Is Capitalism God-Ordained?

[clem456]

You are still tiptoeing carefully around his scathing critiques of capitalism in its real form, throughout the Encyclical: vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_01051991_centesimus-annus_en.html .

What exactly do you mean, “the real form” of capitalism? The Popes, the Church speak against any system that reduces human beings to less than fully human. The Church also explicitly supports the right to private property and economic freedom.

What is the “real form” of capitalism you refer to?

 

[ThomasJMullally]

… so the value of free enterprise in supporting and encouraging work and overcoming poverty, is unsurpassed – hence the reduction in the poor.

You are still speaking the language of “the end justifies the means.” And finding license in a few stray words of our Savior and his disciples. Consider G.K. Chesterton in 1932, awarded high honors by Pope Pius, and who, unlike Jesus and Augustine, was familiar with our capitalism. Our capitalism, which was at the time lapsing into Great Depression (again), was soon to fuel the Second World War, but nonetheless is still embellished:

“Unfortunately, humanitarianism has been the mark of an inhuman time. And by inhumanity I do not mean merely cruelty; I mean the condition in which even cruelty ceases to be human. I mean the condition in which the rich man, instead of hanging six or seven of his enemies because he hates them, merely beggars and starves to death six or seven thousand people whom he does not hate, and has never seen, because they live at the other side of the world. I mean the condition in which the courtier or pander of the rich man, instead of excitedly mixing a rare, original poison for the Borgias, or carving exquisite ornamental poignard for the political purposes of the Medici, works monotonously in a factory turning out a small type of screw, which will fit into a plate he will never see; to form part of a gun he will never see; to be used in a battle he will never see, and about the merits of which he knows far less than the Renaissance rascal knew about the purposes of the poison and the dagger. In short, what is the matter with industrialism is indirection; the fact that nothing is straightforward; that all its ways are crooked even when they are meant to be straight. Into this most indirect of all systems we tried to fit the most direct of all ideas. Democracy, an ideal which is simple to excess, was vainly applied to a society which was complex to the point of craziness. It is not so very surprising that such a vision has faded in such an environment. Personally, I like the vision; but it takes all sorts to make a world, and there actually are human beings, walking about quite calmly in the daylight, who appear to like the environment.”

 

[ThomasJMullally]

What exactly do you mean, “the real form” of capitalism? The Popes, the Church speak against any system that reduces human beings to less than fully human. The Church also explicitly supports the right to private property and economic freedom.

What is the “real form” of capitalism you refer to?

Oh my-- it is the system as it exists. It is far from laudable. I am kind of shocked that one could be Catholic but defend this system so doggedly. What is wrong with seeking a better system, that works with property rights without exalting them?

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

Too bad-- you just want to go with the winners. The PR machine of capital, has lured a humble and sensitive man into the mindset of boundless ambition and hero worship.

More like a former loser whose no longer a loser. Bemoan the trail of bodies I left but you didn’t know them like I did. All I knew were a bunch of snakes who advocated hesitation and humility and they turned out to be my real oppressors.

Not anymore.

Chamberlain was an honorable man who made a decent effort, and has been blackballed by history books.

I’m sure the vets and Jews who suffered from his impotent appeasement would really agree with you.

Steve Jobs seemed so nice on TV, but really was a classic manipulator and slave driver, and his marketing hype has heaped onto society a cruel joke.

I’m not even an Apple fanboy and even I know a typical response from the Occupy Wall St. textbook. Unfortunately, your ad homs fail to account that Jobs still hated bureaucracy and was a role model for plenty who see it as an obstruction to good business.

And Edison did not invent the alternating current which changed history, Tesla did, and Edison was the vested interest who tried to kill it because it conflicted with his (far less efficient) direct current patents.

Typical thinking of the small-picture man. Edison drove the world with everything he did, the good and the bad. Curse his memory like all the others but the very computer you’re using to badmouth him and uphold historical limp noodles wouldn’t have been invented without him as the keystone. You’re just adding to the irony.

