion, an education, a car, a grant to fix your house or a job.

It’s fine for the Catholic Church as a private institution to detail that people have rights, but once you get government in the mix, you have an entitlement culture like we have in Japan and the West where some people now think that traveling is a human right, or that rocks and trees have rights.

 

[SuperLuigi]

Pope Benedict has spoken very approvingly of social democracies. He wrote: “In many respects, democratic socialism was and is close to Catholic social doctrine and has in any case made a remarkable contribution to the formation of a social consciousness.” See: firstthings.com/article/2008/04/europe-and-its-discontents—50#

Democratic socialism was touted as an alternative to full-blown progressivism or the ultra-conservative Puritans.

The Catholic Catechism has a dim view on socialism because the end-all, be-all is that the state replaces God.

The fact is that when money and resources are in the hands of the people, they give more.

Pope Benedict also said: ““In order to be true peacemakers, we must educate ourselves in compassion, solidarity, working together, fraternity, to being active within the community and concerned to raise awareness about national and international issues and the importance of seeking adequate mechanisms for redistribution of wealth.” See: news.va/en/news/pope-benedict-2012-peace-message-focus-on-youth

No where does it suggest government should do this. Re-distribution can be done privately and it works best that way.

Catholic leaders and the Faithful can talk about all these general solutions all they like, but if you want **REAL results, you keep government out **of it and follow Jesus’s example of doing what you can with what you have instead of worrying about what your neighbor is doing.

Governments have been rife with scandal and corruption for millenia and that will not change.

Worrying about your neighbor like that also creates jealousy and envy.

There’s a reason why philosophies like “democratic socialism” cause class and even race warfare.

 

[Elizabeth502]

I have always heard that the Church teaches that the Church’s social doctrines are moral doctrines.

Yes, but they do not are in the same category as Moral Theology, with its absolutes of specific intrinsic evils.

For example, a person considering voting for Candidate A, who has a program of reducing poverty through specific measures – not all of which are governmental – but which consider compassion first of all (Gospel value/social doctrine) and which also incorporate the Church’s explicit social doctrine of subsidiarity (local intervention). Candidate A is not in perfect alignment with the Church’s moral theology doctrines, in that abortion is considered to be allowable in some instances, but not all/most.

vs.

voting for Candidate B, who proposes lavish governental aid, combined with lack of deficit reduction, combined with high taxes on half the population (everyone not receiving lavish gov’t aid), and who also is “absolutely” pro-choice (abortion on demand), as well as a promoter of widespread contraception support at no cost/low cost to all, especially the unmarried.

Candidate B does not necessarily align with the Church’s social doctrine guidelines.
Candidate B unquestionably opposes the Church’s stand on intrinsic evils (can never be justified).

Candidate A supports many elements of Catholic social doctrine, but does so in a completely different manner than Candidate B.
Candidate A supports some of the Church’s moral theology principles, opposes them in some cases.

Social doctrine is absolute but broad.
Moral theology is absolute and specific.

And I know who Dorothy Day is. Very, very well acquainted with her, but thanks for the lecture anyway.

 

[jwinch2]

Dear Catholic Friends,

(1) The comment above says the government spends $300,000 per years on welfare per person under the poverty line. I could not find any validation of that figure, however. The Cato Institute, a conservative think tank, puts that number at $20,610. See: cato.org/pubs/pas/PA694.pdf

whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2012/assets/budget.pdf

 

[Bartolome_Casas]

Some people say they 100% accept Catholic Pro-Life Doctrine, but they don’t want and don’t see the need for the government to invade and get intimately involved in the sex and healthcare lives of people in order to bring about greater conformity with that Doctrine. Their rallying cry: “Keep the government out of my bedroom!”

Some people say that 100% accept Catholic Pro-Social Doctrine, but they don’t want and don’t see the need for the government to invade and get intimately involved in the financial lives of people in order to bring about greater conformity with that Doctrine. Their rallying cry: “Keep the government out of my wallet!”

I see a kind of reverse Marxism being popular today. Under Traditional Marxism, there is a rage among workers against the rich since the rich are seen as exploiters of the workers, are seen as holding back from the workers the full and fair fruits of their labor.

