Catholic views on Economics

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Socrates92 said:
Maximizing wealth is the proper end of economics in the same way that growing in holiness and worshipping God is the proper end of Religion. An economic system which facilitates this is therefore a virtuous economic system, whether or not the ends to which the accumulated wealth happen to be virtuous.
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That simply is not true as what you say above goes against both Catholic and Jewish teachings.

Economics simply does not exist in a vacuum, therefore both Catholic teachings and halacha (Jewish Law, much of which is found in Torah or is an application of it) set some basic economic and governmental guidelines that relate to Biblical morality. To not to have done it would allow anything to be done in the name of “economics” no matter how immoral and harmful that may be. Neither Judaism nor Christianity allows for that.

As the Buddhists teach, all things interrelate.
 
It goes against nothing. Economics doesn’t teach what the proper application of its findings are. It simply describes them (Given A, and B, and C, such and such will happen in the economy). As soon as you start doing that, you’ve left Economics and you’ve started doing a normative discipline (ie: morality/theology). Likewise, physics will tell you what will happen when you pull the trigger on a fully loaded weapon; morality tells you what is an acceptable use of that weapon. They do relate, yes, but are at the same time distinct. The moral judgement about pulling the trigger in such-and-such a situation requires the prerequisite knowledge based on physics, which is not moral in nature.

Clearly, describing that the economy will act in such-and-such a way, given A, B, and C, does not “allow” or “disallow” anything. That aspect is simply not addressed, in the same way as the Physics behind propulsion does not address whether it is moral/immoral to shoot someone. Just because things interrelate, does not mean they are one-and-the-same.
 
As soon as you start legislating specific “Economic” policy, you are not strictly doing economics, but mandating certain human actions based on a particular understanding of the economics behind the situation. Ex: mandating a certain wage, under the impression that this will help working people and that the benefits accruing to them outweigh negative affects elsewhere.
 
To be perfectly clear, I am not advocating any kind of relativism whatsoever. Saying that economics does not address morality does not imply whatsoever that morality is relative. Moral principles are not economic; they are distinct. Individual moral actions draw on both these moral principles, and circumstances, which one interprets through various human disciplines (economics, physics, etc.).

As a Catholic, I also profess that the Catholic Church has a monopoly on teaching these moral principles. To say, however, that somehow Catholic teaching proclaims economics, strictly speaking, to be a moral discipline, is like saying the Catholic Church teaches that a triangle is circular.
 
This is only strictly true in so far as you are obliged to give a certain amount of charity towards your brother. The opportunity cost of loaning money doesn’t disappear simply because the person you loan to is related to you.
 
Socrates92 said:
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LeafByNiggle:
Are you claiming that illiteracy is worse in the US than in Mexico? Of course it isn’t. Thanks to our great public school system.
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Or in spite of our “great” public school system.
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No, because of it. Where else on earth or in history has there ever been such a high literacy rate in a nation without a public school system? It just does not happen.
 
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Arkansan said:
This argument could just as well be used to justify slavery.

“If the only way someone can get by is sell himself into slavery, would you actually advocate outlawing such a thing, with the possible consequence that no one will give him support.”
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I suppose you could argue that, although the logic would be flawed. Someone who sells himself himself into slavery is trading away his inherent human worth for something purely material, money. Someone who borrows at a given interest rate is simply agreeing to give a certain material quantity back for a certain material quantity received. Not exactly the same thing.
 
Arkansan said:
He’s not entitled to the other person’s money. What he’s entitled to is not to have more of his money taken from him than he actually owes.
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As far as I’m aware, in most loan contracts, no one is holding a gun to the head of the loanee. Therefore, he’s not having “more of his money taken from him than he actually owes”. He is simply having the exact amount taken which he freely chose to owe in exchange for some benefit which he freely sought out.
 
Arkansan said:
“One cannot condone the sin of usury by arguing that the gain is not great or excessive, but rather moderate or small” - Vix Pervenit
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Unfortunately, this begs the question. What is usury? (Answer: the demanding of something for nothing) What is gain? Are we talking “accounting profit” gain, or “economic profit” gain? It is entirely possible that accounting profit can be fairly “large” (whatever that is subjectively decided to mean), but that economic profit is zero, or negative. If I were to lend to you at 8%, where I could have gotten 10% on an alternative investment, I could argue that I’ve actually lost money.
 
Yes, of course that would be an example. A mutuum loan is by definition an interest free loan. Therefore demanding interest would fly in the face of the agreed-upon terms and would constitute extortion. But that still doesn’t answer the question broadly speaking.
 
As Vix Pervenit says, it comes down to the nature of the loan contract. there is no parity between a contract which confers rights to specified assets, and one which holds the debtor personally on the hook.
 
Any philosophy that requires excuse-making has already lost. Thus, enter the power of the state and the court of public opinion to SILENCE reality.

One of the biggest problems today is too many people use the “poor” to virtue-signal or as an excuse to support leaders and friends who are very anti-Catholic.

Catholics need to be about results. There are some ideas that work, and others that do not.
 
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Socrates92 said:
It goes against nothing. Economics doesn’t teach what the proper application of its findings are…
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I was talking abut the application of economics in a Christian setting and not just the study of economics, so maybe that’s where we disconnected. [see my post around #134 to remind you of where I was coming from and why]
 
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