Some Catholics told me that the world is controlled and dominated by the devil. If so, why are some Christians working for capitalists and the compani

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Some Christians are working for the capitalists, companies of capitalism favored countries and governments etc. Why is it? Are they the ally of God, I guess?
 
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Communism and socialism worked out so much better for people. NOT.
Really, is it the people with short memories knocking capitalism or the young who haven’t lived through cold war, etc…?
 
Firstly let me be at least one Catholic who says the world is not dominated by the devil obviously or there wouldn’t be 1.2 billion Catholics?

Secondly we all need to earn a living, healthy companies must make a profit or they go broke. I personally agree with making a reasonable profit, it’s needed for security, growth and research, not to mention pensions paid to employees in the future.

Peace be with you.
 
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The social doctrine of the Church rejects both marxist forms of socialism and communism and extreme (too liberal) forms of capitalism.

Ideally, we shouldnt support either and instead persue a centrist/distributist catholic state. Practically, the Church only says to us that we should vote according to our own catholic conscience.
 
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Needy1 said:
Some Christians are working for the capitalists, companies of capitalism favored countries and governments etc. Why is it?
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Because they offer jobs that we can do, and they pay us to do them, by which we can then trade the pay we received for our work in exchange for things we want, like food and shelter and whatever else we need. And if we are willing to do MORE work, they are willing to pay us more.
I like that a lot better than the government dolling out only as much food as it decides I should have, and handing over all my hard-earned money to the government so it can fund projects that I don’t want to pay for.
 
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Needy1 said:
Some Christians are working for the capitalists, companies of capitalism favored countries and governments etc. Why is it? Are they the ally of God, I guess?
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The three enemies of the soul are the world, the flesh, and the devil .

The devil has been very crafty . The author of lies has kept in the background as he has seduced Christians through the world and the flesh .

Christians by accepting Capitalism as somehow valid have been deceived by the devil .

Through the other two enemies , the world and the flesh , we have been ensnared by the devil

We do not see that the basic principles of Capitalism are the world and the flesh as epitomized by greed and selfishness .

Greed and selfishness make up the driving force of Capitalism . The devil does not call it by its true name . The Deceiver is too clever for that . He deludes us by calling it the profit motive . The Bible does not fall into this trap of course . The Bible calls it by its true name , Mammon , the love of money .
 
JackFrost said:
Christians by accepting Capitalism as somehow valid have been deceived by the devil .
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Joseph was a capitalist. He worked at a trade for wealthy customers, in order to earn a paycheck and support his wife Mary and young son Jesus. No doubt Jesus was also a capitalist between his youth when he began helping his father and learning a trade, and age 30 when he started his public life as a rabbi.

Jesus presumably wasn’t greedy, but there’s also nothing in Scripture saying he rejected his paychecks or gave them all to the poor. He likely supported his mother with money he earned, especially after Joseph died.
 
As a Catholic, we bring Jesus Christ and the Gospel into the world. We bring Him into our workplace, into our classrooms, to our hockey games and swim teams. We sanctify our work by Christ, our washing dishes, our writing an essay. We bring grace into our ordinary every day situations. We are the salt of the earth. We bring the light of Christ when there’s darkness.
 
The problem here is the usage of the term ‘Capitalist’ like it’s some sort of catch-all. Was Joseph a capitalist? Sure, if you take an extremely broad definition of the term. If one defines a capitalist as anyone who exchanges goods for services or a combination thereof, even communists can be made to fit under that massive umbrella.

But that is clearly not the definition of capitalism that draws the ire of some Catholics. For the capitalism of our day is not one of free movement of capital between men, but a complicated system where one depends on usury to build a mercantile empire.

Does the OP miss the mark on calling out average, common Catholics for working for Corporatists? In my opinion, yes. But please do not use the example of Jesus Christ and Saint Joseph to defend the interests of people who use our modern economic system as a means to pull all wealth towards them, without regard for society.

