Compatibility of Free Market Ideology and Catholicism

  • Thread starter Thread starter krmtaylor
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
K

krmtaylor

Guest
Hello! I’ve recently returned to the Church and accept Jesus Christ fully as my savior.

I’ve been able to reconcile all of the secular beliefs I’ve accumulated over the years with my newly found (re-found?) faith, but am having a little trouble with this one. I truly feel that individual freedoms need to be a moral standard in society, and that those freedoms are only possible in a free market system. Does this belief put me at variance with the Church’s teaching?

I know there are some “free market Catholics” out there. “The Church and the Market” is high on my reading list, but in the meantime I’d like to hear from both sides.

Please keep in mind that a ‘free market ideology’ still recognizes the government’s mandate to protect individuals and the nation from physical harm. I recognize the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman, and I’m completely in sync with the Church’s teaching on abortion also.

My main objective is to be faithful the Church, so I’m open to persuasion. But please, no straw-man arguments 🙂

Thank you!
 
The Catholic Church advocates another economic system commonly known as Distributism. It doesn’t fit anywhere on the whole Capitalist freemarket, Socialist, Democrat, Republican, or that whatever-in-the-world-ideology side. It’s distinctly Catholic. More can be found here:

distributistreview.com/mag/

You might want to go under the ‘economics’ section.

God bless!
 
From the COMPENDIUM OF THE SOCIAL DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH

vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/justpeace/documents/rc_pc_justpeace_doc_20060526_compendio-dott-soc_en.html#Role of the free market

a. Role of the free market
  1. The free market is an institution of social importance because of its capacity to guarantee effective results in the production of goods and services. Historically, it has shown itself able to initiate and sustain economic development over long periods. There are good reasons to hold that, in many circumstances, “the free market is the most efficient instrument for utilizing resources and effectively responding to needs”.[726] The Church’s social doctrine appreciates the secure advantages that the mechanisms of the free market offer, making it possible as they do to utilize resources better and facilitating the exchange of products. These mechanisms “above all … give central place to the person’s desires and preferences, which, in a contract, meet the desires and preferences of another person”.[727]
A truly competitive market is an effective instrument for attaining important objectives of justice: moderating the excessive profits of individual businesses, responding to consumers’ demands, bringing about a more efficient use and conservation of resources, rewarding entrepreneurship and innovation, making information available so that it is really possible to compare and purchase products in an atmosphere of healthy competition.
  1. The free market cannot be judged apart from the ends that it seeks to accomplish and from the values that it transmits on a societal level. Indeed, the market cannot find in itself the principles for its legitimization; it belongs to the consciences of individuals and to public responsibility to establish a just relationship between means and ends.[728] The individual profit of an economic enterprise, although legitimate, must never become the sole objective. Together with this objective there is another, equally fundamental but of a higher order: social usefulness, which must be brought about not in contrast to but in keeping with the logic of the market. When the free market carries out the important functions mentioned above it becomes a service to the common good and to integral human development. The inversion of the relationship between means and ends, however, can make it degenerate into an inhuman and alienating institution, with uncontrollable repercussions.
  2. The Church’s social doctrine, while recognizing the market as an irreplaceable instrument for regulating the inner workings of the economic system, points out the need for it to be firmly rooted in its ethical objectives, which ensure and at the same time suitably circumscribe the space within which it can operate autonomously.[729] The idea that the market alone can be entrusted with the task of supplying every category of goods cannot be shared, because such an idea is based on a reductionist vision of the person and society.[730] Faced with the concrete “risk of an ‘idolatry’ of the market”, the Church’s social doctrine underlines its limits, which are easily seen in its proven inability to satisfy important human needs, which require goods that “by their nature are not and cannot be mere commodities”,[731] goods that cannot be bought and sold according to the rule of the “exchange of equivalents” and the logic of contracts, which are typical of the market.
  3. The market takes on a significant social function in contemporary society, therefore it is important to identify its most positive potentials and to create the conditions that allow them to be put concretely into effect. Market operators must be effectively free to compare, evaluate and choose from among various options. Freedom in the economic sector, however, must be regulated by appropriate legal norms so that it will be placed at the service of integral human freedom. “Economic freedom is only one element of human freedom. When it becomes autonomous, when man is seen more as a producer or consumer of goods than as a subject who produces and consumes in order to live, then economic freedom loses its necessary relationship to the human person and ends up by alienating and oppressing him”.[732]
 
He seems to have done his research
Fr_of_Jazz said:
**They are **surprising because they are out of context.

