Pope criticizes the ‘cruelty’ of capitalism

[Voco_proTatiano]

No He didn’t. He condemned focussing on money to the exclusion of God. It is very possible to work hard, get lots of money, (probably donate to charities and to the Church) and still love God.

You seem to choose to understand words to please yourself.
An ism is a belief system.
I do not condemn honest money, nor do I condemn hard work, Neither did Our Lord. He did say many time though, that it might be foolish to rely on them…Consider the lillies of the field…
Capitalism is a religion which demands obedience to monetary principles to the exclusion of charity.
Thus it is anti-G_d, thus it is evil.

 

[Orionthehunter]

You seem to choose to understand words to please yourself.
An ism is a belief system.
I do not condemn honest money, nor do I condemn hard work, Neither did Our Lord. He did say many time though, that it might be foolish to rely on them…Consider the lillies of the field…
Capitalism is a religion which demands obedience to monetary principles to the exclusion of charity.
Thus it is anti-G_d, thus it is evil.

I am a person who advocates capitalism because it places the obligation for caring for the people in individuals and not the government. Some of the best Christian Catholics I know are adherents to capitalism. Please don’t slander them or me.

 

[Voco_proTatiano]

I am a person who advocates capitalism because it places the obligation for caring for the people in individuals and not the government. Some of the best Christian Catholics I know are adherents to capitalism. Please don’t slander them or me.

Likewise, you choose to missunderstand the words which are plain.
I do not condemn honest money, neither do I condemn hard work, or diligence.
What you choose to discribe as capitalism is something different from communism, but not true capitalism.
It is like a non-white calling himself black, because he is not white.
Capitalism is as I described.
It is a belief system, nay, a religion, which is concerned solely with measures to improve monetary integrity. It has no room in its crede for measures to relieve any suffering which adherence to these aims may cause.
What you seem to be describing is some form of Christian socialism, but in the US, socialism, like liberalism is a dirty word, so you misuse some other word.
If you choose to misuse words, then you will suffer misunderstanding, both by yourself, and those with whom you endeavour to communicate.

 

[Ridgerunner]

At its core, capitalism is not an economic system at all. It is the relative absence of an economic system. It is an outgrowth of a legal system that protects ownership from most forms of confiscation, in combination with a relative absence of economic directives and constraints.

Capitalism, per se, is neither evil nor good. Given certain circumstances, it can produce inhuman results, e.g., the horrid factory conditions of 18th and 19th Century Britain. On the other hand, it can produce results that are quite favorable to the populace at large. In 1776, the English colonies in America had the highest per capita wealth on earth because it was relatively easy to acquire productive property and there was very little government or organized criminal confiscation capable of really taking much of it away from the producers and developers.

Capitalism, in one form or another, has been around since the dawn of time, and has existed in one form or another under quite disparate governmental structures. Capital is simply the stored effect of labor, whether physical or mental, applied to resources, most of which are also the product of labor.

Now, it cannot be seriously questioned that capitalism can be applied badly. If I, as a hunter-gatherer, kill a buffalo, I am a capitalist the moment the buffalo hits the ground. If no one can force me to share, then the question whether or not I share is up to me. My decision in that regard will depend on my conscience. My (name removed by moderator)ut into tribal decisions may require that anyone who kills a buffalo must give 1/2, 1/4 or whatever, to those in the tribe who did not manage to kill a buffalo. That also is a decision of conscience. If I, and other hunters characteristically give up 1/2 or 1/4 of the meat to others in the tribe voluntarily, then there is no need to coerce me or the other hunters. The application of coercion represents a failure, but not necessarily mine. It may be necessary because I won’t voluntarily share. It may be deemed necessary by those who do not want to take the risks inherent in hunting.

Capitalism always requires a balancing of voluntarism and coercion. The problem is, and has always been, that if the coercion is deemed unjust by me and the other hunters, we might rebel, go off and start a new tribe with new rules, or we might just sit by the fire and expect someone else to kill the next buffalo. It’s a delicate business, which is not solved by undue coercion and undue confiscation.

The worldly affairs of men are always problematic from a moral standpoint. There are no easy answers. There does seem to be a point at which extreme confiscation causes societal failure, just as extreme accumulation with little redistribution seems to result in cruelty. Certainly, both were the case with the Soviet Union. The population collapse in Europe seems to suggest they have gone over a fatal line. Mass migrations into the U.S., chiefly from countries that are confiscatory toward most and protective of only a few, demonstrate that it is quite possible to err in both ways at the same time.

