Is Distributism utopian?

[je333]

Private ownership? :dts::dts::dts: God created everything. He owns everything. We do not own any thing. Even our body is not ours. It is his. To privatize and to control his creations is very very selfish and sinful. Everything must be shared and given!!! You have to give everything that you have for others. And others must do the same. Our problem in our current system is that everyone privatizes which gives birth to selfishness, clamouring and competing creatures wanting everything for themselves.

MATTHEW 25:35-40

35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

40 “The King will reply, ‘TRULY I TELL YOU, WHATEVER YOU DID FOR ONE OF THE LEAST OF THESE BROTHERS AND SISITERS OF MINE, YOU DID FOR ME.’:hammering::hammering::hammering:

 

[je333]

Jonatello;8557952:

How sad that you have fallen so far from Gods teaching that you embrace communism.

The word communism is not a bad word.

[French communisme, from commun, common, from Old French, from Latin commnis; see commune2.

com·mune 1 (k-myn)
intr.v. com·muned, com·mun·ing, com·munes

1. To be in a state of intimate, heightened sensitivity and receptivity, as with one’s surroundings: hikers communing with nature.
2. To receive the Eucharist.

Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production.

Communism
A theoretical economic system characterized by the [COLOR=“Red”]collective

ownership of property and by the organization of labor for the common advantage of all members.

A system of government in which the state plans and controls the economy and a single, often authoritarian party holds power, claiming to make progress toward a higher social order in which all goods are equally shared by the people.

Communism with a little change and with theism will work just fine!!! Nothing to be afraid of. God will guide us no matter what form of government we are heading into. We survived Capitalism, why can’t we survive Socialism/Communism? Do not be afraid. Trust in Jesus Christ. He will always be with us. Amen. Love it and embrace it, don’t push it away. Remember the rebelling angels who push God away? God still love them and want to embrace them but they push and reject him

 

[St_Francis]

Cho;8558500:

The word communism is not a bad word. *

A word is of course not a bad thing in and of itself, but what the word communism signifies is a very bad thing which has been condemnee by the Catholic Church.

[French communisme, from commun, common, from Old French, from Latin commnis; see commune2.

com·mune 1 *(k-myn)
intr.v. com·muned, com·mun·ing, com·munes

1. To be in a state of intimate, heightened sensitivity and receptivity, as with one’s surroundings: hikers communing with nature.
2. To receive the Eucharist.

And do you truly think that any system which explicitly denies and forbids God, and which implicitly sees God as its competitor bears any relation whatsoever to the second of those definitions???*

Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production.

Communism
A theoretical economic system characterized by the collective

ownership of property and by the organization of labor for the common advantage of all members.

A system of government in which the state plans and controls the economy and a single, often authoritarian party holds power, claiming to make progress toward a higher social order in which all goods are equally shared by the people.

Communism with a little change and with theism will work just fine!!! *Nothing to be afraid of. *God will guide us no matter what form of government we are heading into. *We survived Capitalism, why can’t we survive Socialism/Communism? *Do not be afraid. *Trust in Jesus Christ. *He will always be with us. *Amen. *Love it and embrace it, don’t push it away. Remember the rebelling angels who push God away? *God still love them and want to embrace them but they push and reject him *
You’ve fallen for the marketing ploy–neither is a system wherein the people who work in the factory own it collectively, but in which everyone in the nation owns every factory collectively.

Elsewhwre I wrote that "[t]he word communism was coined in France in the 1840’s and lifted by Marx and Engels. It was a word created in the secular and anti-clerical times for their philosophy and less than 20 years later used to describe a system which has resulted in countless deaths.

“Communists [are] trying to link their foul system with the God-centered activity of Christians in an attempt to “normalize” their ideas and make them more palatable to non-Communists.”

The problem with communism is that it is founded on an erroneous view of human nature. It would be like using bread dough to build a bridge. Which is why the Catholic Church is against communism, no matter how much it is dressed up.

