Socialism and Christianity

[Abu]

Qoeleth #58
The books you are getting you ideas from are totally dubious, and highly partisan. You should quote the writings of the actual Scholastics

False.

Michael Novak, American Enterprise Institute:
“Of few books can it be said that they open our eyes to new bodies of material and to an important revision of long-held views. This short study by Dr Chafuen is such a book.”

Robert Hessen, Senior Research Fellow , Hoover Institution:
An outstanding study of the economic thought of the Scholastics…at a time when Catholic bishops are criticising free market institutions. Dr Chafuen demonstrates beyond doubt that the Scholastic writers were much more favourable to free markets than earlier writers led us to believe.

Dr Thomas E Woods in How The Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, Regnery, 2005, on The Church And Economics,:
“Joseph Schumpeter, one of the great economists of then twentieth century, paid tribute to the overlooked contributions of the Late Scholastics in *History of Economic Analysis *(1954). ‘*t is they,’ he wrote, ‘who come nearer than does any other group to having been the “founders” of scientific economics.’ ”

“Schumpeter would be joined by other accomplished scholars over the course of then twentieth century, including Raymond de Roover, Marjorie Grice-Hutchinson, and Alejandro Chafuen. [p 153-4].

“Alejandro Chafuen, in his important book Faith *and Liberty: The Economic Thought of the Late Scholastics *(2003), shows that on one issue after another these sixteenth – and seventeenth – century thinkers not only understood and developed crucial economic principles, but also defended the principles of economic liberty and a free market economy. From prices and wages to money and value theory, the Late Scholastics anticipated the very best economic thought of later centuries.

“That is why it is so silly to claim, as some controversialists have, that the idea of the free market was developed by anti-Catholic zealots.” [p 166-167].*

 

[Abu]

Qoeleth #58
You should read Pope Francis’ “Evangelic Guadium”, in which he criticizes the effect of capitalism

Concerned readers know that the imprecision here is foreign to Bl John Paul II and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.

Reference has been made to *Pope Francis and Poverty *by Samuel Gregg November 26, 2013 8:08 PM, at m.nationalreview.com/corner/365004/pope-francis-and-poverty-samuel-gregg

There is praise of Pope Francis here, but very important problems arise which cannot just be glossed over. I quote on the serious problems identified in this Apostolic Exhortation:

1. ‘To be very frank (which Francis himself is always encouraging us to be), a number of claims made by this document and some of the assumptions underlying those statements are rather questionable.

‘…the pope’s remark that “authentic Islam and the proper reading of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence” (253). As one of the most authoritative Catholic commentators on Islam, Pope Francis’s fellow Jesuit Samir Khalil Samir (who is no knee-jerk anti-Muslim), writes in his *111 Questions on Islam *(2002), Westerners who assert that groups like the Taliban are acting in a manner contrary to the spirit of Islam “usually know little about Islam.”

1. ‘My purpose, however, is to focus upon some of the many economic reflections that loom large throughout *Evangelii Gaudium *and which are, I’m afraid, very hard to defend. In some cases, they reflect the straw-man arguments about the economy that one encounters far too often in some Catholic circles, especially in Western Europe but also in Latin America.

‘Prominent among these is the pope’s condemnation of the “absolute autonomy of markets” (202). If, however, we follow Evangelii Gaudium’s injunction (231–233) to look at the realities of the world today, we will soon discover that there is literally no country in which markets operate with “absolute autonomy.”

1. ‘Another claim made by *Evangelii Gaudium *that warrants scrutiny is that certain ideologies “reject the right of states, charged with vigilance for the common good, to exercise any form of control” over the economy (56). But outside the minuscule world of anarcho-capitalists (who exert zero influence upon public policy), this simply isn’t the position of those who favor free markets today (let alone past advocates like Adam Smith).

‘…we find Francis critiquing those who “continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world.”

‘There are several problems with this line of reasoning. First, opening up markets throughout the world has helped to reduce poverty in many developing nations. East Asia is a living testimony to that reality — a testimony routinely ignored by many Catholics in Western Europe (who tend to complain rather self-centeredly about the competition it creates for protected Western European businesses and other recipients of corporate welfare) and a reality about which I have found many Latin American Catholics simply have nothing to say.

