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Adonia
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And speaking of Mrs. Thatcher: In a TV interview for Thames TV This Week [1]]on Feb. 5, 1976, Prime Minister Thatcher said, “…and Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They [socialists] always run out of other people’s money. It’s quite a characteristic of them.”
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tonyrey
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It is easy to criticise but to create jobs and opportunities for those who are born poor is far more difficult in a society dominated by inherited wealth, vested interests, nepotism, cronyism, closed shops, old boy networks and corruption in every shape and form. In the Uk it is very difficult to obtain a good education without having the funds to do so. Student grants and maintenance grants have been abolished and fees have tripled since the present government came to power. Most apprenticeships are just an excuse for cheap labour and zero-hour contracts are becoming the rule rather than the exception. Many families are being forced by high rents to move out of London to small towns where there are far fewer jobs and their children’s education retarded at a critical age by a change of syllabus, teachers, classmates and environment. The odds are heavily stacked against the working class under a government consisting mainly of millionaires, sponsored by the landed gentry and dominated by media tycoons like Rupert Murdoch. In this society what you know is far less important than who you know - and completely opposed to the teaching of Jesus…
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Adonia
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Yes, but that liberation needs to be accepted and practiced by the individual person via our free will.
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tonyrey
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These are the facts:
This Tory government has doubled the national debt to over £1.5 trillion, incurred a NHS deficit of £2 billion - its worst financial crisis in a generation - enabled nursing agencies to make billions out of privatisation, given a government subsidy to wealthy landowners of more than £3.5 billion every year, increased the wealth of the richest 1% so that they now own as much as the 55% poorest, leaving 18 million people without adequate housing conditions, 5.5 million people earning less than they need and 2.5 million children living in damp properties.
There is a lot more evidence of the Tories’ incompetence:
labourleft.co.uk/david-camerons-100-biggest-failures-by-laboureoin/
They rob the State under the pretext of reducing the deficit.** In reality austerity for the majority is simply a cloak for the prosperity of the minority**.
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tonyrey
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It also needs to be accepted and practised by **all **the members of the government who are supposed to represent the interests of **all **the electorate not just a privileged minority.
Power corrupts and the lust for power and wealth is deep-rooted in human society.
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Adonia
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Oh stop. I came from a family where my Dad was a factory worker and my mother a secretary. My father instilled in me the value of working to get what you wanted and not to blame anyone else for your own failure to achieve, so from the get go it was work for me.
First it was a paper route, them cutting lawns, then I was a machinist - and all that happened before I even got out of high school!. After that I entered the US military for 4 years and was discharged at the age of 21. I then took a dirty nasty job of cleaning oil tanks and sewage plants, and then working my way up to become a professional truck driver (a job I really love).
I am now 60 and my toils have allowed me to raise a family, buy a 100 acre farm, a house in another state, and a caravan and pick-up truck to pull it that we live in in yet another state. And I did it all despite whatever government was in power and during that time I have seen people even poorer than me make successes of themselves too. The only person who can hold a person back is the person themselves!
I have no envy of the rich as you seem to have (envy - that is a sin you know), it’s their money and if they made it legally more power to them. And God bless their children who will be able to inherit the wealth of their parents too!
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Adonia
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And when they don’t then vote them out of power.
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Wesrock
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The pursuit of money for money’s sake is unChristian. It is important that goods reach all levels of men for their use. If a free market economy is the best way to do that, so be it.
I personally would like to see more public involvement is some areas than the USA economy currently has. I don’t think a perfectly free market appropriately distributes ALL goods. But not everyone agrees.
However, if people argue for capitalism (or any other system) based on unChristian principles without a care for Christian principles, then that’s a problem.
I personally would like to see more public involvement is some areas than the USA economy currently has. I don’t think a perfectly free market appropriately distributes ALL goods. But not everyone agrees.
However, if people argue for capitalism (or any other system) based on unChristian principles without a care for Christian principles, then that’s a problem.
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tonyrey
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Mrs Thatcher is a classic example of those who accuse others of their own faults. She sold off the state’s assets: gas, water, electricity, aerospace, steel, shipbuilding, telephones, freight, oil, ports, airways, British Leyland and Rolls Royce - and now we are paying a very high price for her depredations. A national debt of over £1.5 trillion is hardly a trivial sum. The state is running out of money because she robbed it for the benefit of the privileged few who could afford to buy its assets. Now everyone else is paying for the privilege of being defrauded! Unbridled capitalism is not only unChristian; it is Satanic and the cause of most of the needless suffering in the world. Anyone who condones it is complicit in the greatest evil known to mankind - which amounts to terrorism on a universal scale.