There is absolutely no reason not to “push it away” if by “it” you mean communism. We should push it away just as we should push mortal sin away.
[/quote]

 

[frankpearson]

The state is simply a political ruling class, those who obtain wealth by political means excusing aggression and violence. Private interests are those who obtain wealth through economic means or trade. I assume by “private concentrated interests” you mean the private rich and I am baffled why you don’t like to use the term (private) “rich” or “wealthy”. Once the rich begin buying favor of the ruling political class they become part of that class; their wealth and power increases at the expense of those who the state aggresses against for their benefit. The concept of “fairness” means different things to different people. From what I am seeing from Distributionists here “fairness” requires the elimination of the concept of “privately concentrated wealth” (the rich). and also the poor. The goal is a state enforced economic egalitarianism, achieved by regulating. This regulation is accomplished by a state regulating either economic activity or private property. This regulation eliminates the concept of private property altogether as this state assumes ownership/control and is therefore communistic, NOT capitalistic, which is simply private ownership of property.
Communistic arrangements are not NECESSARILY huge bureaucracies. They can be small. And they can be voluntary. I have no issue at all with those who choose to contract to live among like minded individuals in such schemes. That is the only way they can work or be moral is to make them voluntary and their political class subject to contractual obligations. They would have no monopoly on violence/aggression, no armies or police to aggress against the people. I disagree with this arrangement because egalitarianism discriminates against wealth creators and judges the rich as evil and the poor as necessarily victims. Without enough wealth creation and free market trade, this would only work with limited population sizes.

Blaming bureaucracy on the rich (the verbose description “owners of highly concentrated land and capital”, which appears to be an attempt to disguise communistic hatred of “the rich” and private property ownership in more “scientific” sounding jargon) does not explain the massive bureacracies of modern communistic states that HAD no rich except thoe relatively few in the political leadership who did not “whither away” and did not apply egalitarianism to themselves. State bureaucracy INCREASES as private property decreases.

I don’t use the term “Rich” because I am not talking about the rich. I am talking about concentration of capital and land. You can become rich in a purely distributist system. Doing so just requires work . I honestly think you are accepting nonsensical descriptions of your beloved social philosophy and that of the enemy.

Capitalism is all things free and good. It is laissez faire whenever you talk to someone who doesn’t agree and you need to have a strong front, and then it is some sort of bureaucratized socialism when you talk to your friends and family.

Socialism is that wicked system that encompasses all things that have to do with government “power”. It encompasses every non-free capitalist system except the archaic past.

I think my definitions are much more concise. I just flatly disagree with your trying to paint distributism as this great socialist controlled network. You people are acting like hacks. You really think there is no way that government can work to limit the size and reach of economic interests without becoming socialism?

And besides, distributists are just working against the nonsensical laissez faire principals you are all implicitly defending. I am honestly done arguing the evil communist vs. the righteous anarcho-capitalist, debate. It is just not conducive to real thought.

I do appreciate the dialog, however.

 

[meme1961]

OK, you don’t use Microsoft products (DO you???)

I don’t, no. But the more important point than supplier is that software has two fundamental aspects that make it so radically different from other products that it can’t be treated, legally, as analogous to anything.

Unfortunately, that is exactly what the legal system has done (a DVD is considered a “device”, for heaven’s sake!).

or like Stewart, that is fine. But some people do and were not "advertised or competitivized (??) into wanting them, MAYBE they made an adult decision that YOU simply disagree with. The point is that they CREATED wealth, and jobs and made some peoples lives better.

I agree. This issue is less about size and more about wealth creation, and the concentration of wealth necessary to produce more wealth. Some businesses require huge amounts of capital to function (see: Petroleum Production).

Raw milk is just one more example of the police state we are stuck with, that is the inevitable result of statism. The state (it may be yours, but it is not mine so it can’t be ours) has not “gone astray”. This is what they state does, period. It is the nature of the beast. It is a parasitic class of immoral human beings enslaving other human beings.

