"Jesus was a socialist" -- rebuttal

[Augustinian]

Here in America, they tried a communistic/socialistic form of ownership at Plymouth Colony back in the 17th Century.

Just did not work out. In limited kinds of situations, perhaps it could be successful if everyone is committed to it.

But the idea didn’t continue for long in Jerusalem, it didn’t work at Plymouth, and neither did it work out much in commune situations through American history.

 

[Vouthon]

Nowhere in this thread have I been advocating communal ownership of property in a secular society. Nowhere.

I have merely been insistent that we must not deny the fact that the earliest church community in our Catholic history functioned according to this model of ecclesiastical property-holding.

It abandoned it and limited the practice of this “apostolic poverty” to monasteries, for people striving after the counsels of perfection, yes.

 

[HarryStotle]

I have been speaking purely about ecclesiastical governance and thought I’d made that clear.

So, Jesus wasn’t a socialist, in any political sense, although some purely ecclesiastical communities might work that way, voluntarily?

Is that your point?

 

[Vouthon]

Jesus wasn’t a socialist, I agree, because he didn’t have a political plan of action for the secular order.

However, I must qualify the “voluntary” part. It was voluntary to join the Jerusalem church, as it is voluntary to join the Benedictines today, but it was not within one’s discretion to disobey the communalization of property and remain a member in good standing whilst that requirement was in force. Some people try to deny it by bringing up Ananias and Sapphira in their exegesis but the traditional commentaries of the Church don’t support this (modern) understanding of it being a free decision of membership AT THAT TIME.

Magisterial texts from medieval pontiffs, explicitly dealing with how we should interpret these passages from Acts, make that clear.

Within the church, involuntary communalization and distribution of property has been licitly mandated of the faithful (generally during the Jerusalem church phase and later in the context of given, bounded communities of the faithful but not universally imposed).

This may be unpalatable to many but its the truth.

 

[DaveBj]

However, you are wrong to suggest that Jesus made the communalization of property among his disciples ‘voluntary’. He didn’t.

The first disciples in Jerusalem actually did relinquish private ownership like Benedictine monks always have done too.

If the communalization of property was mandatory in the Jerusalem church, then how could Peter tell Ananias and Sapphira that what they had owned was theirs to do with as they pleased?

(We could also ask why the apostles so easily disposed of Jesus teaching about not letting the right hand know what the left hand was doing vis-a-vis charitable works, but that is a separate question that might warrant discussion in a separate thread, perhaps in the Catholic Living forum.)

Edit: I see that @Vouthon has already mentioned the Ananias and Sapphira, and I respectfully agree to disagree on medieval interpretations of whether or not the communalization was a free decision. Peter’s words, which deal ONLY with their freedom do do with their property as they saw fit, are pretty clear to me.

I would also point out again that the communalization of property was a bad mistake; it impoverished the Jerusalem church, and for decades thereafter Christians in Jerusalem were living off welfare from other churches.

D

 

[Vouthon]

I see that @Vouthon has already mentioned the Ananias and Sapphira, and I respectfully agree to disagree on medieval interpretations of whether or not the communalization was a free decision.

This argument rests upon the assumption that it only became the common property of the church after it was sold and donated.

Well, let’s see what Pope John XXII had to say about that in his bull Quia vir reprobus (1329):

Since, therefore, it first says that all things were common among the believers and afterwards adds that fields and houses were sold, it clearly appears that those things had been made common before they were sold; for otherwise it would follow that they remained proper to those to whom they had belonged before, and consequently that they had remained owners before the sale: whereas the Scripture says the opposite when it says, “None of them said that anything he possessed was his”…No believer had individual ownership in respect of the time of which the Scripture speaks."

The pope clearly states that the property had been made common prior to the sale and not once the believers had taken the decision to sell.

In other words, it belonged to the community before the believers had even made the decision to sell, because the apostles had decreed this for the Jerusalem church.

Of course, it was revoked later, but while the precept was in force it is erroneous to claim that people were entitled to violate it.

 

[HarryStotle]

I see that @Vouthon has already mentioned the Ananias and Sapphira, and I respectfully agree to disagree on medieval interpretations of whether or not the communalization was a free decision.

Yes, but the communalization of property formerly under the control of individuals as members of the Church those two times in history need not imply anything like a universal principle or precedent for all times and places.

The first was to provide the Church with needed resources in the face of dire need when it was first starting out, the second (Benedict) was in response to the fall of Rome and the corruption and degradation of society that followed. Both were a kind of bomb sheltered response where pooling of resources was absolutely needed to move forward in that moment.

