Socialism and Christianity

[Qoeleth]

It would seem that the earliest Christians adopted a socialist mode of life, “holding all things in common.” Christian monastic communities also practice socialism. St. Benedict denounces private ownership of property as an evil.

The Gospels (and indeed the OT) speak vigorously against inequality of access to material resources.

Now, while a Christian could not be, in a technical sense, a pure ‘Marxist’ (since that would involve dialectical materialism), it seems as if a socialist economic system is the only one which reflect Gospel values.

Any capitalist system is based on inequality of resources. Where is the justice in someone owning ten houses, and someone else being homeless? Where is the justice in someone going hungry while others eat smoked salmon and drink champagne?

Also, inheritance of wealth is part of the capitalism system. How is it just the someone inherits money in property, while others get nothing at all? It is a sin against the dignity of man.

Many other social issues (such as abortion and crime) are born from economic injustice. Is it time the Church started to speak up more vocally, against the sin of the capitalism and private propety, and advocated a Gospel-based system- i.e. socialism?

 

[SinnersAnonymus]

I would say the difference is that socialism appears to be based off of Christianity. I would not be surprised at all if the founder of socialism decided to pervert Christian teachings to attempt to create a utopia without God.

God Bless

 

[christofirst]

It would seem that the earliest Christians adopted a socialist mode of life, “holding all things in common.” Christian monastic communities also practice socialism. St. Benedict denounces private ownership of property as an evil.

The Gospels (and indeed the OT) speak vigorously against inequality of access to material resources.

Now, while a Christian could not be, in a technical sense, a pure ‘Marxist’ (since that would involve dialectical materialism), it seems as if a socialist economic system is the only one which reflect Gospel values.

Any capitalist system is based on inequality of resources. Where is the justice in someone owning ten houses, and someone else being homeless? Where is the justice in someone going hungry while others eat smoked salmon and drink champagne?

Also, inheritance of wealth is part of the capitalism system. How is it just the someone inherits money in property, while others get nothing at all? It is a sin against the dignity of man.

Many other social issues (such as abortion and crime) are born from economic injustice. Is it time the Church started to speak up more vocally, against the sin of the capitalism and private propety, and advocated a Gospel-based system- i.e. socialism?

I agree with much of your post. There is no justice in people going hungry while others live in wanton luxury. I also agree that the very life issues we hold so dear are adversely affected by poverty.

We do have an inheritance tax here, which goes to serve the common good, but even a leftie like me would draw the line at somehow absconding an entire inheritance from whomever the rightful owner decides to leave their goods. The early Church and monastics relinquish their right to private property voluntarily, and you are free to do so now as well if you so choose.

It seems to me that the Church seeks a balance between the right to private property and our responsibility for the common good of all people, without denying either. I guess this why Distributism is a more acceptable option for Catholics than outright Socialism.

Read the social justice encyclicals and teachings of the Church, and you will see a strong critique of “unbridled capitalism”, but capitalism with a conscience is no sin.

 

[empther]

I’d like to introduce a new concept.
…( in economics )…
There is a conflict between liberty and equality. :bigyikes: :bigyikes: :bigyikes: You can’t have both. :crying:

People are not born equal. Some are more talented and successful than others.
The only way to make everybody economically equal is to “spread the wealth”, that is, tax the talented and successful.
( to make this palatable, Obama and his communists say “tax the rich”, but this changes the sense of what’s going on. )
So,
the leftists want to take away the talented and successful people’s right to keep their money. This is a denial of liberty.

We saw full equality in Communist Russia. Everybody was equally poor.

 

[Contarini]

It would seem that the earliest Christians adopted a socialist mode of life, “holding all things in common.” Christian monastic communities also practice socialism. St. Benedict denounces private ownership of property as an evil.

The Gospels (and indeed the OT) speak vigorously against inequality of access to material resources.

Now, while a Christian could not be, in a technical sense, a pure ‘Marxist’ (since that would involve dialectical materialism), it seems as if a socialist economic system is the only one which reflect Gospel values.

Any capitalist system is based on inequality of resources. Where is the justice in someone owning ten houses, and someone else being homeless? Where is the justice in someone going hungry while others eat smoked salmon and drink champagne?

Also, inheritance of wealth is part of the capitalism system. How is it just the someone inherits money in property, while others get nothing at all? It is a sin against the dignity of man.