‘Second, it has never been the argument of most of those who favor markets that economic freedom and free exchange are somehow sufficient to reduce poverty.

1. ‘It hardly need be said that rule of law (mentioned not once in Evangelii Gaudium) is, to put it mildly, a “challenge” in most developing nations. The lack of rule of law not only ranks among the biggest obstacles to their ability to generate wealth on a sustainable basis, but also hampers their capacity to address economic issues in a just manner. Instead, what one finds is crony capitalism, rampant protectionism, and the corruption that has become a way of life in much of Africa and Latin America.
2. ‘Francis adds that some people today find any mention of the distribution of income to be “irksome” (203).
   I don’t find discussions of wealth distribution to be bothersome at all. Catholics, other Christians, and other people of good will should, in my view, enter enthusiastically into such debates. Because it is precisely through these conversations that it can be pointed out that — as Evangelii Gaudium seems, alas, unaware — many poverty-alleviation methods that involve redistribution (such as foreign aid) are increasingly discredited. As the economist and historian of the Federal Reserve Allan Meltzer put it, one of the 20th century’s economic lessons is that “transfers, grants and redistribution did little to raise living standards in Asia, Latin America and Africa.” In other words, the standard wealth-redistribution policies that are often regarded as indispensable to poverty alleviation have failed to achieve their goals. Hence it behooves all Catholics to ask ourselves why such approaches have failed if we’re going to have a serious conversation about wealth and poverty in the modern world.’
3. ‘And attention to particular realities about economic life is precisely what’s missing from parts of Evangelii Gaudium’s analysis of wealth and poverty. If we want “the dignity of each human person and the pursuit of the common good” to be more than what the pope calls a “mere addendum” to the pursuit of “true and integral development” (203), then engaging more seriously the economic part of the truth that sets us free would be a good start.’

The precision and depth of both Bl John Paul II and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI needs to be emulated.

 

[tonyrey]

Many businesses take advantage of high unemployment by paying their staff unfair wages and reducing their work force even further to maximise their profits. The economic system is completely dominated by competition and the law of the jungle. There is obscene disparity between the rich who are steadily becoming richer and the poor becoming so poor that many have to choose between eating and heating. When the children of employed parents have to go to school without breakfast something is radically wrong with the system.

A million people in the UK are on zero-hour contracts which allow an employer to hire staff without an obligation to provide any minimum working hours. Half of them have had shifts cancelled without receiving notice beforehand and, of course, they never have paid holidays or any other benefits. Wage slavery is still alive and well in the capitalist system under the Conservative government, most of whose ministers happen to be millionaires and in league with big business - like Rupert Murdoch’s empire…

It is significant that no one has denied these facts. There is little doubt that the economic jungle exists throughout the world and is promoted by the G8…

 

[Qoeleth]

False.

Michael Novak, American Enterprise Institute:
“Of few books can it be said that they open our eyes to new bodies of material and to an important revision of long-held views. This short study by Dr Chafuen is such a book.”

Robert Hessen, Senior Research Fellow , Hoover Institution:
An outstanding study of the economic thought of the Scholastics…at a time when Catholic bishops are criticising free market institutions. Dr Chafuen demonstrates beyond doubt that the Scholastic writers were much more favourable to free markets than earlier writers led us to believe.

Dr Thomas E Woods in How The Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, Regnery, 2005, on The Church And Economics,:
“Joseph Schumpeter, one of the great economists of then twentieth century, paid tribute to the overlooked contributions of the Late Scholastics in *History of Economic Analysis *(1954). ‘*t is they,’ he wrote, ‘who come nearer than does any other group to having been the “founders” of scientific economics.’ ”

“Schumpeter would be joined by other accomplished scholars over the course of then twentieth century, including Raymond de Roover, Marjorie Grice-Hutchinson, and Alejandro Chafuen. [p 153-4].

“Alejandro Chafuen, in his important book Faith *and Liberty: The Economic Thought of the Late Scholastics **(2003), shows that on one issue after another these sixteenth – and seventeenth – century thinkers not only understood and developed crucial economic principles, but also defended the principles of economic liberty and a free market economy. From prices and wages to money and value theory, the Late Scholastics anticipated the very best economic thought of later centuries.