Proof of this lies in the fact that the Church has consistently taught that private property rights are the normative standard for earthly existence.

 

[DaveBj]

I still don’t buy it. John XXII was writing 1300 years after the fact, which a lot of time for misunderstanding to creep in to the interpretation. As for the “all things were in common” line, I believe that to be an example of synecdoche, taking the whole to mean a part of the whole. Luke uses this particular metaphor not infrequently.

D

 

[Vouthon]

Yes, but the communalization of property formerly under the control of individuals as members of the Church those two times in history need not imply anything like a universal principle or precedent for all times and places.

I agree with you here.

I have actually denied that it was a universal principle in this thread.

Not once have I claimed this.

Proof of this lies in the fact that the Church has consistently taught that private property rights are the normative standard for earthly existence.

Yet the Church has also qualified this in its canonical tradition by insisting that the right to private property must be subordinated to the universal destination of goods. As St. Thomas Aquinas explained in the Summa, in time of extreme need, all things are common property such that if the indignant take what they need from the superfluous wealth of the rich, it isn’t considered theft under natural law but rather a case of the rich having stolen what belongs rightfully to the poor.

 

[Vouthon]

See:

voluntaryist.com - Voluntaryism and Extreme Necessity

The attitude of the Catholic Church was best exemplified by St. Basil (c. 330-379) who asserted that those who had more than they needed really didn’t own their extra wealth: The bread that you store up belongs to the hungry; the cloak that lies in your chest belongs to the naked; and the gold that you have hidden in the ground belongs to the poor. [5] This theme was elaborated during the later Middle Ages when the principle of extreme necessity became a common doctrine among medieval theologians and canon lawyers.

The principle stated that a person in extreme necessity may rightfully take the property of other people to sustain his life. T his principle is the most radical formulation of the medieval belief that God had bestowed the earth upon all mankind for its sustenance. [6] This conclusion led to two co-ordinate positions:

[T]he first held that people in extreme necessity might rightfully take what they needed to survive, and that their taking such goods had nothing of the nature of theft; and the second, held that every person has the obligation to sustain the life of other people once his own needs have been met. [7]

Gratian’s DECRETUM, a famous medieval tome compiled about 1140 AD, also expounded the view that the fruits of the earth belonged to all mankind. All things are common, that is, to be shared in time of necessity with those in want. … [W]e should retain for ourselves only necessities and distribute what is left to our neighbors in need . [8]

Joannes Teutonicus (also known as John of Wildehausen , c. 1180-1252) was one of the first medieval theologians to discuss the principle of extreme necessity. Citing the DECRETUM, he interpreted the word common to mean shared in time of need: No one may call his own what is common, of which if man takes more than he needs, it is obtained by violence. [9] The decretist text did not deny the right to private property; rather it denied the right of anyone to appropriate as his own more than sufficed for his own needs . According to Joannes, a man was not bound to deprive himself of his own necessities in order to help another in need, though if he did so it would be a commendable act. He could even retain superfluities provided that others were not in want. But in time of necessity any superfluous wealth of an individual was to be regarded as common property, to be shared with those in need. [10]

The decretists saw no contradiction in maintaining the right to private property, on the one hand, and, on the other, the right of the poor to sustain their lives by taking from the wealthy. They recognized the right to private property, but the right of accumulation only extended as far as satisfying one’s basic needs. The man who accumulated goods beyond what he needed to live in a decent and fitting fashion according to his status had no right to keep his wealth

 

[normdplume]

I read long ago that, in Rome, the government used to provide a daily ration of grain to those in need. Not sure how long that policy was in effect. It doesn’t surprise me, since a hungry mob can be quite dangerous to the elite.

Now if Rome fed the poor and Jesus said to render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, then you have, according to some definitions, a socialist policy, albeit under a violent dictatorship.

I used to live in the US and suffered under private insurance, with its co-payments, deductibles, lifetime caps, limited networks, etc. I couldn’t afford it due to failing health. I now live back in Canada, where we have free healthcare, paid for by the government using our tax dollars. The government is now also considering instituting free prescription medicine nationwide, and I couldn’t be more pleased with that. In the US, the idea of Medicare for all polls very well.

When I vote for politicians who want take some of my money to aid the poor, that’s still a democracy and charitable at the same time. I also donate what I can to private charities to help homeless youth. I don’t care whether my money goes to the government or to private charities, as long as it helps the poor. I like to think that Jesus would approve of both.

‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’

Some people are too hung up on the word socialism.

 

[Vouthon]

@ normdplume according to Cardinal Cajetan, the great commentator of the Summa, and other Thomistic glossers, the government can - if the need be grave and manifest - " take from someone who is unwilling to dispense from what is superfluous for life or state, and to distribute it to the poor ".

To provide you with the full quotation:

“… Now what a ruler can do in virtue of his office, so that justice may be served in the matter of riches, is to take from someone who is unwilling to dispense from what is superfluous for life or state, and to distribute it to the poor . In this way he just takes away the dispensation power of the rich man to whom the wealth has been entrusted because he is not worthy. For according to the teaching of the saints, the riches that are superfluous do not belong to the rich man as his own but rather to the one appointed by God as dispenser , so that he can have the merit of a good dispensation… as Basil said, it belongs to the indigent …”

- Cardinal Cajetan (1469-1534), “Commentary o n the Summa Theologica,” vol. 6, II-II, 118.3

So it depends what one means by “wealth”. If by it, you mean what a person requires to satisfy his needs and station, then “no,” but a person is still expected to be charitable from these resources - albeit entirely at his own discretion. Only a tyrannical state would expropriate or take away the wealth a person has to maintain their needs and standing in life. Whatever wealth a person has for this end legitimately belongs to them.

But if by wealth you mean possession of resources exclusively for oneself beyond whatever is required to satisfy your needs and standing, that is wealth which is superfluous to these two ends. The poor therefore have a moral claim to it, under natural law and the universal destination of goods, such that it is grave matter (i.e. possibly mortal sin) to refuse to provide for them out of it. Taxation is a good way of siphoning off this superfluous income (since we can’t be charitable with it anyway, as no merit would accrue to in so doing. It’s a moral obligation).

This was the lower “bar” that the Church adopted in its post-Jerusalem phase (i.e. when literally everything had been shared under common ownership). St. Thomas Aquinas summarised it well when he wrote:

“The Lord requires us to give to the poor not only the tenth part, but all of our superfluous wealth.”

- St. Thomas, Summa Theologiae, quoted in St. Robert Bellarmine’s work “The Art of Dying Well,” trans. John Dalton, p. 26

 

[HarryStotle]

When I vote for politicians who want take some of my money to aid the poor, that’s still a democracy and charitable at the same time. I also donate what I can to private charities to help homeless youth. I don’t care whether my money goes to the government or to private charities, as long as it helps the poor. I like to think that Jesus would approve of both.

That depends entirely upon how the government dispenses with the money it pays out on behalf of its citizens.

Trudeau seems rather fond of paying out large sums to repatriated ISIS fighters, to the Hillary Clinton Foundation, to promoting abortion world-wide, and to various UN agencies that have a particular political slant to their operations. That is to say nothing of the fact that his magnanimity is putting Canadian taxpayers into greater debt to globalist financiers.

I bet you didn’t know that the debts of most nations are owed to the world’s super-wealthy elites and that national banks, such as the Bank of Canada and the Fed in the US are actually owned and controlled by private corporations as proxies for those wealthy elites.

I suggest you be careful about who has controlling interest in your health and well-being, and that of your children. It may be that a few years down the line, those who have that control may decide who is expendable and who is not based upon their profit margins.

If you think the push for abortion on demand has anything to do with what women actually want, rather than what is in the best interests of the moneyed elites, you would be mistaken. Ditto with the push for euthanasia. Individuals are very expendible, even in the tens of millions.

 

[Vouthon]

It should be noted that as late as the 5th century A.D., a church father so prominent as St. John Chrysostom (347-407) was still advancing the notion that the church should communalise property once more as it had during the Jerusalem Church phase:

The Homilies of Saint John Chrysostom: On the Acts of the Apostles

"It is not for lack of miracles that the church is stagnant; it is because we have forsaken the angelic life of Pentecost, and fallen back on private property. If we lived as they did, with all things common, we should soon convert the whole world without any need of miracles at all."

"For ‘mine’ and ‘thine’ – those chilly words which introduce innumerable wars into the world – should be eliminated from that holy Church . . .The poor would not envy the rich because there would be no rich. Neither would the poor be despised by the rich, for there would be no poor. All things would be in common."

However, let us now depict this state of things in words, and let all sell their possessions, and bring them into the common stock–in words, I mean: let none be excited, rich or poor.