Under Reverse Marxism, there is a rage in the rich and the middle class against the poorest workers, since they are seen as exploiters, as “moochers,” since the government gives them things like free or reduced school lunches, food stamps, Pell Grants, subsidized housing, free or subsidized medical care, etc., all things they, the working poor, never paid for with money they earned at their jobs, whereas these exact freebies are not given to the middle class or the rich and come from or are perceived as coming from the work and sweat of the middle class and rich.

But the Catholic Church has the doctrine “the universal destination of all goods.” This means that no person really has ultimate ownership of anything. God is the owner of all, even our bodies. The Church also has the doctrine of Solidarity. That means that if markets don’t provide for all basic human needs for the lowest rung of workers, then the part of the price of living in a society is that those with abundance share, through the Just Family Wage, with those who work hard but are not paid enough in the labor market for their family’s bare necessities. Solidarity means that the economy is not just there to advance or maintain the interest of some people or groups, but to promote the well being of every person, regardless of race, education level, religion, national origin, or political beliefs. We are One People. We are One Family. The Church says that the economy must serve the Common Good, not just Private Good. Everything we want for ourselves and our immediate family we must want for everyone else. Isn’t that what the commandment “Love thy neighbor as thyself” means?

The Church calls for private charity as one way of doing that, especially for special emergencies (like the recent superstorm on the East Coast, or the recent tsunami,or war refugees, or returning combat war veterans). But the Church does not anticipate people & families being “on the doll” permanently with either private charities or government social service agencies, just to survive.

That’s why the Church came up with the government-enforced Just Family Wage, as a means to redistribute wealth through the labor market. It is government enforced redistribution, but it only goes to hard workers. Lazy bums & moochers get nothing.

The richest nations in the world (on a per capita basis), such as Germany, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Switzerland, have all had a government-enforced Just Family Wage for 50 years or more, and all it works very well. The popes and bishops have praised these systems.

The famous/infamous novel Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand, is overflowing with denunciations of “looters” who get things from the government that they did not earn themselves. Ayn Rand was an immigrant from the Soviet Union, where she saw the horrors and injustices of communism. As far as I know, she had no knowledge or experience of the successful, prosperous social democracies of Western Europe, and had no knowledge of Catholic Social Doctrine. As an atheist, I assume she saw no value in to studying the Scriptures, the lives of the saints, or Catholic doctrines. I believe she was sincere, and is to be admired for her skills as a novelist. But she seems to have been an “intellectual” in the worse sense, someone living in an ivory tower where a “theory” is so beautiful and makes total sense.

Under Laissez Fair economic theory, if the government just maintains a free market, and does not redistribute wealth at all, a sort of utopia will break out, and there will be no poor people (except for bums who just refuse to work).

But starting with the papal encyclical Rerum Novarum, the Catholic Church has seen this Laissez Faire theory as an exaggeration. The Church sees and says that free enterprise, free markets, private property, enforcement of contracts, the rule of law, etc., are the means for creating jobs, for creating wealth, for creating the highest standard of living for the most people.

CONTINUED BELOW…

 

[Bartolome_Casas]

…CONTINUED FROM ABOVE…

But the Church adds a point that some pro-Capitalists want to ignore or hide, which is that free labor markets always naturally produce and maintain a wage rate at the bottom that does not allow the lowest paid workers and their families to maintain human dignity, or even to survive in some cases. “Markets” have no conscience or moral standards. Profit is the only criterion. Private charities cannot make up for the failure of markets.

Thus, the Catholic Church has always proposed the Just Family Wage. It is obvious that organizations lower than the government cannot create or maintain a Just Family Wage. Subsidiary is not the dominant doctrine in Catholic Social Doctrine. Rather, the Common Good is the dominant doctrine. If it is left to the local Chamber of Commerce or the Salvation Army to create and maintain the Just Family Wage called for by the Catholic Church, then the Just Family Wage will always just be nothing more than a nice sentiment in books on the shelves of theologians and bishops.