Many other social issues (such as abortion and crime) are born from economic injustice. Is it time the Church started to speak up more vocally, against the sin of the capitalism and private propety, and advocated a Gospel-based system- i.e. socialism?

A fully socialist system does not work, because you can’t just “distribute” resources to people and thus create equality. This in fact doesn’t respect human dignity. People aren’t just cogs to be moved around. Centralized systems are inefficient and corrupt. And from a Catholic perspective, the fundamental problem with socialism is its materialistic underpinnings.

When capitalism is turned into an ideology, it has at least as many problems as socialism, in my opinion. But if capitalism is seen simply as economic freedom, then it is not inherently bad, and indeed is on the whole a good thing, when put under the proper moral constraints (these may or may not involve government regulation–government regulation is probably the least ideal way to constrain economic freedom, but it’s not intrinsically evil).

I don’t see the force of your objection to inherited property. Are you objecting to the fact that some people inherit wealth, or that other people don’t? It seems to me that you need to decide this. I think the latter is the problem, not the former. In other words, to quote President Obama p), we need to “spread the wealth around.” As many people as possible ought to own their own houses and land, for instance. And inheriting property is a good thing, because you start out with some economic security and are not as dependent on the market. You are enabled to shape your life in a way that isn’t radically constrained by material needs.

I have a lot more problem with acquired wealth than inherited wealth, because to acquire wealth you generally have to spend a lot of time thinking about how to get richer, and this is deeply corrupting. But I have a personal bias here, I admit–I’m very bad at making money. . . .

Edwin

 

[Abu]

Qoeleth #1
It would seem that the earliest Christians adopted a socialist mode of life, “holding all things in common.” Christian monastic communities also practice socialism.

False.

In Christians For Freedom, Ignatius 1986, p 46, (with a new edition, since), Dr Alejandro Chafuen has examined carefully the teaching of Christ and wealth. Some misrepresent Acts 2:44-47, where the faithful lived together and owned everything in common. These so-called “Apostolics” were condemned by St Thomas and the Late Scholastics, who quote St Augustine. Why?
In his Summa, II-II, Q. 66, art. 2, resp., St Thomas quotes St Augustine: “Augustine says: ‘The people styled apostolic are those who arrogantly claimed this title for themselves because they refused to admit married folk or property owners to their fellowship, arguing from the model of the many monks and clerics in the Catholic Church (De Haeresibus 40).’ But such people are heretics because they cut themselves off from the Church by alleging that those who, unlike themselves, marry and own property have no hope of salvation.”

We see in Acts 4:34-35, A Catholic Commentary On Holy Scripture, Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1953:
(This) shows “that property was sold, from time to time, by the owners of it, according as the Church’s need dictated. The sharing of goods was always voluntary. The story of Ananias and Saphira, cf. 5:4, makes it clear that they were not bound to sell, and that after they had, the price was still theirs. When Barnabas gave all his property, such exceptional generosity was chronicled. There are examples of houses held privately in Jerusalem, !2:12; 21:16. St James, in his Epistle, reveals the existence of rich and poor there. The community of goods does not seem to have been very successful, 6:1, and other churches had continually to send alms, voluntarily, ‘each man according to his ability’, to Jerusalem, 11:29.”

St. Benedict denounces private ownership of property as an evil.
The Gospels (and indeed the OT) speak vigorously against inequality of access to material resources.

What the great St Benedict did not do was cast aspersions on the ownership of property in the world outside of the monastery. That implication is also false.

Further, Dr Chafuen notes that “many people close to Jesus were quite wealthy for their times. Joseph seems to have had his own business and perhaps a donkey; Peter owned a fishing boat, and Matthew was a tax collector. Jesus praised the rich man Zaccheus. It was the wealthy Joseph of Arimathea who kept faith even when the Apostles were beset by doubt (Mt 27:57). Jesus does not condemn the possession of riches but, rather disordered attachment to them.” Notice also that Jesus did not ask His Apostles to renounce their property. Christians For Freedom, Dr Alejandro Chafuen, Ignatius, 1986, p 45].

 

[captainrick]

Jesus wanted us to help the poor. If he had been a socialist he would have said “Give your wealth to the Roman government and they will decide how to redistribute it.”

 

[empther]

Read the social justice encyclicals and teachings of the Church, and you will see a strong critique of “unbridled capitalism”, but capitalism with a conscience is no sin.

