The Wealth-Cap Economic System

[blackforest]

If you truly believe this, fine. But realize that demanding government funding for capitalism is an oxymoron. You’re advocating for socialism.

 

[blackforest]

Which Church teachings, and what criteria would determine if I was dirty

Um, violating church teaching?

I’m getting dizzy spinning in this circle . . .

 

[Canvas]

Hardly an unbiased source (IBD makes the Wall Street Journal look like the Communist Manifesto), and the Finnish experiment was flawed from the beginning. It only used 2,000 already unemployed people. I remember reading about the various flaws and how many in the Finnish government wanted it to fail from the beginning.

 

[blackforest]

Yea, I’m not going to drown in another one of those Just-World-Theory, poverty-is-the-fault-of-the-poor threads. I posted the USDA evidence that the poor are NOT junking up on their food stamps, and I’m going to leave it at that. @IWantGod started this thread to discuss the wealthy.

ETA: I’m off to a meeting, so I’ll respond later.

 

[Pup7]

But realize that demanding government funding for capitalism is an oxymoron.

Odd how we have FOREIGN companies (Toyota…Nissan…BMW…Hyundai…Honda…Kia) who come to the US for the tax breaks and make massive improvements in the towns choose (Smyrna, TN and Greenville-Spartanburg, SC are two that have made dramatic changes since Nissan and BMW decided to call them home) while Ford and GM move production to Mexico and Canada. All on massive tax breaks, incentives - pretty much government funding - in non-union states.

I’m serious. Look up the changes in Greenville-Spartanburg, SC in the last thirty years. They LOVE BMW there.

Toyota is in San Antonio. They love Toyota there - in Texas, of all places. That blew me away in the five years I lived there.

 

[Canvas]

I have read about businesses where the employees become partial owners of the business and I think that is a great idea. It rewards hard work, and gives incentive for employees to do their best, and distributes profits more fairly. It does also distribute the risk…but often if you want to get ahead, you have to be willing to risk.

 

[QContinuum]

Yup…they got skin in the game.

 

[HolySpirit]

What specific teaching? What is the difference from someone who is merely greedy versus dirty?

For example, if 55 is the speed limit, going 56 is speeding. Going 54 is just driving fast.

If you can’t name a teaching that one can or can’t violate or explain what makes a person dirty, you don’t even have a suggestion to add to the discussion.

, I’d like specifics and not bumper stickers.

 

[JimG]

If you buy a home in a moderately priced area of homes, and later an economic expansion causes your home value to skyrocket, thereby putting you above the wealth cap, will you have to give your home to the poor or to the government? And what if a subsequent economic decline causes your assets to decline to the poverty level?

 

[IWantGod]

Would never work.

I think it would be more fare to say that people wouldn’t want it to work. I’d like to think that the vast majority would want it to work, but perhaps that’s wishful thinking considering that we are sinners…

This really takes the private sector out of the “Big Ideas” that have really increased the world’s wealth and raised everyone’s living standards.

But at the end of the day, i cannot support the idea that it’s okay for somebody to be poor or in poverty on grounds that the system works for some people, even if one can imagine them getting by on a shoe string budget… Neither can i agree with the idea that the poor are to blame because it’s evident to me that in any competition there are necessarily going to be losers and all the negative downsides that go with that (That’s precisely why we have a safety net/welfare system in the first place. To ignore that would be an act of cognitive dissonance). Thirdly, any economic system where a person or families financial well-being is essentially dependent upon winning a competition is an immoral system. If people are poor or in poverty because they were forced to compete against others and lost, there is something essentially wrong with that system even if you happen to be somebody that is doing okay or doing well, especially when there is enough resources for everybody to live well-enough… You certainly cannot call that system “Christian”. You can call it Darwinian, but I don’t believe in the idea of competing for ones dignity, because it’s God given…

Now, some would argue that while the competitive nature of capitalism leaves a lot of people in the lurch, it has still raised the living standards for most people. But that’s basically arguing that the end’s justifies the means, which is exactly what socialists argue when they talk about removing the individuals right to property. I cannot support either side of that debate. Does it really matter that people assume that competing for their dignity is better than protecting the common good just because people can relate to greed. Or is it more a matter of what is right and true to the dignity of human beings and forging a society that protects and influences that natural right. I say the latter because i cannot trust the agenda of those who support and encourage the former.

