Chrysostom on Forced Redistribution of Wealth

[St_Francis]

Do you want to provide a detailed historical example instead of just referencing papal encyclicals?

A particular example isnthe town of Geel/Gheel in Belgium, where the veneration of St Dymphna had been killed by her crazed pagan father. Miracles relatedmto the curing of the mentally ill wer reported, and people began making pilgrimages there. The townpeople took them in and cared for them, developing a form of treatment whic was not to be repeated for several hundred years. The mentally ill slept at the hospital but went to familes during the day.

Another example is medieval society in general. Monks and nuns cared for those in need of care: the homeless, orphans, the ill including lepers, the poor. When the Protestant Revolt came along, the rulers of the time took the property of the monsteries and kicked the monks out, leaving the poor and disadvantaged with no help.

Naturally this system was not perfect. There were times when crops failed and everyone was hungry; there were times when power-hungry individuals messed up the system, but overall there was a system in place which cared for the poor as individuals rather than as numbers or potential voters or whatever.

Fromy point of view, part of the problem with state-run forced “giving” is that this is not the business of the state and gives way too much power to the state. You mentioned that you like the fact that it all happens automatically, but where is the spiritual growth in that? Where is the sense of being moved by compassion? It becomesm just another line item on the list of thingsntaken out of your paycheck.

And what is it for the poor? That is where I see the most problems. They are helped only in the most impersonal way, and only with money. They are not helped with dealing with
life. The help is not from love, it is just a function of life. It flattens them.

Must run…

 

[rwoehmke]

The problem is that you have now made two posts but haven’t bothered to refute the words of St John. That is, after all, the topic of this thread, isn’t it? Perhaps you could address where this Church Father and Doctor of the Church is wrong in his assessment.

The fact of the matter is that, as St John said, there won’t be justice until there is a change in heart. It was true 1,600 years ago and it is true to this day. And if we are concerned with the immortal souls of all the people, we would do well to keep that in mind.

Why refute, he is correct in his assessment, however being taxed and paying out a fair share of ones wealth is hardly taking away all ones wealth and making anyone equal to the poor. We are taxed, not by soldiers who arbitrariliy confiscate wealth, but by our form of representative, elected government that taxes for the common good. He is talking the extreme case in which an attempt is made to make everyone fiscally equal. I don’t, in my opinion, believe it applies to the taxation exacted by any of the Western countries.

 

[St_Francis]

Why refute, he is correct in his assessment, however being taxed and paying out a fair share of ones wealth is hardly taking away all ones wealth and making anyone equal to the poor. We are taxed, not by soldiers who arbitrariliy confiscate wealth, but by our form of representative, elected government that taxes for the common good. He is talking the extreme case in which an attempt is made to make everyone fiscally equal. I don’t, in my opinion, believe it applies to the taxation exacted by any of the Western countries.

You are looking at one tree and missing the forest.

 

[MindOverMatter2]

I love this!!! And he makes very clear the problem with the forced welfare as opposed to true charity.

Welfare is not socialism. Public health care is not socialism. And nobody is making the rich poor because of a just form taxation for the benefit of the poor. Your confusion between socialism and state intervention on behalf of the “economically oppressed” is dangerous to the material and spiritual well being of human society.

 

[portarica]

I love this!!! And he makes very clear the problem with the forced welfare as opposed to true charity.

It also explains why all the rich have been so quick to help the poor on their own. It explains why the difference in CEO salaries in the US is hundreds of times the rate of the lowest paid workers of their companies, when it was about 30X in the fifties and sixties.

It is so joyful that the decades have made the hearts of the rich so open to helping the least of Jesus’ flock.

Peace

 

[markomalley]

Welfare is not socialism. Public health care is not socialism. And nobody is making the rich poor because of a just form taxation for the benefit of the poor. Your confusion between socialism and state intervention on behalf of the “economically oppressed” is dangerous to the material and spiritual well being of human society.

But I thought you liked distributionism?

