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Seaumas
Guest
Quote: “To those who say that power corrupts and that absolute power corrupts absolutely I say that any power at all corrupts absolutely.”- Dorothy Day: “On Pilgrimage”.
Capitalism - a device for economic progress for everyone everywhere, every time it is tried.
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TheTrueCentrist
Guest
Predicated = based on. I say that capitalism is based on human greed because capitalism is all about allowing people to control their own property and amass wealth. If there are enough people that are generally greedy and will typically try to accumulate goods, a system which enshrines this pursuit will generally be successful. Capitalism is therefore successful because it allows these people to do what they want to do anyway: be greedy.
Systems that attempt to enshrine altruism such as communism or non-market socialism are generally not successful because they contradict what people want. While a person may behave altruistically in a capitalist economy, greed in a communist economy (for example) will inevitably lead the greedy person to contest the system itself. In order to be greedy, he must attempt to circumvent the communist rules that are in place. An altruistic person in a capitalist society has no need to circumvent rules to express their altruism.
Generally I would say that economic systems that attempt to impose virtues will inevitably cause conflict with people who do not share those virtues. Economic systems that enshrine vices will be successful because they accommodate all types of people.
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Abu
Guest
Tilting at windmills won’t help.
Of course free enterprise is NOT based on greed; that is a false assumption. Free enterprise is based on the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property and the resulting responsibility for the means of production, as well as free human creativity in the economic sector. People can be greedy. Many are, many are not.
That “the entrepreneur can (and should) work for the development and maintenance of the common good…is a consistent feature of the Fathers of the Church, of St Thomas Aquinas and other Scholastic Theologians.” Entrepreneurship in the Catholic Tradition, Fr Anthony G Perry, Lexington Books, 2010, p 81-82].
The failures in starting a business far outweigh the successes and the entrepreneur in Catholic tradition is affirmed through: Scripture and Tradition; also Private Initiative in the Social Teaching of Leo XIII through Paul VI; Work and Enterprise in the Second Vatican Council, and from Human Work to Entrepreneurship: the Revolution of Centesimus Annus. Entrepreneurship in the Catholic Tradition, Fr Anthony G Percy, Lexington Books, 2010]
The first examples of free enterprise appeared in the great Catholic monasteries, about the ninth century. (John Gilchrist, The Church and Economic Activity in the Middle Ages, St Martin’s Press1969, I).
Communism and Socialism have been condemned outright because they are political systems that deny basic human rights.
As the eminent Fr James Schall, S.J., points out this is how poverty in the world is alleviated:
“Since the Church wants poverty confronted, since She wants this confrontation to be done justly and with the interest and cooperation of the workers and the poor, She has had to acknowledge, as did the socialist systems themselves, that there are certain ways that must be employed if mankind is to meet its economic problems. These ways can be known and imitated, but they must include a juridical system, profit, enterprise, knowledge, exchange, a market, voluntary organisations, a relatively independent economy, private property, and respect for work and excellence.” (Fr James V Schall, S.J., in *Does Catholicism Still Exist?, *Alba House 1994, p 184-185).
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Monte_RCMS
Guest
Sorry, but I’m reading this discussion and that sentence doesn’t make any sense to me.
First of all, in a truly capitalist system, no one has police power … it is not a police state.
So, when one person offers a superior product or service, the other capitalists have to match or exceed the other person’s service or product in quality or price or some other advantage favored by the market place.
So, the thing that makes capitalism successful is the better idea … if you want to, you can say that one greedy person is kept in check by all of the other millions of greedy people, each of whom is looking out for his or her own best interest.
[Not sure I would use the word “greedy”, though. Unless “enlightened self interest” is considered “greed”.]
If I decide to buy a car, I have many choices. If I look up the Blue Book value and the Grey Book [Yonkers Auto Auction] value and Consumers Report and several other sources, to arrive at the price I want to pay … and use that to negotiate with the car dealer, then am I being “greedy”?
