Is the redistribution of wealth and resources just to alleviate poverty?

[TEPO]

What way is there for the smaller countries to gain power? Our corporations can threaten them into submission.

As far as globalization is concerned, it has not before now been common for one region’s economy to depend entirely on trade, nor for a wide mass of people to commonly purchase goods from outside their own home. For most of human history the vast majority of people worked to feed and clothe and house themselves and their immediate community, producing all the necessary goods themselves. Imports were a luxury of the rich. Now we have reversed it - “Made in America” goods are often the luxury goods!

Nobody needs power. What small nations need is Christs message of brotherly love and to survive together. People don’t need what the US tells them they need.

 

[tabycat]

 

[Robert_Sock]

I trust my conscience over your cherry picked bible passages. What you talk about is destruction. You can count me out.

My goal is my children’s children, not someone else’s children. The US is my house and this house is a mess.

Here’s another passage:

“Whoever shuts their ears to the cry of the poor will also cry out and not be answered.”
~ Proverbs 21:13

 

[TEPO]

I agree with your first part, not the second.

Globalism is a mirage; any chance of realizing it perished in the smoke above NYC and Virginia in 2001.

However, we need to support the Euro and the EC and try to expand the concept. Not just for financial stability; for the sake of human life. If somehow we managed (we can’t) to revert the nations of the world to what existed prior to WW2, we will get WW3.

ICXC NIKA

So to be materially equal is the key to peace? That seems like hiding the core problem rather than fixing it… It used to be, that if one nation fell, due to its errors, it would dissipate or be taken over by a more dominant or better operating one…

Now the problems that Greece got into are considered ‘no-problem’. That’s bad for everyone.

 

[TEPO]

Here’s another passage:

“Whoever shuts their ears to the cry of the poor will also cry out and not be answered.”
~ Proverbs 21:13

Your idea will cause greater poverty in the United States -your own home. Would you really take food out of your own child’s mouth and give it to someone else?

 

[stinkcat_14]

Your idea will cause greater poverty in the United States -your own home. Would you really take food out of your own child’s mouth and give it to someone else?

Or we would lose weight.

 

[TEPO]

Or we would lose weight.

How can we afford to when we already have so many millions of people on government aid programs?

…what people don’t realize is that our middle class could easily become poor within our fragile framework. To arrange for that would not be helpful. It’s more along the lines of suicide.

…and if the US dies, unlike Jesus, we may not return from the dead in triumph. We just die. Forever.

 

[TEPO]

So what if we have a gazillionaire for every couple thousand everyday Americans… Who cares…?

It means nothing to me.

 

[Robert_Sock]

There are enough resources; enough food; enough people willing to work. There’s no need for poverty, especially extreme poverty. All it would take is planning, cooperation and God’s grace. We need to invest in people, through education and job training. Everybody would benefit. Choose LOVE!!!

LOVE!

 

[KathleenGee]

Can see different points of view here on this thread.

I grew up in inner city and my parents did not want to live a life keeping pace with the Joneses…that was the cliche then.

I also witnessed first hand liberation theology where P. Paul VI sent a papal nuncio down to check out the issues. Plus all the ‘stuff’’ from the Vietnam War…so I have my 60’s and 70’s baggage still with me.

And – Christ said the poor will always be with us. People always say they get more in return by giving to the poor. So if there are no more poor left, such a state will contradict Christ’s words, as well as deprive the well off to care for the less fortunate…a mystery of life.

I get very uneasy when I hear the word ‘redistribution’… It is happening to our country now at the expense of small business, and the working and middle class people. More businesses are folding up in this time than in the past 30 years.

Yes, we have cycles, we have poor here in America…but what about the chronic poor, or those in other countries who are so tradition - bound…a means of survival, that they stay poor…

And/or our own country, where billions of dollars have been given to the poor and still there is no effect on poverty in these same populations.

I think Catholic Education is the answer. Another, I still haven’t been able to read yet, G K Chesterton, ‘Distributism’. When I hear of his other writings, this idea coming from him does not make me feel uneasy and testy.

 

[TEPO]

There are enough resources; enough food; enough people willing to work. There’s no need for poverty, especially extreme poverty. All it would take is planning, cooperation and God’s grace. We need to invest in people, through education and job training. Everybody would benefit. Choose LOVE!!!

LOVE!

Well, that’s different than the redistribution of wealth. Wealth can be built out of nothing -like something new. There is no reason to ‘take’.

…like bitcoins. We need innovators and creators, not thieves and copycats.

 

[smichhertz]

Of course!

The question is how?

 

[TEPO]

Of course!

The question is how?

Ugh. :doh2:

You do realize that “redistribution” requires the forced surrender of possessions, right?

 

[Neofight]

There are enough resources; enough food; enough people willing to work. There’s no need for poverty, especially extreme poverty. All it would take is planning, cooperation and God’s grace. We need to invest in people, through education and job training. Everybody would benefit. Choose LOVE!!!

LOVE!

There is indeed “a need” for poverty. Christ is closest to the poor, so poverty ensures not only the closeness of Christ to the materialistically impoverished, but his closeness to us with food, housing, and clothing to guide us to care for them as he would.

 

[GEddie]

So to be materially equal is the key to peace? That seems like hiding the core problem rather than fixing it… It used to be, that if one nation fell, due to its errors, it would dissipate or be taken over by a more dominant or better operating one…

And that is a good thing?

I can just imagine the world reaction if the USA were to apply that frame of action in Latin America.

Materially equal does not assure peace, however, it can eliminate one major cause for war, when one nation seeks to take what it needs from the next. Nations that are co-prosperous seldom end up fighting.

ICXC NIKA.

 

[smichhertz]

Ugh. :doh2:

You do realize that “redistribution” requires the forced surrender of possessions, right?

I wouldn’t support that. Forced surrender of possessions is stealing and a clear violation of the Ten Commandments. You can’t commit an injustice to solve an injustice.

However, I don’t think that’s what the OPer meant by “redistribution”. Since he posed the question, we should go by his definition.

 

[Neofight]

Ugh. :doh2:

You do realize that “redistribution” requires the forced surrender of possessions, right?

Redistribution can be quite voluntary! It is only virtuous if we do it on our own and not under duress.

 

[TEPO]

And that is a good thing?

I can just imagine the world reaction if the USA were to apply that frame of action in Latin America.

Materially equal does not assure peace, however, it can eliminate one major cause for war, when one nation seeks to take what it needs from the next. Nations that are co-prosperous seldom end up fighting.

ICXC NIKA.

Many ancient European tribes were more than willing to abandon their current system and join the Roman Empire -it was to their benefit. But the Empire could never really handle all that it had acquired. When Rome fell, Germanic tribes were more than willing to take the throne… Rome was sacked!

After that, the nations were assigned and separation allowed nature to take place. Some nations prospered while others fell and were replaced -they didn’t all fall together again.

…so why the desire to rebuild the empire knowing that a big fall leads to a big crash? And allowing bad ideologies such as socialism and secular humanism -which haven’t been adequately tested? It’s risky.

 

[Robert_Sock]

I wouldn’t support that. Forced surrender of possessions is stealing and a clear violation of the Ten Commandments. You can’t commit an injustice to solve an injustice.

However, I don’t think that’s what the OPer meant by “redistribution”. Since he posed the question, we should go by his definition.

Is taxation considered forced surrender of wealth? Are stiff inheritance taxes unjust?

LOVE!

 

[Sarcelle]

There is nothing fair about forced redistribution of wealth and resources either.

Forced redistribution of wealth should be called what it is, theft.