There was “unbridled capitalism” in the late 1800s, the age of the “robber barons”. The barons were multimillionairs. Now, a hundred and twenty years later, we should see some of their descendants with holdings of a hundred billion or more. There are not such people.
Principle: **MONEY GETS REDISTRIBUTED SOMEHOW! **

Andrew Carnegie got four hundred and sixty million dollars when he sold his steel monopoly to a syndicate organized by JP Morgan. Carnegie spent the rest of his life giving his money away and was left with ten million.

John D. Rockerfeller was a sixteen year old bookkeeper in a wholesale commodity store, which bought and sold anything, when the world’s first oil well was drilled in nearby Pennsylvania. The store started selling small quantities of karosene, a product of oil, along with everything else it sold. Rockerfeller suspected the potential of oil. He started his own commodity store and soon concentrated on oil. He was very smart and saw how the oil business could be “concentrated”, his word, from oil well to finished product in distant stores. His vision enabled him to buy out other oil companies who stuck to only one or two phases of the industry. By age sixty he controller 90% of oil refining and distribution in the US. He retired in 1897, but lived another four decades and became the world’s first billionaire in the days when a billion dollars was a lot of money.

So what did Rockerfeller do with his wealth?
Among many other things:

1. He started the University of Chicago.
2. He started the Rockerfeller Institute of New York, later called Rockerfeller University.
   This Institute did the first medical research in the United States. There had been no medical research going on over here. The institute soon discovered that what had been believed to be malaria in the South was actually hookworm, a disease the Southerners picked up by walking barefoot and which decreased their energy and growth. The Institute and Rockerfeller’s donations did a campaign to all but eradicate hookworm in the South and also sent teams throughout the world to reduce this universal scourge.
   The cause of yellow fever had just been discovered. The Institute and Rockerfeller all but eliminated yellow fever in the Americas and reduced it in the rest of the world.
3. Rockerfeller had supported black education in the South long before the public knew he existed. He had started a college for black women in the last quarter of the 1800s,
   Now, around 1900, he started something called the Black Education Board. It was soon pointed out that Southerners would not listen to this organization if it had the word black in it, so the name was changed to General Education Board, or GED.
   The GED soon realized that local governments in the South would not establish high schools for blacks unless the schools also had whites, but… there were almost no high schools in the South. Local governments did not spend the money. The GED did a campaign to get local governments to build high schools in the South, and by WWI there were a hundred thousand of them ( later reduced in number when transportation allowed better centralized schools ).

4, Some of the people working for Rockerfeller’s Institute and GED got interested in medical schools. They visited all 155 medical schools in the US and were shocked by what they found. Students didn’t need any more than high school to get into med school and some students didn’t even have that. The teaching staff consisted of local private physicians who taught a few classes for extra money but had not qualifications for teaching. Medical equipment was practically nonexistent. The schools were divided between two medical philosophies, allopathic medicine and homeopathic medicine, neither of which was scientific medicine. ( the meaning of these terms was different then )
In other words, there were no medical schools worthy of the name in the US.
Rockerfeller’s people went after State governments and got them to charter true medical schools that taught scientific medicine, and that’s what we have today.

In all, Rocerfeller gave away over one and a half billion dollars which would be worth around twenty five billion today. He changed the world for the better.

 

[SuperLuigi]

=Qoeleth;11471035]It would seem that the earliest Christians adopted a socialist mode of life, “holding all things in common.” Christian monastic communities also practice socialism. St. Benedict denounces private ownership of property as an evil.

These people chose to be poor and share things under individual rights.

There is no such thing as a big benevolent government.

I think you are confusing the meaning of what St. Benedict said.

The Gospels (and indeed the OT) speak vigorously against inequality of access to material resources.

Now, while a Christian could not be, in a technical sense, a pure ‘Marxist’ (since that would involve dialectical materialism), it seems as if a socialist economic system is the only one which reflect Gospel values.

Basically impossible. The end-game for Marxism is that government takes the place of God.

No pure socialist or communist society has ever existed. Human incentive isn’t built that way, and socialism and Marxism have led to massive poverty, persecution and environmental destruction.

And if it got lumped in with Christianity, people would come to hate Christianity as much as they hated the Soviet Reds, maybe even the Axis Powers.

Any capitalist system is based on inequality of resources. Where is the justice in someone owning ten houses, and someone else being homeless? Where is the justice in someone going hungry while others eat smoked salmon and drink champagne?

