Is Capitalism God-Ordained?

[Seraphim73]

Big government enables crony capitalism and corporatism. The only way a free market economy works is if businesses no matter what size are allowed to fail. Now there is so much power centralized in Washington that it pays big business to spend tons of money on political campaigns and lobbyist to get special tax breaks, land deals and tax payer funded bailouts.

People decry the 19th century as the time of the Robber Barons who supposedly ground the little guy under their feet. The big difference between then and today is nobody was forced to buy their products. People voluntarily exchanged their money because it benefited them. Now in the most recent economic crisis we tax payers were coerced using force to give GM money whether they made a car we wanted to drive or not. For a nation that is supposedly the “home of the free” we certainly weren’t free to not give a private company our money. People have to wake up and we have to wake them up. We are definitely on that road to serfdom that Hayek spoke about and time is running out to change course.

 

[John_Russell_Jr]

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.

Dear friend,

The only failure in capitalism from a church standpoint is when the state tries to eliminate the church. You must separate church and state, for such reasons as not having the state punish heretics. Some heretics were put to death for going against the church when church and state were one. As to go against the church was considered treason against the state

. If the state works in perfect unison with the church, each carrying out their proper functions in a complimentary and harmonious way, then all works fine. The states are trying to eradicate the church, hence the meltdowns you see all over the world. We are talking Catholic Church here, but the better the state and church work together the better society functions all round.

The church, if citizens utilize it fully, produces better and more productive (in all ways) citizens for the state. Socialism, communism and many political ideologies seek to eliminate church. They try to replace God, and seek to be God to us oft too. This is like eliminating the spiritual aspects of man.

Not all religions work as well as others. Capitalism is favoured by many because it is seen as the best system to allow both state and church to thrive, prosper and succeed. But god does not ordain any particular political ideology or theory. Jesus said “render to God the things that are Gods, and Caesar the things that are Caesars “. It is up to us to find a way to make this hopeless system with money work. God did not invent money, and greed for money is the root of all evil.

The need for politics is a result of original sin. True religion makes better people, true politics allows those people to function better as and in a society. They are two realms like religion = spiritual, and politics = physical, and obviously they overlap very oft. But they have their own unique domains and overlap in some ways. Catholicism and state if they get it right, and work hard for perfection, to the extent they achieve that correct unification of perfection, work perfectly individually and together.

Other Christian faiths can work well too, I acknowledge this. Those are my thoughts. Hope this helps with the debate. Adios…

 

[andrewstx]

I have a great idea…

Lets fire the CEO and give you friend his job at half his salary. That would cut costs by $250,000.00 and give your friend a nice raise.

I really think the people who do the most and dirtiest work should be paid more than bare survival wages.

And that is exactly how things are situated now. The less work the higher the salary. The most work the lowest the wages are.

The patient food is terrible. There used to be choices and even seconds, all that is gone now in order to cut costs and increase the do nothing CEOs salary.

I am an unhealthy man and I dread having to go back in hospital again.

 

[andrewstx]

Being a bit more realistic…

Do you really think Andrewstx"s friend could handle the CEO job?

She started out as a CNA and worked her way up to technician. Could she handle a high level finance meeting? Can she be a good leader/manager? Would she know how to cut costs without impacting patient care…???

Andrewstx is suggesting that his friend be paid a salary equal to the CEO’s. In truth she is not worth $250,000.00 as a CEO. Her marginal value is exactly what she is being paid.

A CEO’s marginal value is also exactly what they are paid. A good CEO who can reduce costs and increase profits is worth every penny he earns. A marginal CEO who is not producing does not last long.

The CEO of that particular hospital could care less about impacting patient care, at least not in a positive manner. The only thing on his plate is only cutting costs in any way. Moral or more likely IMmoral.

Profits should have nothing to do with health care, at least in an ideal world… It is my thinking that human lives should be the only thing that matters in health care.