As all things of this nature, it isn’t a binary system. While any kind or amount of government will partake, to some degree, of the nature of slavery, that amount can be normalized into a value somewhere between 0 and 1. What the ideal amount of slavery is can be fairly easily described, and has been, but I suspect we can all agree that the value should be less than 1.

You seem to believe that anything greater than zero is the equivalent of 1. I would respectfully disagree, as in any scenario, two or more individuals will interact and have both shared benefits and risks (to say it correctly, the risks and benefits will be corporate, thus requiring some kind of corporate governance).

I would agree that the inevitable result of any amount of government/corporate governance is that it will evolve towards a slavery value of 1, but that is why we must remain vigilant and be constantly prepared to cut and trim when the bush of government grows outside its topiary boundary.

Or to paraphrase a great man “Government is a necessary evil.”

 

[Jonatello]

In modern democratic states the rulers are the political class who have required the majority to be brainwashed in their centers and reinforce the conditioning through controlled information and trigger language. The majority thus behave as they are trained, think what they are told to think. The majority are not “rulers”.

this is somewhat true, and its because the channels of reaching people have been controlled by the few.

ALL state aggression is living by the sword.

exactly. not just democracy, or “tyranny of the majority”

To think that it is somehow noble to aggress against/ loot our neighbors because we are in a majority is what is “silly”.

agreed,

??? And usually STATE force.

exactly. force by a state that answers to ______

Slave mentality, and you love your chains. You see your chains as a good thing. You do not fear those who chain you, you fear those who might slip off their chains. You are like the crabs in the bucket that grab and pull back into the bucket the crabs who try to escape. You feel safer in bondage, believe that your owners work for you and protect you.

This is backwards. Bondage is intensified when wealth and power are allowed to concentrate into fewer hands.

When I say you will always have government, my point is that it cannot be avoided. Power concentrates faster in a vacuum. If there is no civic vessel to look out for the common good, the strong and fortunate have free reign to gain control of everything.

The closest example of “no government” I can think of is Somalia, and now they have to deal with the militant group al-Shabaab violently trying to control this famine-ravaged country to the point of severely punishing anyone who eats a triangle-shaped pastry (3 is apparently an evil number to al-Shabaab).

And who does the US state answer to?? Not the majority, calls/emails were 100:1 against the TARP bailouts, union bailouts. “Our” government ignored us and are currently bailing out EUROPEAN banks and sticking their debt on us. Yep. They are sure scared of their slaves, the US state is.

exaaactly. because our democracy has been stolen from the majority thanks to concentration of economic power.

It depends on what you are voting on. The demographics change.

Sooo, theft in that instance is OK??

you’re confusing 2 points.

I’m not sure what you mean about “worried”. I am pointing out that aggression against a neighbor is immoral. Theft is immoral. Private ownership of property is what distinguishes a free people from slaves.

If you believe private ownership of property distinguishes free people from slaves, then why would you think its ok for excess portions of property to be hoarded by the few, thus turning the majority into slaves?

And about theft…

A squirrel obsessively gathers way more acorns than he needs, thus leaving not enough for the others who didn’t match his ambition (because if it wasn’t for his greed, everyone could have collected enough with ease).

Is that not theft?

Squirrels are now desperate for any and every acorn they can find, and he can now choose his favorite squirrels and compel them to do his bidding, controlling all Squirrelville matters. Is that compulsion to do his bidding at the risk of scarcity not a form of de facto slavery?

If the rest of the squirrels decide to use the only leverage they have left (numbers) to surround him and demand he keep only that which he needs, giving up only that which he doesn’t…are you saying they’re the real thieves?

Majorities voting to force their will on minorities is aggression, immoral and unnecessary…unless the intent IS to enslave, loot. It doesn’t matter WHAT “scenario” you come up with, ends do not justify means. and that is NOT a “straw man”.

Minorities using their control over the state (due to their control over the resources) to force their will on majority is then also aggression by the same exact definition.

Because I am not a communist and I don’t believe that my neighbor should be forced to work for my benefit. That is slavery.