Having products like alcohol and smoked salmon create jobs for other people.

Also, inheritance of wealth is part of the capitalism system. How is it just the someone inherits money in property, while others get nothing at all? It is a sin against the dignity of man.

Because it’s THEIR money and they can do what they want with it! There’s a Gospel reading on that, too!

Many other social issues (such as abortion and crime) are born from economic injustice. Is it time the Church started to speak up more vocally, against the sin of the capitalism and private propety, and advocated a Gospel-based system- i.e. socialism?

The Church is adamant about private property rights and sees evil in capitalism only in the form of corruption and cronyism, which is really what you end up with when you put people into power who say they are left-wing, marxist or socialist.

I cannot even begin to tell you the damage that “communist” China or the left in the West has done—or the USSR for that matter.

 

[SuperLuigi]

There was “unbridled capitalism” in the late 1800s, the age of the “robber barons”. The barons were multimillionairs. Now, a hundred and twenty years later, we should see some of their descendants with holdings of a hundred billion or more. There are not such people.
Principle: **MONEY GETS REDISTRIBUTED SOMEHOW! **

Andrew Carnegie got four hundred and sixty million dollars when he sold his steel monopoly to a syndicate organized by JP Morgan. Carnegie spent the rest of his life giving his money away and was left with ten million.

John D. Rockerfeller was a sixteen year old bookkeeper in a wholesale commodity store, which bought and sold anything, when the world’s first oil well was drilled in nearby Pennsylvania. The store started selling small quantities of karosene, a product of oil, along with everything else it sold. Rockerfeller suspected the potential of oil. He started his own commodity store and soon concentrated on oil. He was very smart and saw how the oil business could be “concentrated”, his word, from oil well to finished product in distant stores. His vision enabled him to buy out other oil companies who stuck to only one or two phases of the industry. By age sixty he controller 90% of oil refining and distribution in the US. He retired in 1897, but lived another four decades and became the world’s first billionaire in the days when a billion dollars was a lot of money.

So what did Rockerfeller do with his wealth?
Among many other things:

1. He started the University of Chicago.
2. He started the Rockerfeller Institute of New York, later called Rockerfeller University.
   This Institute did the first medical research in the United States. There had been no medical research going on over here. The institute soon discovered that what had been believed to be malaria in the South was actually hookworm, a disease the Southerners picked up by walking barefoot and which decreased their energy and growth. The Institute and Rockerfeller’s donations did a campaign to all but eradicate hookworm in the South and also sent teams throughout the world to reduce this universal scourge.
   The cause of yellow fever had just been discovered. The Institute and Rockerfeller all but eliminated yellow fever in the Americas and reduced it in the rest of the world.
3. Rockerfeller had supported black education in the South long before the public knew he existed. He had started a college for black women in the last quarter of the 1800s,
   Now, around 1900, he started something called the Black Education Board. It was soon pointed out that Southerners would not listen to this organization if it had the word black in it, so the name was changed to General Education Board, or GED.
   The GED soon realized that local governments in the South would not establish high schools for blacks unless the schools also had whites, but… there were almost no high schools in the South. Local governments did not spend the money. The GED did a campaign to get local governments to build high schools in the South, and by WWI there were a hundred thousand of them ( later reduced in number when transportation allowed better centralized schools ).

4, Some of the people working for Rockerfeller’s Institute and GED got interested in medical schools. They visited all 155 medical schools in the US and were shocked by what they found. Students didn’t need any more than high school to get into med school and some students didn’t even have that. The teaching staff consisted of local private physicians who taught a few classes for extra money but had not qualifications for teaching. Medical equipment was practically nonexistent. The schools were divided between two medical philosophies, allopathic medicine and homeopathic medicine, neither of which was scientific medicine. ( the meaning of these terms was different then )
In other words, there were no medical schools worthy of the name in the US.
Rockerfeller’s people went after State governments and got them to charter true medical schools that taught scientific medicine, and that’s what we have today.

In all, Rocerfeller gave away over one and a half billion dollars which would be worth around twenty five billion today. He changed the world for the better.

Rockerfeller’s contribution to the oil industry probably saved whales from extinction.

