The Church and Economic Theory

[Owlpride]

If being a catholic means having to embrace socialism, than maybe this Luther guy was on to something…

 

[Abu]

Owlpride
If being a catholic means having to embrace socialism….

“Religious socialism, Christian socialism, are contradictory terms; no one can be at the same time a good Catholic and a true socialist.” Quadragesimo Anno, 120, Pius XI].

 

[Rascalking]

“Religious socialism, Christian socialism, are contradictory terms; no one can be at the same time a good Catholic and a true socialist.” Quadragesimo Anno, 120, Pius XI].

I think Margaret Thatcher said it best when she said “Many socialists wouldn’t care if the poor were poorer as long as the rich were less rich.”

 

[Texas_Roofer]

*"2425 **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.206 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.“207 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”

With this paragraph from the Catechism of the Catholic Church in mind, what economic or political theory do you suggest that should be followed or adhered to by Catholics?

The church does not have an economic theory that it accepts -]or rejects/-]. Economic theories are fallible, man-made tools which may or may not be valid. The church calls us to live in our economies with an eye towards virtue and justice.

Cruxis117
I hope you can sort through much of these posts to see the correct one. The Church does not embrace any known economic theory because to date all have shown problems. Economics is the study of trade. Communism refuses to allow the man to own his needs and make his decision. Socialism as the Church sees it has the same problem. (Example: you will have only the Church issued by the government) Though others see Socialism as a hybrid of Communism-Capitalism with a mixture of private ownership and government regulation. Capitalism in its pure form asks the poor to starve of food and medical care if they lack money. How to balance private controls with justice for all has yet to be developed into a economic system, so to date we do the best we can.

Hope that explains it

 

[Cruxis117]

Cruxis117
I hope you can sort through much of these posts to see the correct one. The Church does not embrace any known economic theory because to date all have shown problems. Economics is the study of trade. Communism refuses to allow the man to own his needs and make his decision. Socialism as the Church sees it has the same problem. (Example: you will have only the Church issued by the government) Though others see Socialism as a hybrid of Communism-Capitalism with a mixture of private ownership and government regulation. Capitalism in its pure form asks the poor to starve of food and medical care if they lack money. How to balance private controls with justice for all has yet to be developed into a economic system, so to date we do the best we can.

Hope that explains it

It does. I’ve understood Abu’s point now, and likewise, I’ve learned that while the Church will not accept Communism and Socialism, and I respect that now, they will not respect pure Capitalism either. So, I’m satisfied.

 

[Abu]

Texas Roofer
Capitalism in its pure form asks the poor to starve of food and medical care if they lack money. How to balance private controls with justice for all has yet to be developed into a economic system,

There is no such thing as a “pure form”; there never has been. The economic laws developed by the Catholic Late Scholastics are observable results, the inexorable forces of cause and effect that operate very much as other natural laws. Over the course of several generations, they discovered and explained the laws of supply and demand, the cause of inflation, the operation of foreign exchange rates, and the subjective nature of economic value. If there is a problem with how the market operates, the first place to look is the society and the government.

Dr Alejandro Chafuen: Economics “is the study of the formal applications that can be deduced from the fact that human beings act purposefully. It does not consider whether these actions are good or bad (an ethical question). Economic science is value free. It analyses cause and effect relationships that, if true, are scientific….only human acts can be judged morally.” (Christians For Freedom, Ignatius, 1986, p 33).

People can, and some do, undermine the common good, and the primary role of government is to support families in solidarity, and the role of the Church in subsidiarity, and that’s why we need laws to seek and punish those who steal, cheat, swindle, and against monopolies.

Free enterprise needs to operate within the framework of reason based on subsidiarity and solidarity.
Michael Novak in Capitalism Rightly Understood: The View Of Christian Humanism writes of John Paul II’s Centesimus Annus, 1991:
In a word, traditionalist Third World systems are nearly as repressive as formerly communist systems in suffocating economic creativity. Similarly, within advanced societies, neglect of important human factors in the design of “the welfare state” has dehumanizing effects upon welfare “clients.” In any society, some important fraction of the citizenry is bound to be without income, because of age (too old or too young), disability, illness, or ill fortune. Some will be permanently, some only temporarily, so. A good society will provide care for such persons.

