Pope vows to study US criticism of his anti-capitalist rhetoric

[FollowChrist34]

Actually, you make a good point. Third Position economic theories are a sort of synthesis of right and left theories. They allow for capitalism but a form of capitalism that’s subordinated to the needs of the nation.

But I’m some sort of wacky neo-Fascist that has more in common with European movements like the French National Front than I do with the American version of the right-wing. I just don’t fit into American politics.

Wow, well, I admire your honesty. I don’t know that many people who willingly self-identify as a “some sort of wacky neo-Fascist.” I usually just let my opponents handle that…

Economics confuse and bore me. I never learn more about it because the field is complex with many different viewpoints and I just have never been interested in it. I feel like the system I live under is fair and just for the most part, whether that is wisdom or ignorance, who knows…

One really ironic thing I have always noticed is how materialistic socialists get. I expect that from capitalists. Socialism cannot shut up about the grievances of the poor - that is fine in and of itself - but I thought Christians were not of this world - we embrace suffering and sacrifice and live for God. A life of poverty is the chosen life in religious life (Mother Teresa, etc.) but then we turn around and see it as such a paralyzing tragedy when someone is poor or without bread. I always wondered about that because I don’t think poverty or wealth really makes much of a difference in a person’s life - unless it is extreme. I don’t think I am a “materialist.”

 

[Saint_Frank]

Wow, well, I admire your honesty. I don’t know that many people who willingly self-identify as a “some sort of wacky neo-Fascist.” I usually just let my opponents handle that…

Lol.

Yeah, there’s not many of us. It’s not exactly socially acceptable like Marxism tends to be in many circles (strangely) because it keeps getting conflated with Nazism, which I don’t even consider to be Fascist (I put Nazism in its own category because it really was something totally unique).

I tend to identify with movements like Falangism and Brazilian Integrelism. I really like the French National Front and other current European movements like that. But I’m no neo-Nazi. They’re degenerates.

At the very least, I’m a nationalist and a populist.

Economics confuse and bore me. I never learn more about it because the field is complex with many different viewpoints and I just have never been interested in it. I feel like the system I live under is fair and just for the most part, whether that is wisdom or ignorance, who knows…

Economics bore me, too. But I know enough to recognize injustice when I see it.

One really ironic thing I have always noticed is how materialistic socialists get. I expect that from capitalists. Socialism cannot shut up about the grievances of the poor - that is fine in and of itself - but I thought Christians were not of this world - we embrace suffering and sacrifice and live for God. A life of poverty is the chosen life in religious life (Mother Teresa, etc.) but then we turn around and see it as such a paralyzing tragedy when someone is poor or without bread. I always wondered about that because I don’t think poverty or wealth really makes much of a difference in a person’s life - unless it is extreme. I don’t think I am a “materialist.”

It is interesting. Of course, I wouldn’t say most socialists are Christians. Most of them are irreligious. But when it comes to poverty, it’s important to keep in mind that the life of poverty that the religious live is by choice. Jesus didn’t say we must all live in abject poverty but He did command us to take care of each other and to share our wealth. We see how the early Church lived in Acts. They basically lived in communes and shared everything. So obviously the insane global wealth gap is something that must be addressed out of our duty as human beings to each other.

While it’s unrealistic to expect all Christians to start living in communes and sharing everything like happy little anarco-communists, I do think there’s solutions that we could work towards. But I think the better way to do that is to get a good nationalist government that would rein in the corporations, the banks, etc. and put the needs of the people first instead of trying to force it through internationalist bodies like the UN, IMF, World Bank, etc. that do far more harm than good.

When it comes to America, we would need someone that would like akin to a new Huey Long. There’s Bernie Sanders, but he’s a far-leftist socialist who supports homosexuality and abortion so Catholics really can’t support him in good conscience. A good candidate that a Catholic could get behind would be socially conservative but economically distributionist or something similar to that. Catholic social teachings don’t really fit in with American politics. They’re very European, you could say.

 

[anthony022071]

US Conservatives are the last people he should be listening to on economic matters (along with the leftist “progressive”, socialist, communist menagerie). The economic theories of those groups are outside of Christian social teaching. One wants to cripple social services and let corporations and Wall Street run amuck while fanboying over loons like Ayn Rand and the other wants to wreck Western Civilization and enforce “equality” on us. Both are no good. Much better to look at Third Position alternatives. Time for something different.

U.S. conservatives want private everyone’s property rights to be respected and they want to stop the government from overstepping its proper responsibilities and making people become dependent on it. They have a strong sense of natural law and they favor the natural,traditional Christian order of society,in which the responsibility of caring for the poor and need is assumed by families,local communities and churches. They do not favor the complete deregulation of corporations. They want the government to stop interfering with businesses unnecessarily.