 

[Qoeleth]

I’d like to introduce a new concept.
…( in economics )…
There is a conflict between liberty and equality. :bigyikes: :bigyikes: :bigyikes: You can’t have both. :crying:

People are not born equal. Some are more talented and successful than others.
The only way to make everybody economically equal is to “spread the wealth”, that is, tax the talented and successful.
( to make this palatable, Obama and his communists say “tax the rich”, but this changes the sense of what’s going on. )
So,
the leftists want to take away the talented and successful people’s right to keep their money.

Sure, some people are more talented and successful. But why would such people need more money?

In fact, a lot of ‘un-talented’ people work harder, in more unpleasant, boring jobs, etc.

Talent is just genetic luck, and merits no reward. Education is comes down to combination of opportunities (again, luck), and talent (also luck), as well as (to some extent) effort. Some people work harder than others- true. But that doesn’t justify such huge differences in ‘rewards’.

 

[Contarini]

Jesus wanted us to help the poor. If he had been a socialist he would have said “Give your wealth to the Roman government and they will decide how to redistribute it.”

Straw man. You might as well argue that slavery is right because Jesus didn’t call for its abolition. These kinds of arguments are invalid.

Edwin

 

[Qoeleth]

False.

In Christians For Freedom, Ignatius 1986, p 46, (with a new edition, since), Dr Alejandro Chafuen has examined carefully the teaching of Christ and wealth. Some misrepresent Acts 2:44-47, where the faithful lived together and owned everything in common. These so-called “Apostolics” were condemned by St Thomas and the Late Scholastics, who quote St Augustine. Why?
In his Summa, II-II, Q. 66, art. 2, resp., St Thomas quotes St Augustine: “Augustine says: ‘The people styled apostolic are those who arrogantly claimed this title for themselves because they refused to admit married folk or property owners to their fellowship, arguing from the model of the many monks and clerics in the Catholic Church (De Haeresibus 40).’ But such people are heretics because they cut themselves off from the Church by alleging that those who, unlike themselves, marry and own property have no hope of salvation.”

We see in Acts 4:34-35, A Catholic Commentary On Holy Scripture, Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1953:
(This) shows “that property was sold, from time to time, by the owners of it, according as the Church’s need dictated. The sharing of goods was always voluntary. The story of Ananias and Saphira, cf. 5:4, makes it clear that they were not bound to sell, and that after they had, the price was still theirs. When Barnabas gave all his property, such exceptional generosity was chronicled. There are examples of houses held privately in Jerusalem, !2:12; 21:16. St James, in his Epistle, reveals the existence of rich and poor there. The community of goods does not seem to have been very successful, 6:1, and other churches had continually to send alms, voluntarily, ‘each man according to his ability’, to Jerusalem, 11:29.”
What the great St Benedict did not do was cast aspersions on the ownership of property in the world outside of the monastery. That implication is also false.

Further, Dr Chafuen notes that “many people close to Jesus were quite wealthy for their times. Joseph seems to have had his own business and perhaps a donkey; Peter owned a fishing boat, and Matthew was a tax collector. Jesus praised the rich man Zaccheus. It was the wealthy Joseph of Arimathea who kept faith even when the Apostles were beset by doubt (Mt 27:57). Jesus does not condemn the possession of riches but, rather disordered attachment to them.” Notice also that Jesus did not ask His Apostles to renounce their property. Christians For Freedom, Dr Alejandro Chafuen, Ignatius, 1986, p 45].

Well, what about “if anyone wants to be my disciple, let him sell all he owns…”

Also, the story of Dives and Lazarus. The crime of the rich man is simply being rich, while someone at his door is going hungry. I also think that is a sin.

People are spending fortunes on plastic surgery and designer clothes, while there are other people who cannot afford to go to the dentist or the doctor.

As son and daughter of God, we are called to treat each other like brothers and sisters. Not absolute equality, perhaps, but making sure everyone’s basic needs of life are meet. Everyone needs more or less the same share of food, resources, etc. We’re all humn beings, and have the same natural needs, and hence, rights to resources.

 

[Contarini]

These people chose to be poor and share things under individual rights.

That’s an anachronistic concept. St. Benedict did not care about individual rights.

There is no such thing as a big benevolent government.

I tend to agree with that.

Basically impossible. The end-game for Marxism is that government takes the place of God.

No, the end-game is that government withers away. The problem is that they never seem to get to the end-game. . . (probably not actually disagreeing with you, since I think you’re talking about what actually happens, not what Marxists say is supposed to happen)

No pure socialist or communist society has ever existed.

