Is there a difference between being a humanitarian versus a religious 'liberal?'

[St_Francis]

It can be done in stages, and to begin with, age 5 only. Countries with evil dictators can wait. Do you agree that it all begins with education?

If we leave things alone, it will happen, in stages. No need for massive government interference.

The reality is that it is a multi-pronged process which will differ in the various places with a lot of poverty. The expansion of the economy will motvate people to get some education, people’s having education will increase the economy. There would be nothing but a huge problem if too many people were overly educated, tho. What is needed to grow an economy is not Western-style education and the intrusion of Western businesses. Since i am a distributist, I naturally advocate a small growth which includes many business owners operatiing on a local scale so you don’t end up with the sort of problems China has. This would also provide more stability.

The World Bank now has a plan in place to cut extreme poverty in half by 2030, but I’m unsure what the specifics are! It can be done!

 

[Abu]

Robert Sock #101
The World Bank now has a plan in place to cut extreme poverty in half by 2030.

The facts are so conveniently ignored by those who will not to see!

The world’s next great leap forward
Towards the end of poverty
Nearly 1 billion people have been taken out of extreme poverty in 20 years. The world should aim to do the same again
Jun 1st 2013
“….the world has lately been making extraordinary progress in lifting people out of extreme poverty. Between 1990 and 2010, their number fell by half as a share of the total population in developing countries, from 43% to 21%—a reduction of almost 1 billion people.”

“Much of world poverty has in fact been reduced or alleviated, as a recent essay in *The Economist *has shown. Christians often seem not to know that this change has happened or why it happened.” [Fr James V Schall].
tinyurl.com/ldjt6go

 

[St_Francis]

It can be done in stages, and to begin with, age 5 only. Countries with evil dictators can wait. Do you agree that it all begins with education?

The World Bank now has a plan in place to cut extreme poverty in half by 2030, but I’m unsure what the specifics are! It can be done!

From Abu’s link:
China (which has never shown any interest in MDGs) is responsible for three-quarters of the achievement. Its economy has been growing so fast that, even though inequality is rising fast, extreme poverty is disappearing. China pulled 680m people out of misery in 1981-2010, and reduced its extreme-poverty rate from 84% in 1980 to 10% now.

So 3/4 of the reduction was caused by mostly US outsourcing and expansion of the computer trade. In 1990 it was not unusual to find a home with no computer; by 2010, we had smartphones…

But **the biggest poverty-reduction measure of all is liberalising markets **to let poor people get richer. That means freeing trade between countries (Africa is still cruelly punished by tariffs) and within them (China’s real great leap forward occurred because it allowed private business to grow). Both India and Africa are crowded with monopolies and restrictive practices.

IOW, the best way to reduce poverty is to get the governments to stay out of the way, as several people have suggested.

 

[mackbrislawn]

People are poor because they don’t have enough money. Governments then need to print more money and distribute it among the people so they won’t be poor.

 

[Robert_Sock]

From Abu’s link:
China (which has never shown any interest in MDGs) is responsible for three-quarters of the achievement. Its economy has been growing so fast that, even though inequality is rising fast, extreme poverty is disappearing. China pulled 680m people out of misery in 1981-2010, and reduced its extreme-poverty rate from 84% in 1980 to 10% now.

So 3/4 of the reduction was caused by mostly US outsourcing and expansion of the computer trade. In 1990 it was not unusual to find a home with no computer; by 2010, we had smartphones…

But **the biggest poverty-reduction measure of all is liberalising markets **to let poor people get richer. That means freeing trade between countries (Africa is still cruelly punished by tariffs) and within them (China’s real great leap forward occurred because it allowed private business to grow). Both India and Africa are crowded with monopolies and restrictive practices.

IOW, the best way to reduce poverty is to get the governments to stay out of the way, as several people have suggested.

Whatever works, I’m all for it!!! But China is a socialist country which more easily allows them to effectively deal wit poverty; I congratulate them! Cuba is a communist country, without US support, and they too have dealt with poverty.