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Monte_RCMS
Guest
I did a google search " where did the money in the national debt go? " and got LOTS of answers.
Here is one of them:
federalbudget.com/
This is a bit rambling, but try to follow it:
Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Santorum, they’re not up there telling you not to go to Vegas. They’re not up there telling you not to go to resorts. They’re not up there telling you don’t get on your jet and fly somewhere.
They are not offering to raise your taxes. They are not offering to deny you cheap energy at affordable prices and in plentiful supply. Gingrich, Romney, Santorum are not taking over automobile companies and making 'em buy pieces of **** that nobody wants. That would be Barack Obama. It’s not Gingrich, Romney and Santorum who claim to be focusing laser-like on jobs and then not doing it. Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum have not grown the federal deficit, the national debt, by $5 trillion.
Do you realize – Barack Obama has already spent the federal budget of the two years of the next administration, who’s ever in the White House. The entire federal budget for the two years beginning in 2013 is already spent. And he’s not finished. It’s not Romney or Gingrich or Santorum who have done that.
How much money has Romney, Santorum, Gingrich thrown at failed, worthless, non-businesses like Solyndra and all the other jokes and frauds that the green energy industry is? Zero, is the answer. My point is that whatever you think of these guys, they are not the problem.
We’re a great country at risk in a dangerous world, and for the first time we are balanced precariously in such a way that if we tip the wrong way, the country as you and I know it, the way we were raised, is not going to exist.
It’s not Gingrich or Santorum or Romney who are trying to take your individual liberty and freedom away, your property rights, making you buy health insurance, forcing a socialized medicine program on you that will redefine freedom and liberty. It’s not Santorum or Romney or Gingrich that are basically ignoring the Constitution and behaving in a constitutionally lawless fashion. All of this is Obama.
The gasoline pump price has doubled since Obama was inaugurated. Gingrich has nothing to do with that. Romney’s got nothing to do with that. Nothing they’ve done has anything to do with that.
Romney, in fact, has done more to empower and enrich individuals at Bain Capital and other things that he’s done at the Olympics than Obama can ever hope to do.
Obama’s done nothing but ruin lives. Obama’s done nothing but destroy assets. The housing crisis. Most people’s number one asset, underwater, thanks to Barack Obama.
Gingrich, Romney, Santorum, had nothing whatsoever to do with it. And, everybody is up in arms, look at Romney, $374,000 in speeches. Yeah. Bill Clinton, $82 million in speeches, average speech, $181,000.
So in all this economic downturn what sacrifices have the Obamas made? They haven’t made any.
Gingrich, Romney, if they win the presidency it will cost them money, it’s a pay cut.
In total contrast … for Clinton, and for Obama it was a pathway to wealth.
And I don’t really think that four more years of Obama is in anybody’s best interests. I also resent the fact that the media is trying to clear a path for him, clear out all the opposition.
It’s up for voters to decide this stuff.
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manualman
Guest
- Surely you cannot be unaware of the major push in our society today by those who claim that government intervention is always negative and harmful and that “free markets” (usually defined by these folks as repealing all regulation and oversight) is always an improvement over the status quo?
- A little too convenient that you cut off JPII right before he got out this part:
“But if by “capitalism” is meant a system in which freedom in the economic sector is not circumscribed within a strong juridical framework which places it at the service of human freedom in its totality, and which sees it as a particular aspect of that freedom, the core of which is ethical and religious, then the reply is certainly negative.”
Rand makes the equal and opposite mistake. She sees the utter failure of communism (which are real and she comments accurately on many of the problems). But, like Marx, she goes on to propose a cure worse than the disease.
Again, Chesterton nails it: “Reformers are usually right about what is wrong, but are almost always wrong about what is right.” (paraphrased from memory) Both Marx and Rand tried to be reformers. But good intentions aren’t enough to secure good outcomes. Both of them fail because they fail to recognize what man really is, where we come from and to what we are destined.
