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AlNg
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He opposed abortion unlike Catholics such as Biden and Pelosi. Is Pelosi benevolent to the unborn child? She claims to be Catholic?
Socialism and Catholicism
- Thread starter NoelFitz
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MiserereMeiDei
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The world is not run according to John Lennon’s terrible song.
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AlNg
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That is the problem isn’t it? Too much money spent on weapons and not enough effort to give peace a chance.
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HarryStotle
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Read his biographies such as this one.HarryStotle:
I don’t see how you would know that.
http://www.moreorless.net.au/killers/ceausescu.html
He and his wife were executed by his own country for atrocities and “treason” because of the austerity programs and killings to maintain power. You honestly think he was benevolent with the “good” of the people in his moral view, but merely misconstrued by those who ended up trying and executing him?
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HarryStotle
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Have you ever seen Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino?MiserereMeiDei:
That is the problem isn’t it? Too much money spent on weapons and not enough effort to give peace a chance.
You might consider doing so.
Think about this…
If you lived in a community of amoral or immoral thugs, would it be better to be courageous, armed and skilled in battle with the capacity to aggressively defend yourself and your family if needed; or unskilled in fighting, and without any means to defend yourself?
Having the capability and will to defend against aggression could very well be a means to maintain peace – it all depends upon the nature of the others surrounding you.
John Lennon assumes all human beings are basically good and peaceful. History proves otherwise.
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MiserereMeiDei
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This doesn’t even reach the level of subpar rhetoric.
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AlNg
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The question was about benevolence. Unlike the American Pelosi, Ceausescu was opposed to the legalization of abortion and even contraceptives. Certainly his communist regime was a harsh one and except for bread and a few other items, there were severe shortages most of the time. There were farmer’s markets where people in the city could oftentimes find things such as cheese, honey, vegetables, fruits, etc. the prices were generally regulated by the state so they were fairly low. But if you ask about benevolence, is it subpar rhetoric to ask whether or not it is benevolent to abort the unborn child?
How many killings was Ceauscescu guilty of before 1989?
His trial and execution was a coup d’etat by a few people (not the whole country) who executed him and his wife. After Iliescu was put in power, there were several people, especially among the older generation, who regretted that Ceauscescu had been deposed.
In any event, I personally am strongly opposed to what was the Ceauscescu version of socialism even though it may have had a few good features.
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EvangelistVictor
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Crocus
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I think there is a problem with all labels. None of them ever fit the strict definition. Where today is there communism, or socialism that precisely match the often stated definitions. Hutterites/Amish/strict Mennonite Brethren,
minus the atheism?
minus the atheism?
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MNathaniel
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Respectfully, brother, Trent and Catherine are correct in representing the teaching of the Church that a Catholic cannot simultaneously be a socialist.
As you yourself say (emphasis mine):
But the point is: In order to be free to renounce property… you must be free to not renounce property (and so must your neighbours be). If someone takes your property from you without your consent, that’s not you freely sharing everything in common as a “community of believers… of one heart and mind”… That’s someone else committing the mortal sin of stealing from you. (Same thing if you take from a neighbour who didn’t have it on their mind/heart to give you whatever you stole.)
The existence of property rights is a pre-condition for the virtue of voluntarily sacrificing one’s property. You’re free to adopt that virtue any second; you don’t need to wait for the government to force it on you (and if the government does force it on you, it no longer involves your virtue).
If you haven’t already joined a monastery or other “everything-in-common” community, why is that? If you so strongly believe that the Bible is calling you to live in a community of believers without claim to possession, why haven’t you already joined an existing community that does this? Free market societies permit ‘socialist’ communities to exist within them. No one is stopping you.
Basically socialism is just holding a gun to people’s heads (including Muslims, Hindus, and atheists) to try to FORCE them to live in monasteries. And the Catholic Church has always taught that no one may be forced to live in a monastery. The vow of poverty (like the vows of celibacy and obedience) must be undertaken voluntarily, by an adult free to consent. And freedom requires an alternative. Socialism denies people that alternative, therefore socialism is incompatible with the Catholic Church which invites everyone to perfection but does not force its externalities on them. The Church proposes… she doesn’t impose.
As you yourself say (emphasis mine):
Bolded is the most important part of that sentence. It is one thing for a community of believers to claim no possession for their own… and we continue to have this in Catholicism: That’s what monasteries and convents are, where Catholics take the vow of lifelong “poverty”: that is, the vow to never again claim a possession as their own, and to have everything in common. You yourself are as free as a bird to join such a community, or to form such a community of your own, and share all property in common within that community. (Might I suggest you Google: “Intentional Community Movement” for more information about the wide variety of communities you may join/form, without having to seek approval from the Holy See or wear a habit.)