The U.S. has some elements of both capitalism and socialism.

The question is, as always, what is the proper relationship among volunteerism, reward and coercive redistribution. There are no easy answers.

 

[Catholic_Hammer]

Yes, “capitalism”, as we know it today IS cruel.

The cruelty is in people taking what is not theirs, without paying for it.

What is it that they take, without paying?

The Earth; natural resources; Land.

I deserve to own my clock because I have paid for it. I deserve to own my computer because I paid for it. I deserve ALL of my wages because I have worked for it (meaning taxation of labor or capital is THEFT).

What I DON’T own is land/natural resources. All I can possibly do is “lease” these natural resources/land from the rest of mankind.

Ownership requires the ability to manufacture - clocks, computers, and labor are PRODUCED.

Land/natural resources are NOT.

THAT is the cruelty of our current system called “capitalism”.

 

[JW10631]

I have long believed that the Catholic hierarchy has little understanding of economics.

Capitalism has done more to improve the production of food, improve health care and bring more people out of poverty than any economic “system”.

This sounds like “blaming the rich for being rich”.

 

[Catholic_Hammer]

Capitalism has done more to improve the production of food, improve health care and bring more people out of poverty than any economic “system”.

But treating Land as Capital has done more to impoverish people than anything else.

The advances of “capitalism” have been brought about by people owning their own Labor and Capital, NOT Land.

Unfortunately, we have regressed away from classical “capitalism”, and function more along the lines of mercantilism, especially in the United States.

 

[Brendan]

And I still see no where that Jesus calls us to punish the lazy, which is what manualman explicitly stated.

Even Paul, in Brendan’s example says: “Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the bread they eat.” There is no punishment demanded there.

.

So you would not consider the withholding of food from a lazy person to be a punishment?

we gave you this rule: “If a man will not work, he shall not eat.”

 

[Voco_proTatiano]

At its core, capitalism is not an economic system at all. It is the relative absence of an economic system. It is an outgrowth of a legal system that protects ownership from most forms of confiscation, in combination with a relative absence of economic directives and constraints.

Capitalism, per se, is neither evil nor good. Given certain circumstances, it can produce inhuman results, e.g., the horrid factory conditions of 18th and 19th Century Britain. On the other hand, it can produce results that are quite favorable to the populace at large. In 1776, the English colonies in America had the highest per capita wealth on earth because it was relatively easy to acquire productive property and there was very little government or organized criminal confiscation capable of really taking much of it away from the producers and developers.

Capitalism, in one form or another, has been around since the dawn of time, and has existed in one form or another under quite disparate governmental structures. Capital is simply the stored effect of labor, whether physical or mental, applied to resources, most of which are also the product of labor.

Now, it cannot be seriously questioned that capitalism can be applied badly. If I, as a hunter-gatherer, kill a buffalo, I am a capitalist the moment the buffalo hits the ground. If no one can force me to share, then the question whether or not I share is up to me. My decision in that regard will depend on my conscience. My (name removed by moderator)ut into tribal decisions may require that anyone who kills a buffalo must give 1/2, 1/4 or whatever, to those in the tribe who did not manage to kill a buffalo. That also is a decision of conscience. If I, and other hunters characteristically give up 1/2 or 1/4 of the meat to others in the tribe voluntarily, then there is no need to coerce me or the other hunters. The application of coercion represents a failure, but not necessarily mine. It may be necessary because I won’t voluntarily share. It may be deemed necessary by those who do not want to take the risks inherent in hunting.

Capitalism always requires a balancing of voluntarism and coercion. The problem is, and has always been, that if the coercion is deemed unjust by me and the other hunters, we might rebel, go off and start a new tribe with new rules, or we might just sit by the fire and expect someone else to kill the next buffalo. It’s a delicate business, which is not solved by undue coercion and undue confiscation.

The worldly affairs of men are always problematic from a moral standpoint. There are no easy answers. There does seem to be a point at which extreme confiscation causes societal failure, just as extreme accumulation with little redistribution seems to result in cruelty. Certainly, both were the case with the Soviet Union. The population collapse in Europe seems to suggest they have gone over a fatal line. Mass migrations into the U.S., chiefly from countries that are confiscatory toward most and protective of only a few, demonstrate that it is quite possible to err in both ways at the same time.

