Defending my views, as a Catholic

[MarcusAndreas]

I am Catholic.

My political views, however, are a radical libertarianism, anarcho-capitalism, which holds that the state, being an anti-social and immoral organization, ought to be abolished, and all governing institutions should be voluntary and all services provided on the market. Taxation is robbery and conscription is slavery.

Does this make me unorthodox? Perhaps on paper, but I cannot see any other system as being truly moral. I have studied extensively and conclude that this political organization will fulfill most clearly the moral principles of Catholic social doctrine.

Please, I have heard the typical objections, please don’t try to explain to me that “It’ll just be a bunch of monopolies!” When monopolies are nothing more than state-privileges run wild, and explain why the only truly monopolistic institution in society is supposed to protect us from them. Laissez-faire was originally the economic doctrine of the labor movement and even socialists, before the word was co-opted as an excuse for statist-capitalist despotism in the Industrial Revolution.

If it is immoral for me to rob someone, or to enslave them, then a government has no right to tax me against me my will nor force me into the military against my will. They are no different from anyone else. I should not be coerced into funding an anti-social, murderous institution.

I know of people who would accuse me of being an arch-heretic for holding these views.

I am not opposed to government, insofar as the word is understood as social institutions that promote the common good, but I am opposed to states, coercive, monopolistic perversions of government that maintain their existence through systematic violations of property rights and organized mass-murder. Read “Our Enemy The State” by Albert Jay Nock, a book strongly recommended by Peter Maurin, mind you.

There are many notable Catholics who hold to this view, such as Andrew Napolitano (the famous judge), Lew Rockwell (political activist), Tom Woods (historian), Jeffrey Tucker (political activist), and Gerard Casey (prominent Catholic philosopher from University College Dublin). I wouldn’t be surprised if Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin would hold to this too had they lived to see the ideas developed. (Dorothy Day did live into the era where the ideas were developed but she was already a committed libertarian socialist and more importantly committed to the practice of Christianity disregarding theory. She was an anarchist. Not anarchist as in “let’s just pretend the government isn’t there”, as many people try to revise her thought into. She was literally an intellectual disciple of Proudhon and Kropotkin, the left-wing anarchist intellectuals who promoted ideas distinct from the ones I am promoting, but I’m getting off topic.)

CST may say governments should do this and that, but when taken in context it assumes a just social order, and consent of the governed is part of that. If subsidiarity really means what it implies, and if God really meant “thou shalt not steal”, then society should be thousands upon thousands of free associations where people cooperate for the common good, respect property rights, and provide needed services without the threat of violence.

Should we really be joking ourselves thinking that we can turn the modern state into a force for good? Politicians are the most evil people in society because power attracts evil people. Anarcho-capitalism destroys their means of destroying society. If these ideals can be shown to promote the common good greater than any coercive system can, should we not embrace them?

 

[Phil_Marinus]

Bizarre…

 

[Petaro]

I am Catholic.

My political views, however, are a radical libertarianism, anarcho-capitalism, which holds that the state, being an anti-social and immoral organization, ought to be abolished, and all governing institutions should be voluntary and all services provided on the market. Taxation is robbery and conscription is slavery.

Does this make me unorthodox? Perhaps on paper, but I cannot see any other system as being truly moral. I have studied extensively and conclude that this political organization will fulfill most clearly the moral principles of Catholic social doctrine.

Please, I have heard the typical objections, please don’t try to explain to me that “It’ll just be a bunch of monopolies!” When monopolies are nothing more than state-privileges run wild, and explain why the only truly monopolistic institution in society is supposed to protect us from them. Laissez-faire was originally the economic doctrine of the labor movement and even socialists, before the word was co-opted as an excuse for statist-capitalist despotism in the Industrial Revolution.

If it is immoral for me to rob someone, or to enslave them, then a government has no right to tax me against me my will nor force me into the military against my will. They are no different from anyone else. I should not be coerced into funding an anti-social, murderous institution.

I know of people who would accuse me of being an arch-heretic for holding these views.

I am not opposed to government, insofar as the word is understood as social institutions that promote the common good, but I am opposed to states, coercive, monopolistic perversions of government that maintain their existence through systematic violations of property rights and organized mass-murder. Read “Our Enemy The State” by Albert Jay Nock, a book strongly recommended by Peter Maurin, mind you.