 

[clem456]

Oh my-- it is the system as it exists. It is far from laudable. I am kind of shocked that one could be Catholic but defend this system so doggedly. What is wrong with seeking a better system, that works with property rights without exalting them?

Oh my what?
Your posts are difficult to respond to as they are so subjective in nature. You can’t define things as you personally would like them and ignore the good.
I still don’t know what the “real form” of Capitalism is you refer to.

 

[ThomasJMullally]

More like a former loser whose no longer a loser. Bemoan the trail of bodies I left but you didn’t know them like I did. All I knew were a bunch of snakes who advocated hesitation and humility and they turned out to be my real oppressors.

1. You can’t be a “loser” if you quell MATERIAL ambition and get on the team of our Lord. (Try and emulate some self-promoted business titans, and your future losses will be far greater.)
2. To blame Chamberlain for WW2 is like blaming Saddam Hussein for ISIS in Iraq. It is the US who released the dogs in Iraq. And it cost us a trillion bucks That is money which could have paid for all the “exhorbitant social welfare programs” for ten years. (Is it so important to keep the wheels turning at the arms factories, that we impress people to work for THAT, crowding out free commerce? We would be acting more for Christ, if we simply left those people “unemployed”. For the price, we have only multiplied our enemies, assuring future attacks on us!)

 

[ThomasJMullally]

Oh my what?
Your posts are difficult to respond to as they are so subjective in nature. You can’t define things as you personally would like them and ignore the good.
I still don’t know what the “real form” of Capitalism is you refer to.

Oh, you are funny. (See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. These are my three opponents in this debate.)

So I imagine, you don’t think there are problems, with our consumerism? Our lack of independent media? If property rights are not exalted above superior rights under the existing system, why does the US have the most police and the most incarcerated people in the civilized world? It is good for business, it keeps men busy. It is not good from the standpoint of our faith.

 

[ThomasJMullally]

Oh my what?
Your posts are difficult to respond to as they are so subjective in nature. You can’t define things as you personally would like them and ignore the good.
I still don’t know what the “real form” of Capitalism is you refer to.

Again, perhaps the detailed words of John Paul II would explain the problems to you. Have his pleas been heeded, so that you should not be repeating them instead of defending a corrupt system?: vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_01051991_centesimus-annus_en.html

 

[ThomasJMullally]

Oh my what?
Your posts are difficult to respond to as they are so subjective in nature. You can’t define things as you personally would like them and ignore the good.
I still don’t know what the “real form” of Capitalism is you refer to.

Thank you for your interest in explaining the property rights and so forth, that the Church endorses and which are reconcilable with capitalism. I look forward to following up on future threads.

 

[ThomasJMullally]

…and people wonder why we “wacko” Capitalists want to reduce the size of government…

Thank you for your interest in explaining the property rights and so forth, that the Church endorses and which are reconcilable with capitalism. I look forward to following up on future threads.

 

[minkymurph]

1. You can’t be a “loser” if you quell MATERIAL ambition and get on the team of our Lord. (Try and emulate some self-promoted business titans, and your future losses will be far greater.)
2. To blame Chamberlain for WW2 is like blaming Saddam Hussein for ISIS in Iraq. It is the US who released the dogs in Iraq. And it cost us a trillion bucks That is money which could have paid for all the “exhorbitant social welfare programs” for ten years. (Is it so important to keep the wheels turning at the arms factories, that we impress people to work for THAT, crowding out free commerce? We would be acting more for Christ, if we simply left those people “unemployed”. For the price, we have only multiplied our enemies, assuring future attacks on us!)

I a bit lost. Could someone explain to me the connection between Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement and whether or not capitalism is God-ordained?

 

[ThomasJMullally]

St Augustine taught that wickedness was not inherent in commerce that price was a function not simply of the seller’s costs, but also of the buyer’s wants, and it was up to the individual to live righteously. Politics I, 1254]. Thus legitimacy was acquired by merchants, and the deep involvement of the Church in the birth of free enterprise. [Stephen P Bensch, *Historiography: Medieval European and Mediterranean Slavery

1998, p 231; Cf. Stark, The Victory of Reason, Random House, 2005, p 57,58, 254].