And no pure capitalist society has existed either. When my libertarian friends say that we don’t really have a free market and that a free market would be free from cronyism, etc., I recognize that they’re just as utopian as the Marxists.

Because it’s THEIR money and they can do what they want with it! There’s a Gospel reading on that, too!

What reading? Are you talking about the parables which use economic activity in a symbolic fashion? It’s nonsense to take those parables as guides to economic morality. If we did that, we’d conclude that cheating our employers was a good thing to do, and that debtors may justly be tortured until they repay the debt. No one actually applies this hermeneutic consistently. It’s a shoddy tactic to apply it inconsistently, just when it is convenient for you to ignore the genre.

The teaching of Scripture and Tradition, when not speaking allegorically, is crystal clear that our money is not our own but is held in trust from God for the sake of the poor.

The Church is adamant about private property rights and sees evil in capitalism only in the form of corruption and cronyism, which is really what you end up with when you put people into power who say they are left-wing, marxist or socialist.

That’s utter, unadulterated balderdash.

Edwin

 

[christofirst]

There was “unbridled capitalism” in the late 1800s, the age of the “robber barons”. The barons were multimillionairs. Now, a hundred and twenty years later, we should see some of their descendants with holdings of a hundred billion or more. There are not such people.
Principle: **MONEY GETS REDISTRIBUTED SOMEHOW! **

In all, Rocerfeller gave away over one and a half billion dollars which would be worth around twenty five billion today. He changed the world for the better.

Here is an interesting article I present in response to your “philanthropy is the answer” post, which to me is very akin to our theory of “trickle-down economics”, both relying solely on the goodness and lack of greed of those with much to give.

robertdfeinman.com/society/abolish_philanthropy.html

I tend to agree with the late Mr. Feinman, not so much that we should outright abolish philanthropy, but that we should not rely on its fickle nature to solve the problem of poverty.

Unbridled capitalism is more the problem than the solution for what ails society today.

 

[Nogginer]

The ideal economy is a mix of capitalism and socialism. What consumers may not realize is that every time they buy something, it puts food on the table of the guy who made it, or more money into his business, which can then grow bigger and hire more people and serve more people. Investing money oftentimes can bring about more good as a whole than just giving it away. This is one reason why socialism fails. Communism and forced, large-scale, redistribution of wealth, has, throughout history, repeatedly failed to produce a thriving economy.

Also, I’ve heard non-profit organizations don’t grow nearly as much as for-profit ones for this same reason. Non-profit organizations are forced to keep their overhead costs down because donors want all of their money going directly to the cause of the non-profit, not employee’s salaries or advertisements. This means that little money is re-invested into the organization. They cannot hire the most experienced workers or advertise their cause a whole lot, keeping the organization from growing and doing more good.

Where is the justice in someone owning ten houses, and someone else being homeless?

There is another side of the story: Where is the justice of someone working hard for his wages and then being forced to give it to someone who did not work for them? (Which is what socialism does)

We must find a balance and partially answer both questions, neither denying the worker his just wages, or refusing to help those in need. The guy with ten houses should give some of his money away to the poor, as we are all called to do when we can, but we must also remember that he gave those construction workers and architects a lot of money for their work. If there were no rich people, they wouldn’t be around to hire others, invest, and make lots of jobs.

Pope Leo XIII wrote an “encyclical on capital and labor” called Rerum Novarum, in which he addresses both the evils of socialism, and the evils of employers abusing their laborers. Here’s the link to it on the vatican website:
vatican.va/holy_father/leo_xiii/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_15051891_rerum-novarum_en.html

St. Thomas Aquinas writes about the right to private property in *Summa Theologica *(II.II.66.2). Yet he also talks about a man’s right to “steal” another’s property in a time of need.(II.II.66.7)
Link to relevant sections of Summa Theologica: newadvent.org/summa/3066.htm
I believe he also talks about property and such things in Law, Morality and Politics, which I have never read any part of.

We must also notice, as my history teacher pointed out, that two of the ten commandments (that’s pretty much one fifth of God’s Law) regard private property: “Thou shalt not steal”, and “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods”.

Here is an explicit quote from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

The Church has rejected the totalitarian and atheistic ideologies associated in modem times with “communism” or “socialism.” She has likewise refused to accept, in the practice of “capitalism,” individualism and the absolute primacy of the law of the marketplace over human labor.207 Regulating the economy solely by centralized planning perverts the basis of social bonds; regulating it solely by the law of the marketplace fails social justice, for "there are many human needs which cannot be satisfied by the market."208 Reasonable regulation of the marketplace and economic initiatives, in keeping with a just hierarchy of values and a view to the common good, is to be commended.