There are many notable Catholics who hold to this view, such as Andrew Napolitano (the famous judge), Lew Rockwell (political activist), Tom Woods (historian), Jeffrey Tucker (political activist), and Gerard Casey (prominent Catholic philosopher from University College Dublin). I wouldn’t be surprised if Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin would hold to this too had they lived to see the ideas developed. (Dorothy Day did live into the era where the ideas were developed but she was already a committed libertarian socialist and more importantly committed to the practice of Christianity disregarding theory. She was an anarchist. Not anarchist as in “let’s just pretend the government isn’t there”, as many people try to revise her thought into. She was literally an intellectual disciple of Proudhon and Kropotkin, the left-wing anarchist intellectuals who promoted ideas distinct from the ones I am promoting, but I’m getting off topic.)

CST may say governments should do this and that, but when taken in context it assumes a just social order, and consent of the governed is part of that. If subsidiarity really means what it implies, and if God really meant “thou shalt not steal”, then society should be thousands upon thousands of free associations where people cooperate for the common good, respect property rights, and provide needed services without the threat of violence.

Should we really be joking ourselves thinking that we can turn the modern state into a force for good? Politicians are the most evil people in society because power attracts evil people. Anarcho-capitalism destroys their means of destroying society. If these ideals can be shown to promote the common good greater than any coercive system can, should we not embrace them?

I believe it is not a question of whether you can defend your political beliefs, but how you could go about bringing about such radical change. If you seek to change the very fabric of the State by peaceful means, I see no problems with such polemics. I see nothing wrong with being against an army, right up to when my family is attacked by another army. Your ideas appear to be slightly ‘romantic’ as I don’t think people act the way you want them to in developing your desired society. That is why Communism did not work. If you look at the increase for example in production from Lenin’s Free Economic policy which allowed peasants to work their own land and sell the produce whilst also working on the collectives. I don’t see you as an arch-heretic as many great Christians sought for a better system then the Democratic Capitalism we have at present. The Previous Pope warned the Church against rampant capitalism as he warned us against Communism.
Good luck in your political studies… I hope you change the world.

 

[markomalley]

I am Catholic.

My political views, however, are a radical libertarianism, anarcho-capitalism, which holds that the state, being an anti-social and immoral organization, ought to be abolished, and all governing institutions should be voluntary and all services provided on the market. Taxation is robbery and conscription is slavery.

(snip)

The biggest thing I can suggest is that you make a study of the social encyclicals over the years, as well as reading up on social responsibilities as discussed in the Scriptures.

There is a distinct difference between the responsibilities of “society” versus responsibilities of “the State.”

The biggest problem I see is when people mix up the terms. When that happens, then you have otherwise well-meaning Catholics defending socialistic programs like State-run health care, cradle-to-grave welfare, and so on.

While I honestly can’t see you being able to defend an authentic “radical libertarianism, anarcho-capitalism” philosophy (at least from my reading of the encyclicals), I can definitely see support for an extremely limited government, particularly at a national level.

However, for a totally laissez faire system to be able to actually work, society, at large, would need to embrace, with their whole hearts, a Christian attitude of care for each other. That does not exist in our society, nor has it ever existed.

If that attitude is not the norm in society, then you end up having people being exploited…and, as Christians, we need to provide some defense for those people. I would prefer that this defense come through society at large. For example, if the norm in this country was pro-life and pro-family, outfits like Planned Parenthood would be driven out of business. They would receive no government funding and there would be massive protests each and every day outside every one of their death factories. Their propagandists would be hounded out of the schools and forced to hide in back-alleys. Companies like Starbucks, that support the homosexual agenda, would be boycotted by the majority of people in this country and would have picketers outside each store demanding that they remove themselves from the community…they would go bankrupt because of their corrupt agenda.

But that attitude is not the norm. Yet the family needs to be defended and babies need to be protected from butchery. And that, in theory, would be the role of government (at the local level to begin with and moving up if and when the local government can’t deal with it). Yes, I know that the government supports the exact opposite position, but I’m talking about “in theory.”

The point is that if everybody lived authentic Christianity as taught through the (big T) Tradition of the Church and the Scriptures of the Church…as defined and expounded upon in the Universal Magisterium, there would be no particular need for much government at all.