 

[MindOverMatter2]

But I thought you liked distributionism?

Your question suggests to me that you really don’t no what that is.

 

[portarica]

But I thought you liked distributionism?

Not for nothing, but looking at the picture of B16 at the bottom of your post makes me wonder how B16 perceives the whole concept of the appropriate distribution of wealth.

Peace

 

[markomalley]

Your question suggests to me that you really don’t no what that is.

Since you are the evangelist for it, perhaps you could explain it to me.

 

[choose_to_love]

@portarica

Careful there. Could you be proving the opposite? What were personal/business taxation rates in the 50’s/60’s as compared to the times you are using for your examples of CEO pay? Great Society/Cold War/ Vietnam War drives tax rates up, CEO thinks his contribution to the general welfare comes from the taxes he pays, and voila’! I don’t know if this is true, but it is something to think about. For comparison, would one compare charitable giving and compensation rates from European company CEOs - - higher taxes in Europe, yes? I don’t know but perhaps one of the other posters does.

 

[MindOverMatter2]

Since you are the evangelist for it, perhaps you could explain it to me.

Maybe i don’t fully understand what it is yet. I will get back to you once i have done some more research. However my quotes are justified by church teaching and stand by themselves.

laissez-faire capitalism is not reconcilable with the social doctrine of the Catholic Church.

 

[St_Francis]

Welfare is not socialism. Public health care is not socialism. And nobody is making the rich poor because of a just form taxation for the benefit of the poor. Your confusion between socialism and state intervention on behalf of the “economically oppressed” is dangerous to the material and spiritual well being of human society.

Did I say all that?

 

[johnkeenan]

Nice try. I’m not buying this. Jesus said give, we give. You shouldn’t care how. If you are wrapped up in the how so much, you’ve obviously lost track of the why.

If the government forces you to hand over your property, where is the giving? How does affect your heart? Where is the love of God in the taking of another person’s property? Does it not violate the Commandmant against stealing when government takes property against the norms of justice?

Indeed, to endorse theft by operation of law is to loose track of why Christ says to give.

 

[markomalley]

Maybe i don’t fully understand what it is yet. I will get back to you once i have done some more research.
Fair enough. I look forward to reading what you find.

However my quotes are justified by church teaching and stand by themselves.

laissez-faire capitalism is not reconcilable with the social doctrine of the Catholic Church.

Got some news for you: no economic system, unless it is characterized by charity in truth, is reconcilable with the social doctrine of the Catholic Church. None of them. Any system that emphasizes the material over the spiritual will be the subject of criticism.

Here’s another quote for you to gnaw on while you’re doing some research. This one from another distributionist, Dorothy Day:

But we in our generation have more and more come to consider the state as bountiful Uncle Sam. “Uncle Sam will take care of it all. The race question, the labor question, the unemployment question.” We will all be registered and tabulated and employed or put on a dole, and shunted from clinic to birth control clinic. “What right have people who have no work to have a baby?” How many poor Catholic mothers heard that during those grim years before the war!

…

But who is to take care of them if the government does not7 That is a question in a day when all are turning to the state, and when people are asking, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Certainly we all should know that it is not the province of the government to practice the works of mercy, or go in for Insurance. Smaller bodies, decentralized groups, should be caring for all such needs.
​

The entire piece is well worth reading. You can find it here.

 

[St_Francis]

Welfare is not socialism. Public health care is not socialism. And nobody is making the rich poor because of a just form taxation for the benefit of the poor. Your confusion between socialism and state intervention on behalf of the “economically oppressed” is dangerous to the material and spiritual well being of human society.

It also explains why all the rich have been so quick to help the poor on their own. It explains why the difference in CEO salaries in the US is hundreds of times the rate of the lowest paid workers of their companies, when it was about 30X in the fifties and sixties.

It is so joyful that the decades have made the hearts of the rich so open to helping the least of Jesus’ flock.

Peace

Both of you are misunderstanding what the Church teaches *and why. *We do not give to the poor because it helps them out, so the most efficient way of ensuring that the poor are helped is what the Church advocates or shoudl advocate.