With a government-enforced Just Family Wage, all government social programs can be repealed. With a Just Family Wage enforced by the government, along with the Full Employment that the Catholic Church’s Social Doctrine also calls for, all these can be repealed immediately or gradually: public schools; food stamps; Social Security; Medicare; Medicaid; Unemployment Insurance; Pell Grants; Student Loans; Housing Aid; etc. Everyone will have enough money from their work to pay for their necessities. There will still be the same wide and vast differences in personal wealth. Some will still have huge houses, and others will live in little “matchbox” houses. Some will have luxury cars. Other will ride public transit, or walk. Some will get rich retire at age 40, and some “trust fund babies” will never work a day in their lives (e.g., Kim Kardasian, Paris Hilton). But those workers and their families at the bottom (hotel maids, convenience store clerks, lawn mowers) will not have to live without human dignity, always on the verge of homelessness. We don’t have to reinvent the wheel. The social democracies of Northern Europe have been doing all this for 50 years or more, and they have a higher standard of living on average, and a higher GDP on a per capita basis, than the USA has ever had.

So why don’t more people see the Catholic Church’s call for a government-enforced Just Family Wage as the solution to what ails the world?

Why don’t more see that the way to win more people over to rejecting abortion (in law and in practice) is to show them that Almighty God has a plan that is Pro-Life and Pro-Love for every person, both before and after birth?

 

[Elizabeth502]

It is government enforced redistribution, but it only goes to hard workers. Lazy bums & moochers get nothing.

This is Marxism. The Roman Catholic Church does NOT promote Marxism. Stop representing that to the readers of this forum.

You will not find any statement from the Vatican or from the US Bishops which promotes Marxism as a solution to poverty, or any aspect of poverty (including wages).

 

[Bartolome_Casas]

This is Marxism. The Roman Catholic Church does NOT promote Marxism. Stop representing that to the readers of this forum.

You will not find any statement from the Vatican or from the US Bishops which promotes Marxism as a solution to poverty, or any aspect of poverty (including wages).

Please don’t accuse me of misleading others on this forum. I am doing what this forum is created for: Communicating authentic Catholic Answers to the problems of the people of the world. At least, respect that I am doing my level best to communicate accurately the teachings of the Holy Church. I respect you. Please respect me. Consider the following:

Quote: “Pope Benedict XVI said that a more just and peaceful world requires ‘adequate mechanisms for the redistribution of wealth’.” See: cathnewsusa.com/2011/12/pope-benedict-xvi’s-peace-message-calls-for-wealth-redistribution/

Dr. Stephen Krason, a tenured professor at Franciscan University of Steubenville (not a Marxism-tolerating institution), wrote this:

“Also, Catholic social teaching does not reject outright the redistribution of wealth. After all, the universal destination of created goods is one of its central principles: all should have a sufficiency of temporal goods so as to live becomingly. The Church also insists that there are some human needs that simply cannot be met, or met adequately, by the market or for-profit entities. The rights of workers are also a long-time concern of the Church.” See skrason.wordpress.com/2012/06/01/the-conservative-weakness-and-the-solution-catholic-social-teaching/

The idea that all wealth redistribution constitutes Marxism is not what Catholic Social Doctrine teaches. That is found in Ayn Rand Social Doctrine, Mormon Social Doctrine, Southern Baptist Social Doctrine, and so on. We are Catholics. This is a Catholic forum. My little efforts here at promoting the Common Good and the Lordship of Christ are not free from error. But at least please respect that I am quoting authoritative Catholic sources, and am trying not to just give my own opinion. My own opinion on Social Doctrine is worthless.

My main source is the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church. See: vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/justpeace/documents/rc_pc_justpeace_doc_20060526_compendio-dott-soc_en.html

I believe with all my heart that Catholic Doctrine is the answer to everything. But we need ALL of Catholic Doctrine, including Pro-Life Doctrine, Pro-Social Doctrine, and everything else in the Catechism and all the documents of the Church.

I am a student. I am still learning. If there is a Catholic magisterium source that forbids and condemns all government redistribution of wealth, I would like to know about it. If I am mis-communicating what the popes and the bishops teach, then I want to be corrected. Thank you.

 

[Bartolome_Casas]

whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2012/assets/budget.pdf

Thank you. I went to that web site and searched for the $300,000 figure, but could not find it. The document is 208 pages long. I don’t have time to read the whole thing. Maybe someone can find the passage, however.

