Socialism and Catholicism

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Yea but in some big US cities you see the whole roads of homeless people, also many people possessed by constant stress, fear about tomorrow, you can not see something like that in West European Nordic countries with social economy rule.
 
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If you go back far enough to the enclosures, yes. However in more recent memory it has been the welfare state undermining families.
 
The welfare state without a doubt destroys families. Read Thomas Sowell, Losing Ground by Charles Murray, Theodore Dalrymple. I can go on.
 
“By intervening directly and depriving society of its responsibility, the Social Assistance State leads to a loss of human energies and an inordinate increase of public agencies, which are dominated more by bureaucratic ways of thinking than by concern for serving their clients, and which are accompanied by an enormous increase in spending. In fact, it would appear that needs are best understood and satisfied by people who are closest to them and who act as neighbors to those in need.”

St John Paul II, Centesimus Annus #48
 
I suppose that with generous welfare subsidies, it may be that fewer people will be willing to work. But with fewer people working and more people consuming, prices will rise, requiring an increase in welfare. Ultimately, somebody has to work, or nothing gets done, and the society collapses, to be superseded by some other society.
 
I’m sorry I didn’t clarify but I was just sharing it as a spur to further discussion. That’s why I didn’t say anything else. It was just like “hey check this out, it’s related to what we’re talking about.” Here’s the link to the full document.

Library : Centesimus Annus (On the Hundredth Anniversary of Rerum Novarum)

Centesimus Annus (On the Hundredth Anniversary of Rerum Novarum) Social encyclical promulgated by Pope John Paul II on 1 May 1991.
www.catholicculture.org www.catholicculture.org
 
JimmyTolder said:
Let’s look at the fantasy of a capitalist society without welfare. What we see is a permanently unemployed/underemployed lower class that has no safety net whatsoever, and thus will eventually either vote in welfare, or will revolt and collapse your society and institute welfare programs.
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What you are saying is virtually identical to Marx’s ‘reserve army of the unemployed’. The problem with Marx’s analysis is that it depended entirely on a view of state capitalism. Or just capitalism if you like, I have no special preference for terminology so let’s use free market or freed market and capitalism as separate terms and concepts.

It is my firm belief that Marx was fundamentally wrong in his debate with Proudhon, and that the latter was fundamentally correct.
 
I’m not sure how one determines whether there are too many people working or too few people working, except by the demand for labor. Around my area I see companies advertising for employees constantly. I knew a couple of young men who never seemed to want to apply for such jobs as were available, but their parents were getting pretty insistent. One of them took a job working for a company doing some work with respect to finding locations for phone towers, something in which he had no experience whatever. Later, he took on some more technical aspects of the job. Later, the company was sold to a large engineering firm, and he was offered a higher paying job in another town, which he accepted. He’s pretty satisfied. The other young man took a job with a national delivery company and worked his way through several types of jobs and now has his own delivery truck route, which pays well and has good benefits. He recently got married. They both seem pretty happy with their lives.

But local employers are still looking for people.
 
twf said:
Yes, but some American conservatives want us to think this means the Church also condemns social democracy, as seen in most of Europe, which is sometimes conflated with socialism/communism. The Church does not condemn social democracy…and I imagine most bishops actually support one form of it or another.
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“Social democracy” is a term made up by socialists. The Bolsheviks (lead by Lenin) called themselves “democratic socialists” and preached things like “social democracy.”

If you listen to what Europeans in countries like Denmark say, they will tell you right away that they are NOT socialist countries. They simply pay a lot of taxes and receive a lot back for their taxes.

My uncle owns 3 vacation houses & a number of other properties in Spain. He was explaining to me the difference with the taxes there vs the US. He said, they put a tax on almost everything not considered essential, but people have the option from refraining in order to avoid the tax.

Anyway, here are two good videos about “social democracy” in Denmark, and a few others on socialism

Was Jesus a Socialist? | PragerU << very good by a Protestant
Is Denmark Socialist? | PragerU << Denmark
Is Denmark Really Socialist? | PragerU << Denmark
Capitalism vs. Socialism | PragerU << Very smart video
Democratic Socialism Is Still Socialism | PragerU << funny video, but very good about how "social democracy - aka democratic socialism is still socialism
 
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The way it’s typically defined today, social democracy is not the same as democratic socialism. But at the end of the day, these are just words and definitions evolve and vary…
 
twf said:
The way it’s typically defined today, social democracy is not the same as democratic socialism. But at the end of the day, these are just words and definitions evolve and vary…
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“social democracy” is simply a play on words for socialist to push their agenda without people realizing it.

It’s no different that what Lenin did.
 
‘Some American communities are completely free of homelessness.’

It is simple to solve the homeless crisis. Lock up those who are potentially homeless for vagrancy. Is it any wonder that the US, with 4.4% of the world’s population and 22% of the world’s prisoners (2013) and in 2016 2.25 million were incarcerated in ‘the land of the free and the home of the brave’?
 
Then what is? If you’re being a stickler for accuracy because I didn’t say means of production, I know, I caught that after it was too late to edit it lol.
 
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So, because people have been disputing the definition of socialism, and since I messed up by saying private property when I should have said means of production, here is the entry on socialism from the Marxist Internet Archive.

https://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/s/o.htm#socialism

Vouthon already did a stellar job explaining what the Popes were condemning, but take this for what it’s worth.
 
Interesting points. However, I would still argue the free market is useful for two purposes: first, as a theoretical tool for analyzing the economy, and second as a sort of goal to strive towards given the success of market societies in the past. The free market is part of Catholic social teaching, more of a true freedom given a strong legal foundation.

Related to this, I would recommend the book 23 Things They Don’t Tell You About Capitalism by Ha Joon Chang. His perspective is very interesting.
 
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StudentMI said:
there were only two systems possible when it came to economics: capitalism or state capitalism.
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The two systems are private capitalism and state capitalism. Only economic systems that do not produce sufficient goods and services to satisfy present human needs are non-capitalistic: everything produced is consumed.

Capitalism requires savings – the abstention from present consumption in order to invest in tools to increase future production of goods and services. The difference in the two systems is who own the tools, i.e., the means of production. Implicit in ownership is the control of what goods and services will be made and at what price those good and services may be purchased.
 
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