But the point is: In order to be free to renounce property… you must be free to not renounce property (and so must your neighbours be). If someone takes your property from you without your consent, that’s not you freely sharing everything in common as a “community of believers… of one heart and mind”… That’s someone else committing the mortal sin of stealing from you. (Same thing if you take from a neighbour who didn’t have it on their mind/heart to give you whatever you stole.)
The existence of property rights is a pre-condition for the virtue of voluntarily sacrificing one’s property. You’re free to adopt that virtue any second; you don’t need to wait for the government to force it on you (and if the government does force it on you, it no longer involves your virtue).
If you haven’t already joined a monastery or other “everything-in-common” community, why is that? If you so strongly believe that the Bible is calling you to live in a community of believers without claim to possession, why haven’t you already joined an existing community that does this? Free market societies permit ‘socialist’ communities to exist within them. No one is stopping you.
Basically socialism is just holding a gun to people’s heads (including Muslims, Hindus, and atheists) to try to FORCE them to live in monasteries. And the Catholic Church has always taught that no one may be forced to live in a monastery. The vow of poverty (like the vows of celibacy and obedience) must be undertaken voluntarily, by an adult free to consent. And freedom requires an alternative. Socialism denies people that alternative, therefore socialism is incompatible with the Catholic Church which invites everyone to perfection but does not force its externalities on them. The Church proposes… she doesn’t impose.
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HarryStotle
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What of LGBTQ?
LeafByNiggle
Well-known member
…as long as “socialist” is strictly defined and doesn’t include, for instance, universal health care, etc.
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HarryStotle
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The military industrial complex Eisenhower spoke of isn’t capitalism per se, it is a mix of bureaucracy (military) and oligarchy (industry) that collude together to grow their joint interests hand in hand. At best that would be crony capitalism where the bureaucrats in government support and augment government policy to further the ends of the industrial magnates who pad their wallets.JoeFreedom:
I don’t think so. There is a point. Under capitalism there is pressure to spend money on war as President Eisenhower pointed out when he spoke about the military industrial complex.
That isn’t free market capitalism, but more like a movement towards fascism where the entrenched bureaucrats (AKA deep state) essentially are the go-betweens connecting the corrupt policy makers (politicians) to the monied elites (industrial/technological magnates).
Essentially it is fascism without a head or face. That way it can go largely undetected by the public as long as the political class and colluding media can put out sufficient fake news that runs cover for the transactions going on beneath the table.
This should go a long way to explaining why the bureaucrats in the DOJ, State Dept, FBI, NSA, CIA, EPA, etc., along with the mainstream media have such a ferocious hatred for Trump, for example.
Some day, we might wake up to the fact that we are being deluded into thinking the bureaucrats and media/entertainment industry have the good of the people at heart in all their policy-making.
The inexplicably vitriolic hatred for Trump really has no other explanation.
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Nepperhan
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Thanks for the paternalism.
The point is that conservatives are now using the term ‘socialism’ as a scare tactic. It is losing whatever denotation it ever had. Further, much of the current framework of our society is using socialistic methods as to emoluments. That is, without the overweening national government control of the economy, jobs and industry, I might add.
Finally a political scientist would make the point that democratic socialism is not communism or socialism, no matter how often they are confused. Wishing does not make it so.
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HarryStotle
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Of course “socialism” can only be a “scare” tactic these days when the past 120 years of history are not taught in institutions of higher learning and never encountered by liberal leftists in their reading.
Tens of millions of deaths, gulag camps, concentration and death camps are hardly “scary” if they have never been encountered. Hitler, too, must have used National Socialism merely as a scare tactic.
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MNathaniel
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Oh for sure. There’s a world of difference between a free market economy that uses taxes from corporations/individuals to provide for public welfare (in differing ways, including with healthcare), and a socialist economy in which the government takes over the means of production.
I think this is where people get confused, and where I think (hope) that most Catholics, and other well-meaning people who describe themselves as ‘socialist’ are using the term in the fuzziest, most historically-unaware, or unaware-of-technical-meanings way possible. (As if ‘socialism’ just means supporting higher taxes or government programs that benefit the poor/sick. It doesn’t. It has a precise technical meaning, and that matters.)
Honestly I think it’s really unhelpful for people to insist on talking about “socialism” if what they mean by it is something different from the textbook definition. Because there are actual socialists who do still mean the textbook definition, so we can’t just say “Oh, language changes and it just means ‘welfare state’ now!”. People who want a welfare state should just say welfare state; those who want higher taxes or better social programs or universal healthcare (etc) should just say that; it’s nothing to do with socialism, and conflating the terms ends up letting real socialists gradually sneak into actual political power where harm can be done.