 

[jwinch2]

Thank you. I went to that web site and searched for the $300,000 figure, but could not find it. The document is 208 pages long. I don’t have time to read the whole thing. Maybe someone can find the passage, however.

You have to do the math. The budget items are separated throughout. I was curious a while back and did the math to satisfy my own curiosity because I had seen several different numbers thrown around which did not add up. To be entirely fair, if you remove social security, the number is significantly lower, though still far higher than quoted. Social security is tough because many pay into it. However, many do not also. So, it is a program which is an entitlement to some, but not to others.

 

[CaptFun]

http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSABDX3BwHzrbAJxjuHzdvR22G20ykZJLKXzO9AxURUqjxcDUch

St. Joseph, small businessman (capitalist)

Tuvaller renklerle can buldu - Haber16

Joseph Stalin, Socialist/Communist Dictator

If any Catholic should conclude that the “second Joseph” here comes closer to the ideal of Catholic Social Doctrine than St. Joseph … I would find THAT surprising.

Although given the public stances of some very visible “Catholics” favoring the “coveting of a neighbor’s goods” (private ownership noted) unto even seizing said goods by any Government with a glib excuse … maybe I shouldn’t be SO surprised.

This is NOT a tough call. The correct answer (for those still a bit fuzzy on the distinctions) is that St. Joseph (small businessman and capitalist, lol) is the Catholic patron saint of workers.

Joseph Stalin? Uh … not so much. :nope:

 

[Elizabeth502]

Please don’t accuse me of misleading others on this forum.

I’m sure it’s not intentional, but the result is that the way you have selectively cobbled together ideas makes it appear that The Roman Catholic Church supports Marxism. It does not. And I will correct you every time you imply or state such.

I am doing my level best to communicate accurately the teachings of the Holy Church.

I am a student. I am still learning.

Indeed. This is apparent.

 

[Swiss_Guy]

THE MISUNDERSTANDING ABOUT “PRUDENTIAL JUDGMENT”

What I see many people doing is rejecting the social moral doctrines of the Church under the pretense of “prudential judgment.”

For example, the Church states clearly that the government should establish a just family minimum wage in a nation if the non-governmental associations and corporations persistently fail to and if the lowest paid head-of-household workers are, over a long period of time, continuing to be paid too little to enable the family to survive with basic human dignity and have a large number of children as promoted by the Church.

God bless us all.

I’m concerned when you say “establish”. The government must ensure families receive a just wage, but that is to be established between the employer and employee and/or his union. The government can enforce what constitutes a just wage in law, but it shouldn’t “establish”. You might be saying the same thing, but it can be interpreted the wrong way so that it’s the government that is interfering with lesser institutions and disrespecting subsidiarity.

 

[Swiss_Guy]

(5) The comment above says social democracies all over the world are in dire circumstances. Actually, only a few like Greece and Spain are in bad shape. Others in northern Europe continue to have, on a per capital basis, much stronger and richer economies than the USA.

Pope Benedict has spoken very approvingly of social democracies. He wrote: “In many respects, democratic socialism was and is close to Catholic social doctrine and has in any case made a remarkable contribution to the formation of a social consciousness.” See: firstthings.com/article/2008/04/europe-and-its-discontents—50#

Pope Benedict also said: ““In order to be true peacemakers, we must educate ourselves in compassion, solidarity, working together, fraternity, to being active within the community and concerned to raise awareness about national and international issues and the importance of seeking adequate mechanisms for redistribution of wealth.” See: news.va/en/news/pope-benedict-2012-peace-message-focus-on-youth

(6) All this pales in comparison to the ongoing Abortion Holocaust in Western, formerly Christian countries. Yet, my humble brain keeps wondering if we couldn’t make new and more progress against the grievous, unbearable, ongoing mass murder of the unborn if we uncoupled the Pro-Life Agenda from the pure Laissez Faire Agenda, and instead recoupled the Pro-Life Catholic Agenda to the Pro-Social Catholic Agenda.