Socialism has been condemned in Encyclicals by Popes Leo XIII and Pius XI and its disastrous effects were a major factor in the demise of the Soviet Union.

As is clear, 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, but in the minds and actions of those people described as “the inhumanity of employers and the unbridled greed of competitors” (Rerum Novarum, # 6).

Leo XIII asserts: “…the socialists, working on the poor man’s envy of the rich, are striving to do away with private property, and contend that individual possessions should become the common property of all, to be administered by the State or by municipal bodies.” Rerum Novarum, #4]. Similarly St John Paul II condemns socialism for precisely this among other errors, in Centesimus Annus, making a frank acknowledgement that socialism has failed on its own terms as witnessed by events in Eastern Europe.

Of course free enterprise is not based on greed; that is a false assumption. Free enterprise is based on 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. People can be greedy. Many are, many are not.

No economic laws encourage “hoarding of wealth” and greed – some PEOPLE hoard wealth, some people are greedy. No wealth can be created until it is produced – that’s why the Catholic Late Scholastic system works so well to enable everyone to produce some wealth and to do with it as they choose through free-will. Economic laws are based on the principles of human action – of cause and effect involving God-given reason.

Just as Jesus did not mollycoddle anyone, and constantly values the domain of work as does St Paul, as St John Paul II points out – so the value of free enterprise in supporting and encouraging work and overcoming poverty, is unsurpassed – hence the reduction in the poor.

Thank you for your interest in explaining the property rights and so forth, that the Church endorses and which are reconcilable with capitalism. I look forward to following up on future threads.

 

[ThomasJMullally]

No, I didn’t. Please don’t make assumptions about me, you don’t know me. And please don’t twist my words, it really irritates me. If you continue to do this, I will simply stop talking to you, plain and simple.

Thank you for your interest in explaining the property rights and so forth, that the Church endorses and which are reconcilable with capitalism. I look forward to following up on future threads.

 

[ThomasJMullally]

More like a former loser whose no longer a loser. Bemoan the trail of bodies I left but you didn’t know them like I did. All I knew were a bunch of snakes who advocated hesitation and humility and they turned out to be my real oppressors.

Not anymore.

I’m sure the vets and Jews who suffered from his impotent appeasement would really agree with you.

I’m not even an Apple fanboy and even I know a typical response from the Occupy Wall St. textbook. Unfortunately, your ad homs fail to account that Jobs still hated bureaucracy and was a role model for plenty who see it as an obstruction to good business.

Typical thinking of the small-picture man. Edison drove the world with everything he did, the good and the bad. Curse his memory like all the others but the very computer you’re using to badmouth him and uphold historical limp noodles wouldn’t have been invented without him as the keystone. You’re just adding to the irony.

Thank you for your interest in having not only a theoretical but also a very personal and concrete, philosophical discussion. I look forward to following up on future threads.

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

1. You can’t be a “loser” if you quell MATERIAL ambition and get on the team of our Lord. (Try and emulate some self-promoted business titans, and your future losses will be far greater.)

Oh yes you can. How do I know? Because I did just say I was one remember? It’s really ironic that you cry about slavedrivers, oppressors, and capitalistic atrocities when the same ‘team of our Lord’ fit closer to that description in my own life.

And losses? I stopped having them when I stopped hesitating and chose to be a winner. Perhaps the fact that I’ve had more success with this attitude compared to you could mean you’re really best off taking your preaching elsewhere. (I’m sure my opposition could use it plenty. Oh yes. Do to tell them to keep up the appeasement. I am not fully satisfied yet.)

1. To blame Chamberlain for WW2 is like blaming Saddam Hussein for ISIS in Iraq. It is the US who released the dogs in Iraq.

And to not blame Chamberlain would be to throw common sense out of the window, just like assuming Hussein had nothing to do with the likes of ISIS (or any terrorist organization for that matter). Hussein was a monster. Chamberlain was a wimp. Let’s not dispute the obvious here.