So, in addition to a study of the Social Encyclicals, I would suggest that the best thing you can do is to become an evangelist…to cooperate with the Holy Spirit to help convert the world to an authentic Christian attitude…

 

[Abu]

Petaro #3
many great Christians sought for a better system then the Democratic Capitalism we have at present. The Previous Pope warned the Church against rampant capitalism as he warned us against Communism.

Free enterprise (called “capitalism” by Karl Marx) was the great development by Catholics which has transformed the world and enabled many millions to escape from poverty.

In that great Encyclical Centesimus Annus 42, 1991, the acknowledged St John Paul II emphatically declared:
‘If by “capitalism” is meant an economic system which recognizes 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, then the answer is certainly in the affirmative, even though it would perhaps be more appropriate to speak of a “business economy”, “market economy” or simply “free economy”.’

Since here capitalism = free economy, and reaffirmed by St John Paul II is the ‘fundamental human “right to freedom of economic initiative.” ’ (Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (On Human Concerns), Encyclical, 1987, #42), and initiative = enterprise, it is clear what the pope means.

On *Caritas in Veritate *Fr John De Celles points out that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI clearly states that “The Church does not have technical solutions to offer” [CV 9]. Also…it does refer repeatedly to the ‘market economy,’ a term of art which Pope John Paul II used to refer to that form of capitalism that is ‘the path to true economic and civil progress.’

 

[CrossofChrist]

Free enterprise (called “capitalism” by Karl Marx) was the great development by Catholics which has transformed the world and enabled many millions to escape from poverty.

In that great Encyclical Centesimus Annus 42, 1991, the acknowledged St John Paul II emphatically declared:
‘If by “capitalism” is meant an economic system which recognizes 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, then the answer is certainly in the affirmative, even though it would perhaps be more appropriate to speak of a “business economy”, “market economy” or simply “free economy”.’

Since here capitalism = free economy, and reaffirmed by St John Paul II is the ‘fundamental human “right to freedom of economic initiative.” ’ (Sollicitudo Rei Socialis (On Human Concerns), Encyclical, 1987, #42), and initiative = enterprise, it is clear what the pope means.

On *Caritas in Veritate *Fr John De Celles points out that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI clearly states that “The Church does not have technical solutions to offer” [CV 9]. Also…it does refer repeatedly to the ‘market economy,’ a term of art which Pope John Paul II used to refer to that form of capitalism that is ‘the path to true economic and civil progress.’

But that doesn’t make it acceptable to ignore the setbacks of capitalism

Sollicitudo rei socialis: 20-21
Populorum Progressio: 26
Laborem exercens: 14

Words from Pope Benedict XVI:

Both capitalism and Marxism promised to point out the path for the creation of just structures, and they declared that these, once established, would function by themselves; they declared that not only would they have no need of any prior individual morality, but that they would promote a communal morality. And this ideological promise has been proved false.

AND

*In his Encyclical Centesimus Annus, John Paul II wrote: “The modern business economy has positive aspects. Its basis is human freedom exercised in many other fields” (n. 32). Yet, he adds that capitalism must not be considered as the only valid model of economic organization (cf. ibid., n. 35). *

From John Paul II:

• Catholic social teaching recognizes the positive role played in a nation’s economic life by the free market, private property and personal creativity. But today a great danger must also be acknowledged: the socalled “idolatry” of the market. This occurs whenever an economic system based on unbridled capitalism dictates policies which plunder natural resources, disregard the dignity of workers, undermine the family as society’s basic unit and foster a consumer culture in which “having” is more important than “being”. *

So while a free market is good, its best not to get carried away with it since without a just and strong framework to work in, a free market isn’t much better than Marxism.

 

[Abu]

CrossofChrist #6
So while a free market is good, its best not to get carried away with it since without a just and strong framework to work in, a free market isn’t much better than Marxism.

There has been no condemnation of free enterprise similar to the denunciation of socialism because “unbridled capitalism” has never existed in any society or country as a political/economic system like socialism, much less Communism, but in the minds and actions of those people described as “the inhumanity of employers and the unbridled greed of competitors” (Rerum Novarum, # 6).

Catholic social teaching develops and free enterprise has never been “unbridled” as it was developed by the Catholic Late Scholastics. The essential reference here is the understanding of free enterprise economics which arose with the Catholic Late Scholastics and is so substantially supported by the great acknowledged St John Paul II, and by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.