[Church] teaching (includes):
• the regulated but free market (CA, #13,15,34; CSDC, #347
• private ownership of property and the means of production (RN, #6,9; QA, #45; MM, #19; GS #71; LE, #11, 14; CA, #24, 30; SRS, #42; CCC, 2402-2403, 2405; CSDC, #282
• bridled, regulated capitalism (MM, #55-8; CA, #42; LE, #14
• presumption of independent individual and/or group INITIATIVE (RN, #15; QA, #79; MM, #55,57; GS, #64; PP, #15,18,30,33,70; LE, #5, SRS, #15,42,44; CA, #13,32; CSDC, #336,343; CCC, 2429; CV, #17,42)
• encourages entrepreneurial ability; (CA, #32;
• the legitimacy of profit (CA, #35;
• the value and role of competition (PP, #33,58,61; CA, #34,40; CSDC, #347;
• the creation of opportunity (CA, #35;
• laments cultural models and social norms that inhibit development (CV, #22;
• REJECTS CLASS CONFLICT (RN, #4, 19; CA, #12,23;
• condemns collectivism/socialism (RN, #4-5,15; QA, #46,111-120; PP, #33; MM, #34; LE, #14; CA, #12-13,41
• REJECTS THE WELFARE STATE (CA, #48; CV, #57;
• rejects dependency relationships based on aid (CV, #47
• the importance of education (MM, #61; PP, #35; SRS, #15,44; CA, #16,35; CV, #61;
• opening markets for broader access (CV, #58;
• establishment of the rule of law and democratic structures where lacking (SRS, #44; CA, #44; CV, #41;
• sharing scientific, medical, technical, and business know-how (PP, #48; CA, #32;
• cutting back on expensive aid bureaucracies for poor countries (CV, #47,60;
• opposition to religious fundamentalism and terrorism (SRS, #24, CA, #14,29,46; CV, #29;

These are all also mentioned in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church.

RN = Rerum Novarum – Pope Leo XIII, 1891
QA = Quadragesimo Anno – Pope Pius XI, 1931
MM = Mater et Magistra – Pope John XXIII, 1961
PT = Pacem in Terris – Pope John XXIII, 1963
GS = Gaudium et Spes – Vatican Council II, 1965
PP = Populorum Progressio – Pope Paul VI, 1967
LE = Laborem Exercens – Pope John Paul II, 1981
SRS = Solicitudo Rei Socialis – Pope John Paul II, 1987
CA = Centesimus Annus – Pope John Paul II, 1991
CV = Caritas in Veritate – Pope Benedict XVI, 2009
CSDC = Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church - Pontifical Council For Justice And Peace, 2004
CCC = Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd Ed., 1997
Click to expand...
 
sowinskija said:
From the COMPENDIUM OF THE SOCIAL DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH

vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/justpeace/documents/rc_pc_justpeace_doc_20060526_compendio-dott-soc_en.html#Role of the free market