“That is why it is so silly to claim, as some controversialists have, that the idea of the free market was developed by anti-Catholic zealots.” [p 166-167].

These are all dubious sources. I take the writings of the saints, the Doctors of the Church, as reliable. The rest is simply ‘take-it-or-leave-it’. Sure, the authors you mention are entitled to their opinions, but they carry no particular credibility. Everyone has an opinion. Just quoting someone else’s opinion (when it is manifestly unsupported) doesn’t help your case.

You keep referring to the ‘late Scholastics’, but still haven’t clarified about whom you are speaking.

As for Pope Francis, he is the Pope. Therefore his opinion needs to be given greater weight than, I don’t know, what ‘Dr’. Isaac Goldstein, Senior Fellow of ‘The Instute for Christian Capitalists’, wrote in his ‘splendid treatise’, ‘Jesus the Republican’, in 1959, or something…

 

[tonyrey]

These are all dubious sources. I take the writings of the saints, the Doctors of the Church, as reliable. The rest is simply ‘take-it-or-leave-it’. Sure, the authors you mention are entitled to their opinions, but they carry no particular credibility. Everyone has an opinion. Just quoting someone else’s opinion (when it is manifestly unsupported) doesn’t help your case.

You keep referring to the ‘late Scholastics’, but still haven’t clarified about whom you are speaking.

As for Pope Francis, he is the Pope. Therefore his opinion needs to be given greater weight than, I don’t know, what ‘Dr’. Isaac Goldstein, Senior Fellow of ‘The Instute for Christian Capitalists’, wrote in his ‘splendid treatise’, ‘Jesus the Republican’, in 1959, or something…

The very expression “Christian Capitalists” sounds self-contradictory. Did Jesus advocate an economic free-for-all?

 

[LightandHeat]

See post #22.

The Catholic stress on individualism was foreign to many cultures, and Jeremy Waldron, in God, Locke and Equality, 2002, affirms that Locke built his thesis on the doctrine concerning morality; “returning to the standpoint of St Thomas and the Scholastics.” (The Catholic Church And the Counter-Faith, Philip Trower, Family Publications, 2006, p 74).

In developing an understanding of the laws of free enterprise, “The Schoolmen determined that wages, profits and rents are not for the government to decide. Since they are beyond the sphere of distributive justice, they should be determined by common estimation in the market.” Christians For Freedom, Dr Alejandro Chafuen, Ignatius 1986, p 122].

Hmm well the above is interesting but perhaps a little more information is necessary. This seemingly contradicts the vague historical narrative I remember from European history class.

Usually free enterprise, in the conventional narrative, is connected with Protestantism, specifically see Weber’s much touted “The Protestant Work Ethic”, which postulates that vigorous economic growth occurred in the United States due to the need for Calvinists to prove that belonged to the elect by the wealth God had graced them by. Related evidence would be the relatively higher trading of protestant countries Holland and Great Britain, not to mention the crucial fact that loaning or usury, crucial to investment and thus free enterprise, was long curbed by Church dictate, no? It also appears to be quite a stretch to connect the Late Scholastics to the Scottish Enlightenment given their location(Protestant) and time period (during the Enlightenment, when not many thinkers were digging into Church doctrine to come up with ideas).

I’m not trying to be argumentative, I’m just generally curious how you would reconcile the above.

 

[LightandHeat]

Also why I actually quite like the National Review, it certainly isn’t a neutral look at Catholic doctrine. Same with American Enterprise Institute, etc. Since these are conservative publications, rather than Catholic, they are naturally just going to impose a right-wing economic message onto the mission of the Church.

 

[tonyrey]

Hmm well the above is interesting but perhaps a little more information is necessary. This seemingly contradicts the vague historical narrative I remember from European history class.