While the common man is not culpable for the inequality of our current economic system, the philosophy that drives him is certainly revealed when scaled up in a global sense. We are living in the inevitable conclusion of Capitalist thought. The Church is right to call out the excesses of such a system, as it is right to call out the evils of communism.

EDIT: This may have sounded like a rant at you specifically. I’m sorry if it did, I don’t mean it in a disrespectful way. Have a good day!
 
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It’s always a question of moderation surely.

A free market seems to work well as long as people rail against greed and try to temper the excesses that no Christian can sanction.

More should be done to avoid this once pleasant portrait turning into an impressionist mess.
 
So, what do you define “Corporatist” as?

It’s my understanding Joseph worked as one of many laborers on large building projects for kings, rulers and such. He wasn’t making wooden chairs for his neighbors and selling them out of his front patio.

That to me is no different from your average Catholic who’s working for some large corporation or for the government. People take work where they can get a steady job with benefits that provides for their family.

I’m fine with the Church calling out excesses, exploitation of workers etc. That’s the traditional role of the Church. It doesn’t mean all capitalism is evil or all corporations are bad.
 
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Everyone needs money to live.
And the devil IS Prince of this world -
Jesus said the Earth - wasn’t his Kingdom.
 
The reality is that winner win all Capitalism is a winner for no one. Capitalism thrives best when there is a strong middle income class. Very poor people can’t buy much and very rich people really can’t spend all of it. Unfortunately we’ve been heading away from this balance for some time.

For all those who complain about Government supported programs, please keep in mind that all of us have programs we don’t want our tax dollars to go to. That said, consider where that government support goes. That money invariably goes to private enterprise especially things like food companies and housing. Also, why are we giving these companies major tax breaks? This moves the taxation share more to you and me and lets them use more of my money to make a profit of.

Call me what you want, I do believe Capitalism is our best bet at the moment, but consider how many of us are convinced that making things easier for the largest companies is inherently good for us. We’re fed the image of Mom and Pop, but these companies are far from. Either way businesses only hire when they can make more money off of that labor, otherwise they will simply pocket that money. So to some degree moving the tax burden back towards the very to ultra rich people and corporations is good for everyone economically.
 
Needy1 said:
Some Christians are working for the capitalists, companies of capitalism favored countries and governments etc. Why is it? Are they the ally of God, I guess?
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If you are asking if capitalistic companies are the “ally of God”, then no, not usually.

If you are asking about the persons who work for capitalistic companies, that depends upon the person. A person can be an "ally " of God in virtually any circumstances.
 
Camehome4john6 said:
Communism and socialism worked out so much better for people. NOT.
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You have to learn to differentiate between Communists and Socialists. None of the European countries’ Socialist parties are Communists and nor do they reject capitalism (even when in government).
 
At first I thought you were agreeing that the world is controlled by the devil rather than by Gd, and that capitalism is a reflection of the devil’s work. However, on second reading, I think you are arguing the opposite: that if Christians are working for capitalist companies, it means they are working for Gd, and that capitalism is not a product of the devil. I agree with the latter…to an extent. The world is surely NOT controlled by the devil although it may sometimes appear to be. At the same time, however, it is certain capitalism has its problems and that some Christians are not practicing Christian ideals in their capitalist ventures. This does not necessarily mean that all capitalist enterprise is evil, nor that all capitalists are in league with the devil. It does mean that capitalism has a tendency to veer in the direction of maintaining a profit at any cost, even at the expense of the people it is supposedly serving, and that those of us who participate in such an economy must check our own motivations on a regular basis.
 
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No, I would say we have wildly differing understandings of “capitalist”.

We see this all the time when somebody comes on here using words like “capitalist”, '“liberal”, “modernist” etc.

If someone is going to have a thread discussion like this, it would be good if they would start by defining what “capitalist” means to them. To me, it means anyone operating under a capitalist system. To you, it obviously means something different and bad.
 
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