This is what happens when capitalism is left unchecked as well. This is why distributists see communism and capitalism leading to the same fundamental situation for society. Force is force, whether by aggression or by managed scarcity inflicted by the hoarders (who would maintain their control via threat of aggression anyway).

 

[Jonatello]

Cho;8558500:

The word communism is not a bad word.

[French communisme, from commun, common, from Old French, from Latin commnis; see commune2.

com·mune 1 (k-myn)
intr.v. com·muned, com·mun·ing, com·munes

1. To be in a state of intimate, heightened sensitivity and receptivity, as with one’s surroundings: hikers communing with nature.
2. To receive the Eucharist.

Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production.

Communism
A theoretical economic system characterized by the [COLOR=“Red”]collective

ownership of property and by the organization of labor for the common advantage of all members.

A system of government in which the state plans and controls the economy and a single, often authoritarian party holds power, claiming to make progress toward a higher social order in which all goods are equally shared by the people.

Communism with a little change and with theism will work just fine!!! Nothing to be afraid of. God will guide us no matter what form of government we are heading into. We survived Capitalism, why can’t we survive Socialism/Communism? Do not be afraid. Trust in Jesus Christ. He will always be with us. Amen. Love it and embrace it, don’t push it away. Remember the rebelling angels who push God away? God still love them and want to embrace them but they push and reject him

I just wanted to point out that it was Cho who wrote “how sad…” line, not me.

 

[meme1961]

Alas, hopes dashed. You have no idea either. Just pie in the sky utopian crud about how property will be magically “distributed” in small and fair holdings.

Not necessarily. It is possible, through purely individual, voluntary action to create a future where there are a few more “Distributist” companies than there are now.

The Mormon Church has always acted to encourage collectives, and there is no reason to believe that the Catholic Church can’t do the same.

The truth is, though, that those early collectives very quickly ended up being large corporations precisely because large corporations are more efficient than small ones at dealing with a high volume of business. And the Mormon Church is large enough to drive a small business towards its natural size.

What has been missing in all this is the concept of economic efficiency. Any system that tries to violate economic efficiency, be it socialism, communism, fascism, feudalism or distributism will founder. A company has a natural size that is related to its capital requirements, its market size, and the various efficiencies available in its environment that are reasonably exploitable.

Distributism can only, will only work well for businesses whose natural size is small, or whose natural function is to be an aggregator of products, not a creator of products.

 

[Jonatello]

And do you truly think that any system which explicitly denies and forbids God, and which implicitly sees God as its competitor bears any relation whatsoever to the second of those definitions???*

Let’s not get mixed up between Absolute Marxism and anything that would be considered a form of “communism”. there’s nothing about the basic fundamental definition of communism that requires the system to espouse the religious views of Marx.

If someone proposed a system in which everyone in the nation owns every factory collectively, which explicitly recognized God, maybe to the point of forcing people to go to church (just as an example), we would still call it communism.

The problem with sensitive buzzwords is that people tend to “Glenn-Beck” the concepts…ie: they tend to connect any common attribute to the whole of the worse example.

“Grass is green…Balloons are often green…don’t stand on grass because you might float away”

“Mussolini liked to drink Campari, and so does Obama…what does that tell you?”

“The Nazis spoke of ‘social justice’ so run from the Catholics”

 

[Jonatello]

I don’t use the term “Rich” because I am not talking about the rich. I am talking about concentration of capital and land. You can become rich in a purely distributist system. Doing so just requires work . I honestly think you are accepting nonsensical descriptions of your beloved social philosophy and that of the enemy.

This is a very important distinction. The one minor challenge or caveat I’d like to put before you is that it probably would be much harder (if not impossible) to become AS rich as some people today in a society where the means of production and opportunity cannot be hoarded.

Capitalism is all things free and good. It is laissez faire whenever you talk to someone who doesn’t agree and you need to have a strong front, and then it is some sort of bureaucratized socialism when you talk to your friends and family.