Preferably, as the Pope notes, this should be done according to the principle of subsidiarity, with an emphasis on local and “neighborly” assistance, through family, neighbors, churches, unions, fraternal societies, or other associations.37

Notes:
37 See for instance Centesimus Annus, #49 and especially 13: “Apart from the family, other intermediate communities exercise primary functions and give life to specific networks of solidarity. These develop as real communities of persons and strengthen the social fabric, preventing society from becoming an anonymous and impersonal mass, as unfortunately often happens today. It is in interrelationships on many levels that a person lives, and that society becomes more ‘personalized’.” (#49)

Pope John Paul II warned:
“By intervening directly and depriving society of its responsibility, the Social Assistance State leads to a loss of human energies and an inordinate increase of public agencies, which are dominated more by bureaucratic ways of thinking than by concern for serving their clients, and which are accompanied by an enormous increase in spending.”
(Centesimus Annus, 48, John Paul II, 1991).

Pope Benedict XVI in Caritas in Veritate stipulates that true world political authority not only “would need to be regulated by law, [but also] to observe consistently the principles of subsidiarity” (CIV 67).** Subsidiarity** "is the most effective antidote against any form of all-encompassing welfare state” (57).

 

[Apollos5600]

Hmm…I’m not sure that I agree with that. Considering that the GDP of America is nearly the same as the National Debt…it kind of makes me wonder, is the U.S. better off with Capitalism, or maybe economics should move more to the left.

The GDP is equal to the National Debt because that Marxist in office is practicing what the left preaches. The “left” only has more spending in mind. I can hardly see how you can justify blaming this on capitalism. As for the “left”, in general, they are probably the single most destructive force on society today. It is the left that promotes abortion, faithlessness, and government control in the name of goodness.

FYI, according to defectors from the Soviet Bloc, even Liberation Theology has its origins within the KGB. One must look beyond the clever slogans and see the fruit they produce. It’s stinking and rotten, I assure you.

 

[Apollos5600]

America, I think, is suppose to be the Land of Opportunity.

We have a right to National Defense, to a reliable police force and fire department to protect us and our property.

As soon as I read “We have a right to National Defense”, I knew what kind of post it was going to be. Sure, we have a right to a national defense, we also have a right to bear arms. This is a very corrupt way to twist the wordings of our own constitution, and then to proceed, directly thereafter, to define “rights” with no basis in law or reason.

We have a right to a free education, K-12, and affordable education through a Bachelor’s Degree or other specialized training so we can perform our work with a reasonable income for our dilligent labor.

Where’s THAT in the constitution? There are no rights to “free” things. We’re paying for education through taxes. How can it be a right to “free” education when we are paying for “free” education? And exactly what makes it a right? And, ontop of that, even if it were a right, how would it be possible? How can we have something “free”? Do the teachers work for alms?

We have a RESPONSIBILITY to invest in ourselves and to gain that education. We cannot blow it through apathy or drugs. As kids, we may not know this, but that is what parents are for. That’s what community organizers are for. Education is from the Latin e ducre, to lead out. To develop one’s God given talents in meaningful ways. The ability to earn one’s way in life provides great internal satisfaction. Geting educated does take personal effort over many years. Education is THE KEY TO PERSONAL ECONOMIC SUCCESS and a successful ecomonic system. And getting educated in our relationship with God is THE KEY to eternal salvation.

Community organizers like Barack Obama? Educated men like Barack Obama? It seems to me our education system only educates people to such a degree that they become stupid. Of course, I myself am taking classes at this time. 22 years old, 4.00 GPA, majoring in English and Journalism. However, even with this progress of mine, even I know that secular education isn’t worth very much. In twenty years, will anything be worth very much? The key to “personal economic success” must begin in the soul. We must reform the soul of our civilization… Catholicism, I believe, is the answer. It provides the authority that we reject; it provides the holiness and repentance of sin that we reject; it provides an answer against the hedonism of the “community organizers” and the guys who want a free lunch.

Economic theories go nowhere. Money goes nowhere, expect so far as it gives way to inevitable violence when it runs dry. Lust, worldly pleasures, and material-goods go nowhere. The answer is only God.