The U.S. has some elements of both capitalism and socialism.

The question is, as always, what is the proper relationship among volunteerism, reward and coercive redistribution. There are no easy answers.

What you describe is not capitalism, but rather liberalism.
Unfortunately Liberalism is a dirty word in the US so another word is misused in its place.
What I have said stands.

 

[a_priori]

I have long believed that the Catholic hierarchy has little understanding of economics.

Capitalism has done more to improve the production of food, improve health care and bring more people out of poverty than any economic “system”.

This sounds like “blaming the rich for being rich”.

It’s not blaming the rich for being rich. It is suggesting that accumulating more things than we really need instead of helping those who have nothing is probably not the right way to go.

 

[stinkcat_14]

I have long believed that the Catholic hierarchy has little understanding of economics.

Capitalism has done more to improve the production of food, improve health care and bring more people out of poverty than any economic “system”.

This sounds like “blaming the rich for being rich”.

Actually, as an economist, I find the hierarchy to be quite perceptive in the area of economics, if read correctly. For example, Pope Benedict says:

“Confronted with the abuse of economic power, with the cruelty of capitalism that degrades man into merchandise, we have begun to see more clearly the dangers of wealth and we understand in a new way what Jesus intended in warning us about wealth.”

What he is saying is that economic power (which I read as monopoly power) can be abused. Morally, that is wrong, plain and simple. Also, wealth does have dangers associated with it, particularly moral dangers. The pope is right to warn us of this.

 

[Bobby_Jim]

I have long believed that the Catholic hierarchy has little understanding of economics.

Substitute “economics” with “marriage” or “sex” or “science” or somesuch, and this sounds like what people say when they want the church to compromise on abortion, or divorce, or homosexuality, or stem cell research…

In other words, the hierarchy is pretty wise, except when they say things you don’t agree with.

For just a taste of what could be wrong with modern capitalism… you are hard-pressed to engage in some very basic transactions, like have telephone service or stay in a hotel, without dealing with companies that make money by distributing pornography. You are very much restricted in your choices if you want to do business in a moral way. This is not freedom.

 

[Timmy_Z]

Still, the Census Bureau reports that 35.9 million persons “lived in poverty” in 2003, a number that should cause concern to all. But to really understand poverty in America, it’s important to look behind these numbers — to the actual living conditions of the individuals the government deems poor.

For most Americans, the word “poverty” suggests destitution: an inability to provide a family with nutritious food, clothing and reasonable shelter. But only a small number of the million persons classified as “poor” by the Census Bureau fit that description. Real material hardship certainly does occur, but it’s limited in scope and severity. Most of America’s “poor” live in material conditions that would be judged as comfortable or well-off just a few generations ago.

The following are facts about persons defined as “poor” by the Census Bureau, taken from various government reports:

— Forty-six percent of all poor households own their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and porch or patio.

— Seventy-six percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, 30 years ago, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.

— Only 6 percent of poor households are overcrowded. More than two-thirds have more than two rooms per person.

— The average poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens and other European cities. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.)

— Nearly three-quarters of poor households own a car; 30 percent own two or more cars.

— Ninety-seven percent of poor households have a color television. Over half own two or more color televisions.

— Seventy-eight percent have a VCR or DVD player; 62 percent have cable or satellite TV reception.

— Seventy-three percent own a microwave oven, more than half have a stereo, and a third have an automatic dishwasher.

Overall, the typical American defined as poor by the government has a car, air conditioning, a refrigerator, a stove, a clothes washer and dryer, and a microwave. He has two color televisions, cable or satellite TV reception, a VCR or DVD player, and a stereo. He is able to obtain medical care. His home is in good repair and is not overcrowded. By his own report, his family isn’t hungry, and he had sufficient funds in the past year to meet his family’s essential needs. While this individual’s life is not opulent, it is equally far from the popular images of dire poverty conveyed by the press, activists and politicians.

