Catholic or Democratic Socialism?

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JoeShlabotnik said:
Capitalist believe that you can never acquire enough of anything.
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This is not capitalist. Where did you aquire this error? Capitalism, at its best, is people serving each other and earning their just due for that service. People can choose to serve in ways smarter or harder to earn more money to purchase more services that can improve the quality of their lives. It encourages serving others by rewarding people for the quality of the service they render.
There can be excesses of course but the market in a stable economy will usually self correct. It is when the market is over regulated for frivolous reasons or when virtue is absent in a culture that capitalism begins to fail.
 
Regulations exist to keep people from exploiting one thing or another.
 
I agree with what you’re saying here; “unbridled capitalism” without just restraints in place to protect the people against crony capitalism, and the corruption of individual and corporate greed and where “centralized marketplace planning” is king, is just as harmful to people socially as atheistic Marxism.

Both a corrupted-capitalism and Marxism put the production and distribution of goods above all other considerations and regard other human needs as not worthy of attention or provisioning.

I think for most people not familiar with papal encyclicals and their place in Catholic Tradition, it’s easiest to just point them to the Catechism of the Catholic Church. For this line of debate, look to Paragraphs 2424 and 2425 as a summation of the Church’s teaching. You can easily find this online for reference on the United States Conference of Catholic Bishop’s website or the Vatican’s own website.
 
JoeShlabotnik said:
Regulations exist to keep people from exploiting one thing or another.
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Some do. Many exist for the exact opposite however. Or, maybe were even meant for good, but in actual practice, have an unintended effect of exploitation. Is it better to feel good or do good?
 
catholic_knighthood said:
Both a corrupted-capitalism and Marxism put the production and distribution of goods above all other considerations and regard other human needs as not worthy of attention or provisioning.
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Carrying it along this same line of thought is the problem of consumerism. The tendency of a misguided thought process that tells ourselves “we need” Less is more is the summary of the Gospels. It’s been talked about from the dawn of Jesus’s time whether the early Christians were living a form of socialism… All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. 33With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the LORD Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all 34that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales 35and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need .

If you look at that Gospel passage and interpret it as it is, truthfully it conveys as much.

However I would call it communitarianism or more realistically, a Christian communism.

I find nothing wrong with the later, but in all honesty were would we find persons all of one heart anymore???
 
Too many people mix up Capitalism with Corporatism. They are not the same. I am pro capitalism. Corporatism not so much.
 
The Vatican statement approving the British Labour Party in the 1930s:
“ Socialists who do not profess atheistic materialism and do not fight against religion, freedom and public morality, as for example the English Socialist party of Laborites, are not condemned by the Church ”

( Vatican, L’Osservatore Della Domenica, May 24th 1931 ).
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This is why Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has argued:

firstthings.com/article/2006/01/europe-and-its-discontents
EUROPE AND ITS DISCONTENTS
by Pope Benedict XVI
January 2006
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Democratic socialism managed to fit within the two existing models as a welcome counterweight. It also managed to appeal to various denominations. In England it became the political party of the Catholics . 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.
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Pope John Paul II stated in Laborem Exercens that he supported “ socialisation versus collectivisation”:

http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-p...s/hf_jp-ii_enc_14091981_laborem-exercens.html
The above principle, as it was then stated and as it is still taught by the Church, diverges radically from the programme of collectivism as proclaimed by Marxism. At the same time it differs from the programme of capitalism…

From this point of view, therefore, in consideration of human labour and of common access to the goods meant for man, one cannot exclude the socialization, in suitable conditions, of certain means of production …

The many proposals put forward by experts in Catholic social teaching and by the highest Magisterium of the Church take on special significance: proposals for joint ownership of the means of work, sharing by the workers in the management and/or profits of businesses…

Merely converting the means of production into State property in the collectivist system is by no means equivalent to “socializing” that property .

It should also be noted that the justice of a socioeconomic system and, in each case, its just functioning, deserve in the final analysis to be evaluated by the way in which man’s work is properly remunerated in the system. Here we return once more to the first principle of the whole ethical and social order, namely, the principle of the common use of goods …

Besides wages, various social benefits intended to ensure the life and health of workers and their families play a part here. The expenses involved in health care, especially in the case of accidents at work, demand that medical assistance should be easily available for workers, and that as far as possible it should be cheap or even free of charge…
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If a Catholic aims to implement a “socialisation” of society within the rubric of the above guidelines, and calls himself a “socialist” of this “socialisation”, then it is not violating Catholic Doctrine (against state collectivisation) just like the UK Labour Party didn’t in the 1930s.
 
