Oh, absolutely. I didnât mention that only because I was trying to explain the ways in which distributism objected to inequality resulting from private enterprise. From a distributist perspective, the government is the biggest and most dangerous monopolist of all.If you add GOVERNMENT to you statement I would say you got it right.
I donât accept the premise that absolutist authority is inevitably replaced by another absolutist regime. in states where there is a poorly developed sense of self automony, one king is as good as another dictator, but in places like, again, england and her progeny, there has definitely been a historical trend away from ruling monarchs, emperors or tyrants in favor of liberal governments.Absolutism is condemned by the Church, of course. Absolutist temporal authority is doomed to fail, of necessity, by itâs very nature.
But âindividualistic absolutismâ (laissez faire capitalism) is just another variety of absolutism, and likewise doomed to fail.
When an absolutist power fails, it is replaced by a power that âworksâ, to whatever extent, and it is nearly always replaced by another absolutist power, or more likely several other absolutist powers, so the âblameâ for the failure of the previous power is attributed not to âabsolutismâ but rather to the personalities associated with the previous âregimeâ.
Iâm publicly all for the âgood partsâ of capitalism, as thatâs an acceptable statement in todayâs âpoliteâ society, and Iâm utterly against ANY part of socialism, because thatâs NOT acceptable in todayâs society.
But, there is wisdom in allowing divine authority to have authority in realms where it should, because itâs TRULY DIVINE, have actual authority!
Government action is ALWAYS coercive action in support of a MORAL/ETHICAL decision. The SOLE authority of all things moral and ethical is THE CHURCH.
The premise that âpopular authorityâ trumps âdivine authorityâ in the realm of morals and ethics is simply anti-Catholic (and outright silly).
My family and I try to follow what we can of the 102 things that we can. We are trying to add a new one when we have another one under control to the best of our ability.
I agree with you. But âliberal governmentsâ are âindividualistic absolutistâ in orientation (tempered by, usually sensible, monarchistic [police] powers).
Only if the users of the coercive [police] temporal power arenât adequately informed as to how to use their power.
Iâm arguing against any state having unlimited authority to do what state (temporal) authorityâs do, which is to coerce.
If adultery is a sin (which it is) which harms someone sufficiently to warrant, in the harmed partyâs opinion, an âassaultâ (or âtheftâ or âdefamationâ or whathaveyou) charge, then the harmed party SHOULD indeed have the capability to call in the enforcers of societal morals, so that the aggrieved can come to some âaccommodationâ with the offender.
the quoted text is where we part ways.âŚI If adultery is a sin (which it is) which harms someone sufficiently to warrant, in the harmed partyâs opinion, an âassaultâ (or âtheftâ or âdefamationâ or whathaveyou) charge, then the harmed party SHOULD indeed have the capability to call in the enforcers of societal morals, so that the aggrieved can come to some âaccommodationâ with the offender.
Now, what exactly that kind of âprosecutionâ would look like, I have no idea.
Iâm not a lawyer. I donât wanna be a lawyer. Iâd rather write about lawyers. They make good bad-guys.
(( By the way, Iâm most certainly NOT a âCatholic Workerâ type fundamentalist, nor even a distributism fundamentalist. ))
who determines the value? and by what methodology?
But adultery WOULD be criminal conduct if the âaggrievedâ were to consider it so, and the society were also to consider it so.
Not true. In a âdistributistâ society the responsibility for action is âsubsidiarizedâ to the lowest level of society possible (or practical) for âgetting things accomplishedâ.
You forget about the principle of subsidiarity, which âsolvesâ this problem.
so if a rapist picks only victims who, for whatever reason, choose not to complain about being harmed (maybe theyâre in a forgiving mood, maybe theyâre intimidated), then such a society would no have cause to prosecute the rapist?
I think you are treating âgovernment involvementâ as if it were a simple and univocal concept. But there are all sorts of governments, and all sorts of involvement. To say that society should be structured in a particular way is of course to say that government should act in a certain way, because government is simply the organ of society that makes decisions that are binding on the whole society. But one can be opposed to modern concepts of government and be a distributistâin fact the distributists Iâve read are opposed to these concepts. One can believe that the ideal society would have little central government and would be based around largely self-sufficient local communities of landowning peasants, while still acknowledging that some government action is going to be necessary to get us there. Chesterton, for instance, talked about ways the government could encourage small businesses and discourage monopolies. Thatâs government intervention. But the goal is not a heavily regulated economy, nor do the means involve the kind of direct, totalitarian government intervention envisioned by Marxists.
But this is anachronistic. Itâs like calling Augustine a Calvinist. Furthermore, as I understand it distributism does not hold to a straightforward labor theory of value. At least this is not essential. One could hold (I certainly would) that some goods and services have more value than others even if they require fewer hours of labor. Where distributists and Marxists agree is that the value of goods and services should not be determined solely by the law of supply and demand.