 

[Starrsmother]

People are poor because they don’t have enough money. Governments then need to print more money and distribute it among the people so they won’t be poor.

I am going to assume you are kidding–if so, good one!!!

 

[mackbrislawn]

I am going to assume you are kidding–if so, good one!!!

Well, yeah, I am kidding. But I suppose there are those who may actually think this is a good idea. Except maybe they would phrase it to say let’s give the poor decent paying jobs and then print enough money so they can be paid decent.

 

[brjoseph]

I’m personally do not consider myself to be a ‘liberal,’ and I do not like people labeling me as such, but I’m very attuned to humanitarian causes, such as the elimination of extreme poverty.

Of course. But the minute you question or disagree with Right Wing American Politics, or suggest Capitalism, on its own, is no more a solution to the country’s (or world’s) problems than Socialism is, or even suggest that the only real difference between the Repoublicans and Democrats is who they’ve sold us and our futures out to, then, BLAM! Just like that, you’re labeled a Liberal. (And probably a socialist, a Democrat, a Marxist, and someone who’s secretly a far-left Liberal using a ploy to divide sacred Right Wing Unity.)
the idea that you’re really just someone trying to find the narrow road through ideologies to the truth… can’t be. It’s just another Liberal ploy.

Believe me… I’ve had this conversation myself many many times.

 

[St_Francis]

Of course. But the minute you question or disagree with Right Wing American Politics, or suggest Capitalism, on its own, is no more a solution to the country’s (or world’s) problems than Socialism is, or even suggest that the only real difference between the Repoublicans and Democrats is who they’ve sold us and our futures out to, then, BLAM! Just like that, you’re labeled a Liberal. (And probably a socialist, a Democrat, a Marxist, and someone who’s secretly a far-left Liberal using a ploy to divide sacred Right Wing Unity.)
the idea that you’re really just someone trying to find the narrow road through ideologies to the truth… can’t be. It’s just another Liberal ploy.

Believe me… I’ve had this conversation myself many many times.

Mr Sock asked the question.

I actually defined what I meant by each term. The reason I said that Mr Sock is a liberal is that he specifically advocated a very high amount of government intrusion.

I do not consider myself a conservative, an advocate of US-style capitalism, nor in any sense a fan of either political party (a heads-up: there is a rule against discussing political parties on this forum). I have stated in this thread precisely why I disagree with Mr Sock’s suggestions, as have several others.

When entering into discussion I have found it works much better to consider what the other side has actually said or written instead of judging their motivations.

 

[Abu]

Brjoseph #109
But the minute you question or disagree with Right Wing American Politics, or suggest Capitalism, on its own, is no more a solution to the country’s (or world’s) problems than Socialism
the idea that you’re really just someone trying to find the narrow road through ideologies to the truth… can’t be.

Such persistent myopia indicates a fatal flaw in reasoning, for not only has free enterprise raised the welfare of untold millions out of poverty, but is emphatically affirmed by Bl John Paul II in Centesimus Annus, 42, 1991. How does free enterprise raise welfare? As welfare = something that aids or promotes well-being/a contented state of being happy and healthy and prosperous, the answer is obvious. That untold millions have benefited is unchallengeable.

Unfortunately what is obvious is apparently beyond some. Dr Chafuen states: “The objective of policy, according to the Medieval Doctors, is to favour the common good. This is in agreement with the principle that the general welfare is more important than individual interest.” Christians For Freedom, Ignatius, 1986, p 159-160].

Free enterprise has a set of principles developed by Catholic late Scholastics, but these principles cannot be applied to any great effect for “economic progress” anywhere when governments and their central banks practice finagling interventions which create booms and busts, prostitute welfare and produce the enormous deficits seen on both sides of the Atlantic.