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“ The church diverges radically from the program of collectivism as proclaimed by Marxism and put into practice in various countries in the decades following the time of Leo XIII’s encyclical. At the same time it differs from the program of capitalism…and by the political systems inspired by it ”
The church commends “socialization, in suitable conditions”. Please read my above post, quoting Pope John Paul II in his encyclical Laborem Excercens. Substance here is more important than label.

Catholics calling themselves ‘socialists’ according to this legitimate model of socialisation (over against illegitimate ‘collectivisation’) are being condemned by some wrongly under a condemnation meant to be directed against Marxism (which calls itself ‘socialism’ - as in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the USSR).

The ‘definition’ of socialism used in the encyclicals is Marxist collectivism. John Paul II made it abundantly clear: “ the Church’s social doctrine adopts a critical attitude towards both liberal capitalism and Marxist collectivism ” ( Sollicitudo Rei Socialis , 21).

Every reference to ‘socialism’ is a reference to totalitarian Marxist collectivism (as opposed to ‘democratic socialisms’ that are not Marxist collectivist in theory but go under the label):

POPE PIUS XII Christmas Message of 1942
“ Always moved by religious motives, the Church has condemned the various forms of Marxist Socialism; and she condemns them today ”
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It is Marxist collectivist theory, characterised by an anti-religious dialectic and material determinist reading of history, and which seeks to suppress individual liberties within a collectivist social order that undermines “public morality”, that the church condemns in the texts cited by others under the term “socialism” - because that’s what these Marxists called themselves.

And both Pope Pius XII (in his 1942 Christmas address) and Pope John Paul II in his 1987 encyclical, explain that totalitarian Marxist collectivism is the target understood as “real Socialism” - not the “democratic socialism” that Pope Benedict XVI commends.
 
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@(name removed by moderator)

There are “socialist” movements (movements calling themselves “socialist”) that have been approved by the church as not conforming to what the ecclesiastical terminology means by ‘socialism’, which is Marxist-collectivism . In the exact same sense, capitalism is used to refer to neo-liberal capitalism/economic liberalism.

If you want to read the references to ‘socialism’ without qualifiers as meaning anything that goes under the label, then the same logic must apply to the references in these texts to capitalism:
" In the modern period, from the beginning of the industrial age, the Christian truth about work had to oppose the various trends of materialistic and economistic thought… the danger of treating work as a special kind of “merchandise,” or as an impersonal “force” needed for production (the expression “workforce” is in fact in common use) always exists , especially when the whole way of looking at the question of economics is marked by the premises of materialistic economism…

In all cases of this sort , in every social situation of this type, there is a reversal of the order laid down from the beginning by the words of the Book of Genesis: man is treated as an instrument of production. Precisely this reversal of order, whatever the program or name under which it occurs, should rightly be called “capitalism” …Everybody knows that capitalism has a definite historical meaning as a system, an economic and social system, opposed to “socialism” or “communism.”

It should be recognized that the error of early capitalism can be repeated wherever people are treated on the same level as the whole complex of the material means of production, as an instrument and not in accordance with the true dignity of their work.
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Laborem Exercens (“On Human Work”) , Pope St. John Paul II, 1981 #30.

In the above encyclical, Pope St. John Paul II states unequivocally that “capitalism” is a reversal of the divine order laid down by God in the Book of Genesis and he moreover reiterates, and this ABSOLUTELY crucial, that “ precisely this reversal of order should rightly be called “capitalism” ”.

He then explains that this ‘capitalism’ - condemned in and of itself as contrary to God’s plan for creation, just as with ‘Marxist collecictivism’ under the name of ‘socialism’ - has a “ definite historical meaning as a system opposed to communism ”.

The epistemological bases of both of these ideologies, as they emerged in modernity, are inherently irreconcilable with Catholic Social Doctrine. Later movements that simply emphasised socialisation of public utilities, trade unionism, co-operativeness and welfare services to promote social justice (but called themselves “socialist”) and on the right, movements that embraced a market economy, entrepreneurialism and the defence of private rights but didn’t embrace the ‘capitalist’ errors I outlined earlier (but called themselves “capitalist”) again don’t infringe doctrine.
 