 

[mcteague]

The GDP is equal to the National Debt because that Marxist in office is practicing what the left preaches. The “left” only has more spending in mind. I can hardly see how you can justify blaming this on capitalism. As for the “left”, in general, they are probably the single most destructive force on society today. It is the left that promotes abortion, faithlessness, and government control in the name of goodness.

FYI, according to defectors from the Soviet Bloc, even Liberation Theology has its origins within the KGB. One must look beyond the clever slogans and see the fruit they produce. It’s stinking and rotten, I assure you.

The fact that some former soviet citizens may believe every left of center idea was part of a KGB plot does not make it true. Just as some Catholics here wishing to believe modern capitalism was invented by monks in the 7th century doesn’t make that entirely accurate either.

 

[Apollos5600]

gnjsdad is correct. “Wall Street v. 2008” and Greenspan’s Confessions mark the demise of utopian Friedmanism.

So, too, the nations of South America have turned away from that sweet siren call.

The nations of South America are being consumed, one by one, by a hateful devil in the form of Marxism. That fat head Chavez perverts the truth of God and makes a show of it as he robs people of their property. In other countries, people are losing rights in the name of gaining them. At the head of it is Russia, the “former” communist nation. They are the enemy of Christianity and of Western Civilization as we know it. They are preparing for war, Red Dawn style, and here we are arguing about whether or not Catholicism should be socialist in nature. That’s like asking a mouse to embrace the nature of a snake.

Liberation theology, this Marxist version of Christianity, is also a tool in this effort. But that is all it is. A tool. There is no truth in this socialist version of Christianity that some are promoting here.

 

[Apollos5600]

The fact that some former soviet citizens may believe every left of center idea was part of a KGB plot does not make it true. Just as some Catholics here wishing to believe modern capitalism was invented by monks in the 7th century doesn’t make that entirely accurate either.

Former soviet citizens? Like Ion Mihai Pacepa, the highest-ranking intelligence official ever to defect from the Eastern Bloc? Real crackpot paranoid guy that one, right? Believes every little left of center idea was invented by the KGB?

What about the Pope? Would you accept his authority on the matter? He did not call it an invention of the KGB, but he certainly recognizes it for the heresy it is.

 

[Apollos5600]

As the Church disposed of the evils of Communism and Socialism as political and economic systems, She has endorsed free enterprise. [Post #19, John Paul II, *Centesimus Annus

#42].

How did this arise? Real history:
St Augustine taught that wickedness was not inherent in commerce, that price was a function not simply of the seller’s costs, but also of the buyer’s wants, and it was up to the individual to live righteously. [Politics I, 1254]. Thus legitimacy was acquired by merchants, and the deep involvement of the Church in the birth of free enterprise. [Stephen P Bensch, *Historiography: Medieval European and Mediterranean Slavery 1998, p 231; Cf. The Victory of Reason, Rodney Stark, Random House, 2005, p 57,58, 254].

Long before the so-called “Protestant work ethic”, the rise of the West was due to an extraordinary faith in reason, influenced by Greek philosophy, which resulted from Catholic theology and doctrine, unlike Greek religion. Free enterprise “evolved, beginning early in the ninth century, by Catholic monks…seeking to ensure the economic security of their monastic estates.”(Stark, op. cit. p 55].

Randall Collins has noted that innovation and specialization in the monastic estates was “a version of the developed characteristics of capitalism itself… the dynamism of the medieval economy was primarily that of the Church.” [Randall Collins, *The Sociology of Philosophies: A Global Theory of Intellectual Change, 1998, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, p 47].

Dr Alejandro Chafuen: Economics “is the study of the formal applications that can be deduced from the fact that human beings act purposefully. It does not consider whether these actions are good or bad (an ethical question). Economic science is value free. It analyses cause and effect relationships that, if true, are scientific….only human acts can be judged morally.” (Christians For Freedom, Ignatius, 1986, p 33).

The application of these laws has enabled the huge increases in standards of living for all, following the Catholic insights beginning early in the ninth century, by Catholic monks seeking to ensure the economic security of their monastic estates.

These are very good quotes. I never considered the Church’s role in these matters. Very fascinating.