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

For a Catholic to ridicule the clearly expressed teaching shows the dissenting attitude and failure to understand either socialism or free enterprise. For Pius XI declared emphatically in Quadragesimo Anno, 1931, #120: “If Socialism, like all errors, contains some truth (which, moreover, the Supreme Pontiffs have never denied), it is based nevertheless on a theory of human society peculiar to itself and irreconcilable with true Christianity. Religious socialism, Christian socialism, are contradictory terms; no one can be at the same time a good Catholic and a true socialist.”

 

[brjoseph]

Mr Sock asked the question.

I actually defined what I meant by each term. The reason I said that Mr Sock is a liberal is that he specifically advocated a very high amount of government intrusion.

I do not consider myself a conservative, an advocate of US-style capitalism, nor in any sense a fan of either political party (a heads-up: there is a rule against discussing political parties on this forum). I have stated in this thread precisely why I disagree with Mr Sock’s suggestions, as have several others.

When entering into discussion I have found it works much better to consider what the other side has actually said or written instead of judging their motivations.

That’s interesting, St. Francis. Because I was making a rather general statement that wasn’t really directed at you at all. Perhaps you want to read your last sentence and take it to heart as well.
Would you like to start over? Hi! I’m BrJoseph!

 

[brjoseph]

Such persistent myopia indicates a fatal flaw in reasoning, for not only has free enterprise raised the welfare of untold millions out of poverty, but is emphatically affirmed by Bl John Paul II in Centesimus Annus, 42, 1991. How does free enterprise raise welfare? As welfare = something that aids or promotes well-being/a contented state of being happy and healthy and prosperous, the answer is obvious. That untold millions have benefited is unchallengeable.

Unfortunately what is obvious is apparently beyond some. Dr Chafuen states: “The objective of policy, according to the Medieval Doctors, is to favour the common good. This is in agreement with the principle that the general welfare is more important than individual interest.” Christians For Freedom, Ignatius, 1986, p 159-160].

Free enterprise has a set of principles developed by Catholic late Scholastics, but these principles cannot be applied to any great effect for “economic progress” anywhere when governments and their central banks practice finagling interventions which create booms and busts, prostitute welfare and produce the enormous deficits seen on both sides of the Atlantic.

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

For a Catholic to ridicule the clearly expressed teaching shows the dissenting attitude and failure to understand either socialism or free enterprise. For Pius XI declared emphatically in Quadragesimo Anno, 1931, #120: “If Socialism, like all errors, contains some truth (which, moreover, the Supreme Pontiffs have never denied), it is based nevertheless on a theory of human society peculiar to itself and irreconcilable with true Christianity. Religious socialism, Christian socialism, are contradictory terms; no one can be at the same time a good Catholic and a true socialist.”

  Interesting. And still unconvincing. To deliberately and willfully ignore the *abuses* of capitalism- the damage done to developing nations, slave wages and unregulated conditions in places chosen at the expense of woirkers in Western nations from which jobs are taken in favor of cheaper, less regulated conditions elsewhere, the damage done to the environment in the name of profit, the degradation of the working class in places where they have no voice, the poverty left behind in the countries from which jobs are taken and yet to which profits flow, the removal of those profits to offshore financial institutions to "protect" them from taxation, thus denying the country in which the "capitalists" live of any gain for the nation... and then attempt to defend that system as if it were "better" is a lie I can not swallow as a Christian.

I stand by my statement. The reality is that Capitalism is no more an “answer” than Socialism.
And despite the condescending tone implied in your post, to call that opinion “myopic” and “flawed” is laughable, and easily dismissed as little more than logically unsound, weak political apologetics.

 

[St_Francis]

That’s interesting, St. Francis. Because I was making a rather general statement that wasn’t really directed at you at all.

Well, I took it as a general statement that anyone dissenting from a very narrow view would be called liberal by the adherents of that narrow view. I had answered Mr Sock’s implied question (which seemed to arise from a conversation on another thread). Since I was one of those who said I thought he was a liberal, thus apparently in your mind, which I gathered from your statements, committing the horrendous crime of calling someone a liberal for dissenting from the very narrow views you mentioned, I felt qualified to answer your statement, which did indeed imply that those who would call Mr Sock for his energetic advocacy of extreme government action a liberal were nothing more than greedy capitalists trying to keep down anyone who would dare to question them by committing the terrible crime of calling someone a liberal.