Usually free enterprise, in the conventional narrative, is connected with Protestantism, specifically see Weber’s much touted “The Protestant Work Ethic”, which postulates that vigorous economic growth occurred in the United States due to the need for Calvinists to prove that belonged to the elect by the wealth God had graced them by. Related evidence would be the relatively higher trading of protestant countries Holland and Great Britain, not to mention the crucial fact that loaning or usury, crucial to investment and thus free enterprise, was long curbed by Church dictate, no? It also appears to be quite a stretch to connect the Late Scholastics to the Scottish Enlightenment given their location(Protestant) and time period (during the Enlightenment, when not many thinkers were digging into Church doctrine to come up with ideas).

I’m not trying to be argumentative, I’m just generally curious how you would reconcile the above.

Excellent points. There is evidence that Shakespeare was a Catholic and he depicted Shylock as a villain in the Merchant of Venice because he insisted on his pound of flesh…

 

[Abu]

tonyrey #63
Did Jesus advocate an economic free-for-all?

A supposition that exists where?

Jesus was most eloquent in supporting human work and enterprise.

“We can thus affirm unambiguously that Jesus Christ ‘looks with love on upon human work’ and that the work of the merchant – the businessman or the entrepreneur – is one of the ‘different forms’ of work that is affirmed. The parable of the talents makes this clear by its reference to money, trading, risk taking and banking.”
Entrepreneurship in the Catholic Tradition, Fr Anthony G Percy, Lexington Books, 2010, p 48-49].

Christ’s parable of the Talents most strikingly acknowledges Christ’s respect for the work of business, as does the parable of the Dishonest Steward – the steward is dishonest, “but the nature of his work is not. In fact by praising his shrewdness, Christ admires his opportunism. While the steward abuses the trust his master extends to him, it must be recognised that the nature of the work that is entrusted to him is fundamentally good. The sin of the steward is his misuse of his master’s business, not the work of business itself.” [Fr Percy, op. cit. p 47].

 

[Abu]

LightandHeat #64
Usually free enterprise, in the conventional narrative, is connected with Protestantism, specifically see Weber’s much touted “The Protestant Work Ethic”, which postulates that vigorous economic growth occurred in the United States due to the need for Calvinists to prove that belonged to the elect by the wealth God had graced them by. Related evidence would be the relatively higher trading of protestant countries Holland and Great Britain, not to mention the crucial fact that loaning or usury, crucial to investment and thus free enterprise, was long curbed by Church dictate, no? It also appears to be quite a stretch to connect the Late Scholastics to the Scottish Enlightenment given their location(Protestant) and time period (during the Enlightenment, when not many thinkers were digging into Church doctrine to come up with ideas).

That understanding is skewed.
That fallacy was widely spread by Max Weber in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, and still believed by many today, It is obviously wrong, because the fact is that free enterprise arose in Europe centuries before the Protestant Revolt. Free enterprise developed first only in Europe – the first example of free enterprise arose in the great Catholic monasteries.

The Catholic “ethic” is the reason Europeans excelled at metallurgy, shipbuilding, and farming. Weber’s thesis is based on what he considers “self-evidence” without any proof and seems to have been based on the smug anti-Catholicism of his time and place, only citing Martin Offenbacher’s “findings” now exposed as incorrect by George Becker , 2000,1997.(Cf. Stark, p 239, 254).

Henry Pirenne noted much literature that “established the fact that all of the essential features of capitalism – individual enterprise, advances in credit, commercial profits, speculation, etc. – are found from the twelfth century on in the city republics of Italy,-- Venice, Genoa, or Florence.” (1958—Cf. Stark, p xii).

Fernand Braudel: “All historians have opposed this tenuous theory [the Protestant ethic],… it is clearly false. The northern countries took over the place that earlier had been so long and brilliantly occupied by the old capitalist centers of the Mediterranean. They invented nothing, either in technology or business management.” (1977, p 66-67. Cf Stark, p xii).
The Victory of Reason, Rodney Stark, Random House, 2005, p 55].

A “disregard for the poor” is certainly not part of the Catholicism from which the great free enterprise system was born and which has enabled millions to rise above poverty.