What the Church teaches is that we should each be holy. We should each strive to attain holiness.

Look at what Black Rose quoted earlier (I don’t know where she got the quote from):

I would prefer a welfare state to private charity, simply because the former is more effective.
A welfare state is more effective in attaining what end? Look what comes next:

Personally, private charity gets me dejected because I am often too tough on myself; resentful that my meager charitable acts do not have much measurable impact on the world.** I would gladly be relieved of my personal “responsibility” of providing** for the poor domestically, since it is a source of frustration due to my personal inefficacy, while welcoming it as a collective burden.
Looking only at the efficiency of getting aid to poor people *discourages *this writer. If this writer has little money, then can give only a little money, what’s the point? How much is $5 going to really help a poor person?

But looking at this from the point of view of the Church, where the goal is not to ensure that the poor have more material stuff but is instead to gain holiness. There is no separation between the poor and those with more: witness the accolades for the widow’s contribution of two pence.

From a material standpoint, the contribution of more money is better. From the spiritual standpoint, what counts is the sacrifice. The widow sacrificed her last 2 pence, which counted more than the rich man’s contribution of many times that amount for which he made no sacrifice.

The writer above may have been going without a meal during the course of the week in order to afford the (hypothesized) $5 in alms. This would be worth much more than the CEO’s contribution of $500,000 out of millions, *on a spiritual level. *

Now see what the writer says here: When living in an extensive welfare state, my moral responsibilities will not completely evaporate;
He thinks that because he has “given,” ie, had taken from his paycheck, that he is pretty much off the hook. No need for him to make any further contributions to the needy–his work is done except for the meager task which follows:

I would still have the burden of not only financially supporting the state,–which he would have had in any case, so is irrelevant-- but I also would have to fervently commit my intellect to relentless defending the system-- Oh, the agony, the difficulty, the effort of *relentlessly! *defending the system in a land which welcomes the system with open arms!–and treating my fellow citizens with respect, amity, and friendship while not being judgmental on the unfortunate.-- and a major point from Pope John Paul II’s Centissimus Annus: whom should be helped, and whom are we instead merely enabling, keeping down by disincentivizing effort? Why should the government hand out money to drug addicts? Why should the government hand out money to women who stay at home and have babies from one father after another, or who care for each other’s babies to get the money?

We have a perverted view of alsmgiving and helping the poor and needy. Welfare causes those who have material goods to think that their responsibility is finished when the government takes money out of their paycheck–oh, except for *relentlessly *defending this system–and causes the poor to think they are useless and have a right to what others have earned with no responsiblity for thanking anyone or for helping themselves or others.

 

[TheRealJuliane]

We have a perverted view of alsmgiving and helping the poor and needy. Welfare causes those who have material goods to think that their responsibility is finished when the government takes money out of their paycheck–oh, except for *relentlessly *defending this system–and causes the poor to think they are useless and have a right to what others have earned with no responsiblity for thanking anyone or for helping themselves or others.

Welfare destroys altruism, for just the reasons you document above - it releases our sense of moral responsibility and makes the government the unholy middle-man to “help” the poor.

 

[portarica]

@portarica

Careful there. Could you be proving the opposite? What were personal/business taxation rates in the 50’s/60’s as compared to the times you are using for your examples of CEO pay? Great Society/Cold War/ Vietnam War drives tax rates up, CEO thinks his contribution to the general welfare comes from the taxes he pays, and voila’! I don’t know if this is true, but it is something to think about. For comparison, would one compare charitable giving and compensation rates from European company CEOs - - higher taxes in Europe, yes? I don’t know but perhaps one of the other posters does.

In the 50’s and 60’s the marginal tax rates at the top were very high and corporations paid a much greater portion of the income taxes collected.

One thing that is disregarded in the discussion of taxes is how when tax rates are low for high income earners and corporations, it can be a disincentive to make long term investments in assets. Like the kind that generate jobs for others.