Perhaps you want to read your last sentence and take it to heart as well.

What you wrote was perfectly clear in stating that people who say people are liberals have a hidden agenda. There was no judgement on my part, since you wrote what you wrote and said that we, those who believe Mr Sock is a liberal, do so only because we have a hidden agenda, which was indeed if not a judgement an accusation, an accusation which had not only an absence of evidence but positive evidence against it, which is why i wrote what I wrote.

Would you like to start over? Hi! I’m BrJoseph!

I thank you for your service to our country and your family for their sacrifice.

 

[Abu]

brjoseph #113
The reality is that Capitalism is no more an “answer” than Socialism.

The fatal flaws ad nauseam.

For such selfism ridicules the teaching of the great acknowledged St John Paul II, and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.

The errors:

1. Failing to understand that the first examples of free enterprise appeared in the great Catholic monasteries, about the ninth century. (John Gilchrist, The Church and Economic Activity in the Middle Ages, St Martin’s Press1969, I; cf. op. cit (Stark) p xii, 55-58),
2. Failing to acknowledge that the great Catholic Late Scholastics discovered the principles of free enterprise, which shows clearly that it is the ethics of the individual which determines the right or wrong of an action in commerce as St Augustine taught – “wickedness is not inherent in commerce, but that with any occupation it was up to the individual to live righteously.” [John W Baldwin, *The Medieval Theories of the Just Price, The American Philosophical Society, 1959, p 15]
3. Failing to understand Pope Pius XI in Quadragesimo Anno, 1931, #51, who explained his approval of producing wealth and the teaching of St Thomas Aquinas:
   “However, the investment of superfluous income in developing favourable opportunities for employment provided the labour employed produces results which are really useful, is to be considered according to the teaching of the Angelic Doctor an act of real liberality particularly appropriate to the needs of our time.”

Father John McCloskey, reviewing *How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization *by Thomas E. Woods Jr. - published by Regnery Publishing, 2005:
“Western institutions, though often originating in Athens and Jerusalem, were developed into a Catholic culture in a process that accelerated from the early Middle Ages right up to the time of the Reformation and the Enlightenment.

“At that point, the progenitors of these distinct rebellions against the Church began using Western institutions for their own particular purposes, growing out of but foreign to their Catholic origins…. Woods notes, ‘Western civilization stands indebted to the Church for the university system, charitable work, international law, the sciences, and, important legal principles. … Western civilization owes far more to the Catholic Church than most people — Catholic included — often realize. … The Church, in fact, built Western civilization.’…. Woods points out that noted economic historian Joseph Schumpeter not only acknowledges the contributions of the late Scholastics to modern economics, but says "it is they who come nearer than any other group to having been ‘founders’ of scientific economics.’ ”

1. Failing to assent to the teaching of the popes against the evils inherent in socialism which are not inherent in free enterprise.
2. Failing to accept the fact that free enterprise has, with the development of the economic laws of cause and effect by the Catholic Late Scholastics based on faith and reason, from the 14th to the 17th century, enabled the enrichment of untold millions from the poverty existing before the enterprises that came with the “Industrial Revolution”.
3. Failing to understand that it is people that behave sinfully as Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI taught: “Society does not have to protect itself from the market, as if the development of the latter were ipso facto to entail the death of authentically human relations…Therefore it is not the instrument that must be called to account, but individuals, their moral conscience and their personal and social responsibility.” (Caritas in Veritate, Benedict XVI, 2009, #36).

 

[brjoseph]

The fatal flaws ad nauseam.

For such selfism ridicules the teaching of the great acknowledged St John Paul II, and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.