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fakename
Guest
To those who say that capitalism is based on greed:
If you define greed as an irrational love of money, then I agree, but then I would also say that the same applied to mercantilism since the whole doctrine of mercantilism revolved around getting money pure and simple.
But if you define greed as the need to accumulate money then I disagree because if that was true, then money would have no value since everyone would rather hoard money then exchange it for goods.
Capitalism, as it exists today, is not predicated on money as much as it is predicated on the things which money can buy, most of which is probably not sinful.
If you define greed as an irrational love of money, then I agree, but then I would also say that the same applied to mercantilism since the whole doctrine of mercantilism revolved around getting money pure and simple.
But if you define greed as the need to accumulate money then I disagree because if that was true, then money would have no value since everyone would rather hoard money then exchange it for goods.
Capitalism, as it exists today, is not predicated on money as much as it is predicated on the things which money can buy, most of which is probably not sinful.
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fakename
Guest
I also thought this would be a contribution to this thread.
I’m going to give some econ. stats on Hong Kong primarily because, if there is a place that exemplifies capitalism it is Hong Kong.
From Wikipedia:
It ranks 1 in terms of economic freedom
It’s gini index is 53, it has about a 100 billion dollar trade deficit (exports-imports), the public debt is only .0001% of its GDP, GDP per capita (corrected for inflation/deflation/cost of living) is $49,342 which exceeds the US by $200 and Sweden’s by about $9000 dollars. It’s unemployment rate as of 2011 was 3.4% and the proportion of poor people in the population is (probably since there are no official stats) 14%. From the 60s to the 90s its GDP grew 180 times, I’m not sure any other country has done better or equal to that.
So in some areas it is about equal to the US while in others it is even better than Sweden. So I think that this provides a relatively favorable picture to “unrestrained” capitalism.
I’m going to give some econ. stats on Hong Kong primarily because, if there is a place that exemplifies capitalism it is Hong Kong.
From Wikipedia:
It ranks 1 in terms of economic freedom
It’s gini index is 53, it has about a 100 billion dollar trade deficit (exports-imports), the public debt is only .0001% of its GDP, GDP per capita (corrected for inflation/deflation/cost of living) is $49,342 which exceeds the US by $200 and Sweden’s by about $9000 dollars. It’s unemployment rate as of 2011 was 3.4% and the proportion of poor people in the population is (probably since there are no official stats) 14%. From the 60s to the 90s its GDP grew 180 times, I’m not sure any other country has done better or equal to that.
So in some areas it is about equal to the US while in others it is even better than Sweden. So I think that this provides a relatively favorable picture to “unrestrained” capitalism.
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Abu
Guest
Your error in #35 was in stating: ‘You appear to be erroneously assuming that any government regulation, differential taxation or legal restrictions on commerce is an abolition of “free enterprise.” ’
That is false as shown by the fact that I have not claimed that, and Ayn Rand has been shown to be in error by me in post #4, repeated for you in post #38.
Since free enterprise has been emphatically affirmed by Bl JPII and post #4 states clearly that “the State has the right and duty to make wise laws, and that’s why we have laws to seek and punish those who steal, cheat, swindle, and against monopolies as people can, and some do, undermine the common good, and the primary role of government is to support families in solidarity, and the role of the Church in subsidiarity and, yes, the common good,” you are tilting at windmills.
The essence of free enterprise is on the basis of the principles developed by the Catholic Late Scholastics, within a wise rule of law which they required for the common good, and so affirmed by Bl JPII. This was reaffirmed in post #42.
Dr Chafuen states: “The objective of policy, according to the Medieval Doctors, is to favour the common good. This is in agreement with the principle that then general welfare is more important than individual interest.” Christians For Freedom, Ignatius, 1986, p 159-160].