When corporations were paying more of the tax burden, there was an incentive to invest because the corporations could write off the investments in assets and then generate free cash flow after taxes.

There also was more of an incentive to have employees as again, the effective tax rate was reduced by the pay to employees. And the general benefit to the economy and the standard of living for most Americans was the expansion of the middle class.

There is much discussion here about the decline of family and religious values, how much can be traced to the need for American to have multiple earners in each family to meet the increasing demands of earning enough to make the house payments, the gas and utility payments etc. etc.

Ironically, when the taxes were at the highest on the upper income earners and corporations a factory worker could live the American dream and the wife could stay home and watch and nurture the kids. Were those better times? I don’t know if we can say so and know that there was no color TV at that time.

Peace

 

[Black_Rose]

Both of you are misunderstanding what the Church teaches *and why. *We do not give to the poor because it helps them out, so the most efficient way of ensuring that the poor are helped is what the Church advocates or shoudl advocate.

What the Church teaches is that we should each be holy. We should each strive to attain holiness.

Look at what Black Rose quoted earlier (I don’t know where she got the quote from):

I would prefer a welfare state to private charity, simply because the former is more effective.
A welfare state is more effective in attaining what end? Look what comes next:

Personally, private charity gets me dejected because I am often too tough on myself; resentful that my meager charitable acts do not have much measurable impact on the world.** I would gladly be relieved of my personal “responsibility” of providing** for the poor domestically, since it is a source of frustration due to my personal inefficacy, while welcoming it as a collective burden.
Looking only at the efficiency of getting aid to poor people *discourages *this writer. If this writer has little money, then can give only a little money, what’s the point? How much is $5 going to really help a poor person?

But looking at this from the point of view of the Church, where the goal is not to ensure that the poor have more material stuff but is instead to gain holiness. There is no separation between the poor and those with more: witness the accolades for the widow’s contribution of two pence.

From a material standpoint, the contribution of more money is better. From the spiritual standpoint, what counts is the sacrifice. The widow sacrificed her last 2 pence, which counted more than the rich man’s contribution of many times that amount for which he made no sacrifice.

The writer above may have been going without a meal during the course of the week in order to afford the (hypothesized) $5 in alms. This would be worth much more than the CEO’s contribution of $500,000 out of millions, *on a spiritual level. *

Now see what the writer says here: When living in an extensive welfare state, my moral responsibilities will not completely evaporate;
He thinks that because he has “given,” ie, had taken from his paycheck, that he is pretty much off the hook. No need for him to make any further contributions to the needy–his work is done except for the meager task which follows:

I would still have the burden of not only financially supporting the state,–which he would have had in any case, so is irrelevant-- but I also would have to fervently commit my intellect to relentless defending the system-- Oh, the agony, the difficulty, the effort of *relentlessly! *defending the system in a land which welcomes the system with open arms!–and treating my fellow citizens with respect, amity, and friendship while not being judgmental on the unfortunate.-- and a major point from Pope John Paul II’s Centissimus Annus: whom should be helped, and whom are we instead merely enabling, keeping down by disincentivizing effort? Why should the government hand out money to drug addicts? Why should the government hand out money to women who stay at home and have babies from one father after another, or who care for each other’s babies to get the money?

We have a perverted view of alsmgiving and helping the poor and needy. Welfare causes those who have material goods to think that their responsibility is finished when the government takes money out of their paycheck–oh, except for *relentlessly *defending this system–and causes the poor to think they are useless and have a right to what others have earned with no responsiblity for thanking anyone or for helping themselves or others.

Regarding the poor being “useless” doesn’t their financial state already indicate that, to put it quite bluntly? One reason is that they are poor is the lack a stable income source, and that is because the labor market does not deem their labor valuable, so in a sense their poverty is a value judgment from the market about the lack of any valuable innate talent or trainable skills. So the notion that a welfare state increase the perception of worthlessness among the poor and unemployed is ridiculous especially when the labor market already made that judgment.