CCC 2425. emphasis mine.
Link: vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s2c2a7.htm

The way I see it, the Church, and mere practicality, have always been in a favor of a socialism/capitalism mix.

 

[SuperLuigi]

And no pure capitalist society has existed either. When my libertarian friends say that we don’t really have a free market and that a free market would be free from cronyism, etc., I recognize that they’re just as utopian as the Marxists.

Capitalism is the best system.

I’ve noticed the reason why people want to become Marxists and socialists is because they want more, not so they can give up something.

That’s utter, unadulterated balderdash.

Catechism:

2401 The seventh commandment forbids unjustly taking or keeping the goods of one’s neighbor and wronging him in any way with respect to his goods. It commands justice and charity in the care of earthly goods and the fruits of men’s labor. For the sake of the common good, it requires respect for the universal destination of goods and respect for the right to private property. Christian life strives to order this world’s goods to God and to fraternal charity.

If there is no private property, then there is no such thing as theft.

We are called to charity, but through individual action. It is charitable if the government forces us to give against our will.

Actions in our Faith depend largely on intention.

 

[Abu]

Qoeleth #13
No answer to the truth that it is a fantasy that the early Christians adopted a socialist mode of life! No answer to the mirage painted that St Benedict denounces property ownership as evil!

Well, what about “if anyone wants to be my disciple, let him sell all he owns…”

This is a special case.
Jesus invited some people to renounce all things and to follow Him by close imitation. “If you wish to be really perfect, sell all you have, give to the poor, and come, follow Me.” If a man marries he cannot do that. He has a duty to his wife and children, and cannot sell the house and furniture over their heads, leaving them stranded. From the very beginning many Christian young men and women renounced the prospects of marriage and property for the love of Christ. The Church arranged community houses wherein the members were to own nothing, merely receiving shelter from the weather and necessary food and clothing. For the rest they were to give themselves to prayer and to works of piety and charity, instructing children, preaching the Gospel, nursing the sick, or feeding the hungry and destitute. Later these houses were called monasteries, after the Greek word Monos, meaning alone or single. The fact that those who have renounced all in accordance with the invitation of Christ live in monasteries or convents makes no more difference than if they lived in tents.
radioreplies.info/site-search.php?q=give+to+the+poor&db=1

Also, the story of Dives and Lazarus. The crime of the rich man is simply being rich, while someone at his door is going hungry. I also think that is a sin.

Of course there is no crime in “simply being rich”. How foolish. On the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, a preoccupation with wealth obscures the real sins – pride and selfishness are the culprits. St Augustine effectively says “It was not Lazarus’ poverty that saved him, but his humility. Nor was it wealth that kept the rich man from bliss, but his pride and selfishness (Sermon 24,3).

Without the charitable “rich” how could their wealth aid those in need? As the parable shows, the sin consists in not helping those in real need while having a superabundance.

Citing the case of the rich young man in Luke 18:18-25, Dr Chafuen remarks that many authors think that Jesus was condemning the possession of riches, but “the Late Scholastics indicated that this was not the correct interpretation. Citing Luke 14:26, where Jesus says, ‘If any man come to Me without hating his father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, yes and his own life too, he cannot be My disciple,’ the Scholastics pointed out that this passage does not enjoin Christians to hate their fathers. Such doctrine would contradict the Fourth Commandment. Thomist and Scholastic interpretations of this passage is that the entrance to the kingdom of Heaven is denied to anyone who values things more than God. In Matthew’s Gospel (10:37), the same passage reads: ‘Anyone who prefers father or mother to Me is not worthy of Me. Anyone who prefers son or daughter to Me is not worthy of Me.’ It would be a violation of the natural order to value a created thing above its creator, as did the young ruler who pursued riches as his ultimate goal. Christians For Freedom, Dr Alejandro Chafuen, Ignatius, 1986, p 44]

 

[Qoeleth]

Qoeleth #13
No answer to the truth that it is a fantasy that the early Christians adopted a socialist mode of life! No answer to the mirage painted that St Benedict denounces property ownership as evil!]