Progressives do not care about natural law and they do not favor the natural,traditional Christian order of society. They do not respect property rights. They expect the government to be take care of everyone except the wealthy,and to get businesses under its control and to punish the wealthy,excepting those who support progressive aims.

Let’s not act as if conservatives and progressives are morally alike.

Any third position alternative,such as distributism,which does not allow people to become wealthy and involves taking over and re-distributing the property of wealthy people is not good. It resembles communism or socialism.

 

[Theo520]

If the vatican had any sense on this topic, they’d focus their message on how poor countries suffer excessively from political corruption and no ‘rule of law’. Just implementing basic land reforms in such countries have proven time and time again to improve the plight of the poor.

 

[Saint_Frank]

U.S. conservatives want private everyone’s property rights to be respected and they want to stop the government from overstepping its proper responsibilities and making people become dependent on it. They have a strong sense of natural law and they favor the natural,traditional Christian order of society,in which the responsibility of caring for the poor and need is assumed by families,local communities and churches. They do not favor the complete deregulation of corporations. They want the government to stop interfering with businesses unnecessarily.

Progressives do not care about natural law and they do not favor the natural,traditional Christian order of society. They do not respect property rights. They expect the government to be take care of everyone except the wealthy,and to get businesses under its control and to punish the wealthy,excepting those who support progressive aims.

Let’s not act as if conservatives and progressives are morally alike.

Any third position alternative,such as distributism,which does not allow people to become wealthy and involves taking over and re-distributing the property of wealthy people is not good. It resembles communism or socialism.

American-style conservatives don’t necessarily care about natural law or God. They just like money and business and because of their individualism, they think that everyone would be successful if they “just worked hard enough”. Meanwhile the wealth gap gets larger and larger, and millions more fall into poverty. Good, hard-working Americans fall into poverty. Jobs are outsourced, factories are closed (i.e. “the rust belt”), wages stagnate, etc. That’s what happens when you put business before people and that’s the sort of platform that American and UK conservatives tend to support.

I throw American and UK style conservatism in with “progressivism” because they’re both wrong, but “progressivism” is more wrong. The former has some social issues right and the latter has some economic issues right, but both are wrong on everything else and both are destroying this country.

Distributism is more of a middle way between capitalism and socialism. It’s a Catholic economic theory: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributism

 

[graciew]

I think is it cultural; he is from Argentina (and Jesuit). If you or I were from Argentina I think we would think and feel the exact same way he does, I really do. He is speaking for his people. Nothing wrong with that. I think God wants him to do that.

But, no, he doesn’t know anything about those who work so hard and just hang on the edge of poverty, but are not in it. The ones who do manage to keep a job, pay taxes, etc. I don’t think he sees them as the capitalistic filthy rich, but they are sadly not on his radar sometimes; he just sees the rich and poor, good guys and bad guys, like something out of a morality play.

This is interesting to hear. You ve made me think from a different place.
Thinking aloud with you,I d say I d agree with your first paragraph trying to be objective. He sometimes sounds so clear that it feels one is perplex at persons not understanding him.
Now,if I go back in time,I d say that when he was our bishop he spoke to us as a people,Argentina,Buenos Aires,government issues…but now,I hear he has grown to speak to a wider audience. He is not speaking to us the way he used to,same style but different audience.He has become our Pope,if you know what I mean.
The " funny " thing is that we ( Argentine people) had a strong middle class which also suffered and still does between cross fire. What you describe in your US part of the middle class. And the new impoverished persons,are those who cannot eat the " bricks" of their homes ,are not used to welfare,or asking,and they are in big trouble.
And,as if you were my sister,and this is just my thoughts, poverty surrounding big cities,as Buenos Aires,has become such an issue overtime,that even if one is in some kind of trouble,they are in very bad shape.and we also have border issues which now exceed our hospitals,education…but,what can we do? Their reality is painful.
Take this as a conversation,just that. And it is just my thoughts.
And as Ridgerunner says,it is very painful for most of us,and many of us in particular( we are ranchers too in my husband s family) to see how our potential is being so hardly hit time after time,and it hurts that no matter how hard we try,the cycles bring us down to critical conditions time and time again. Agro was one of our strengths.
I appreciate these posts,they have helped me look at ourselves from your eyes. And think.

 

[MarcoPolo]

 

[Darryl1958]

Mixed socialist economies are capable of performing well enough to keep poverty at bay, and support the middle class. Likewise mixed capitalist economies are capable of doing the same.