From Caritas in Veritate we see the core of the Pope Emeritus Benedict’s “redistributist” large-scale meaning: it is through training, entrepreneurship, work and supplying, at competitive prices through trade, what others need in other countries. Additionally we see the importance of sound management – often neglected today.

Pope Benedict XVI felt it necessary to teach that “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).

So it is not free enterprise but the human failings and human evil that need to be controlled and punished within a sound rule of law.

 

[MarcusAndreas]

There has been no condemnation of free enterprise similar to the denunciation of socialism because “unbridled capitalism” has never existed in any society or country as a political/economic system like socialism, much less Communism, but in the minds and actions of those people described as “the inhumanity of employers and the unbridled greed of competitors” (Rerum Novarum, # 6).

Thank you for saying this. It gets extremely old trying to explain to people that the evil laissez-faire capitalism that they think the Church condemns has literally never existed.

 

[CrossofChrist]

There has been no condemnation of free enterprise similar to the denunciation of socialism because “unbridled capitalism” has never existed in any society or country as a political/economic system like socialism, much less Communism, but in the minds and actions of those people described as “the inhumanity of employers and the unbridled greed of competitors” (Rerum Novarum, # 6).

Would that these words (previously mentioning just wages, etc), written at a time when what has been called “unbridled capitalism” was pressing forward, should not have to be repeated today with the same severity. - Centesimus Annus 8
*

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”.* - Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church 350

In fact a reading of the section on the role of the State will show that something much more akin to ordoliberalism than a completely free market seems like what the Church is advocating.

Catholic social teaching develops and free enterprise has never been “unbridled” as it was developed by the Catholic Late Scholastics. The essential reference here is the understanding of free enterprise economics which arose with the Catholic Late Scholastics and is so substantially supported by the great acknowledged St John Paul II, and by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.

Not quite sure what you mean here.

From Caritas in Veritate we see the core of the Pope Emeritus Benedict’s “redistributist” large-scale meaning: it is through training, entrepreneurship, work and supplying, at competitive prices through trade, what others need in other countries. Additionally we see the importance of sound management – often neglected today.

Yep.

Pope Benedict XVI felt it necessary to teach that “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).

Right, because the ideas of a bureaucratic Welfare State and Socialism are all too common in today’s industrialized world.

He also speaks negatively on outsourcing, downsizing social security systems, and lack of security among workers, which Benedict says are associated with a climate of deregulation. So I fail to see support for laissez-faire/Austrian/whatever economics.

 

[MarcusAndreas]

The “deregulation” spoken of by most conservatives is not genuine laissez-faire by any stretch of the mind but rather state charters for favored producers. This does cause problems. Considering the state is always at the root of them, they had better do things to fix them.

The Spanish Scholastics developed very radical laissez-faire economics against the monopolistic guilds and the mercantilists of their day. Their methodology was proto-Austrian.

Do you actually know what laissez-faire economics entails? Do you even know what the Austrian school is?

 

[Abu]

CrossofChrist #9
Catholic social teaching develops and free enterprise has never been “unbridled” as it was developed by the Catholic Late Scholastics. The essential reference here is the understanding of free enterprise economics which arose with the Catholic Late Scholastics and is so substantially supported by the great acknowledged St John Paul II, and by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.

Not quite sure what you mean here.

The acknowledged St John Paul II’s support for the market economy is in post #5.

How did free enterprise arise?
Long before the so-called “Protestant work ethic”, the rise of the West was due to an extraordinary faith in reason, influenced by Greek philosophy, which resulted from Catholic theology and doctrine, unlike Greek religion. Free enterprise “evolved, beginning early in the ninth century, by Catholic monks…seeking to ensure the economic security of their monastic estates.”(The Victory of Reason, Rodney Stark, Random House, 2005, p 55].

Catholic philosophy and theology, based on reason and faith, enabled the birth of free enterprise. From the great monastic estates in the ninth century, immense increases in agricultural productivity grew from “such significant innovations as the switch to horses, the heavy moldboard plow, and the three-field system” away from subsistence agriculture to specialised crops and products, sold at a profit to initiate a cash economy. “As their incomes continued to mount, this led many monasteries to become banks, lending to the nobility.” The Victory of Reason, Rodney Stark, Random House, 2005, p 58].

