Can a Catholic be a social democrat?

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user "essie777":
I suggest that in an non welfare state the cost of buying just one of these protections is more than the tax an average person would pay each year.
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fascinating.

There’s something interesting about taxes from an economic point of view: they mostly seem to perform the opposite function of prices since rich dudes pay more than poor ones (according to absolute numbers if the tax is flat or according to the progressive structure of the tax). In a market, prices can be greater for poor people and they can be (metaphorically) lowered w/a rise in pay. In this way prices respond to the opinions of buyers and sellers more than taxes, and in that way, prices don’t have to take a sum or a proportion from each and every person in the country. So in this way, a price can be less costly in the aggregate than a tax.

generally prices respond to opinions better than democracy.
 
essie7777 said:
Income tax comes down to people’s perception to a certain extent, i have seen on CAF threads that Europe has income tax from 50-70%.
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That’s an oversimplification. The income tax itself is pretty low – about 20% for most people. However, then you have to pay VAT on everything you buy. Next, economists also factor in social security. This is because it is, in practice, a tax – you cannot avoid paying it, if you have legal employment. So after you factor all that in you get the 50-70% figure.

Here’s a break down how it works in Poland. The average salary is 3554 PLN (1023 USD) pre-tax. Because of how the law works, the employer’s cost is 4265PLN. This then breaks down as follows:
Retirement & disability insurance - 1158
Health insurance - 279
Income tax - 252
Employee’s pay - 2574

So as you see, the employee got paid PLN 2574 while the cost on employer’s balance sheet was PLN 4265, which gives an effective tax rate of 40%. However, the employee then pays 23% VAT (sales tax) on everything he buys, so he is left with PLN 1982. Thus the effective tax rate is 53.5%.
essie7777 said:
I suggest that in an non welfare state the cost of buying just one of these protections is more than the tax an average person would pay each year.
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This!

Also, it’s worth noting that there are countries in Europe which, despite having socialized health care and education, have a flat tax rate. The argument for that is that a flat rate system is simpler, thus less costly to operate and creating less opportunity for fraud – so in the end, it gives the state more money.
 
kama3 said:
First thing, we note that the Pope is WAAAAY to the left.
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Uh… he’s barely 1/5 of the way to the left, and of all the people that do fall on the left side of the continuum, he’s the closest to the right.

Nice try. But when you put a slant on something as simple as a visual graphic of an abstract concept, esepcially when it’s constructed by an unnamed “professional” team, it’s hard for me to take the rest of your words with anything more than a grain of salt.

Even on that spectrum, all things considered (such as methodology, human error, etc), the Pope is quite balanced.
 
FaithBuild18 said:
Uh… he’s barely 1/5 of the way to the left, and of all the people that do fall on the left side of the continuum, he’s the closest to the right.
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He’s close to the center, because the graph is designed to accomodate both Joseph Stalin (left extreme) and Miton Friedman (right extreme).

He’s waaay to the left compared to other people on the graph. You should notice that most of them are in the top-right quadrant.
 
Veering swiftly back to the topic at hand, I think we can conclude that the totalitarian, propertyless “Socialism” of the encyclicals would be considered simple Communism with a capital “C” in modern terms, leaving “democratic socialism” (i.e., social democracy) a viable option, right? / : )
 
I wouldn’t call it “socialism” though because it seems to connote theft and tyranny and so it’s almost immorally unbecoming.

It’s like saying I’m a national socialist w/o the racism -why not say I’m a new dealer instead?
 
fakename said:
I wouldn’t call it “socialism” though because it seems to connote theft and tyranny and so it’s almost immorally unbecoming.

It’s like saying I’m a national socialist w/o the racism -why not say I’m a new dealer instead?
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A wise point… best to keep the standard “social democrat.” Although, to be fair, the word “socialism” seems mostly to connote such horrors mainly here in the U.S. >.<; Otherwise, why so many parties by that name in Europe and elsewhere?
 
A wise point… best to keep the standard “social democrat.” Although, to be fair, the word “socialism” seems mostly to connote such horrors mainly here in the U.S. >.<; Otherwise, why so many parties by that name in Europe and elsewhere?

To the above post:

I think that since many popes and the Catholic Encyclopedia are against socialism because it is theft and since it is safer to take the use of words from wise men, it is only right that one shouldn’t use the name socialism. Also, the use of a word in two ways causes confusion and it doesn’t get to the heart of the matter. So on its own merits, the most scientific use of a word is the least ambiguous, so you shouldn’t use socialism to mean something that is totally different from what most people mean by it.

As for the many European socialist parties, clearly they can define words as they see fit even though the force of habit for Catholics generally points to a truer definition and distinction.
 
I’m so far from a social democrat, it’s not even funny!

I just wanted that to be clear about that so everyone would know I do not have a pro-social democracy bias. Heck no, there’s nothing anti-Catholic about being a social democrat!
 
VeritasLuxMea said:
I’m so far from a social democrat, it’s not even funny!

I just wanted that to be clear about that so everyone would know I do not have a pro-social democracy bias. Heck no, there’s nothing anti-Catholic about being a social democrat!
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Yup… after all, both Christian democracy and social democracy were developed to answer strict Marxism in the first place (i.e., the “Socialism” of the past = Communist state socialism, the socialism of today is compatible with states and a highly regulated capitalism).

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=8795577&postcount=52
 
kama3 said:
He’s close to the center, because the graph is designed to accomodate both Joseph Stalin (left extreme) and Miton Friedman (right extreme).

He’s waaay to the left compared to other people on the graph. You should notice that most of them are in the top-right quadrant.
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No. Listen. Compared to the people on the graph. He is close to the center. If you remove Joseph Stalin, you are no longer talking about the people on the graph, since he is, afterall, on the graph.

Yes, compared to some people on the graph, he is further left than them. That isn’t really relevant though, because the graph was already constructed prior to plotting the data points on it. It is an absolute scale, not a relative scale. Every part of that page up until that example deals with constructing the scale.
 
Can a Catholic be a social democrat?
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Yes, but would you not be pro-abortion or approve same sex marriage.

You would have the liberality of democratic citizenship but staunch POV on these 2 stances.

You would be democrat preserving the original liberty but also financially responsible & conservative.
 
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