boppysbud:
Socialism is an economic system only. Capitolism [sic] is an economic system only.
No, you are making the mistake. Socialism isn’t an “economic system”. That’s absurd.
Socialism is a political system, in that it is a system of organizing rules or laws by which a significant portion of an individual’s earnings and/or assets are contributed to a common authority for redistribution to other members of that political community. The community can be as small as a farm (“commune” or “kibbutz”) or as large as China. The bottom line, it is not centrally concerned with issues like a market price, supply, or demand, it is concerned with a political community’s organizing principles.
The bottom line with every form of socialism is redistribution. Taking private property away from some people and giving it to other people to achieve certain goals. Those goals can be as worthy as preventing starvation or as absurd as many of the “social engineering” experiments we hear of from Washington. The bottom line is politicians and bureaucrats are deciding which groups are the favored groups receiving largesse, and which groups are not.
boppysbud:
There are also totalitarian governments, with capitolist [sic] ecomomic systems, most of South America fits this description. There are also capitolistic [sic] nations with democratic goverments such as our own United States.
A more useful term than “capitalism” is the term “free markets”. If an individual has the freedom to choose their profession, where to work, how hard to work, and what price they are willing to work for, then they are participating in their half of a free market in labor. Similarly, an individual has the freedom to decide if they want to hire somebody to perform certain kinds of work, what they are willing to pay, and what kind of results they want from their payment. They are participating in the other half of a free market in labor. Other forms of freedom include deciding whether I want to spend my money, save it, or give it to charity or other causes.
Add in legal protections for property rights, and you have the most effective means of improving the standard of living
for an entire population that has ever been devised. This fact isn’t even disputable.
Your South American totalitarian government example doesn’t fit countries with free markets. In fact, just the opposite. The people in power are making the decisions, individuals do not have the freedom. They actually suffer from the exact same problems that socialist governments do: politicians and bureaucrats deciding which groups are the favored ones.
Free markets are completely consistent with Catholic teaching. First, you need to understand the principle of
“subsidiarity”. It basically means a problem should be addressed at the lowest possible level. For example, if we have an effective local school board, why do we need the Federal government deciding curriculum?
From the Catechism:
1883 Socialization also presents dangers. Excessive intervention by the state can threaten personal freedom and initiative. The teaching of the Church has elaborated the principle of subsidiarity, according to which “a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help to co- ordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good.”
And anyone trying to advance the case that the Church supports socialism needs to chew on this paragraph for a while:
1885 The principle of subsidiarity is opposed to all forms of collectivism. It sets limits for state intervention. It aims at harmonizing the relationships between individuals and societies. It tends toward the establishment of true international order.
:nope: is a major cause of the collapse of religion, spirituality, call it what you will today. It is however a right wing problem. Thatcherism (right wing me, me, me, me - there is no such thing as society) has wrecked the UK morallly. We may be doing ‘well’ econonomically but spiritually were in trouble.