a. Role of the free market
  1. The free market is an institution of social importance because of its capacity to guarantee effective results in the production of goods and services. Historically, it has shown itself able to initiate and sustain economic development over long periods. There are good reasons to hold that, in many circumstances, “the free market is the most efficient instrument for utilizing resources and effectively responding to needs”.[726] The Church’s social doctrine appreciates the secure advantages that the mechanisms of the free market offer, making it possible as they do to utilize resources better and facilitating the exchange of products. These mechanisms “above all … give central place to the person’s desires and preferences, which, in a contract, meet the desires and preferences of another person”.[727]
A truly competitive market is an effective instrument for attaining important objectives of justice: moderating the excessive profits of individual businesses, responding to consumers’ demands, bringing about a more efficient use and conservation of resources, rewarding entrepreneurship and innovation, making information available so that it is really possible to compare and purchase products in an atmosphere of healthy competition.
  1. The free market cannot be judged apart from the ends that it seeks to accomplish and from the values that it transmits on a societal level. Indeed, the market cannot find in itself the principles for its legitimization; it belongs to the consciences of individuals and to public responsibility to establish a just relationship between means and ends.[728] The individual profit of an economic enterprise, although legitimate, must never become the sole objective. Together with this objective there is another, equally fundamental but of a higher order: social usefulness, which must be brought about not in contrast to but in keeping with the logic of the market. When the free market carries out the important functions mentioned above it becomes a service to the common good and to integral human development. The inversion of the relationship between means and ends, however, can make it degenerate into an inhuman and alienating institution, with uncontrollable repercussions.
  2. The Church’s social doctrine, while recognizing the market as an irreplaceable instrument for regulating the inner workings of the economic system, points out the need for it to be firmly rooted in its ethical objectives, which ensure and at the same time suitably circumscribe the space within which it can operate autonomously.[729] The idea that the market alone can be entrusted with the task of supplying every category of goods cannot be shared, because such an idea is based on a reductionist vision of the person and society.[730] Faced with the concrete “risk of an ‘idolatry’ of the market”, the Church’s social doctrine underlines its limits, which are easily seen in its proven inability to satisfy important human needs, which require goods that “by their nature are not and cannot be mere commodities”,[731] goods that cannot be bought and sold according to the rule of the “exchange of equivalents” and the logic of contracts, which are typical of the market.
  3. The market takes on a significant social function in contemporary society, therefore it is important to identify its most positive potentials and to create the conditions that allow them to be put concretely into effect. Market operators must be effectively free to compare, evaluate and choose from among various options. Freedom in the economic sector, however, must be regulated by appropriate legal norms so that it will be placed at the service of integral human freedom. “Economic freedom is only one element of human freedom. When it becomes autonomous, when man is seen more as a producer or consumer of goods than as a subject who produces and consumes in order to live, then economic freedom loses its necessary relationship to the human person and ends up by alienating and oppressing him”.[732]
Click to expand...
was going to post this but the Church i serve much for the free enterprise they realize it is the most effective way to stimulate economic growth, but it must respect the dignity of all human beings and work for the common good.

so an unregulated free market isn’t good.
 
The ~100 year old papal encyclical “Rerum Novarum” will impress and astound you. It praises the good parts of free markets and warns of the dangers of capitalism uncoupled from the virtue of respect for your fellow man’s dignity. Available free on the Vatican website. Nice thing about latin titles is you DON’T get a lot of useless junk results from web search engines! 👍
 
Oumashta said:
The Catholic Church advocates another economic system commonly known as Distributism. It doesn’t fit anywhere on the whole Capitalist freemarket, Socialist, Democrat, Republican, or that whatever-in-the-world-ideology side. It’s distinctly Catholic. More can be found here:

distributistreview.com/mag/

You might want to go under the ‘economics’ section.

God bless!
Click to expand...
Distributism is a free-market system.

It’s actually much more market based than Capitalism, which gives undo power to big corporations, big government, and big labor.

By calling for small units of production and consumption, Distributism fights the ability of large organizations to create monopoly power, and earn excessive returns at others’ expense.

God Bless
 
Defending the Free Market: The Moral Case for a Free Economy by Catholic priest Rev Robert A Sorico

There are many videos on youtube of him discussing his book if you search for his name
 
krmtaylor said:
Hello! I’ve recently returned to the Church and accept Jesus Christ fully as my savior.

I’ve been able to reconcile all of the secular beliefs I’ve accumulated over the years with my newly found (re-found?) faith, but am having a little trouble with this one. I truly feel that individual freedoms need to be a moral standard in society, and that those freedoms are only possible in a free market system. Does this belief put me at variance with the Church’s teaching?

I know there are some “free market Catholics” out there. “The Church and the Market” is high on my reading list, but in the meantime I’d like to hear from both sides.

Please keep in mind that a ‘free market ideology’ still recognizes the government’s mandate to protect individuals and the nation from physical harm. I recognize the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman, and I’m completely in sync with the Church’s teaching on abortion also.

My main objective is to be faithful the Church, so I’m open to persuasion. But please, no straw-man arguments 🙂

Thank you!
Click to expand...
I tend to think of the “free market” as simply what people would do, and have always done from time immemorial if they are free to do it.