And I never even hinted that her wages should be equal to a CEOs,

 

[andrewstx]

Stinkcat, we have zoltan constantly admitting to all the vagaries and inconsistencies the real American system (cronyism, irrationality etc). He believes is why we have not achieved “pure” capitalism. I just want him to see that you can’t have a perfect economic system, and that even if it is functioning perfectly as he wishes, to equitably distribute goods and labor, we are still destroying the world. We are destroying traditional cultures, we are destroying the world, and he wants to escalate it.

The solution is, each and every person needs to simply enjoy life and stop driving for profit. This is the closest to God-0rdained. (Adam Smith made it clear 250 years ago: we are wasting our time driving for profit, the market will negate our efforts!)

 

[SuperLuigi]

Here I beg to differ: productive AND moral… not two things that are aligned. There is no dollar award for morality, and we live with the consequences.

A lot of companies police their own environmental and labor issues and some of the Fortune 500 publish reports on it.

So really we’re not in the 19th Century northeast. :nope:

It’s true that morality isn’t always profitable, but it’s also on the customer some in the free market to pay attention. :yup:

 

[SuperLuigi]

Profits should have nothing to do with health care, at least in an ideal world… It is my thinking that human lives should be the only thing that matters in health care.

Tell that the doctors who have 300K in student loans and have to charge honest customers because the government won’t reimburse them in an efficient way.

The ideal can be argued until one is blue in the face, but practically no one, and especially those who argue against the free market, are going to work for free on principle.

 

[Seraphim73]

Dear friend,

The only failure in capitalism from a church standpoint is when the state tries to eliminate the church. You must separate church and state, for such reasons as not having the state punish heretics. Some heretics were put to death for going against the church when church and state were one. As to go against the church was considered treason against the state

. If the state works in perfect unison with the church, each carrying out their proper functions in a complimentary and harmonious way, then all works fine. The states are trying to eradicate the church, hence the meltdowns you see all over the world. We are talking Catholic Church here, but the better the state and church work together the better society functions all round.

The church, if citizens utilize it fully, produces better and more productive (in all ways) citizens for the state. Socialism, communism and many political ideologies seek to eliminate church. They try to replace God, and seek to be God to us oft too. This is like eliminating the spiritual aspects of man.

Not all religions work as well as others. Capitalism is favoured by many because it is seen as the best system to allow both state and church to thrive, prosper and succeed. But god does not ordain any particular political ideology or theory. Jesus said “render to God the things that are Gods, and Caesar the things that are Caesars “. It is up to us to find a way to make this hopeless system with money work. God did not invent money, and greed for money is the root of all evil.

The need for politics is a result of original sin. True religion makes better people, true politics allows those people to function better as and in a society. They are two realms like religion = spiritual, and politics = physical, and obviously they overlap very oft. But they have their own unique domains and overlap in some ways. Catholicism and state if they get it right, and work hard for perfection, to the extent they achieve that correct unification of perfection, work perfectly individually and together.

Other Christian faiths can work well too, I acknowledge this. Those are my thoughts. Hope this helps with the debate. Adios…

I think it’s important to distinguish between and free society and a free price controlled economy. Capitalism is a necessary condition for a free society but it’s not a sufficient condition. You have societies like China that has begun to open up it’s market place but the people are still under the thumb of the Communist government. But anywhere you have a relatively free society you have a large degree of free markets. It can’t be any other way. People do not have a right to their life and liberty unless they have a right to their property. There is just no way around that.

 

[John_Russell_Jr]

I think it’s important to distinguish between and free society and a free price controlled economy. Capitalism is a necessary condition for a free society but it’s not a sufficient condition. You have societies like China that has begun to open up it’s market place but the people are still under the thumb of the Communist government. But anywhere you have a relatively free society you have a large degree of free markets. It can’t be any other way. People do not have a right to their life and liberty unless they have a right to their property. There is just no way around that.

Dear friend,

Good points, but what a shame people need rights at all. Of private property. I like a concept of combined private and shared property. For instance you own the space where your head is, people cannot just swing a stick there. But when you’ve gone the property of said space would become shared property until it needed to be private property again. It is just a real shame common sense does not prevail with people, because then we would have all the rights nature dictates we need, but we would not have to worry about them being infringed or ignored. The fall.