 

[Apollos5600]

allyl
This maybe of interest at:
catholicity.com/mccloskey/westernciv.html
A Book Review by Father John McCloskey of How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization by Thomas E. Woods Jr. - published by Regnery Publishing, 2005

The following also may be of interest:
drwilliamluckey.com/
mises.org/daily/4310
thomasewoods.com/articles/
mises.org/articles.aspx

Great stuff. Loved reading your posts in this thread.

 

[Abu]

Apollos5600
Thank you. Glad to be of help.

 

[Abu]

mcteague, post #49
some Catholics here wishing to believe modern capitalism was invented by monks in the 7th century doesn’t make that entirely accurate either.

From the great monastic estates in the ninth century, immense increases in agricultural productivity grew from “such significant innovations as the switch to horses, the heavy moldboard plow, and the three-field system” away from subsistence agriculture to specialised crops and products, sold at a profit to initiate a cash economy. “As their incomes continued to mount, this led many monasteries to become banks, lending to the nobility.” The Victory of Reason, Rodney Stark, Random House, 2005, p 58].

From Christopher Dawson, Religion and the Rise of Western Culture, Doubleday Image Books, 1957:
Writing about the great monastery of Saint Gall in Switzerland in 820, Christopher Dawson noted that it was “no longer the simple religious community envisaged by the old monastic rules, but a vast complex of buildings, churches, workshops, store-houses, offices, schools and alms-houses, housing a whole population of dependants, workers, and servants like the temple cities of antiquity.” (Op. cit., Stark p 59).

Further, John Gilchrist, a leading historian of the economic activity of the medieval Church affirms that the first examples of capitalism appeared in the great Catholic monasteries. (The Church and Economic Activity in the Middle Ages, I, 1969, St Martin’s Press).

Randall Collins has noted that innovation and specialization in the monastic estates was “a version of the developed characteristics of capitalism itself… the dynamism of the medieval economy was primarily that of the Church.” [Randall Collins, *The Sociology of Philosophies: A Global Theory of Intellectual Change, 1998, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, p 47].

The Catholic “ethic” is the reason Europeans excelled at metallurgy, shipbuilding, and farming.

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).

 

[Texas_Roofer]

There is no such thing as a “pure form”; there never has been. The economic laws developed by the Catholic Late Scholastics are observable results, the inexorable forces of cause and effect that operate very much as other natural laws. Over the course of several generations, they discovered and explained the laws of supply and demand, the cause of inflation, the operation of foreign exchange rates, and the subjective nature of economic value. If there is a problem with how the market operates, the first place to look is the society and the government.

Dr Alejandro Chafuen: Economics “is the study of the formal applications that can be deduced from the fact that human beings act purposefully. It does not consider whether these actions are good or bad (an ethical question). Economic science is value free. It analyses cause and effect relationships that, if true, are scientific….only human acts can be judged morally.” (Christians For Freedom, Ignatius, 1986, p 33).

People can, and some do, undermine the common good, and the primary role of government is to support families in solidarity, and the role of the Church in subsidiarity, and that’s why we need laws to seek and punish those who steal, cheat, swindle, and against monopolies.

Free enterprise needs to operate within the framework of reason based on subsidiarity and solidarity.
Michael Novak in Capitalism Rightly Understood: The View Of Christian Humanism writes of John Paul II’s Centesimus Annus, 1991:
In a word, traditionalist Third World systems are nearly as repressive as formerly communist systems in suffocating economic creativity. Similarly, within advanced societies, neglect of important human factors in the design of “the welfare state” has dehumanizing effects upon welfare “clients.” In any society, some important fraction of the citizenry is bound to be without income, because of age (too old or too young), disability, illness, or ill fortune. Some will be permanently, some only temporarily, so. A good society will provide care for such persons.