“So by no later than the thirteenth century, the leading Christian theologians had fully debated the primary aspects of emerging capitalism – profits, property rights , credit, lending and the like….it was the active participation of the great [monastic] houses that caused monastic theologians to reconsider the morality of commerce…”

“The Church didn’t stand in the way – rather it both justified and took an active role in the Commercial Revolution of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Had this not occurred, the West may have ended up much like the nations of Islam.”
The Victory of Reason, Rodney Stark, 2005, p 66-67]

With free enterprise as developed by the Late Scholastics, the Church defined what is meant by usury. Session X of the Fifth Lateran Council (1515) gave its exact meaning: “For that is the real meaning of usury: when, from its use, a thing which produces nothing is applied to the acquiring of gain and profit without any work, any expense or any risk.”

Consequently, as loaning money did involve loss of profit to the lender and further risk of loss from delay in returning the money loaned, this did justify interest that is just and justifiable.

Today, the term “usury” is usually reserved for taking excessive (i.e., unusually high for the economic conditions) interest on a loan because of someone’s circumstances: The greed of the lender takes unjust advantage of the weakness or ignorance of the borrower. [See *Encyclopedia of Catholic Doctrine, Our Sunday Visitor].

 

[Qoeleth]

. Free enterprise developed first only in Europe – the first example of free enterprise arose in the great Catholic monasteries.

‘Free enterprise’ would include all inn-keepers, farmers who trade their product, artisans who accept payment for their skills, etc.

‘Free enterpise’ did not originate with monastries, but is of pre-historic origin. Free enterprise is as old as civilization itself.

What is the basis of linking it with monastries?

Sure, monastries practised agriculture, and crafts, and sometimes traded their products. But they certainly did not invent it.

 

[tonyrey]

There is a superb article by an American about the “two Americas”:

theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/08/david-simon-capitalism-marx-two-americas-wire

 

[tonyrey]

“Massive poverty and obscene inequality are such terrible scourges of our times…”

• Nelson Mandela

 

[tonyrey]

A supposition that exists where?

Jesus was most eloquent in supporting human work and enterprise.

“We can thus affirm unambiguously that Jesus Christ ‘looks with love on upon human work’ and that the work of the merchant – the businessman or the entrepreneur – is one of the ‘different forms’ of work that is affirmed. The parable of the talents makes this clear by its reference to money, trading, risk taking and banking.”
Entrepreneurship in the Catholic Tradition, Fr Anthony G Percy, Lexington Books, 2010, p 48-49].

Christ’s parable of the Talents most strikingly acknowledges Christ’s respect for the work of business, as does the parable of the Dishonest Steward – the steward is dishonest, “but the nature of his work is not. In fact by praising his shrewdness, Christ admires his opportunism. While the steward abuses the trust his master extends to him, it must be recognised that the nature of the work that is entrusted to him is fundamentally good. The sin of the steward is his misuse of his master’s business, not the work of business itself.” [Fr Percy, op. cit. p 47].

I’ve never thought of the carpenter of Nazareth as a businessman…

 

[Abu]

tonyrey #72
I’ve never thought of the carpenter of Nazareth as a businessman…

The emphasis by Jesus on the value of human work is stressed by Bl John Paul II in Laborem Exercens (on Human Work), #26:
“In His Parables on the Kingdom of God, Jesus Christ constantly refers to human work: that of the shepherd, the farmer, the doctor, the sower, the householder, the servant, the steward, the fisherman, the merchant, the labourer. He also speaks of the various forms of women’s work. He compares the apostolate to the manual work of harvesters or fishermen. He refers to the work of scholars too.”

 

[tonyrey]

The emphasis by Jesus on the value of human work is stressed by Bl John Paul II in Laborem Exercens (on Human Work), #26:
“In His Parables on the Kingdom of God, Jesus Christ constantly refers to human work: that of the shepherd, the farmer, the doctor, the sower, the householder, the servant, the steward, the fisherman, the merchant, the labourer. He also speaks of the various forms of women’s work. He compares the apostolate to the manual work of harvesters or fishermen. He refers to the work of scholars too.”

There is a difference between work and business…

Have you looked at the article?

 

[Abu]

tonyrey #74
There is a difference between work and business

Absolutely – Christ’s parable of the Talents most strikingly acknowledges Jesus Christ’s respect for the work of business.