Also, this isn’t to say that even ‘real’ socialists intend for harm to be done. I doubt they do. But good intentions aren’t enough: we need to be wise in how we apply our social policies, or else good outcomes won’t result. And real world history seems to show that free market economies (plus reasonable social programs funded by government tax dollars, to allow the poor to benefit from the success of the rich) seems to be the best of the fallible systems tried so far. It’s one thing to keep trying to tweak this system for improvements – but fundamentally switching to a different system, and a system with a record of catastrophic failure and human rights violations at that, seems surely not the answer. And for a Catholic, the matter is settled by the system of socialism being unethical even in principle.
I think this is where people get confused, and where I think (hope) that most Catholics, and other well-meaning people who describe themselves as ‘socialist’ are using the term in the fuzziest, most historically-unaware, or unaware-of-technical-meanings way possible. (As if ‘socialism’ just means supporting higher taxes or government programs that benefit the poor/sick. It doesn’t. It has a precise technical meaning, and that matters.)
Honestly I think it’s really unhelpful for people to insist on talking about “socialism” if what they mean by it is something different from the textbook definition. Because there are actual socialists who do still mean the textbook definition, so we can’t just say “Oh, language changes and it just means ‘welfare state’ now!”. People who want a welfare state should just say welfare state; those who want higher taxes or better social programs or universal healthcare (etc) should just say that; it’s nothing to do with socialism, and conflating the terms ends up letting real socialists gradually sneak into actual political power where harm can be done.
Also, this isn’t to say that even ‘real’ socialists intend for harm to be done. I doubt they do. But good intentions aren’t enough: we need to be wise in how we apply our social policies, or else good outcomes won’t result. And real world history seems to show that free market economies (plus reasonable social programs funded by government tax dollars, to allow the poor to benefit from the success of the rich) seems to be the best of the fallible systems tried so far. It’s one thing to keep trying to tweak this system for improvements – but fundamentally switching to a different system, and a system with a record of catastrophic failure and human rights violations at that, seems surely not the answer. And for a Catholic, the matter is settled by the system of socialism being unethical even in principle.
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MNathaniel
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Respectfully, friend:
I’m a social scientist (Sociology). Does that count the same for you as “political scientist”?
Either way, in the spirit of trying to be helpful, I just thought I’d mention that the idea of “democratic socialism” being different from “socialism” really is just unfortunate propaganda that socialists (or people who just want better social programs and think that’s ‘socialism’ since the word ‘social’ appear in both) say. And granted, plenty of social scientists will say this as well – but many social scientists (including in my department at the university where I work) are open communists, publicly praising Karl Marx and acknowledging that they consider socialism a stepping stone to full communism, so you need to take what they say with ten grains of salt.
Adding the word “democratic” to socialism doesn’t do anything to change the part about socialism that is intrinsically evil: That is, stripping individuals of access to ownership of the means of production. Adding the word “democratic” only suggests that individuals so stripped of the right of ownership may now be economically ruled by the whims of a mob, not just by an individual tyrant. That’s not ‘better’.
I don’t mean this to be agitating, and I know that people can mean well, while defending what they think of as ‘socialism’. I hope that we all have the same goal: we want to improve living conditions and opportunities for the poor, the sick, and the ignorant. But there are multiple ways to do this, and we need to be not just well meaning, but “wise as serpents”. And socialism (call it ‘democratic’ or not) is intrinsically evil… because of the economic system side of it (the socialist part), not the political governance side of it (the ‘democratic’ or non-democratic part).
Additionally, you suggested another commenter was being “paternalistic” in suggesting you read Marx. But honestly… meaning this with gentleness and respect, would it be possible for you to look at your own comment with new eyes, and consider the possibility that you may, without extensive study of your own, have just believed what you were told about a topic, and begun to speak condescendingly about it to others? (E.g. when you labelled anyone who recognizes “democratic socialism” as still a subset of “socialism”: “confused”.)
I don’t want to start an argument. I imagine we share many goals, and all mean well. At the same time, I thought I’d chime in as a social scientist, since you seemed to indicate you value the opinion of those with academic credentials on this topic. And if you disagree with what I’ve shared… Maybe at least consider that others with me credentials are at least equally fallible
I’m a social scientist (Sociology). Does that count the same for you as “political scientist”?
Either way, in the spirit of trying to be helpful, I just thought I’d mention that the idea of “democratic socialism” being different from “socialism” really is just unfortunate propaganda that socialists (or people who just want better social programs and think that’s ‘socialism’ since the word ‘social’ appear in both) say. And granted, plenty of social scientists will say this as well – but many social scientists (including in my department at the university where I work) are open communists, publicly praising Karl Marx and acknowledging that they consider socialism a stepping stone to full communism, so you need to take what they say with ten grains of salt.