Preferably, as the Pope notes, this should be done according to the principle of subsidiarity, with an emphasis on local and “neighborly” assistance, through family, neighbors, churches, unions, fraternal societies, or other associations.37

Notes:
37 See for instance Centesimus Annus, #49 and especially 13: “Apart from the family, other intermediate communities exercise primary functions and give life to specific networks of solidarity. These develop as real communities of persons and strengthen the social fabric, preventing society from becoming an anonymous and impersonal mass, as unfortunately often happens today. It is in interrelationships on many levels that a person lives, and that society becomes more ‘personalized’.” (#49)

Pope John Paul II warned:
“By intervening directly and depriving society of its responsibility, the Social Assistance State leads to a loss of human energies and an inordinate increase of public agencies, which are dominated more by bureaucratic ways of thinking than by concern for serving their clients, and which are accompanied by an enormous increase in spending.”
(Centesimus Annus, 48, John Paul II, 1991).

Pope Benedict XVI in Caritas in Veritate stipulates that true world political authority not only “would need to be regulated by law, [but also] to observe consistently the principles of subsidiarity” (CIV 67).** Subsidiarity** "is the most effective antidote against any form of all-encompassing welfare state” (57).

?? If there is a question, or for that matter a comment in this post I cannot find or understand it. The post is a shotgun approach I guess to claim “subsidiary” and “solidarity” are an equal way to repeat what was written in earlier posts? In the earlier statement subsidiary is referred to as “refuses to allow the man to own his needs” while solidarity is written in reverse to say ” asks the poor to starve of food and medical care if they lack money” . The latter meaning is the Church expects the society through solidarity to care for the poor and starving without regard to money, which is an issue all capitalist struggle with.

 

[mcteague]

Further, John Gilchrist, a leading historian of the economic activity of the medieval Church affirms that the first examples of capitalism appeared in the great Catholic monasteries.
xii).

I am not questioning your claim that features that later became identified with capitalism existed at earlier times. Many in the communities and writings you site. But it is a little like when some people claim that the US system of government is really taken from the Iroquois nation because some similar elements existed there. Both are probably overreaching.
I think it is a mistake to identify Christian ideology with a particular economic system. Yours is no less objectionable than those who think Jesus would have been a socialist because he was kind to poor people. A little naive, but their hearts are probably in the right place. I don’t think any of these systems are any more or less Christian.
If there is a second coming, I don’t think Jesus will appear as Chi Geuverra. But I don’t think he’ll look like Gordon Gecko either.

 

[Abu]

mcteague, post #57
I think it is a mistake to identify Christian ideology with a particular economic system. Yours is no less objectionable than those who think Jesus would have been a socialist because he was kind to poor people….I don’t think any of these systems are any more or less Christian.

Then it is time to face reality, as there are no facts which can mitigate the truth that the laws of free enterprise were developed by Catholic Late Scholastics, and that free enterprise is endorsed by Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI so, emphatically, the Church supports the right use of these laws. It is myopia to refer to “my” system. Further, there is no “Christian ideology” either here – there is Catholic dogma and doctrine – the truths of faith and morals which Jesus mandates be taught, and Catholic social teaching based largely on these truths.

In the parable of the talents, Jesus Christ, God the Son, lauds the servant who has multiplied talents – “For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away. And cast the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Mt 25: 14-30). We are commanded to work and to use our intelligence and other talents to provide spiritually and materially for ourselves and for our brethren. St Paul says: “If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat.” (See 2 Thess 3:6-15)

To pigeon-hole Jesus as “kind to the poor”, neglects His essential habit of terseness of speech – characteristic of the Christ who personally chose His Apostles and this is how He chose to bring them to their senses: to His own Apostles, “whom He loved to the end” Jesus exclaimed: “Have you no sense, no wits, are your hearts dulled, can’t you see, your ears hear, don’t you remember?” (Mk 6:51) (Frank Sheed, Christ In Eclipse, Sheed & Ward 1978, p 42). "With individuals He was very much the doctor with a duty not only to tell them what was wrong with them, but to make sure they realized it.” (Ibid. p 40-41).

We don’t need anyone else to subvert Catholic social teaching. The Church has no models, and does not enter into technique, while affirming the natural moral law and the economic laws developed by the Catholic Late Scholastics which have observable results through the inexorable forces of cause and effect that operate very much as other natural laws.

 

[Captain_America]

Economics inevitably join with politics, and this subverts free enterprise.

The worst offenders are the largest corporations and the richest people. They have the cash to toss into the system, to turn the gears to make the machine specifically help them.

This is how it really works in 2011.