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Abu
Guest
What has regularly hampered free enterprise is the fact that governments and their central banks practice finagling interventions which create booms and busts, overdo welfare and produce the enormous deficits seen on both sides of the Atlantic.
Unlike the sharp depression of 1920-21 which was sensibly handled without major government intervention, the Great Depression was caused by pumping money into the economy.
Even Alan Greenspan has highlighted the “excess credit which the Fed pumped into the economy," resulting, finally, in an American economic collapse in the Great Depression beginning in 1929 and extending, mostly, until 1941. This judgment which Greenspan makes about the “excess credit” that directly brought about the Great Depression was made in a 1966 article in Ayn Rand’s Objectivist magazine and subsequently republished in Rand’s Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.[2]
[2] Alan Greenspan, “Gold and Economic Freedom” in Ayn Rand’s *Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal *(New York: Penguin, 1987), pp. 20ff.
As Federal Reserve chairman between 1987 and 2006, Greenspan acted even more irresponsibly than the Fed officials he was criticizing. Rather than, “sopping up the excess reserves,” Greenspan added even more, transforming a stock market bubble into a housing and consumer spending bubble of historic and unprecedented proportions.[3]
[3] Peter Schiff, *Crash Proof: How to Profit from the Coming Economic Collapse *(Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2007), pp. xiii-xiv.
[From Peter Chojnowski, Ph.D].
thepublicdiscourse.com/author/sgregg/
Fatal Attraction: Democracy and the Welfare State by Samuel Gregg
June 18, 2010
When low economic growth and declining demography are combined with European welfare states—generous state-provided health and unemployment insurance; early retirement and liberal state pensions; large public sector employment; legislation that emphasizes job security over labor market flexibility—something eventually has to give.
Unlike the sharp depression of 1920-21 which was sensibly handled without major government intervention, the Great Depression was caused by pumping money into the economy.
Even Alan Greenspan has highlighted the “excess credit which the Fed pumped into the economy," resulting, finally, in an American economic collapse in the Great Depression beginning in 1929 and extending, mostly, until 1941. This judgment which Greenspan makes about the “excess credit” that directly brought about the Great Depression was made in a 1966 article in Ayn Rand’s Objectivist magazine and subsequently republished in Rand’s Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.[2]
[2] Alan Greenspan, “Gold and Economic Freedom” in Ayn Rand’s *Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal *(New York: Penguin, 1987), pp. 20ff.
As Federal Reserve chairman between 1987 and 2006, Greenspan acted even more irresponsibly than the Fed officials he was criticizing. Rather than, “sopping up the excess reserves,” Greenspan added even more, transforming a stock market bubble into a housing and consumer spending bubble of historic and unprecedented proportions.[3]
[3] Peter Schiff, *Crash Proof: How to Profit from the Coming Economic Collapse *(Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2007), pp. xiii-xiv.
[From Peter Chojnowski, Ph.D].
thepublicdiscourse.com/author/sgregg/
Fatal Attraction: Democracy and the Welfare State by Samuel Gregg
June 18, 2010
When low economic growth and declining demography are combined with European welfare states—generous state-provided health and unemployment insurance; early retirement and liberal state pensions; large public sector employment; legislation that emphasizes job security over labor market flexibility—something eventually has to give.
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Captain_America
Guest
The great problem for capitalism is that no capitalists are in favor of free markets.
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TheTrueCentrist
Guest
I’m not sure why you brought up police. However, if a company was able to wield enough political power, it could conceivably make a competitor’s products illegal. Some people would argue that is what happened in the case of hemp; DuPont allegedly fought to make industrial hemp illegal because it was competing with their new invention: nylon.
You’re positing the best case scenario for capitalism. Consumers are not always perfectly informed. Also, if you look at capitalism and ask: “who are the winners?” your conclusion can only be “companies that achieve a monopoly.” A company with a monopoly has essentially won the game of capitalism. They can then engage in any number of anti-competitive practices. In a sufficiently free market, a monopoly could render itself almost entirely bulletproof through these practices and the purchase of political power. If you recall as Chesterton so neatly put it, “To be smart enough to get all that money you must be dull enough to want it.”