Pope Benedict is paraphrasing Quadragesimo Anno:

113. The other section, which has kept the name Socialism, is surely more moderate. It not only professes the rejection of violence but modifies and tempers to some degree, if it does not reject entirely, the class struggle and the abolition of private ownership. One might say that, terrified by its own principles and by the conclusions drawn therefrom by Communism, Socialism inclines toward and in a certain measure approaches the truths which Christian tradition has always held sacred; for it cannot be denied that its demands at times come very near those that Christian reformers of society justly insist upon.

114. For if the class struggle abstains from enmities and mutual hatred, it gradually changes into an honest discussion of differences founded on a desire for justice, and if this is not that blessed social peace which we all seek, it can and ought to be the point of departure from which to move forward to the mutual cooperation of the Industries and Professions. So also the war declared on private ownership, more and more abated, is being so restricted that now, finally, not the possession itself of the means of production is attacked but rather a kind of sovereignty over society which ownership has, contrary to all right, seized and usurped. For such sovereignty belongs in reality not to owners but to the public authority. If the foregoing happens, it can come even to the point that imperceptibly these ideas of the more moderate socialism will no longer differ from the desires and demands of those who are striving to remold human society on the basis of Christian principles. For certain kinds of property, it is rightly contended, ought to be reserved to the State since they carry with them a dominating power so great that cannot without danger to the general welfare be entrusted to private individuals.

But in the end, here is what is said about socialism:

117. But what if Socialism has really been so tempered and modified as to the class struggle and private ownership that there is in it no longer anything to be censured on these points? Has it thereby renounced its contradictory nature to the Christian religion? This is the question that holds many minds in suspense. And numerous are the Catholics who, although they clearly understand that Christian principles can never be abandoned or diminished seem to turn their eyes to the Holy See and earnestly beseech Us to decide whether this form of Socialism has so far recovered from false doctrines that it can be accepted without the sacrifice of any Christian principle and in a certain sense be baptized. That We, in keeping with Our fatherly solicitude, may answer their petitions, We make this pronouncement: Whether considered as a doctrine, or an historical fact, or a movement, Socialism, if it remains truly Socialism, even after it has yielded to truth and justice on the points which we have mentioned, cannot be reconciled with the teachings of the Catholic Church because its concept of society itself is utterly foreign to Christian truth.

You might want to check into Christian Democracy, which takes into account subsidiarity, unlike Social Democracy.

You seem to imply that the conservative party in America is completely laissez-faire. I wouldn’t say that, but I would say there are some strong neoliberal tendencies within the party. But party where a large faction (but not the whole party) compared to the alternative for a secular welfare state and supporting intrinsic evils, the first party clearly wins

 

[Swiss_Guy]

That’s why the Church came up with the government-enforced Just Family Wage, as a means to redistribute wealth through the labor market. It is government enforced redistribution, but it only goes to hard workers. Lazy bums & moochers get nothing.

The richest nations in the world (on a per capita basis), such as Germany, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Switzerland, have all had a government-enforced Just Family Wage for 50 years or more, and all it works very well. The popes and bishops have praised these systems.

Laissez-faire capitalism is wrong, but I would disagree in saying that popes and bishops have praised all of those systems. Some of them (like Germany) have a social market economy that is based off of Christian principles (even if it is becoming less and less Christian in practice), and others like Sweden are social democratic welfare states that completely disrespect subsidiarity.

 

[bilop]

Dear Catholic Friends,
(2) If there was a Just Family Wage in the USA and everywhere in the world, all social welfare programs could be dropped immediately. A Just Family Wage gives dignity to the poorest workers, and allows them to pay for things by the money they earn from their labor. It relieves them having to beg for handouts from government or from private charities. A Just Family Wage only goes to people who work hard, take personal responsibility, and obey the laws of the land (stay out of prison). The Just Family Wage is a WORK solution to everything. Both private charities and government social programs are “handout” solutions.

This is just not true. Do you know what the poverty rate is for married couples where one person works full-time? Tiny. For all married couples it’s only 6%. The issue of poverty in this country is single-parent HHs, and/or people who don’t work.

Only a tiny % of welfare spending goes to married couples with a wage earner. Those two facts make you ineligible for most poverty programs.

Also, if you set the wage high enough to support a family (say $30,000 p.a.), what happens to all those people whose labor isn’t worth $30,000? No one will hire them and they be even worse off.

God Bless