The errors:

1. Failing to understand that the first examples of free enterprise appeared in the great Catholic monasteries, about the ninth century. (John Gilchrist, The Church and Economic Activity in the Middle Ages, St Martin’s Press1969, I; cf. op. cit (Stark) p xii, 55-58),
2. Failing to acknowledge that the great Catholic Late Scholastics discovered the principles of free enterprise, which shows clearly that it is the ethics of the individual which determines the right or wrong of an action in commerce as St Augustine taught – “wickedness is not inherent in commerce, but that with any occupation it was up to the individual to live righteously.” [John W Baldwin, *The Medieval Theories of the Just Price

, The American Philosophical Society, 1959, p 15]

1. Failing to understand Pope Pius XI in Quadragesimo Anno, 1931, #51, who explained his approval of producing wealth and the teaching of St Thomas Aquinas:
   “However, the investment of superfluous income in developing favourable opportunities for employment provided the labour employed produces results which are really useful, is to be considered according to the teaching of the Angelic Doctor an act of real liberality particularly appropriate to the needs of our time.”

Father John McCloskey, reviewing *How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization *by Thomas E. Woods Jr. - published by Regnery Publishing, 2005:
“Western institutions, though often originating in Athens and Jerusalem, were developed into a Catholic culture in a process that accelerated from the early Middle Ages right up to the time of the Reformation and the Enlightenment.

“At that point, the progenitors of these distinct rebellions against the Church began using Western institutions for their own particular purposes, growing out of but foreign to their Catholic origins…. Woods notes, ‘Western civilization stands indebted to the Church for the university system, charitable work, international law, the sciences, and, important legal principles. … Western civilization owes far more to the Catholic Church than most people — Catholic included — often realize. … The Church, in fact, built Western civilization.’…. Woods points out that noted economic historian Joseph Schumpeter not only acknowledges the contributions of the late Scholastics to modern economics, but says "it is they who come nearer than any other group to having been ‘founders’ of scientific economics.’ ”

1. Failing to assent to the teaching of the popes against the evils inherent in socialism which are not inherent in free enterprise.
2. Failing to accept the fact that free enterprise has, with the development of the economic laws of cause and effect by the Catholic Late Scholastics based on faith and reason, from the 14th to the 17th century, enabled the enrichment of untold millions from the poverty existing before the enterprises that came with the “Industrial Revolution”.
3. Failing to understand that it is people that behave sinfully as Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI taught: “Society does not have to protect itself from the market, as if the development of the latter were ipso facto to entail the death of authentically human relations…Therefore it is not the instrument that must be called to account, but individuals, their moral conscience and their personal and social responsibility.” (Caritas in Veritate, Benedict XVI, 2009, #36).

You managed to be condescending, insult me, and compose a long, cut-and-paste post while simultaneously (and, it would seem, very carefully,) completely ignoring the point I actually made- all of which indicates very strongly the inherent weakness of your position and your own desire to defend rather than support it.
well done!

 

[Abu]

brjoseph #113
To deliberately and willfully ignore the abuses of capitalism- the damage done to developing nations, slave wages and unregulated conditions in places chosen at the expense of woirkers in Western nations from which jobs are taken in favor of cheaper, less regulated conditions elsewhere, the damage done to the environment in the name of profit, the degradation of the working class in places where they have no voice, the poverty left behind in the countries from which jobs are taken and yet to which profits flow, the removal of those profits to offshore financial institutions to “protect” them from taxation, thus denying the country in which the “capitalists” live of any gain for the nation… and then attempt to defend that system as if it were “better” is a lie I can not swallow as a Christian.

I stand by my statement. The reality is that Capitalism is no more an “answer” than Socialism.

The monotonously repeated error which the popes have condemned is starkly revealed as a total inability to see the evils of individuals per se, or in the management of Companies, as the real evils to be reformed.

The only system which has the proven track record of enabling untold millions to escape from poverty and was developed within the Church by great Catholics, eloquently supported by the popes, is ridiculed while the detractors have shown nothing to replace it because there is nothing to replace it.