Blessings & peace

 

[pbmbfl]

Grrreat-- we’re on the same team after all. I am against anything that alienates and burdens the common man, which includes government bureaucracies. I just like to chide Tea Partiers for failing to see their commonality with the far left. And far lefties, for failing to see their commonlity with Tea Partiers. It is a commonality of dismantling the horrible, middle-of-the-road, autocracy of bipartisanship, this stasis, that we are stuck in since Bill Clinton showed up… Best of luck, see you soon,Tom

I’m glad someone mentioned this, i agree.

After all Communism and Capitalism while seemingly 100% different are just opposite sides of the same coin, early Capitalist’s (and many today) were the first on the secularist left.

 

[Zoltan_Cobalt]

I really think the people who do the most and dirtiest work should be paid more than bare survival wages.

And that is exactly how things are situated now. The less work the higher the salary. The most work the lowest the wages are.

The best way to solve that problem is to pay people for their work rather than for their time.

The ditch digger gets paid for how many feet of ditch he digs.
The programmer gets paid for each program he writes.
The salesman gets paid straight commission.
The executive gets paid in relation to the profitability of the company.

The ditch digger who slacks off, earns his bare survival wage, while the digger who works hard earns a lot more…

The patient food is terrible. There used to be choices and even seconds, all that is gone now in order to cut costs and increase the do nothing CEOs salary.

I am an unhealthy man and I dread having to go back in hospital again.

I hope you don’t have to go to the hospital. But if you do, pick one with better food and care…you do have a choice.

 

[Zoltan_Cobalt]

The CEO of that particular hospital could care less about impacting patient care, at least not in a positive manner. The only thing on his plate is only cutting costs in any way. Moral or more likely IMmoral.

This CEO is a perfect example of a Non-Profit CEO.

Profits should have nothing to do with health care, at least in an ideal world… It is my thinking that human lives should be the only thing that matters in health care.

Profits pay the doctors, nurses, janitors and technicians. Do you expect these people to volunteer?

And I never even hinted that her wages should be equal to a CEOs,

No you did not. But you compared your friend’s wages to that of the CEO. You told us what the CEO earns. What do you think your friend should earn?

 

[Zoltan_Cobalt]

I’m glad someone mentioned this, i agree.

After all Communism and Capitalism while seemingly 100% different are just opposite sides of the same coin, early Capitalist’s (and many today) were the first on the secularist left.

Actually most early Capitalists were Christian and very religious.

John D. Rockefeller preached at a Baptist church on Sundays.
Arthur Guinness founded the first Sunday school in Dublin
John Cadbury, a Quaker, provided an educational and social program for his workers.
Charles Welch (Grape Juice) recruited employees, based on “religion, tobacco practices, sobriety, experience, and ambition.”
Asa Candler, founder of Coca-Cola, was a staunch Methodist.

There are may more.

 

[Abu]

pbmbfl #69
After all Communism and Capitalism while seemingly 100% different are just opposite sides of the same coin, early Capitalist’s (and many today) were the first on the secularist left.

No – it’s essential to know of the development of free enterprise which arose among the Catholic monks, and to know the evils of Communism as blatantly anti-religious.

“The Late Scholastics derived their ethical approach from the Thomist concept of the interrelatedness of natural law, ethics and economics.” (Christians For Freedom, Dr Alejandro Chafuen, Ignatius, 1986, p 36-37).

Free enterprise economic development started in the great Catholic monastic estates of the ninth century, and a solid basis of economic Catholic thought developed 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).

Free enterprise (Marx’s “capitalism”) has nothing to do with a “governmental system” but was developed by Catholic monks from the ninth century and the principles enunciated by the great Catholic Late Scholastics. Thus, both Bl John Paul II are Pope Benedict XVI have affirmed free enterprise and called on people to act morally.