“We can thus say that Catholic tradition views entrepreneurial work as alert to information; discovers new possibilities in the market place; engages the factors of production in a large enterprise; looks for profit as a compensation for the risks undertaken in engaging the factors of production; is characterized by the creation and sustaining of relationships; and intends to develop and maintain the common good.”
Entrepreneurship in the Catholic Tradition, Fr Anthony G Percy, Lexington Books, 2010, p 81-82].

 

[jonathan_hili]

I don’t think Christianity is inherently opposed to socialism, but it then depends on how you would define “socialism”. There have been many influential and welfare promoting Christian socialists in the past, of particular note, (Anglican) Archbishop William Temple and R.H. Tawney.

However, socialism has got a dirty name over the last century because of its association (and in many eyes, equation) with Marxism, materialism and atheism. An authentic Christian socialism must also respect private property and individual rights.

Otherwise, I think there is much scope for discussion of this issue.

 

[Abu]

jonathan_hili #78
I don’t think Christianity is inherently opposed to socialism,

The Magisterium says it is.

Leo XIII asserts: “…the socialists, working on the poor man’s envy of the rich, are striving to do away with private property, and contend that individual possessions should become the common property of all, to be administered by the State or by municipal bodies.” Rerum Novarum, #4].

Pius XI who declared emphatically in Quadragesimo Anno, 1931, #120: “Religious socialism, Christian socialism, are contradictory terms; no one can be at the same time a good Catholic and a true socialist.”

Similarly John Paul II condemns socialism for precisely this among other errors, in Centesimus Annus, 1991, making a frank acknowledgement that socialism has failed on its own terms as as witnessed by events in Eastern Europe.

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI:
“The State which would provide everything, absorbing everything into itself, would ultimately become a mere bureaucracy incapable of guaranteeing the very thing which the suffering person - every person - needs: namely, loving personal concern. We do not need a State which regulates and controls everything, but a State which, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, generously acknowledges and supports initiatives arising from the different social forces and combines spontaneity with closeness to those in need. … In the end, the claim that just social structures would make works of charity superfluous masks a materialist conception of man: the mistaken notion that man can live ‘by bread alone’ (Mt 4:4; cf. Dt 8:3) - a conviction that demeans man and ultimately disregards all that is specifically human.” (Encyclical Deus Caritas Est, December 25, 2005, n. 28)

 

[jonathan_hili]

The Magisterium says it is.

Leo XIII asserts: “…the socialists, working on the poor man’s envy of the rich, are striving to do away with private property, and contend that individual possessions should become the common property of all, to be administered by the State or by municipal bodies.” Rerum Novarum, #4].

Pius XI who declared emphatically in Quadragesimo Anno, 1931, #120: “Religious socialism, Christian socialism, are contradictory terms; no one can be at the same time a good Catholic and a true socialist.”

Similarly John Paul II condemns socialism for precisely this among other errors, in Centesimus Annus, 1991, making a frank acknowledgement that socialism has failed on its own terms as as witnessed by events in Eastern Europe.

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI:
“The State which would provide everything, absorbing everything into itself, would ultimately become a mere bureaucracy incapable of guaranteeing the very thing which the suffering person - every person - needs: namely, loving personal concern. We do not need a State which regulates and controls everything, but a State which, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, generously acknowledges and supports initiatives arising from the different social forces and combines spontaneity with closeness to those in need. … In the end, the claim that just social structures would make works of charity superfluous masks a materialist conception of man: the mistaken notion that man can live ‘by bread alone’ (Mt 4:4; cf. Dt 8:3) - a conviction that demeans man and ultimately disregards all that is specifically human.” (Encyclical Deus Caritas Est, December 25, 2005, n. 28)

Thanks for your comments, Abu. Please note, though, that not all socialists or socialisms are the same. What Leo XIII is responding to is Marxist socialism, as, notice he says: “the socialists…are striving to do away with private property”. Yet not all socialist theorists suggest this at all. Certainly many argue for some kind of redistribution to equalise wealth, and in certain respects, I don’t think the Church is opposed to this, e.g. taxing the rich more than the poor, then returning this wealth to the poor through some form of welfare.

Likewise, the socialism the other popes you have quoted, are really looking primarily (and in some cases, e.g. John Paul II) are forms of Marxist socialism.