Socialism is that wicked system that encompasses all things that have to do with government “power”. It encompasses every non-free capitalist system except the archaic past.

I think my definitions are much more concise. I just flatly disagree with your trying to paint distributism as this great socialist controlled network. You people are acting like hacks. You really think there is no way that government can work to limit the size and reach of economic interests without becoming socialism?

And besides, distributists are just working against the nonsensical laissez faire principals you are all implicitly defending. I am honestly done arguing the evil communist vs. the righteous anarcho-capitalist, debate. It is just not conducive to real thought.

I do appreciate the dialog, however.

i co-sign everything above

 

[tomarin]

Corporations ARE people. This propaganda of painting corporations as soulless machines is just that: propaganda. Corporations are started by people, hire people, have people as suppliers, and people as customers, and are at the end of the day exhibit the properties that are the direct reflection of that collected group.

Please, let us start having a more honest conversation. If you want to complain about corporations, start by recognizing that your complaint applies to every group of people, including unions, political parties, governments and yes, religious groups. Picking out a particular class to target while pretending that other groups are intrinsically different runs a huge risk of being unjust.

I just saw your response to my post. I don’t think anything I said was propagandistic, particularly. I’m not trying to engage in corporation-bashing, and I’m not sure how you got that impression from my post, nor do I see how my participation in this thread (which I started incidentally) has been dishonest in any way. Can you flesh out some of these accusations?

My position on corporations is that they exist to serve a purpose and there’s nothing “evil” about them in an intrinsic sense but at the same time, I don’t see why Christians in particular should regard them as deserving of our love and immune from any criticism. Once corporations stop serving human needs I don’t see much use for them at all. I took the poster I was responding to to be saying the opposite, which is that humans exist to serve the needs of corporations, which is a very perverse idea.

 

[tomarin]

Alas, hopes dashed. You have no idea either. Just pie in the sky utopian crud about how property will be magically “distributed” in small and fair holdings.

Cho, did you read my post # 151?

 

[St_Francis]

The problem with sensitive buzzwords is that people tend to “Glenn-Beck” the concepts…ie: they tend to connect any common attribute to the whole of the worse example.*

“Grass is green…Balloons are often green…don’t stand on grass because you might float away”

“Mussolini liked to drink Campari, and so does Obama…what does that tell you?”

“The Nazis spoke of ‘social justice’ so run from the Catholics”

I rearranged what you wrote to avoid repetition…

What you are describing here is that sometimes people take two different entities, one of which is known to have a certain *quality, then links them by a different quality and then assumes the carrying-over of the other quality.

What I am saying, however, is that we have a word, which refers to a certain thing.*

To then propose a different thing, attach the same name, and then say the name does not have the qualities of the original is the reverse of what ou describe above, but is just as fallacious.

Say I take something known to be good, like a Mercedes Benz. Ok, I have an object which has four wheels and and engine, so I say, well, this shares certain qualities with the Mercedes, so I will call it a Mercedes and say it is good just like a Mercedes is. But mine is a Ford Pinto with a blown engine and no doors, so we really can’t say owning it is at all like owning a Pinto.

Let’s not get mixed up between Absolute Marxism and anything that would be considered a form of “communism”.

As a general rule, people who propose something very much like a bad thing but with the bad parts taken out try to distance their proposed idea by giving it a differentiating name. No one would call their idea for a socialism focused in one nation National Socialism, right? No, they would find some other name, like country-oriented socialism or localized socialism, but they would stay away from natiinal socialism altogether!

there’s nothing about the basic fundamental definition of communism that requires the system to espouse the religious views of Marx.

Except that communism refers to Marxism. That’s why other forms of communism have different names, like Maoism, Stalinism, etc.

Now, the thing about eliminating everyone’s right to property is that it requires a lot of bad stuff like lying and killing. Elimination of private property is so antithetical to human nature that one cannot avoid the bad stuff while stealing everybody’s property.

So, no, communism cannot allow any religion in it.