I a bit lost. Could someone explain to me the connection between Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement and whether or not capitalism is God-ordained?

Thomas here associates capitalism with innovation and further tries to defend it by saying opposing innovation is peace, not for what it actually is: stagnation.

Obviously, Chamberlain is a good reminder to everyone of what happens when people get so desperate to establish so-called ‘peace.’

 

[Zoltan_Cobalt]

Thank you for your interest in explaining the property rights and so forth, that the Church endorses and which are reconcilable with capitalism. I look forward to following up on future threads.

Humph!

A canned response…how quaint.

You are welcome Tom. To bad you haven’t learned anything since my last post. Oh well you seem to be having fun. Carry on.

 

[freeRadical]

Humph!

A canned response…how quaint.

You are welcome Tom. To bad you haven’t learned anything since my last post. Oh well you seem to be having fun. Carry on.

Get off the high horse.

Perhaps it is you who hasn’t learned anything.

 

[Zoltan_Cobalt]

Get off the high horse.

Perhaps it is you who hasn’t learned anything.

 

[Abu]

ThomasJMullally #618
I am kind of shocked that one could be Catholic but defend this system so doggedly.

That is precisely because you have learned nothing from the great minds of the Catholic Late Scholastics who strikingly identified the virtuous and logical basis for free enterprise, and from the great Popes, St John Paul II and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI who have so clearly supported that basis as well as carefully elucidating the reality that it is human frailty that produces the evils that exist in every aspect of life, and human goodness that enables the achievement of poverty reduction based on self-worth and virtuous assistance through worthwhile free enterprise endeavour which nothing else could or did achieve until those principles were employed.

#623
Again, perhaps the detailed words of John Paul II would explain the problems to you. Have his pleas been heeded, so that you should not be repeating them instead of defending a corrupt system?

The continued refusal to accept the facts of the remarkable achievements of the Catholic Late Scholastics and the reduction in worldwide poverty from this most Catholic of endeavors – free enterprise – betrays the cocoon into which some seclude themselves from the real world, and naturally then cannot see that it is personal evil and personal goodness which exist in the world which distinguishes the worth of the deeds of one from the other.

Wise laws restrain and restrict the evil and enable the good.

 

[Arandur]

Peace be with you,

In my experience, Catholics and other Christians are unanimously in favor of capitalism and view all alternatives as anti-Christian. I was wondering if anyone could explain this to me? What is Christ-like about capitalism? Is it the only Church-approved economic system? Why do you think is there so much greed, corruption, poverty and social inequality in capitalist societies? I’m just looking for some explanations, because I’ve never had a fellow Catholic explain why they believe capitalism is ideal. Scripture and catechism citations in support of capitalism would be great! Thank you and blessings.

It depends on what you mean by “capitalism.”

In the sense that Adam Smith (and most economists in his heritage) spoke of, it is better termed “natural freedom.” And they are right: in the state of nature, allowing freedom (un-coerced by force and government), market forces are indeed “natural.” The “invisible hand” works because it is really just human ecology.

Think about how nature works (if you know much about ecology–I was an environmental science major in college). Organisms compete for scarce resources. Adaptation occurs and populations change, grow, fill new niches, until resources are used in their most optimal ways and the most biological diversity and largest amount of life (analogous to “prosperity”) arises. Dynamic equilibrium is created, with cyclical fluctuations when things get “out of whack,” so to speak.

That’s “natural freedom;” that’s capitalism. It’s wholly natural, when allowed to be free.

Thus, by Natural Law, being the state of Created nature, “natural freedom” as an economic system is indeed the only just system to be pursued, and is indeed “God-Ordained.”

Every time we work against it and try to manipulate or control economic forces, we end up doing more harm than good.

That said, the place of regulation should be to maintain freedom (by opposing things like fraud; externalities–costs being shifted to the public, outside of the price mechanism; monopolies; and subsidies; while enforcing contract law, transparent consumer information, etc).