What neither a capitalist or a socialist economy is capable of supporting is widespread bureaucratic corruption, and the system of payoffs that exist across the third world.
The main difference between South American and Mexico compared to North America is the corruption that is at the heart of virtually any South American economy. The main similarity between the economies of North America and Europe and Australia is the lack of corruption.
Sweden tends socialist, and does well enough, and America at one time tended to capitalism, and likewise poverty was held at bay. The main factor in perpetual poverty for a country correlates to the amount of corruption that makes a meritocracy impossible.

It was frustration with corruption that sparked the Arab Spring in Tunisia.Entrepreneurs simply cannot generate any profit when police and every other bureaucrat needs to be paid off for the excessive red tape to be removed.

 

[estesbob]

American-style conservatives don’t necessarily care about natural law or God. They just like money and business and because of their individualism, they think that everyone would be successful if they “just worked hard enough”. Meanwhile the wealth gap gets larger and larger, and millions more fall into poverty. Good, hard-working Americans fall into poverty. Jobs are outsourced, factories are closed (i.e. “the rust belt”), wages stagnate, etc. That’s what happens when you put business before people and that’s the sort of platform that American and UK conservatives tend to support.

I throw American and UK style conservatism in with “progressivism” because they’re both wrong, but “progressivism” is more wrong. The former has some social issues right and the latter has some economic issues right, but both are wrong on everything else and both are destroying this country.

Distributism is more of a middle way between capitalism and socialism. It’s a Catholic economic theory: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributism

Please. Not distrbutism again. Repackaging socialism under a new name does nothing to mitigate the utter disaster causes everyplace it is practiced.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Please. Not distrbutism again. Repackaging socialism under a new name does nothing to mitigate the utter disaster causes everyplace it is practiced.

Besides, there are so many versions of what “Distributism” is, that the term is meaningless anymore.

 

[MarcoPolo]

Please. Not distrbutism again. Repackaging socialism under a new name does nothing to mitigate the utter disaster causes everyplace it is practiced.

What do you think of this article on the distributism and GK Chesterton and Dorothy Day? Are they talking about something different than is meant by 21st century distributism? Is the article off-base? Would enjoy your thoughts.

 

[stinkcat_14]

What do you think of this article on the distributism and GK Chesterton and Dorothy Day? Are they talking about something different than is meant by 21st century distributism? Is the article off-base? Would enjoy your thoughts.

I would argue that encourage the more widespread ownership of property is a good thing and should be encouraged. On the other hand, I would be against any forced redistribution of property. On the other hand, we should work to limit the rent seeking by large corporations and the abundance of corporate welfare.

 

[SWolf]

I would argue that encourage the more widespread ownership of property is a good thing and should be encouraged. On the other hand, I would be against any forced redistribution of property. On the other hand, we should work to limit the rent seeking by large corporations and the abundance of corporate welfare.

There lies the problem.

Also, excessive regulation of the market benefits larger companies that can employ armies of lawyers. Small businesses get crushed under red tape.

 

[ephesians4]

I think it is the poor who are most in need of property rights so that they can earn and use the fruits of their labours, themselves for subsistence, charity and so on.

I think the poor suffer greatly at the hands of communism in practice and are treated as complete non-entities in terms of self-determination and human dignity, are mistreated and worked into the ground and persecuted for their faiths, forbidden aspiration for their children, so whatever the principles of the matter, I am deeply wary of anything that tends towards managed socialist or communist economies in a religious doctrine, or any cousins of this economic model (for instance fascism), even though socialist ideas can be implemented in a civilisation to some extent in a less over-arching sense. The road to hell is paved with good intentions and all that.

I think that some of the sciences and disciplines in this world are not entirely theological or intuitive in the minutiae of their mechanics, or the consequences of their actions (be the intentions good or bad), and are perhaps a bit more temporal and flawed as we are. As such, I don’t ask a mathematician or a biologist to explain theological matters and help me study that field, and I don’t ask my priest about things that deeply involve celestial mechanics or (as in the case of what gets called “socialism” or “communism”) macroeconomics.

 

[ringil]

Please. Not distrbutism again. Repackaging socialism under a new name does nothing to mitigate the utter disaster causes everyplace it is practiced.

Like Scandinavia?

 

[stinkcat_14]

There lies the problem.

Also, excessive regulation of the market benefits larger companies that can employ armies of lawyers. Small businesses get crushed under red tape.

Think of something as simple as occupational licensing regulations. So many of them are designed not to protect the public, but to protect practitioners from competition.

 

[zz912]

Mixed socialist economies are capable of performing well enough to keep poverty at bay, and support the middle class. Likewise mixed capitalist economies are capable of doing the same.