Sorry for not answering these points directly. Well, the earliest Christians renounced property, and held everything in common, as testified in the Gospels and Acts. This is the testimony of Scripture.

Secondly, the Rule of Benedict wasn’t designed for a ‘special’ Christian life- but rather, a truly Christian life. Benedict reacted to the culture of Rome (which, at that stage, was Christian). He offered a way to restore the primitive Christian life. He saw conversio morum of monastic life simply as a true conversion to the values of Christianity.

Note also Benedict was influence by the Regula Basili. Now Basil laid down what seems like a rule of communal, living, involving renounciation of propety. However, he did not understand it as a rule for monks- no, he present it as a rule for Christians. The earliest monks, who renounced propety, saw themselves as simply following the Gospel. Which indeed they were.

This is a special case.
Jesus invited some people to renounce all things and to follow Him by close imitation. “If you wish to be really perfect, sell all you have, give to the poor, and come, follow Me.” If a man marries he cannot do that. He has a duty to his wife and children, and cannot sell the house and furniture over their heads, leaving them stranded. From the very beginning many Christian young men and women renounced the prospects of marriage and property for the love of Christ. The Church arranged community houses wherein the members were to own nothing, merely receiving shelter from the weather and necessary food and clothing. For the rest they were to give themselves to prayer and to works of piety and charity, instructing children, preaching the Gospel, nursing the sick, or feeding the hungry and destitute. Later these houses were called monasteries, after the Greek word Monos, meaning alone or single. The fact that those who have renounced all in accordance with the invitation of Christ live in monasteries or convents makes no more difference than if they lived in tents.
radioreplies.info/site-search.php?q=give+to+the+poor&db=1

Of course there is no crime in “simply being rich”. How foolish. On the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, a preoccupation with wealth obscures the real sins – pride and selfishness are the culprits. St Augustine effectively says “It was not Lazarus’ poverty that saved him, but his humility. Nor was it wealth that kept the rich man from bliss, but his pride and selfishness (Sermon 24,3).

Without the charitable “rich” how could their wealth aid those in need? As the parable shows, the sin consists in not helping those in real need while having a superabundance.

Citing the case of the rich young man in Luke 18:18-25, Dr Chafuen remarks that many authors think that Jesus was condemning the possession of riches, but “the Late Scholastics indicated that this was not the correct interpretation. Citing Luke 14:26, where Jesus says, ‘If any man come to Me without hating his father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, yes and his own life too, he cannot be My disciple,’ the Scholastics pointed out that this passage does not enjoin Christians to hate their fathers. Such doctrine would contradict the Fourth Commandment. Thomist and Scholastic interpretations of this passage is that the entrance to the kingdom of Heaven is denied to anyone who values things more than God. In Matthew’s Gospel (10:37), the same passage reads: ‘Anyone who prefers father or mother to Me is not worthy of Me. Anyone who prefers son or daughter to Me is not worthy of Me.’ It would be a violation of the natural order to value a created thing above its creator, as did the young ruler who pursued riches as his ultimate goal. Christians For Freedom, Dr Alejandro Chafuen, Ignatius, 1986, p 44]

There is no crime in being rich, if everyone has enough. There is a crime in being rich, though, if someone is hungry at your door, and you do nothing.

But my argument is this: a capitalist system institutionalizes injustice. It is unjust that some have more than they need, while others do not have enough. A system which tolerate this is an unjust system.

All young people should have equal opportunity to the same schools. All sick people deserve the same access to medical treatment.

According to natural law, people have a natural right to what they need to live (food, clothing, perhaps where they live). Any concept of ‘private property’ beyond this is merely a social convention. There is nothing sacred about it, at all.

Also, St. Augustine, while very good, is not infallible. Remember, he also had a ‘just war’ theory- which turned out to be false.

 

[Qoeleth]

Capitalism is the best system. .

No, the best system is a type of ‘village socialism’ system- which includes some room for free enterprise, but ensures that all are supported and included.

I’ve noticed the reason why people want to become Marxists and socialists is because they want more, not so they can give up something.

I agree, partially. Also there are those ‘upper middle class socialists’- leftist academics, etc. There are many struggling Marxists, who, I suppose, might become capitalists, if suddenly they become rich. Maybe only those who have voluntarily renounced private property altogether can make an completely unbaised opinion of the subject.

:

If there is no private property, then there is no such thing as theft.

.

So, the abolition of private propety will help to remove the vice of theft?