There is a solid basis of economic Catholic thought from the fourteenth century. In the fifteenth century the Late Scholastics who were Thomists (followers of St Thomas) “writing and teaching at the University of Salamanca in Spain, sought to explain the full range of human action and social; organization.” They “observed the existence of economic law, inexorable forces of cause and effect that operate very much as other natural laws. Over the course of several generations, they discovered and explained the laws of supply and demand, the cause of inflation, the operation of foreign exchange rates, and the subjective nature of economic value…” For these reasons Joseph Schumpeter applauded them as the first real economists. (Thomas E Woods Jr, The Church And The Market, Lexington Books, 2005, p 8).

The Medieval Schoolmen who preferred to be called the “Doctors”, “were the foremost thinkers of their times.” (Christians For Freedom, Ignatius 1986, p 21). They employed logic and reasoning for the development of mankind. Dr. Chafuen incisively points out: “The Doctors offered utilitarian arguments to show that goods that are privately owned are better used than commonly owned goods. This explanation offers a budding theory of economic development: the division of goods and their ultimate possession by private individuals facilitates increased production.”

“The Schoolmen determined that wages, profits and rents are not for the government to decide. Since they are beyond the sphere of distributive justice, they should be determined by common estimation in the market.” Christians For Freedom, Dr Alejandro Chafuen, Ignatius 1986, p 122].

 

[CrossofChrist]

The acknowledged St John Paul II’s support for the market economy is in post #5.

How did free enterprise arise?
Long before the so-called “Protestant work ethic”, the rise of the West was due to an extraordinary faith in reason, influenced by Greek philosophy, which resulted from Catholic theology and doctrine, unlike Greek religion. Free enterprise “evolved, beginning early in the ninth century, by Catholic monks…seeking to ensure the economic security of their monastic estates.”(The Victory of Reason, Rodney Stark, Random House, 2005, p 55].

Catholic philosophy and theology, based on reason and faith, enabled the birth of free enterprise. From the great monastic estates in the ninth century, immense increases in agricultural productivity grew from “such significant innovations as the switch to horses, the heavy moldboard plow, and the three-field system” away from subsistence agriculture to specialised crops and products, sold at a profit to initiate a cash economy. “As their incomes continued to mount, this led many monasteries to become banks, lending to the nobility.” The Victory of Reason, Rodney Stark, Random House, 2005, p 58].

There is a solid basis of economic Catholic thought from the fourteenth century. In the fifteenth century the Late Scholastics who were Thomists (followers of St Thomas) “writing and teaching at the University of Salamanca in Spain, sought to explain the full range of human action and social; organization.” They “observed the existence of economic law, inexorable forces of cause and effect that operate very much as other natural laws. Over the course of several generations, they discovered and explained the laws of supply and demand, the cause of inflation, the operation of foreign exchange rates, and the subjective nature of economic value…” For these reasons Joseph Schumpeter applauded them as the first real economists. (Thomas E Woods Jr, The Church And The Market, Lexington Books, 2005, p 8).

The Medieval Schoolmen who preferred to be called the “Doctors”, “were the foremost thinkers of their times.” (Christians For Freedom, Ignatius 1986, p 21). They employed logic and reasoning for the development of mankind. Dr. Chafuen incisively points out: “The Doctors offered utilitarian arguments to show that goods that are privately owned are better used than commonly owned goods. This explanation offers a budding theory of economic development: the division of goods and their ultimate possession by private individuals facilitates increased production.”

“The Schoolmen determined that wages, profits and rents are not for the government to decide. Since they are beyond the sphere of distributive justice, they should be determined by common estimation in the market.” Christians For Freedom, Dr Alejandro Chafuen, Ignatius 1986, p 122].

Yep.

 

[CrossofChrist]

The “deregulation” spoken of by most conservatives is not genuine laissez-faire by any stretch of the mind but rather state charters for favored producers. This does cause problems. Considering the state is always at the root of them, they had better do things to fix them.

But is that really what the Pope(s) are talking about?

It’s important to remember that “the Church does not at all mean to condemn the deregulation of the market in itself”, which many people who have good intentions as Catholics seem to forget, yet “unfortunately, experience shows that a market economy, left to unconditional freedom, is far from bringing the greatest possible advantages to individuals and societies.” (PJPII: *ADDRESS OF POPE JOHN PAUL II
TO THE ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES *)

Do you actually know what laissez-faire economics entails? Do you even know what the Austrian school is?