Hell begins in this life and continues in the next but the roles are reversed. The perpetrators become the victims and the victims become the victors - like Jesus. Regardless of what we claim to believe, it is how we live and to whether we love others that determines our eternal destiny. Jesus put his precepts into practice and we should do the same. He condemned the hypocrites and praised the poor widow. She gave all she had and will receive the greatest treasures of all: joy, peace and love in heaven…
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Adonia
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Like where? Good grief, the government has it’s hand in virtually everything these days. The government should not be picking the winners and losers of the business world. - crony capitalism is not a fair policy. The governments job is to set the rules and then step back and let the wealth creation process begin.
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exnihilo
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No, capitalism isn’t un-Christian. When considering such things one must be careful about what he means by capitalism. In fact the specific consideration of this thread seems to not be capitalism but the British social welfare state. Captialism, it seems to me, is often defined as the current form of government, no matter how socialist it has become. So for instance the US government was capitalist before Social Security and after it. Of course that doesn’t really make sense. Western economies are really mixed economies.
It is better to consider capitalism as simply free markets. Free markets are without a doubt the best way to generate wealth. They by their nature allocate resources to those who are willing and able to work. In as much as it allocates wealth to those who are able to and do work it is very Christian. There is then the issue of those unable to work. Here capitalism could be said to fail. But it isn’t really a failure. It is just beyond the power of the system.
To systematically allocate resources to those unable to work you are going to have to involve some sort of coercion. You are going to have to take from some who have wealth and give to those that don’t. This is what all western governments do. They compell the productive to pay taxes which are redistributed to the poor. So the issue is simply not with capitalism. Capitalism is more the system which generates the wealth that is redistributed. The more capitalist an economy the more wealth it will have to redistribute.
Of course one problem is that the coercive laws that take from producers have an effect to alter the behavior of producers. This will result in less overall production.
Issues brought up such as corporate power are not intrinsic to capitalism. I think corporations in the US have far too many legal protections, rights and privileges. I think they benefit from corporate welfare. I believe capitalism to be the best economic system but I neither see the necessity nor the good of the US corporation as currently empowered.
It is better to consider capitalism as simply free markets. Free markets are without a doubt the best way to generate wealth. They by their nature allocate resources to those who are willing and able to work. In as much as it allocates wealth to those who are able to and do work it is very Christian. There is then the issue of those unable to work. Here capitalism could be said to fail. But it isn’t really a failure. It is just beyond the power of the system.
To systematically allocate resources to those unable to work you are going to have to involve some sort of coercion. You are going to have to take from some who have wealth and give to those that don’t. This is what all western governments do. They compell the productive to pay taxes which are redistributed to the poor. So the issue is simply not with capitalism. Capitalism is more the system which generates the wealth that is redistributed. The more capitalist an economy the more wealth it will have to redistribute.
Of course one problem is that the coercive laws that take from producers have an effect to alter the behavior of producers. This will result in less overall production.
Issues brought up such as corporate power are not intrinsic to capitalism. I think corporations in the US have far too many legal protections, rights and privileges. I think they benefit from corporate welfare. I believe capitalism to be the best economic system but I neither see the necessity nor the good of the US corporation as currently empowered.
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Adonia
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Sure she sold off all those assets and in the process created a middle class that Britain never had before. Here in America the goal of the Democrats is, despite what they say, the destruction of the middle class.
They only want the rich and powerful like themselves, and then the poor who will need the government to help them. It’s funny how they called for taxpayer dollars to save GM, but they all drive foreign models. They just love the taxpayer funded school system, but they won’t send their own kids to them. And do you really think that they would ever have to participate in some government funded health care system? Not on your life. No one named Obama will ever have to use Obamacare.
And speaking of Obamacare, what Obamacare was all about was to increase the health care costs and offer subsides to people to help pay the premiums. There has been no $2500.00 reduction in our premiums as promised, but an increase in them. Doctors are leaving the system when more people are coming into it - that is a recipie for disaster.
We must always remember that socialism is for the people, not the socialists themselves.
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tonyrey
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Corporations are capitalistic on a universal scale. They are not subject to laws like individuals and companies. They can transfer wealth, evade taxation and influence national policies. To a large extent the law of the jungle dominates world trade and economic policies. The struggle for survival in a system dominated by rates of exchange and the transfer of large sums of money has already led to several financial crises. They demonstrate the need for regulation on an international scale but the main obstacle is corruption on the part of individuals, corporations, governments and UN organizations. Until there is universal agreement on an equitable distribution of wealth and strict control of the arms trade the world will not be liberated from the excesses of capitalism and socialism. Only the teaching of Christ can free us from the diabolical injustice that destroys so many people’s lives through no fault of their own.