How much gold think you would be collected? For my part, I conjecture–for of course it is not possible to speak exactly–that supposing all here, men and women, to empty out their whole property, lands, possessions, houses – for I will not speak of slaves, since at that time there was no such thing, but doubtless such as were slaves they set at liberty – perhaps ten hundred thousand pounds weight of gold would be the amount collected: nay, twice or thrice as much. For consider; at what number of “juga” [yokes] is our city rated? How many [of the population] shall we say are Christians? shall we say an hundred thousand, and the rest Greeks and Jews?

Then what thousands [of pounds] of gold would be collected! And what is the number of poor? I do not think more than fifty thousand. Then to feed that number daily, what abundance there would be! And yet if the food were received in common, all taking their meals together, it would require no such great outlay after all.

But if we had made actual trial of this, then indeed we should boldly venture upon this plan tou pragmatos . What grace too, think you, would there not be! For if at that time, when there was no believer but only the three thousand and the five thousand: when all throughout the world were enemies, when they could nowhere look for comfort, they yet boldly entered upon this plan with such success; how much more would this be the case now, when by the grace of God there are believers everywhere throughout the world? What Gentile would be left? For my part, I think there would not be one: we should so attract all, and draw them to us.

So, as impractical as it may be, the ‘old idealism’ lingered on in the Catholic Church until pretty late.

 

[DaveBj]

It should be noted that as late as the 5th century A.D., a church father so prominent as St. John Chrysostom (347-407) was still advancing the notion that the church should communalise property once more as it had during the Jerusalem Church phase:

I have just finished the last of 5? 6? volumes of the homilies of St John Chrysostom, and he was very big on giving alms from one’s wealth. Apparently he had a lot of wealthy people in his diocese, and he was all over them like . . . fill in your own metaphor. Obviously, there would have been a lot of poor, as well. The problem is that when property is communalized, then the distribution is no longer alms; it is forced redistribution.

D

 

[Vouthon]

I don’t disagree, I only referenced the above Homily because these arguments do surface amongst the Patristics, however idealistic or utopian we might find them to be today. We can’t pretend that they didn’t valorize the communalised ownership model of the Jerusalem Church, looking back to it with evident nostalgia.

And as one can see from the aforementioned excerpt, St. John Chrysostom went a good way beyond the mere espousal of generous charity. He was an out-and-out advocate of apostolic communalism of superfluous wealth on top of almsgiving and wanted it reinstated in the church of his Constantinople diocese - that is, in the new Christian capital of the Roman Empire as a precedent for the other churches.

There has been, in my humble opinion, a concerted effort on the part of a few American Catholic scholars of a free-market outlook to conveniently brush over or neglect to mention these texts from the Church Fathers. They do the Church no favours by acting as if its something we should be ashamed of.

Catholic Social Doctrine, in general, is a most complex and nuanced tradition of thought, critical of both state collectivism and libertarian individualism.

St. Ambrose of Milan (4th Century), like a number of other fathers, could be as equally strident on the issue:

"How far will your mad lusts take you, ye rich people, till you dwell alone on the earth? Why do you at once turn nature out of doors, and claim the possession of her for your own selves? The land was made for all; why do you rich men claim it as your private property?"

"Nature produced common property.
Robbery made private property."

 

[1cthlctrth]

Socialism Has Been Condemned For 20 Centuries| National Catholic Register

 

[1cthlctrth]

A solution to the problem of poverty in the world would be to eliminate socialism and have all nations adopt the largely free-market economy of the United States. According to the Pew research center::
The U.S. stands head and shoulders above the rest of the world. More than half (56%) of Americans were high income by the global standard, living on more than $50 per day in 2011, the latest year that could be analyzed with the available data. Another 32% were upper-middle income. In other words, almost nine-in-ten Americans had a standard of living that was above the global middle-income standard. Only 7% of people in the U.S. were middle income, 3% were low income and 2% were poor.

 

[ColorMomma]

This man has some credibility issues. I would be wary of posting his videos.

 

[Crocus]

More than half (56%) of Americans were high income by the global standard, living on more than $50 per day in 2011, the latest year that could be analyzed with the available data. Another 32% were upper-middle income. In other words, almost nine-in-ten Americans had a standard of living that was above the global middle-income standard. Only 7% of people in the U.S. were middle income, 3% were low income and 2% were poor.

Incredible statistics. What does life look like for that high income family in the US, living on $18,250 per year? How much do they spend on food, clothing, shelter, health services? $1520.84 per month budget geniuses!