Hi, WonerfulLife,
Let me comment on your observations.
- It means not paying your workers a living wage is a sin.
- If Christ returned today, capitalists would have him assassinated, just like they did before.
- The radical message Jesus brought to the Jews and for which they had him put to death is that unmitigated greed was inconsistent with loving God. People have intrinsic value, no one is ‘better’ than anyone else or more deserving. The world’s resources were put on the earth for the world… not for a few opportunistic ungodly to exploit for personal profit.
That’s why it’s ‘harder for the the rich to get into heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle’.
Take Bectel. It’s a corporation that used U.S. influence with the IMF to force Bolivians to pay up to 50% of their $2 a day wages for the right to collect rain that fell out of the sky. The response was a people’s revolution in which the country’s militia shot the poor in the street for daring to demand their right to collect rainwater for drinking because it would interfere with Bechtel’s profits.
Do you really think people who just call themselves Christians while participating in collecting dividends off Bechtel stock using these business practices are going to delight Jesus and find themselves in Heaven?
I don’t.
garivers.org/gawater/article5.html
I did some searching for this “collective organization of production” and really did not find anything that coordinated with this thread. I did not see anything linking it to a “Living Wage”. Here is a link you may find helpful:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_wage and, maybe you can pass on a link to this “collective…production” term. Thanks in advance.
Your second point can not be substantiated under any conditions. If Christ were to return today, He would come as King to judge the world and would not subject to death again - this is part of our Catholic Faith. But, assuming you were just given to a flight of analogy… what makes you think that the proponents of any other economic system would be please - or displease - with the teachings of Christ. There are many statements where actual buy and selling examples are part of Christ’s teaching. At the time of Christ - there was probably no established form of capitalism. My guess is that the economy was primarily agricultural and fishing with a lot of barter going on. Rome, however, demanded gold and other valuables as money for tax payments (the IRS is really no different
)
As I understand it, the radical message of Christ was that He fulfilled the Law and the Prophets, He has established His Chruch upon Peter and that He would return to see how well we have loved God with our whole heart and our neighbor as ourself.
I am really not familiar with “Bectel”. Did you mean Bechtel?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bechtel You may be interested in knowing that Bechtel is not publicly traded - so, I am not sure what it is you may mean by collecting dividends.
Additionally, I would appreciate a source or reference for your comment on Bolivians not being allowed to collect rainwater. The link you provided involved the US State of Georgia and how this state is addressing water at a time of shortage. And this leads me to my question to you.
Take any resource you want (and, I guess you are interested in water). The western states of the US have quite a track record on arguing about water rights (the Hoover Dam was almost not build until it was decided (in very general terms) by the negotiating efforts of Herbert Hoover (before he became President) on how the water would be divided. Prior to that - the states were basically content to let the Colorado River flood and destroy the land as it would (electricity was just an afterthought). While others may want to follow the example set by these western states - maybe there are other models available. The idea of a return to the era of the 19th Century Robber Barons is always a possibility - but, in realtiy, the idea of people dying of dehydration and disease because they can not collect sufficient pure water to drink does seem far fetched.
In the last analysis, I am not sure Christ will be reviewing one’s stock portofolio to see how ‘politically correct’, ‘green’, ‘holy’ or what have you a company is that you have invested in. How do you handle mutual funds where some ‘saints’ and ‘sinners’ of companies may be combined? At least as far as I am aware, it is one’s belief in Christ’s Word and our cooperation with His Grace as we live our lives to love, honor and serve Him through our fellow man that will be evaluated.
God bless
and I think the guy who probably captured it best was Adam Smith in “Wealth of Nations” when it spoke of the ‘invisible hand’ of the market. Taken as a whole it works… even though it has its setbacks and difficulties (boom and bust cycles, too!)
Once you get out of the U.S. though, there are a lot of varying viewpoints.