If someone proposed a system in which everyone in the nation owns every factory collectively, which explicitly recognized God, maybe to the point of forcing people to go to church (just as an example), we would still call it communism.

Well, I could propose green flying carpets on the basis that some balloons are green, but so what?

Look, communism is communism, and commmunists are always trying to trick people into becoming communists by dressing it up. But a box does not become a cake just because someone puts frosting on it.

 

[St_Francis]

je333;8558527:

I just wanted to point out that it was Cho who wrote “how sad…” line, not me.

Cho! My great apologies for not noticing that you ended up cited as the writer of the paean to communism!

 

[Jonatello]

Democracy is nothing more than mob rule, fine if you are in the mob, not so hot for the minority. It requires a political class supposedly elected by the mob to aggress against the minority on their behalf. There is no way to guarantee that the political class won’t act in their own interests once they have a monopoly on aggression…which is where we are now in the US.
Zoning laws are asserting control over property privately owned, a form of communism. Zoning to force some types of economic activity over others is economic planning, communism. Anti-trust legislation is protectionism of one group of people on behalf of another, it is corporatism.
Subsidiarity will require secession, something the central state is unlikely to allow (been tried once if you recall).
State protectionism and mercantilism is not free market capitalism. Mom and pops do not all go out of business because the big box stores kill them. I stopped shopping at many small local stores because they kept unpredictable hours, were not open when their signs said they were, they would ignore customers as they chewed the fat talking with someone often just visiting them (making customers wait…often unacknowledged), were rude/inconsiderate, had astronomically high prices because they had no competition. Small Mom and pops can be great, but not always.

a large part of the zoning reform i’m talking about is the removal of many of those laws.

addressing the rest of your points would require a lot of repeating myself and going in circles, something i may have more energy for later but not now lol

 

[Jonatello]

Except that communism refers to Marxism. That’s why other forms of communism have different names, like Maoism, Stalinism, etc.

but you still called them other forms of communism. Does the word “communism” really refer only to that which is identical to every detail of Marxism? Are you saying that government control of all property and production isn’t communism unless it explicitly espouses atheism?

Now, the thing about eliminating everyone’s right to property is that it requires a lot of bad stuff like lying and killing. Elimination of private property is so antithetical to human nature that one cannot avoid the bad stuff while stealing everybody’s property.

So, no, communism cannot allow any religion in it.

not sure i’m seeing the connection you’re trying to draw here. Many Native American communities were famous for eliminating ownership of natural resources (like land, water, etc), yet they weren’t atheists. They had religious beliefs which in fact inspired such policy.

Look, communism is communism, and commmunists are always trying to trick people into becoming communists by dressing it up. But a box does not become a cake just because someone puts frosting on it.

i’m not trying to promote communism, btw. My leanings are mostly toward distributism. I was just saying I’m not buying that something isn’t communism unless it includes the explicit denial of God.

If that were the case, someone could propose a system of government-only production/ownership which explicitly promotes a particular religion (or doesn’t make any claims pro/con about God) and nobody could call it communism?

 

[St_Francis]

but you still called them other forms of communism. Does the word “communism” really refer only to that which is identical to every detail of Marxism? Are you saying that government control of all property and production isn’t communism unless it explicitly espouses atheism?

I am saying that implementing and maintaining government control of all property and production requires an abadonment of religion.

*If that were the case, someone could propose a system of government-only production/ownership which explicitly promotes a particular religion (or doesn’t make any claims pro/con about God) and nobody could call it communism?

Like I said, I can call my Pinto a Mercedes, but that doesn’t make it a Mercedes.

not sure i’m seeing the connection you’re trying to draw here. Many Native American communities were famous for eliminating ownership of natural resources (like land, water, etc), yet they weren’t atheists. They had religious beliefs which in fact inspired such policy.

The Native Americans engaged in trade; therefore they had a concept of ownership. However, they did have different ideas about the ownership of natural resources such as land from the ideas of the Europeans. The ideas of the Native Americans were sustainable because there were few of them in relation to the amount of land.