St. Thomas Aquinas had an interesting perspective on one aspect of it. He felt that a proper market is one in which each party in a transaction acquires what he values more than what he gives for it. And when you think about it, that’s what most transactions are. If I have “$X” and am willing to give it to someone for a gallon of milk, I obviously value the milk more than I value the dollars. The milk seller values my dollars more than the milk.

It does get skewed when, as in a monopoly or in a situation of severe shortage of something, the giver’s willingness is essentially coerced and he is hard put to make up for it in another transaction. That is why, for example, I have great misgivings about governmental attempts (as in making utility bills “skyrocket” for ideological reasons unrelated to the wishes of either party) to alter the economic relationships people would otherwise choose to have.

But personally, I believe in this country, most transactions are pretty much what Aquinas described. At least for now.
 
Oumashta said:
The Catholic Church advocates another economic system commonly known as Distributism. It doesn’t fit anywhere on the whole Capitalist freemarket, Socialist, Democrat, Republican, or that whatever-in-the-world-ideology side. It’s distinctly Catholic. More can be found here:

distributistreview.com/mag/

You might want to go under the ‘economics’ section.

God bless!
Click to expand...
The Church doesn’t “advocate” any economic system. Rather, she gives us guidelines for which to implement an economic system that isn’t contrary to justice. Distributism is an ideology that doesn’t contradict Church teaching. However, there are others. A social market economy is based heavily on Catholic social teaching and ordoliberalism, which basically is a regulated free market.
 
Oumashta said:
The Catholic Church advocates another economic system commonly known as Distributism. It doesn’t fit anywhere on the whole Capitalist freemarket, Socialist, Democrat, Republican, or that whatever-in-the-world-ideology side. It’s distinctly Catholic. More can be found here:

distributistreview.com/mag/

You might want to go under the ‘economics’ section.

God bless!
Click to expand...
I’m reading up on Distributism thanks to your post!

I couldn’t find the ‘economics’ section the first time around…I guess I gave up too easily.

Thank you and God bless!
 
sowinskija said:
From the COMPENDIUM OF THE SOCIAL DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH

vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/justpeace/documents/rc_pc_justpeace_doc_20060526_compendio-dott-soc_en.html#Role of the free market

a. Role of the free market
  1. The free market is an institution of social importance because of its capacity to guarantee effective results in the production of goods and services. Historically, it has shown itself able to initiate and sustain economic development over long periods. There are good reasons to hold that, in many circumstances, “the free market is the most efficient instrument for utilizing resources and effectively responding to needs”.[726] The Church’s social doctrine appreciates the secure advantages that the mechanisms of the free market offer, making it possible as they do to utilize resources better and facilitating the exchange of products. These mechanisms “above all … give central place to the person’s desires and preferences, which, in a contract, meet the desires and preferences of another person”.[727]
A truly competitive market is an effective instrument for attaining important objectives of justice: moderating the excessive profits of individual businesses, responding to consumers’ demands, bringing about a more efficient use and conservation of resources, rewarding entrepreneurship and innovation, making information available so that it is really possible to compare and purchase products in an atmosphere of healthy competition.
  1. The free market cannot be judged apart from the ends that it seeks to accomplish and from the values that it transmits on a societal level. Indeed, the market cannot find in itself the principles for its legitimization; it belongs to the consciences of individuals and to public responsibility to establish a just relationship between means and ends.[728] The individual profit of an economic enterprise, although legitimate, must never become the sole objective. Together with this objective there is another, equally fundamental but of a higher order: social usefulness, which must be brought about not in contrast to but in keeping with the logic of the market. When the free market carries out the important functions mentioned above it becomes a service to the common good and to integral human development. The inversion of the relationship between means and ends, however, can make it degenerate into an inhuman and alienating institution, with uncontrollable repercussions.
  2. The Church’s social doctrine, while recognizing the market as an irreplaceable instrument for regulating the inner workings of the economic system, points out the need for it to be firmly rooted in its ethical objectives, which ensure and at the same time suitably circumscribe the space within which it can operate autonomously.[729] The idea that the market alone can be entrusted with the task of supplying every category of goods cannot be shared, because such an idea is based on a reductionist vision of the person and society.[730] Faced with the concrete “risk of an ‘idolatry’ of the market”, the Church’s social doctrine underlines its limits, which are easily seen in its proven inability to satisfy important human needs, which require goods that “by their nature are not and cannot be mere commodities”,[731] goods that cannot be bought and sold according to the rule of the “exchange of equivalents” and the logic of contracts, which are typical of the market.
  3. The market takes on a significant social function in contemporary society, therefore it is important to identify its most positive potentials and to create the conditions that allow them to be put concretely into effect. Market operators must be effectively free to compare, evaluate and choose from among various options. Freedom in the economic sector, however, must be regulated by appropriate legal norms so that it will be placed at the service of integral human freedom. “Economic freedom is only one element of human freedom. When it becomes autonomous, when man is seen more as a producer or consumer of goods than as a subject who produces and consumes in order to live, then economic freedom loses its necessary relationship to the human person and ends up by alienating and oppressing him”.[732]
Click to expand...
Some great reading here…thank you!
 