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tonyrey
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I agree with you about socialism being for the people in practice as well as theory. I lived in Algeria for two years and witnessed how a socialist state favours the leaders with their Mercedes and wives going to Paris for the weekend for their shopping and hair styling. A transfer of power is not always entirely for the benefit of the people as a whole because corruption often rears its ugly head. I don’t know much about politics in the US but like the UK it seems dominated by money at all levels. It also seems that the larger a nation is the more difficult it becomes to administer justice but certainly China is far worse in its repression of dissidents and violation of human rights.Its impending financial crisis suggests once again that uncontrolled enterprise even in a socialist nation is a recipe for disaster. Wealth often increases at the expense of spiritual, psychological, physical, social, economic and cultural health. No wonder Jesus warned us about the dangers of riches!
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Robert_Sock
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Is Capitalism unChristian?
We really do not know. Moreover, Capitalism may very well have been necessary in the past, but that does not mean it will not transform itself into something evil at a slightly different time period in the future. Something similar is now happening, I think. The hierarchical rankings of morals and values changing over time. Love is going to manifest itself as the most valuable value! When this happens, poverty will be quickly extinguished. The value of love is whats guiding Pope Francis; the hierarchical value of love needs to be refocused with our spiritual energy being placed this paramount value in today’s world.
We really do not know. Moreover, Capitalism may very well have been necessary in the past, but that does not mean it will not transform itself into something evil at a slightly different time period in the future. Something similar is now happening, I think. The hierarchical rankings of morals and values changing over time. Love is going to manifest itself as the most valuable value! When this happens, poverty will be quickly extinguished. The value of love is whats guiding Pope Francis; the hierarchical value of love needs to be refocused with our spiritual energy being placed this paramount value in today’s world.
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ahs
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Amen! But that’s got nothing to do with capitalism or any other system. Capitalism doesn’t prevent anyone from giving to those in need. Greed does. And greed is not inherent in “a system”, it is a result of sinful people (us) taking advantage of anything and everything we can.
I know, and that’s really sad. But it’s got nothing to do with capitalism or any other system. In case you weren’t aware, many people in other countries that did NOT operate under capitalism ALSO had decreasing incomes. It isn’t the system, it’s human greed, which can manifest itself in ANY system.
What concerns me the most is that these people were in such despair that they either lost faith in God to help them carry their crosses, or didn’t have it to begin with. To come to a point where a loss of income can drive a person to kill themselves is a true sadness that screams “…if God exists, He didn’t make anything good enough for me to live for, except my income.…”.
Again, a very sad situation that has absolutely nothing to do with capitalism. Capitalism, in no way whatsoever, prevents people from helping those in need. Greed, on the other hand…
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Adonia
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Good heavens, now you want people from the rest of the world deciding things for us in these United States? And then an “equitable distribution of wealth”. No one entity has the right to decide such a thing I say no, never. That is complete madness. You have gone fully over to the dark side on this issue and to use the teachings of Jesus to support such an idea is stretching things quite a bit…
Sorry my friend, you need to deal with the envy that you have for people more fortunate than yourself.
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Used2beSherryG
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Love your story. mine is an echo. millions of people could give your witness as well. Regardless of your individual viewpoints of the best form of government, in a democracy you are free to work hard and make your own way. Whining is not a good career path.
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tonyrey
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It is not a question of envy but **compassion for all the people in the world who never **have the opportunity to escape from the poverty in which they are trapped from the moment they are born until the moment they die. Anyone who denies there is diabolical injustice and inequality on this planet is complicit by default. At the very least we should do our best to try to change people’s attitudes towards those who are less fortunate than ourselves instead of regarding our freedom to decide things for ourselves as the supreme priority. That excuse is precisely the reason why there is so much needless suffering. Like Jesus we should be prepared to renounce our own interests if that is the only way to liberate others from evil. Love demands self-sacrifice even it entails curtailing our liberty. The first Christians shared everything without asserting their right to independence and self-determination. They realised the Messiah hadn’t come to liberate them from the Romans - as they expected - but to liberate them from their slavery to themselves. They took Jesus at his word and followed His example even to the extent of suffering and dying, not for their race, nation or religion, but for all our brothers and sisters throughout the world. If we claim to be Christians that should be our supreme priority too.
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