Notice, however, that they did not adapt well to slavery, which is what communism basically is.

i’m not trying to promote communism, btw. My leanings are mostly toward distributism. I was just saying I’m not buying that something isn’t communism unless it includes the explicit denial of God.

Well *I think language is important, and one of the ways that propaganda works is the manipulation of language.

Companies understand the importance of maintaining definitions which is why we have government protection of trademarks. Used to be that everyone called tissues Kleenex. You could buy generic Kleenex, but the Kleenex people didn’t like that, because then people might say, This is terrible Kleenex! but it would be some cheap type of tissues. This could give the real Kleenexes a bad name, right? So they started asserting their trademark protection, as did others like Xerox.

You can have the same thing in reverse: a bad thing becoming associated with something good. So you have communism, which is evil. Then you have religion, which few believe is actually bad and many believe is actually good.*

If a communist can get religion and communism together somehow, then people would be fooled into thinking that communism might be a good thing. It’s kind of like when a crook is on trial and a very well-respected person gives him a good character testimony.

Then people begin to forget how evil communism really is, how it is just a huge slave plantation with “the government” as the plantation owners.

Just like if communists can get it spread around that communism is just like the lifestyle of the peaceful Native Americans…

 

[je333]

je333;8558527:

A word is of course not a bad thing in and of itself, but what the word communism signifies is a very bad thing which has been condemnee by the Catholic Church.

And do you truly think that any system which explicitly denies and forbids God, and which implicitly sees God as its competitor bears any relation whatsoever to the second of those definitions???*

You’ve fallen for the marketing ploy–neither is a system wherein the people who work in the factory own it collectively, but in which everyone in the nation owns every factory collectively.*

Elsewhwre I wrote that "[t]he word communism was coined in France in the 1840’s and lifted by Marx and Engels. It was a word created in the secular and anti-clerical times for their philosophy and less than 20 years later used to describe a system which has resulted in countless deaths.

“Communists [are] trying to link their foul system with the God-centered activity of Christians in an attempt to “normalize” their ideas and make them more palatable to non-Communists.”

The problem with communism is that it is founded on an erroneous view of human nature. It would be like using bread dough to build a bridge. Which is why the Catholic Church is against communism, no matter how much it is dressed up.

There is absolutely no reason not to “push it away” if by “it” you mean communism. We should push it away just as we should push mortal sin away.

The Catholic Church forbids Communism modeled after the Old Russian Government. It does not forbid communal living modeled after the monasteries.

Communism ROCKS!!! We always practice it in our very own Catholic Church and faith by communing with the SAINTS whether they’d be in heaven, earth, purgatory. And most of all we take the VERY HOLY COMMUNION, which is the body and blood, soul and divinity of the LORD, JESUS CHRIST, himself. OUR VERY OWN CATHOLIC FAITH PRACTICES COMMUNISM. THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD BE MODELED AFTER IT!

 

[St_Francis]

St Francis;8558813:

The Catholic Church forbids Communism modeled after the Old Russian Government. It does not forbid communal living modeled after the monasteries.

Communism ROCKS!!! We always practice it in our very own Catholic Church and faith by communing with the SAINTS whether they’d be in heaven, earth, purgatory. And most of all we take the VERY HOLY COMMUNION, which is the body and blood, soul and divinity of the LORD, JESUS CHRIST, himself. OUR VERY OWN CATHOLIC FAITH PRACTICES COMMUNISM. THE GOVERNMENT SHOULD BE MODELED AFTER IT!

Monastic communities are not communistic. There is a thread called Why id the Church against communism in which this was recently covered; the thread is pro aby on the third page of this forum now.

 

[David_Castlen]

Thst’s like saying there is no way that a fish can swim without water. Truly, when the government “works” to limit the size and reach of economic interests the tiger’s tail has been let go.

And besides, distributists are just working against the nonsensical laissez faire principals you are all implicitly defending.

What is one of those nonsensical laissez faire pricipals ?

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