catholictiger said:
was going to post this but the Church i serve much for the free enterprise they realize it is the most effective way to stimulate economic growth, but it must respect the dignity of all human beings and work for the common good.

so an unregulated free market isn’t good.
Click to expand...
Thanks for your response! But isn’t an unregulated free market result in the dignity of the individual and the common good? The government protects the liberties of individuals (most notably protecting them from harm and fraud). This doesn’t limit us in any way from showing compassion to our fellow man. It simply isn’t a function of government.
 
manualman said:
The ~100 year old papal encyclical “Rerum Novarum” will impress and astound you. It praises the good parts of free markets and warns of the dangers of capitalism uncoupled from the virtue of respect for your fellow man’s dignity. Available free on the Vatican website. Nice thing about latin titles is you DON’T get a lot of useless junk results from web search engines! 👍
Click to expand...
Thanks a million! Will be back once I’ve digested it 🙂
 
Swiss_Guy said:
The Church doesn’t “advocate” any economic system. Rather, she gives us guidelines for which to implement an economic system that isn’t contrary to justice. Distributism is an ideology that doesn’t contradict Church teaching. However, there are others. A social market economy is based heavily on Catholic social teaching and ordoliberalism, which basically is a regulated free market.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the response. I’ll need to look into the social market economy more closely.
 
Ridgerunner said:
I tend to think of the “free market” as simply what people would do, and have always done from time immemorial if they are free to do it.

St. Thomas Aquinas had an interesting perspective on one aspect of it. He felt that a proper market is one in which each party in a transaction acquires what he values more than what he gives for it. And when you think about it, that’s what most transactions are. If I have “$X” and am willing to give it to someone for a gallon of milk, I obviously value the milk more than I value the dollars. The milk seller values my dollars more than the milk.

It does get skewed when, as in a monopoly or in a situation of severe shortage of something, the giver’s willingness is essentially coerced and he is hard put to make up for it in another transaction. That is why, for example, I have great misgivings about governmental attempts (as in making utility bills “skyrocket” for ideological reasons unrelated to the wishes of either party) to alter the economic relationships people would otherwise choose to have.

You’ve hit at the root of my concern about any system that falls short of free market – essentially, the redistribution of wealth. I don’t see how the idea of a government limited to protecting our liberties is at odds with the Faith. I think we’ve gotten into the habit of projecting too many expectations on the concept of “government.”

But personally, I believe in this country, most transactions are pretty much what Aquinas described. At least for now.
Click to expand...
 
40.png
krmtaylor:
That was strange…I managed to inject my response within your post…sorry about that! You can see it in the second last paragraph.

God bless!
 
krmtaylor said:
Thanks for your response! But isn’t an unregulated free market result in the dignity of the individual and the common good? The government protects the liberties of individuals (most notably protecting them from harm and fraud). This doesn’t limit us in any way from showing compassion to our fellow man. It simply isn’t a function of government.
Click to expand...
no because an unregulated free market will allow for things like slave labor, child labor, unjust wages, and many other things.The free market is the best thing for society but an unregulated free market is bad for society.
 
Well according to one of church’s greatest doctor of the church, The most Holy St. Ronald Reagan, he said that a trickle down economy with low taxes is the only system that God likes
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top