Weâre talking about a (rather mythical) society when weâre talking about distributism implemented on a societal basis.
Itâs up to the society, in obeisance to the Church, to criminalize what is most wisely criminalized.
One would still have to prove adultery had occurred.
The obvious question. I have no idea. The general idea is supposed to be based on the objective goodness of the thing God created, so the âdeterminationâ is an objective thing. However, how are men supposed to recognize what this intrinsic value is, and how are they supposed to agree is anyoneâs guess.
Iâd like to address this but I canât accept the statement that adultery is a harmful act of violence to an individual and to society.
As emotional assault on âthe marriageâ and the parties of the marriage, and whomever else is mixed up in the affair.
yes, but its fascinating, because Catholic and Christian societies where the Church played a co-dominate role with the state did exist at one time, and there are certainly those whoâd like to see a return.As emotional assault on âthe marriageâ and the parties of the marriage, and whomever else is mixed up in the affair.
But, as Iâve said, it would be obvious that within a truly Catholic society adultery would be âsome sort of crimeâ or other.
Anyway, I consider a âdistributist societyâ to be a bit of a utopian dream, which is not likely to happen even locally much less on a large scale, so this is all rather academic.
The government need not be federal as far as Distributists are concerned, and I agree that most would favor stronger local government. However, government involvement in the economy is a concept that applies regardless of the âsizeâ of the government. Heavy price controls, subsidies, etc are necessary parts of a distributist economic system. It is necessary for the market not to be really free in the sense of âfree marketâ jn a distributist system.
Not anachronistic at all since Marxism came before Distributism. It would be like calling Calvin an Augustinian, not the other way round. Belloc, Chesterton, and the other Distributist writers were writing in response to the Marxist ideology.
Sure, if you like. But once you are talking about a local government in which people can genuinely participate, rather than a centralized bureaucracy whose mechanisms are so abstruse that ordinary people have no clue how they work, as far as Iâm concerned âgovernmentâ means something so radically different that the word is only equivocally related to what we usually mean by government today.
Oh, sure. I have no interest in upholding the idea of a âfree market,â not in an absolute sense anyway. What I defend is the âprinciple of subsidiarity.â I do not see any contradiction between *that *principle and distributismâon the contrary, distributism seems to me to exemplify this principle. And much complaint about âgovernment interventionâ stems from the principle of subsidiarity (at least so I would hope) rather than from some idolatrous commitment to an absolutely âfreeâ market. (Yes, I know that the use of the word âidolatrousâ is provocative and that one could throw that word around whenever someone is very committed to some particular principle. But given the confidence defenders of capitalism seem to have that everything will work out if we just let the free market do its magical thing, I think my use of the word is justified.)
But the intrinsic theory of value is a medieval (or ancient?) idea, not something invented by distributists. To continue the analogy, itâs like calling the late-sixteenth-century Catholic Thomists âCalvinists,â when they at least claimed that they were just following Aquinas and Augustine. (Actually, the Jesuits did call the Thomists Calvinists until the Pope made them stop!)
Then I fail to see the force of your argument attempting to link distributism to Marxism in this regard. What exactly is your point? In fact, I would argue that the Marxist view isnât an âintrinsic valueâ theory. It is based on something extrinsic to the value of the good/service itself.
Yes, insofar as prices are not based on the laws of supply and demand the market is not free. But you are assuming that this is an either/or. What I see in Catholic social teachingâJPIIâs Centesimus Annus, for instanceâis the principle that human freedom and creativity in economic (as in other) matters should be respected except insofar as it goes beyond moral limits. Now maybe I just donât understand distributism, but in my understanding it doesnât mandate a fixed, specific price for everything. Rather, it would call for limits to the freedom of the market based on an ethical and religious conception of human dignity. In other words, if people are abusing the freedom of the market in a manner inconsistent with the common good, then the community has a right to stop them.
And just where in the Christian faith do you find it taught that wealth is a good thing?
You may be right. I do not understand economics well enough to judge. But I am strongly suspicious of the way you and many other people speak of âthe marketâ as if it were an autonomous mechanism with a kind of life of its own, which can be trusted to come up with good results if we just place our faith in it. I believe that this way of thinking derives from Adam Smith?
Encouraged by whom? Is it really exactly the same kind of market manipulation? Again, Iâm aware that I probably donât understand enough to answer this question adequately. And Chesterton, the distributist author I know best, probably knew little more about economics than I do (which did not stop him from pontificating on the subjectâI read him at a formative age and have unfortunately picked up this tendency!). I know that the distributist kind of society strikes me as a good one. But I do not have an opinion about what sorts of mechanisms we ought to use to get us there. Iâm more interested in trying to change society from the bottom up by finding ways of living out distributist ideals within the existing system.
The buyers were not just the poor here in this country looking for affordable housing. People form other countries came in and scooped up the âbargainsâ putting more pressure on the costs of housing and real estate. Now this new GLOBAL economy stinks IMHO.