Fr James V Schall, S.J., in Does Catholicism Still Exist?, Alba House 1994, p 184-185:
“Since the Catholic Church wants poverty confronted, since She wants this confrontation to be done justly and with the interest and cooperation of the workers and the poor, She has had to acknowledge, as did the socialist systems themselves, that there are certain ways that must be employed if mankind is to meet its economic problems. These ways can be known and imitated, but they must include a juridical system, profit, enterprise, knowledge, exchange, a market, voluntary organisations, a relatively independent economy, private property, and respect for work and excellence.”

That’s why we have laws to seek and punish those who steal, cheat, swindle, and worse crimes. That’s why we have the Catholic Church to guide us – She who invented charity in the West. It’s time to face reality. Pbmbfl needs to study post #4.

 

[Zoltan_Cobalt]

Dear friend,

The only failure in capitalism from a church standpoint is when the state tries to eliminate the church. You must separate church and state, for such reasons as not having the state punish heretics. Some heretics were put to death for going against the church when church and state were one. As to go against the church was considered treason against the state

. If the state works in perfect unison with the church, each carrying out their proper functions in a complimentary and harmonious way, then all works fine. The states are trying to eradicate the church, hence the meltdowns you see all over the world. We are talking Catholic Church here, but the better the state and church work together the better society functions all round.

The church, if citizens utilize it fully, produces better and more productive (in all ways) citizens for the state. Socialism, communism and many political ideologies seek to eliminate church. They try to replace God, and seek to be God to us oft too. This is like eliminating the spiritual aspects of man.

Not all religions work as well as others. Capitalism is favoured by many because it is seen as the best system to allow both state and church to thrive, prosper and succeed. But god does not ordain any particular political ideology or theory. Jesus said “render to God the things that are Gods, and Caesar the things that are Caesars “. It is up to us to find a way to make this hopeless system with money work. God did not invent money, and greed for money is the root of all evil.

The need for politics is a result of original sin. True religion makes better people, true politics allows those people to function better as and in a society. They are two realms like religion = spiritual, and politics = physical, and obviously they overlap very oft. But they have their own unique domains and overlap in some ways. Catholicism and state if they get it right, and work hard for perfection, to the extent they achieve that correct unification of perfection, work perfectly individually and together.

Other Christian faiths can work well too, I acknowledge this. Those are my thoughts. Hope this helps with the debate. Adios…

from a Religious standpoint.

 

[Seraphim73]

Dear friend,

Good points, but what a shame people need rights at all. Of private property. I like a concept of combined private and shared property. For instance you own the space where your head is, people cannot just swing a stick there. But when you’ve gone the property of said space would become shared property until it needed to be private property again. It is just a real shame common sense does not prevail with people, because then we would have all the rights nature dictates we need, but we would not have to worry about them being infringed or ignored. The fall.

Blessings & peace

Thank you. I mean no offense my friend but your idea simply has no basis in reality. There is a very simple fact that people very very often lose sight of. And they lose sight of it in so many areas. People are people. They inevitably as a group pursue their own separate interest.

As to property. What is property? Property is life. What do I mean by that? The time I spend at work earning an income to buy a house or a car or whatever is time I will never get back. We all only have so many days in this world. If someone takes my property they are essentially taking that time I spent earning that property. They have taken a portion of my life. If I don’t have a right to my property I don’t have a right to my life. The two are inextricably linked.

 

[Zoltan_Cobalt]

Thank you. I mean no offense my friend but your idea simply has no basis in reality. There is a very simple fact that people very very often lose sight of. And they lose sight of it in so many areas. People are people. They inevitably as a group pursue their own separate interest.

As to property. What is property? Property is life. What do I mean by that? The time I spend at work earning an income to buy a house or a car or whatever is time I will never get back. We all only have so many days in this world. If someone takes my property they are essentially taking that time I spent earning that property. They have taken a portion of my life. If I don’t have a right to my property I don’t have a right to my life. The two are inextricably linked.

Ditto, Seraphim.

Without property rights, no other rights are possible. Since man has to sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has no right to the product of his effort has no means to sustain his life. The man who produces while others dispose of his product, is a slave.