People say we cannot make it work any other way. Do we not trust in God?
.

 

[IWantGod]

These are good points. In the OP i didn’t state how much wealth one could earn or own. But obviously at some point the Cap would come into play. It does seem to imply that if you sold that property, some of what would be earned would go the government…Perhaps the Cap would be dynamic in some contexts where the value of something was raised. I can see how this would raise difficulties, whereas a cap on what a business (different from house selling) or individual could earn for themselves in terms of wages would raise less difficulties… Perhaps there would be a point where you could only exchange houses or properties without being effected by the cap.

I’ll have to give this some thought. But you raised good points…

 

[blackforest]

is merely greedy versus dirty?

Greed is one of the seven deadly sins, so I’m not sure why you’re distinguishing between these two. “Playing dirty = sinning.”

On your request, here are some examples. I’ll post a couple without doing all of your legwork for you, but they are easy to look up on your own.

http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/2434.htm

http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-p...s/hf_jp-ii_enc_01051991_centesimus-annus.html

A workman’s wages should be sufficient to enable him to support himself, his wife and his children. “If through necessity or fear of a worse evil the workman accepts harder conditions because an employer or contractor will afford no better, he is made the victim of force and injustice”.

http://w2.vatican.va/content/france...-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html

http://w2.vatican.va/content/france...ii-gaudium.html#No_to_an_economy_of_exclusion

 

[blackforest]

You never answered my questions, by the way.

Do you think any wealthy person has ever done this [gone against Church teaching to become wealthy]? Or does it never happen?

 

[Augustinian]

A workman’s wages should be sufficient to enable him to support himself, his wife and his children.

That’s well and fine, but the question this provokes is support to what degree?

I’m 61 and grew up without home air conditioning, or color TV. A lot of things we have today weren’t even invented- and we got along fine.

OTOH, I saw a you tube of a 15 year old girl complaining that her mum was reducing her $2500 a month allowance and the girl was outraged that mom would even suggest that she be given such a lowly car like a Mercedes C class to drive to school.

America has higher standards than most countries because we did so well with capitalism.

 

[redbetta]

While I agree with your premise, those girls are hardly the average American teenager.

 

[blackforest]

Point well taken, but the consumer goods that you mention cost a LOT more back in the day than they do in today’s globalized, mass market economy. TV Set Prices

Back in 1967, that color T.V. you may have wanted easily could have cost over $1000, once you plug those numbers into an inflation calculator like this one. http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/

There’s an interesting, albeit dated, article about why T.V.s are so cheap these days. Why Are TVs So Cheap? - The Atlantic

But a lot of prices have decreased, including on those A.C. unites. This has come at a massive price - such as mass production contributing to global warming and human rights violations in countries with poorer labor standards. These are factors that fly in the face of Church teaching.

Capitalism, (if we even have that today; it’s quite debatable), can exist without corruption and exploitation.

 

[Augustinian]

human rights violations in countries with poorer labor standards.

Lower consumer prices aren’t the result of labor standard violations, but because of mechanical engineering innovations in the production. In the steel industry, it was Frick and Carnegie’s adoption and refinement of the Bessemer process as well as other adaptations.

The myth was that these “robber barons” got rich by working their employees like dogs.

Not true- although they may have been abusive to employees, everyone else was too, even those who didn’t become successful. The key to success was in the process not in cracking the whip.

 

[blackforest]

Labor costs are the key reason for outsourcing jobs abroad. Do you believe that all laborers are treated justly, here and abroad? Do you believe that any of their human rights are ever violated? Do employers ever get greedy enough to cut corners and exploit their laborers?

 

[Pup7]

Labor costs are the key reason for outsourcing jobs abroad.

Yet it hasn’t stopped foreign companies from coming to the US and doing quite well, so that argument just gets flimsier in my opinion. BMW, Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Kia, Hyundai…they’re all here, and they’re flourishing, as are the areas they’ve built in.

Meanwhile, in Detroit, the chaos left in the wake of the departure of the Big Three is mind boggling.

And they’re here paying the “high labor costs”. Why is that?

 

[blackforest]

It’s an interesting question to which I do not have an answers. Regardless, labor costs are the key reason for outsourcing jobs abroad. Look up “why companies outsource.” Most sources will tell you it’s for the low wages.