Instead of realising that the reform of the people in governments and the enactment of better laws to support and regulate are the realistic solutions, they rant and rave and thus mislead some into a mistaken belief that there is a better system.

 

[brjoseph]

The monotonously repeated error which the popes have condemned is starkly revealed as a total inability to see the evils of individuals per se, or in the management of Companies, as the real evils to be reformed.

The only system which has the proven track record of enabling untold millions to escape from poverty and was developed within the Church by great Catholics, eloquently supported by the popes, is ridiculed while the detractors have shown nothing to replace it because there is nothing to replace it.

Instead of realising that the reform of the people in governments and the enactment of better laws to support and regulate are the realistic solutions, they rant and rave and thus mislead some into a mistaken belief that there is a better system.

“Monotonous!” Ah… a new condescending insult! Bravo!
So, just to be clear, Abu… we’re going to continue to willfully ignore the real-world abuses of capitalism, continue to substitute “free enterprise” for it when it suits your conversation, and generally pretend none of the things I mentioned are really happening, because you happen to choose this pie-in-the sky version instead.
That about it?

 

[St_Francis]

I believe that defing terms is very important.

The answer is obviously complex. If by “capitalism” is meant an economic system which recognizes the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property and the resulting responsibility for the means of production, as well as free human creativity in the economic sector, then the answer is certainly in the affirmative, even though it would perhaps be more appropriate to speak of a “business economy”, “market economy” or simply “free economy”. But if by “capitalism” is meant a system in which freedom in the economic sector is not circumscribed within a strong juridical framework which places it at the service of human freedom in its totality, and which sees it as a particular aspect of that freedom, the core of which is ethical and religious, then the reply is certainly negative.

One can define capitalism in a positive way or in a negative way. If one poster defines it in Pope John Paul’s first example, and another poster as the Pope’s second example, they will be talking past one another.

On the one hand, Pope John Paul II shows that capitalism is a framework for good, expanding the range of possibilities for many people beyond subsistence. On the other, he shows that it is necessary to have checks on capitalists in place, just as in every other field of human endeavor.

 

[Abu]

There always needs to be sound laws to control greed, connivance, deceit and cheating, which have no place in any human activity. Individual morality determines how owners, managers and employees treat each other and the customers, which requires the morality taught by Christ’s Church. 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.

As usual those who denigrate the popes can show no system to rival the benefits the world has seen from free enterprise described by the acknowledged St John Paul II as a “business economy”, “market economy” or simply “free economy”.

What all should be working for is to re-establish what the revered Fr James V Shall, S.J., emphasises to continue to reduce poverty: a free, governmentally “limited society guided by principles of justice and generosity” having “a productive, expansive, and efficient economy…[which can]…actually make the poor rich, if given a chance…. 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.” (Fr James V Schall, S.J., in Does Catholicism Still Exist?, Alba House 1994, p 178, 185).

The results, as the remedy is applied, are seen in the fact that as Arthur C Brooks of the American Enterprise Institute in The Road To Freedom, Basic Books , 2012, points to (p 72) – what Catholic philosopher Michael Novak calls ‘democratic capitalism’:
“During the last two hundred years, there has been an unprecedented emergence of free societies and markets, accumulation of capital and expansion of trade. The sudden emergence of free enterprise unleashed human creativity and ingenuity and brought about a previously inconceivable surge in living standards. Free enterprise is the reason that in two centuries, the world has progressed from an almost universally impoverished one to a world that is not.”

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

Among groups of economists and governments, views vary on the extent of government intervention – the more the unnecessary intervention the more the booms and busts through government finagling.

 

[St_Francis]

Abu,
what Inwas hoping was that you would define “capitalism.”

But I also have a question for you: what do you say to someone who says that capitalism encouraged the colonizing nations to go in and take a lot of resources out of the colonized area without recompense? Is this correct? Was it moral? How could this have been handled differently if it was immoral?