 

[John_Russell_Jr]

Thank you. I mean no offense my friend but your idea simply has no basis in reality. There is a very simple fact that people very very often lose sight of. And they lose sight of it in so many areas. People are people. They inevitably as a group pursue their own separate interest.

As to property. What is property? Property is life. What do I mean by that? The time I spend at work earning an income to buy a house or a car or whatever is time I will never get back. We all only have so many days in this world. If someone takes my property they are essentially taking that time I spent earning that property. They have taken a portion of my life. If I don’t have a right to my property I don’t have a right to my life. The two are inextricably linked.

Dear friend,

The idea is actually based on reality, the Garden of Eden is reality, losing it was losing reality. I know realistically you need property rights now, because man is fallen.

You talk a lot about time, and time is your property, and you equate rights and value with time, like you only have so much time. And it cannot be wasted sort of. How do you know there is time? There is no proof. I think we are already inn eternity and in all aspects of afterlife now like heaven, purgatory, and hell. We just don’t get the full experience until our final choice when we supposedly die. But we live forever, so how can you place so much value on a few years of eternity. 100 yrs. out of eternity is infinitesimal, virtually nothing.

I measure life by experiences myself. I see time as an illusion we experience because of the phenomenon of change. We experience change as an illusion of necessity because we cannot experience our whole eternity at once, baby, adult, in purgatory, heaven. You get the idea.

All this world and us are a thought in Gods mind. I think this creation is so God can have experiences, like living vicariously through us and all this creation. God is outside time, And has all His thought “ NOW “ but He makes this thought gradually unfold eternally, because we need our eternity to gradually unfold like this, this whole world does.

This is my personal theory by the way. What do you think? Do you think there may be something to it dear friend?

Blessings & peace

 

[Seraphim73]

Dear friend,

The idea is actually based on reality, the Garden of Eden is reality, losing it was losing reality. I know realistically you need property rights now, because man is fallen.

You talk a lot about time, and time is your property, and you equate rights and value with time, like you only have so much time. And it cannot be wasted sort of. How do you know there is time? There is no proof. I think we are already inn eternity and in all aspects of afterlife now like heaven, purgatory, and hell. We just don’t get the full experience until our final choice when we supposedly die. But we live forever, so how can you place so much value on a few years of eternity. 100 yrs. out of eternity is infinitesimal, virtually nothing.

I measure life by experiences myself. I see time as an illusion we experience because of the phenomenon of change. We experience change as an illusion of necessity because we cannot experience our whole eternity at once, baby, adult, in purgatory, heaven. You get the idea.

All this world and us are a thought in Gods mind. I think this creation is so God can have experiences, like living vicariously through us and all this creation. God is outside time, And has all His thought “ NOW “ but He makes this thought gradually unfold eternally, because we need our eternity to gradually unfold like this, this whole world does.

This is my personal theory by the way. What do you think? Do you think there may be something to it dear friend?

Blessings & peace

I think that is a wonderful way to look at things but what we are talking about is not what you or I think or feel. We are talking about relations between people. How we relate to one another. In that case we can’t project our beliefs onto someone else. We have to treat them as their own person with their own morals and beliefs. A person to be persuaded, not coerced, not strong armed by government into giving up their God given rights.

 

[ThomasJMullally]

Dear friend,

Good points, but what a shame people need rights at all. Of private property. I like a concept of combined private and shared property. For instance you own the space where your head is, people cannot just swing a stick there. But when you’ve gone the property of said space would become shared property until it needed to be private property again. It is just a real shame common sense does not prevail with people, because then we would have all the rights nature dictates we need, but we would not have to worry about them being infringed or ignored. The fall.

Blessings & peace

Mr. Russell, don’t listen to the naysayers on your concept. You have found the root, the untouchable third rail of this discussion.

We can’t take it with us, and to hold onto it while we are here is in fact a giant piece of overhead that the capitalist equation can’t account for, and which has nature as it’s biggest victim. A giant piece of overhead that few “libertarians” have noticed,. Private property the basis of freedom? What about the cost of police to defend it? What about each person’s cost to maintain it? Libertarians… hah!