Again, I agree that not all people are greedy, but capitalism accommodates and encourages the greedy people. Eventually a person who is sufficiently skilled and greedy will “win” and achieve a monopoly.
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Abu
Guest
The persistent fallacy here lies in not realising that Original Sin and thus life is open to greed and that the inculcation of virtue, reason and faith in the individual is what suppresses greed as Pope Benedict XVI affirmed: “Society does not have to protect itself from the market, as if the development of the latter were ipso facto to entail the death of authentically human relations…Therefore it is not the instrument that must be called to account, but individuals, their moral conscience and their personal and social responsibility.” (Caritas et Veritate, Benedict XVI, 2009, #36).
This is persistently devious as you have been consistently shown that the free market affirmed by Bl JPII consists of “the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property and the resulting responsibility for the means of production, as well as free human creativity in the economic sector.”
“A sufficiently free market” is a fallacious construction to suit a pre-conceived assumption to produce a monopoly, whereas post #4 states clearly that “the State has the right and duty to make wise laws, and that’s why we have laws to seek and punish those who steal, cheat, swindle, and against monopolies as people can, and some do, undermine the common good, and the primary role of government is to support families in solidarity, and the role of the Church in subsidiarity and, yes, the common good.”
Of course a finagling administration distorts free enterprise, and creates the problems which it cannot solve.
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TheTrueCentrist
Guest
I’m not saying that capitalism causes greed, only that it is greed which makes capitalism successful where other systems fail.
That is silly and I would think it obvious as to why: you have set yourself up for a no true Scotsman response to any potential downside of capitalism. If businesses do something bad then you say “that is not the capitalism to which I was referring.”
Yes, but you must see that each one of those laws makes the market less free, converting a free market capitalist economy into a mixed one. The OP was that all capitalism was beneficial, and I think your qualifications show that is not the case.
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Abu
Guest
Free markets arose from the principles developed by the Catholic Late Scholastics essentially “to favour the common good…and policies to attain the common good should never run against the natural order and natural human rights….” [Dr Alejandro Chafuen, *Christians For freedom, Ignatius, 1986, p 159-160].
“Freedom” does not mean licence, and never has the free market meant that laws such as referred to in post #53 should not be enacted, in the writings of the Late Scholastics and the Popes. They exist in most countries. Among groups of economists and governments views vary on the extent of government intervention – hence the booms and busts through government finagling.
Face reality and get out of the rut of confusing the principles of free enterprise with the participants –
"the market…is not the instrument that must be called to account, but individuals, their moral conscience and their personal and social responsibility.” (Caritas et Veritate, Benedict XVI, 2009, #36).
No one has ever expected perfection in this life, but there is nothing to compare with Catholic developed free enterprise versus any other economic system.
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essie7777
Guest
Abu, in numerous posts and threads you comment using the same few sentences to justify free enterprise. You seem to vary as to what this actually means, in one thread it’s no regulation, in this you question when have you said that.
So i have just one simple question … in brief terms, without quoting other resources (as at this point i’m not debating your justification for what you think) can you lay out EXACTLY what you mean by free enterprise. What this means for business, government regulations, workers right, just wages etc.
Maybe then the thread readers can actually comment rather than being led on a whirlwind of the wood use. Define what you actually mean for us, then there’s no way we can be confused by your differing comments in different threads.
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Abu
Guest
Until you can reference where “no regulation” has been supported, and with such confused assumption that the Late Catholic Scholastics and the Popes are portrayed by me as countenancing “no regulation”, no further explanation would help.
Are not “the same few sentences” used from the Popes because they are the keys and cannot be refuted, as they are the warp and woof of the developed teaching on free enterprise?
Perhaps you would care to start with one point over which you are confused, reference it, and state how and why.
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