Adding the word “democratic” to socialism doesn’t do anything to change the part about socialism that is intrinsically evil: That is, stripping individuals of access to ownership of the means of production. Adding the word “democratic” only suggests that individuals so stripped of the right of ownership may now be economically ruled by the whims of a mob, not just by an individual tyrant. That’s not ‘better’.
I don’t mean this to be agitating, and I know that people can mean well, while defending what they think of as ‘socialism’. I hope that we all have the same goal: we want to improve living conditions and opportunities for the poor, the sick, and the ignorant. But there are multiple ways to do this, and we need to be not just well meaning, but “wise as serpents”. And socialism (call it ‘democratic’ or not) is intrinsically evil… because of the economic system side of it (the socialist part), not the political governance side of it (the ‘democratic’ or non-democratic part).
Additionally, you suggested another commenter was being “paternalistic” in suggesting you read Marx. But honestly… meaning this with gentleness and respect, would it be possible for you to look at your own comment with new eyes, and consider the possibility that you may, without extensive study of your own, have just believed what you were told about a topic, and begun to speak condescendingly about it to others? (E.g. when you labelled anyone who recognizes “democratic socialism” as still a subset of “socialism”: “confused”.)
I don’t want to start an argument. I imagine we share many goals, and all mean well. At the same time, I thought I’d chime in as a social scientist, since you seemed to indicate you value the opinion of those with academic credentials on this topic. And if you disagree with what I’ve shared… Maybe at least consider that others with me credentials are at least equally fallible
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Nepperhan
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That’s where you’re going off the rails, I believe. Socialism is workers controlling the means of production. That does not strip individuals of access to ownership of the means of production. Democratic socialism is workers having a say in the economic institutions within a market economy.
As for the past 120 years mentioned by another poster, socialism gave us the Catholic worker program, the Pledge of Allegiance, the Swedish economy and probably “This Land Was Made for You and Me”. And I ain’t no socialist.
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MNathaniel
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- The question I’d suggest you look into is: Controlling the means of production ‘how’. Specifically how. In concrete terms, you need to look at what it means when you read the sentence: “workers controlling the means of production.”
- Sweden isn’t socialist. They’re capitalist with wealth redistribution. (Basically a welfare state. That’s not a dirty word. It’s a fine position to hold and advocate for.)
- Any alleged benefit you ascribe to socialism, chances are when we get right down to it, we’ll disagree and my position will be: This fruit was born from a different root (e.g. Christian love acting through individuals, not government force actioned by men with guns), or God took a branch that sprouted from a wicked root, redeemed it, and grafted it onto a better root. You’ll note that the pledge of allegiance is said in a capitalist country; the Swedish economy is capitalist; and the Catholic Worker Movement was a series of autonomous communities (like monasteries) flourishing within an overall capitalist economy. This is the thing: a free market (capitalist) economy allows us to form mini-pseudo-socialist-communities within it (and voluntarily opt-in). And the Catholic Church is all for that (that’s why we’ve had monasteries and convents from the beginning! Right from the Book of Acts; there is absolutely a strong Catholic tradition of freely embraced ‘poverty’ (not necessarily the same thing as ‘simplicity’) in a community with those who have voluntarily taken the same vows, and share the same heart and mind, empowered by God’s grace). But a socialist economy doesn’t allow anyone to opt out. Everything you’ve described is an example of something good that flourishes without implementing socialism (which is a state-level phenomenon).
That’s just not ‘something good’ at all. (I’ll admit, I’m biased against that song after I watched video of a group of older nuns singing it in front of a First Nations man after buying property on his people’s traditional territory. And I cringed so much. I don’t imagine that man did think this land was made for all these European settlers, haha.)Maybe we should argue now after all.
Because interest in the definition of socialism and whether it is redeemable, isn’t necessarily something to hold against a person… but liking ‘This Land was Made for You and Me’?? 
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MNathaniel
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Also honest question, it just struck me (because Sweden could actually be described as a “social democracy”). Is there any chance, and I don’t mean this to sound condescending or accusatory, but sincerely wondering if we might have identified where we’re talking past each other a little… Is there any chance that you might be confusing the terms “democratic socialism” with “social democracy”?
Because as far as I understand it, it’s possible to argue that a “social democracy” model is compatible with Catholicism. (At least that it’s possible to have a social democracy that operates in a just fashion.) Just not socialism (even ‘democratic socialism’).
Because as far as I understand it, it’s possible to argue that a “social democracy” model is compatible with Catholicism. (At least that it’s possible to have a social democracy that operates in a just fashion.) Just not socialism (even ‘democratic socialism’).
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