What neither a capitalist or a socialist economy is capable of supporting is widespread bureaucratic corruption, and the system of payoffs that exist across the third world.
The main difference between South American and Mexico compared to North America is the corruption that is at the heart of virtually any South American economy. The main similarity between the economies of North America and Europe and Australia is the lack of corruption.
Sweden tends socialist, and does well enough, and America at one time tended to capitalism, and likewise poverty was held at bay. The main factor in perpetual poverty for a country correlates to the amount of corruption that makes a meritocracy impossible.

It was frustration with corruption that sparked the Arab Spring in Tunisia.Entrepreneurs simply cannot generate any profit when police and every other bureaucrat needs to be paid off for the excessive red tape to be removed.

The corruption is endemic to socialist governments. Mexico, Brazil and Argentina were on par with the US at the turn of the 20th century, but socialism infected those countries and they turned into 3rd world countries with rampant poverty. The US did not, and the poor in the US (and all Americans) greatly benefited.

 

[zz912]

American-style conservatives don’t necessarily care about natural law or God. They just like money and business and because of their individualism, they think that everyone would be successful if they “just worked hard enough”.

US conservatives give more to charity as a percentage and as a dollar amount than any other group on the planet. And it’s not even close.

Meanwhile the wealth gap gets larger and larger,

So? No matter how much money Bill Gates makes, his wealth won’t affect me or my standard of living. Focus on the “wealth gap” is repackaged envy.

and millions more fall into poverty. Good, hard-working Americans fall into poverty.

“Poverty” in America is vastly different than poverty for most of the world. The poor in the US have an obesity epidemic (let that sink in for a second). And people in this country are losing ground because of the massive spread of socialism in this country over the last 2 decades.

Jobs are outsourced, factories are closed (i.e. “the rust belt”), wages stagnate, etc. That’s what happens when you put business before people and that’s the sort of platform that American and UK conservatives tend to support.

Jobs are outsourced when it becomes too much of a hassle and too expensive to run a factory in the US. The EPA has been so ridiculous on companies with red tape and bureaucratic nightmares that it is easier to just open a factory on the other side of the planet, learn a new language, and ship their products across the largest ocean in the world. Think about how much hassle you would have to endure to make THAT an attractive offer.

I throw American and UK style conservatism in with “progressivism” because they’re both wrong, but “progressivism” is more wrong. The former has some social issues right and the latter has some economic issues right, but both are wrong on everything else and both are destroying this country.

Distributism is more of a middle way between capitalism and socialism. It’s a Catholic economic theory: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributism

Define your “distributism”. Do you favor govt coercion and redistribution of wealth? Do you favor onerous govt or not?

 

[Ridgerunner]

Like Scandinavia?

All of whose fertility rates are below replacement. Maybe it’s due to the economics of living there and maybe it isn’t, but it’s at least something about which one might have concerns.

 

[ephesians4]

It is not really about the underlying intent. Mass appropriation of individual rights for the purpose of redistributing wealth etc. is the problem, and its negative effects on a state’s responsiveness to the needs of its people, are accidental, but well established historically.

Capitalism happens to have, when it is mixed with democratic politics (and arguably when it checked by any kind of moral behaviour or law), a tendency to make states more responsive to the needs of their people - this is even more accidental and is really about making power slightly harder to monopolize.

This is readily borne out by examining how people live and how states respond to the needs of their people across any number of countries in the world. The effect is uneven but unmistakeable, especially for the poor and their liberty and their quality of life.

The one way (redistribution of wealth) has the best of intentions but in practice its fundamental flaws kill people. The other (capitalism) has no more of a philosophical component than a rattlesnake, and certainly has the morals of one, but its flaws are slightly easier to deal with (especially under the rule of law in a democracy) because they allow disruptive power to build up outside the executive - and even on an individual level - again an accidental side effect.

Global capitalism in the modern age, sadly, works against that accidental advantage by concentrating power - and snatching the ability to earn - far away from the people in a given market/state, much like the old communist states did, albeit by other means. The debt-based serfdom that cannot viably support itself and has no significant share of the earning/spending power that controls its destiny, is in a precarious state - see Greece. I dare say that following that to its natural conclusion in many countries will lead us to the same sort of problems that communist states had.

I am happy that Pope Francis is making it plain that people who are successful in capitalism have a MORAL DUTY to extend its benefits to the people around them, rather than hammer everybody else into the ground with merciless greed and selfishness and walk away laughing. Even if I am super concerned about him endorsing left wing redistributive systems because of the same concerns. It’s about individual people living with some semblance of human dignity, and a say in their destiny, in the end.

For me, anyway.