Even better news is that remaining poverty can readily be reduced, especially among children. Child poverty in the U.S. is caused largely by low levels of parental work and by the absence of fathers from the home. While work and two-parent families are the surest ladders out of poverty, the welfare system continues to reward idleness while failing to provide support to keep families in tact.

foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,132956,00.html

 

[DL82]

Scenario 1: Nation where the government has devised a system that properly and fairly distributes economic resources and all the people live in relative prosperity. The people are quite grateful to their form of government and the wisdom its leaders for the gifts they have recieved. The people are so grateful to their government and leaders that they don’t give gratitude to God. What merit is there in gaining all things in this world and losing eternal life?

Scenario 2: Nation where the government is corrupt, the people who control the economic resources distribute them unfairly and without regard to any sense of economic justice but only upon economic value contributed individuals. (Neither capitalism or socialism has any inherent promise that they will be an effective protection against this scenario). The people despise their government and those in economic power. But in their poverty of material things and exploitation they experience in their jobs they come to be grateful for their friends, family, and very lives that they live each day expressing gratitude to the God who made them, the God who Loves them perfectly, and the God who gives them comfort every day.

Capitalism being practiced by the corrupt is no more evil than Socialism practiced by the corrupt or selfish.

And the Pope is quite correct to point out that Capitalism in its nature does not embody the principles of our personal call to feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, etc… This is our call. Compassion by definition is not sympathy. The Samaritan didn’t express sympathy. He entered into and shared in the beaten man’s state. There is false compassion in seeing their call for bigger social welfare programs to meet the needs of the poor as fulfillment of their individual call to feed the hungry etc.

Capitalism or any economic system is not a substitute for our individual call to be Christ to the suffering. IMHO I believe that the new-found belief that the government is responsible for what Christ placed on us individually is the greatest single cause of the evil of the United States. If we had a true Christian concept of compassion (personally entering into suffering and personally coming to another’s aid), do you think we would have abortion the law of the land? Do you think our inner cities would be the havens for drug abuse, sexual abuse, and violence against God’s people that they are?

Surely you’re not serious? You think we should have terrible, unfair, corrupt governments in order to help people to trust in God? Far more to be thankful under the good government of faithful Christians than when reliant on God for basic food and clothing. Of course God will provide, but we should do our best to provide and to give justice to the poor. You shall not tempt the Lord your God.

What all of these posts seem to ignore is that there is a difference between the market and Capitalism. Having a free exchange of goods and labour where individuals can use gold to store the surplus of their labour to buy what they want when they want is the basic market, this has been around since the beginning, and is the best system to ensure that everyone can get what they want. Capitalism is a particular system for the distribution of goods where the owners of the means of production are separate from those whose labour they buy. Under modern Capitalism, money has a symbolic value that is based on speculation - market demand itself decides the value, not only of the product, but of money itself, and the value of companies. The system of interest charges, inflation and speculation leads to a situation where the rich get richer just by having money, and the poor get poorer. For the poor to get richer, they are reliant on loans from the rich, which means the rich get even richer every time the poor get a little richer, which makes true distribution impossible. The system of Capitalism is used not only to govern our work and consumer choices but the whole of society, governing the education system, healthcare, welfare, international aid. Advertising reinforces the system as it pays for public services, entertainment, communications, and pervades every aspect of our lives until we can’t think outside of Capitalism.

For many centuries, the Church condemned the sin of usury the charging of interest on loans and currency, precisely because it leads to this situation. It’s perhaps the only example of a teaching the Catholic Church has compromised on for worldly interests. Sadly, the modern world has reaped the consequences of this compromise.

 

[Timmy_Z]

The system of interest charges, inflation and speculation leads to a situation where the rich get richer just by having money, and the poor get poorer.

I feel like I am reading a fund raiser for the DNC.

The poor in America (the worlds standard bearer of capitalism and freedom) do better than any other place on Earth. Honestly, by the standards of the rest of the world America has almost no poor people (compare our “poor” who nearly all have extra money for color tv to those images of real poverty we have all seen of the straving in the rest of the world).

-Tim

 

[Dee_Dee_King]

For many centuries, the Church condemned the sin of usury the charging of interest on loans and currency, precisely because it leads to this situation.

slavery and usary are not evil in themselves though they nearly always are. what is evil is the objectification of people. you can justify usary because it may be the only way someone can loan people money. the same can be said for “slavery” if it is a means of paying somone back debt. as long as the slave is treated with dignity, it may be a tolerable situation.

it’s a good thing that catholics start to think critically of our capitalistic society. why people don’t realize is that while the free market is a good thing, capitalism favors those with the most money. subsidarity is not the golden rule in capitalism but profit.

who can not notice the corruption of our government military complex? who can not see how big government contracts are influencing national policy? look at how every town in america has the same chains. look at how government favors and subsidizes these mega chains.