Yep.

 

[Tarpeian]

I am Catholic.

My political views, however, are a radical libertarianism, anarcho-capitalism, which holds that the state, being an anti-social and immoral organization, ought to be abolished, and all governing institutions should be voluntary and all services provided on the market. Taxation is robbery and conscription is slavery.

Does this make me unorthodox? Perhaps on paper, but I cannot see any other system as being truly moral. I have studied extensively and conclude that this political organization will fulfill most clearly the moral principles of Catholic social doctrine.

Please, I have heard the typical objections, please don’t try to explain to me that “It’ll just be a bunch of monopolies!” When monopolies are nothing more than state-privileges run wild, and explain why the only truly monopolistic institution in society is supposed to protect us from them. Laissez-faire was originally the economic doctrine of the labor movement and even socialists, before the word was co-opted as an excuse for statist-capitalist despotism in the Industrial Revolution.

If it is immoral for me to rob someone, or to enslave them, then a government has no right to tax me against me my will nor force me into the military against my will. They are no different from anyone else. I should not be coerced into funding an anti-social, murderous institution.

I know of people who would accuse me of being an arch-heretic for holding these views.

I am not opposed to government, insofar as the word is understood as social institutions that promote the common good, but I am opposed to states, coercive, monopolistic perversions of government that maintain their existence through systematic violations of property rights and organized mass-murder. Read “Our Enemy The State” by Albert Jay Nock, a book strongly recommended by Peter Maurin, mind you.

There are many notable Catholics who hold to this view, such as Andrew Napolitano (the famous judge), Lew Rockwell (political activist), Tom Woods (historian), Jeffrey Tucker (political activist), and Gerard Casey (prominent Catholic philosopher from University College Dublin). I wouldn’t be surprised if Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin would hold to this too had they lived to see the ideas developed. (Dorothy Day did live into the era where the ideas were developed but she was already a committed libertarian socialist and more importantly committed to the practice of Christianity disregarding theory. She was an anarchist. Not anarchist as in “let’s just pretend the government isn’t there”, as many people try to revise her thought into. She was literally an intellectual disciple of Proudhon and Kropotkin, the left-wing anarchist intellectuals who promoted ideas distinct from the ones I am promoting, but I’m getting off topic.)

CST may say governments should do this and that, but when taken in context it assumes a just social order, and consent of the governed is part of that. If subsidiarity really means what it implies, and if God really meant “thou shalt not steal”, then society should be thousands upon thousands of free associations where people cooperate for the common good, respect property rights, and provide needed services without the threat of violence.

Should we really be joking ourselves thinking that we can turn the modern state into a force for good? Politicians are the most evil people in society because power attracts evil people. Anarcho-capitalism destroys their means of destroying society. If these ideals can be shown to promote the common good greater than any coercive system can, should we not embrace them?

I see nothing wrong with this viewpoint. I don’t know that you would be considered a radical libertarian? I think you would enjoy “Liberty The God That Failed,” by Christopher Ferrara. Check it out if you can, its a book that should be in your library.

Pax,
Tarpeian

 

[CrossofChrist]

But is that really what the Pope(s) are talking about?

It’s important to remember that “the Church does not at all mean to condemn the deregulation of the market in itself”, which many people who have good intentions as Catholics seem to forget, yet “unfortunately, experience shows that a market economy, left to unconditional freedom, is far from bringing the greatest possible advantages to individuals and societies.” (PJPII: *ADDRESS OF POPE JOHN PAUL II
TO THE ACADEMY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES *)

IMNSHO, the more questionable aspect of your position is viewing the state as anti-social and (inherently?) immoral. But, I’m nobody important, so maybe if you get lucky you could get a response from sending a letter to Piazza del S. Uffizio, 11, 00193 Roma, Italy, or your local Bishop. They’d give you a definitive answer on your views.

 

[CrossofChrist]

IMNSHO, the more questionable aspect of your position is viewing the state as anti-social and (inherently?) immoral. But, I’m nobody important, so maybe if you get lucky you could get a response from sending a letter to Piazza del S. Uffizio, 11, 00193 Roma, Italy, or your local Bishop. They’d give you a definitive answer on your views.

Reading the Encyclicals is always good too.