The writer (i.e. me) also did not dismiss the notion of “responsiblity for thanking anyone or for helping themselves or others”. To the contrary, reciprocity is important in a welfare state:

Those who are net beneficiaries of the welfare state can still be virtuous, though, by being grateful for the prevailing macroeconomic system of the welfare state, and, most importantly, treating their fellow citizens with amity and respect. They might not be able to contribute financial to the welfare state nor have the intellect necessary to defend it as a political philosophy, but they can still contribute by promoting an ethos and public sentiment conducive to the welfare state.

Oh, the agony, the difficulty, the effort of *relentlessly! *defending the system in a land which welcomes the system with open arms!

The welfare state has many ideological foes, foreign and domestic, and that task of defending the just state should never be underestimated.

Looking only at the efficiency of getting aid to poor people *discourages *this writer. If this writer has little money, then can give only a little money, what’s the point? How much is $5 going to really help a poor person?

The writer said “inefficacy” not “inefficiency”; certainly one without much financial resources would not have much impact even if their funds are allocated in an efficient manner.

 

[St_Francis]

Regarding the poor being “useless” doesn’t their financial state already indicate that, to put it quite bluntly? One reason is that they are poor is the lack a stable income source, and that is because the labor market does not deem their labor valuable, so in a sense their poverty is a value judgment from the market about the lack of any valuable innate talent or trainable skills. So the notion that a welfare state increase the perception of worthlessness among the poor and unemployed is ridiculous especially when the labor market already made that judgment.

Thank you for making my point.

The writer (i.e. me) also did not dismiss the notion of “responsiblity for thanking anyone or for helping themselves or others”. To the contrary, reciprocity is important in a welfare state:

They should be grateful to whom in the welfare state? People who had their money slid out of their paycheck before they even received it, or bureaucrats who fill out the forms?

WRT all the people treating each other with amity and respect, how does the welfare state *encourage *this?

The welfare state has many ideological foes, foreign and domestic, and that task of defending the just state should never be underestimated.

Oh, must be the vast right-wing conspiracy!

The writer said “inefficacy” not “inefficiency”; certainly one without much financial resources would not have much impact even if their funds are allocated in an efficient manner.

You seem to think that your $5 given up in taxes will be more helpful to the poor because it is mingled with lots of money from others, but somehow your $5 given to charity doesn’t count? Believe me, the $5 you give to the government funds a huge bureaucracy so much less of your money actually reaches a poor person than it does if given to a charity.

And overall, your words that you “would gladly be relieved of [your] personal ‘responsibility’ of providing for the poor domestically, since it is a source of frustration due to my personal inefficacy, while welcoming it as a collective burden.” prove my point that a welfare state allows people to carry on their lives without thought to the poor and needy in their own areas of personal influence, much less moving out of one’s comfort zone to find people to help.

 

[Black_Rose]

The writer above may have been going without a meal during the course of the week in order to afford the (hypothesized) $5 in alms. This would be worth much more than the CEO’s contribution of $500,000 out of millions, on a spiritual level.

Not necessarily, even on a material level. I remember stopmoskowitz.org/gamble.pdf"reading about how Irving Moskowitz literally bought the impoverished city of Hawaiian Gardens, California through a series of “charitable donations” such as starting a little league and donating to a food bank in order to gain permission to build a casino. While reading about it, I was impressed not by the dollar amount of his philanthropy, but by the meager amount of money needed to actually buy influence in the impoverished city, which is about a few million dollars, a small amount relative to the revenue generated by a gambling monopoly.

Winning support for the card casino was a tough fight. City records and former town leaders, along with an investigation released in June by the chairman of a joint committee of the California Assembly, indicate that Moskowitz used his financial leverage to pave the way for the new gambling hall. “In this poor community, he’s figured out how to manipulate poverty for his benefit,” says Navejas, the former mayor. “He has bought and paid for the city. He owns it.”

motherjones.com/politics/2000/09/bingo-connection