 

[DL82]

I feel like I am reading a fund raiser for the DNC.

The poor in America (the worlds standard bearer of capitalism and freedom) do better than any other place on Earth. Honestly, by the standards of the rest of the world America has almost no poor people (compare our “poor” who nearly all have extra money for color tv to those images of real poverty we have all seen of the straving in the rest of the world).

-Tim

And why do you think the “real poverty” that exists in Africa and South Asia exists?

Hint: it’s not because of over-population

 

[ribozyme]

And why do you think the “real poverty” that exists in Africa and South Asia exists?

Hint: it’s not because of over-population

You really don’t want to know my opinion about this topic. Reticence is golden!

 

[DL82]

You really don’t want to know my opinion about this topic. Reticence is golden!

Let me explain something. Companies in Europe and America will buy up African debt and offer to pay it off on Africa’s behalf. African countries make these deals in US currency, which is now the international standard for the value of all currency. Because US dollars are not linked to the gold standard, this leads to a system where all monetary value is relative, and decided by the stock markets.

In the case of the debts wiped out as a result of last year’s Live 8 and MakePovertyHistory campaigns, it was not the countries themselves who had their payments reduced, but the companies that had BOUGHT their debt! This means the IMF/G8/World Bank made a bunch of international money lenders richer, and the money lenders didn’t pass a penny of their profit on to the nations in Africa.

Another favourite trick of the multi-national banks is to buy up huge quantities of a country’s currency. This means the country in question gains lots of US dollars (therefore, the value of their currency goes up in international terms) and there is less of their own currency to go around, which means the currency goes up in real value. The bank will then take out a multi-billion dollar loan in the foreign currency, while it is worth a lot, and invest that loan in their own industrial interest (i.e. in propping up Western companies). The bank will then ‘dump’ its currency reserves so suddenly that the value of the foreign currency drops dramatically, causing economic chaos in that country, causing every other bank to dump their currency reserves too, and making the currency drop even more in value. Once the foreign currency is worthless, the bank will pay back the loan, which will now cost them pennies. This is called ‘currency speculation’.

George Monbiot gives a good basic overview of how this happens, though I disagree with some elements of his proposed solution. amazon.com/Age-Consent-George-Monbiot/dp/0007150431/ref=sr_1_1/103-8556479-5995047?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1176801323&sr=8-1

Usury, currency that has no fixed value, makes the rich richer and the poor poorer. It does this because:
a) I don’t know that what I sell will be worth what I want to buy with it tomorrow.
b) The rich don’t just control large amounts of money (which is fair if they have worked to accumulate it) they control the VALUE of money itself.
c) Capitalism as a government system encourages governments to measure their success through the accumulation of symbolic value (GDP), regardless of whether this wealth actually benefits the people they are governing.

There is an accountants’ joke about the man who reduces the GDP by marrying his housekeeper. Basically, the key way to increase GDP is to make sure everything has a monetary value, so that there are millions of consumer transactions, e.g. the man paying for his housekeeping and the woman being paid for it, rather than them doing this out of love for one another. Capitalism turns everything into a market - it is designed to control us, because of the mistaken view of economists that self-interest and greed are more powerful guarantees of social cohesion than love and mutual respect. They are certainly more predictable, but not more powerful.

It takes the power of the love of God to break these chains of greed and self-interest that make us slaves to the system. People used to be slaves from 9 to 5 and have some freedom to love outside of that, but the economists want us to be slaves to consumer capitalism 24/7.

Wake up! Strengthen what remains.

 

[ribozyme]

It takes the power of the love of God to break these chains of greed and self-interest that make us slaves to the system. People used to be slaves from 9 to 5 and have some freedom to love outside of that, but the economists want us to be slaves to consumer capitalism 24/7.

Wake up! Strengthen what remains.

No, you didn’t come close to what I think is the cause of African poverty. Like I said; reticence is golden!

If I actually presented the hypothesis that I think has the most explantory power, I will be viewed as a pariah (if I wasn’t currently perceived as such). I am sure that someone would guess, but given the inflammatory nature of it, I will not defend it here.