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noryar2025 said:
No, Socialism is evil and contrary to the Gospel.
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And Pope St. John Paul II described capitalism as a reversal of God’s divine plan:
There is a reversal of the order laid down from the beginning by the words of the Book of Genesis: man is treated as an instrument of production. Precisely this reversal of order, whatever the program or name under which it occurs, should rightly be called “capitalism”

Laborem Exercens (“On Human Work”) , Pope St. John Paul II, 1981 #30.
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If you want to interpret ecclesiastical references to ‘socialism’, uncontextualized, as blanket denunciations of anything going under that label (even if it is, in substance, consonant with Catholic doctrine as Pope Benedict XVI described the ‘democratic socialism’ of the UK Labour Party as being) then one has to apply the same logic and consistency to the condemnations of ‘capitalism’ without qualifiers.
 
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No. Catholic Social teaching states that socialism (in any form) is wrong.
 
From marxist.org

"Man is a bridge and not a goal.—Nietzsche

"There is little more to add. Religion in its present form becomes ever more obviously a parasite on the exploiting civilisation and society of which it is the ideological expression. As the machine-age develops it becomes more and more an absurdity, and its specific dogmas approximate ever more closely to self-evident mumbo-jumbo. More and more, as his historic role becomes ever more retrogressive, the priest becomes a mere witch-doctor battening on ignorance and fear, and droning his meaningless incantations with an ever more wearisome monotony. Men of intellect like Calvin or Newman are no longer found in institutions the ‘evidences’ of which become continually feebler. The gods are old: they have become senile: it is time for them to die!

"But they will die no natural death. Capital will keep them alive even, if necessary, by artificial stimulants! As the capitalist civilisation declines, as war follows war, each more ‘total’ and soul-destroying than the last, religion again plants its feet firmly on the familiar ground of fear, and, like the fabled giant, grows stronger with every contact. In this society, religion will never die out. This is, above all, an age of fear, and fear and superstition are age-long twins.

"Only the Social Revolution will destroy religion by abolishing its effective causes. Thereafter, man takes the place of god. An evolving earth succeeds a static heaven as Humanity, now, at long last, master of his own destiny in a free society, moves ever onward from the ape-man of yesterday to the man of today, and to the superman of tomorrow. Today gods and capitalists stand together: tomorrow, gods and capitalists will fall together.

‘Chase gods from the skies and capitalists from the earth.’ Forward to the Social Revolution! Mankind comes of age!"
 
phil19034 said:
No. Catholic Social teaching states that socialism (in any form) is wrong.
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Clearly you must not have read anything I wrote in my above posts, with the relevant citations. Politely, I’d ask that you consider what I wrote and referenced.

Also, in addition to everything I wrote in my prior posts, Pope St. Paul VI stated in 1971 in Octegesima Adveniens:

w2.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/apost_letters/documents/hf_p-vi_apl_19710514_octogesima-adveniens.html
Attraction of socialist currents

31. Some Christians are today attracted by socialist currents and their various developments. They try to recognize therein a certain number of aspirations which they carry within themselves in the name of their faith. They feel that they are part of that historical current and wish to play a part within it. Now this historical current takes on, under the same name, different forms according to different continents and cultures. Careful judgment is called for . Too often Christians attracted by socialism tend to idealize it in terms which, apart from anything else, are very general: a will for justice, solidarity and equality. Distinctions must be made to guide concrete choices between the various levels of expression of socialism: a generous aspiration and a seeking for a more just society, historical movements with a political organization and aim, and an ideology which claims to give a complete and self-sufficient picture of man. Nevertheless, these distinctions must not lead one to consider such levels as completely separate and independent. The concrete link which, according to circumstances, exists between them must be clearly marked out. This insight will enable Christians to see the degree of commitment possible along these lines.
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Pope Saint John Paul II wrote in 1987, in his encyclical letter Sollicitudo Rei Socialis:

"The tension between East and West is an opposition… between two concepts of the development of individuals and peoples, both concepts being imperfect and in need of radical correction… This is one of the reasons why the Church’s social doctrine adopts a critical attitude towards both liberal capitalism and Marxist collectivism ."
 
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