What is more Christian -socialism or Capitalism?

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Alex337 said:
When I was in London I caught a serious, serious case of bronchitis and pneumonia. Without the NHS I may well have died. Just like Aus’ health system it’s great. It’s also been instrumental in helping many of my friends in the UK who can’t afford private heath care.
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I’m happy you received the care you needed. But the NHS is not great. Any institution that provides “free” abortions is immoral. It would be better for all of us if the health system was backed by a form of national insurance. The free market would improve standards.
 
Saxum said:
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Alex337:
When I was in London I caught a serious, serious case of bronchitis and pneumonia. Without the NHS I may well have died. Just like Aus’ health system it’s great. It’s also been instrumental in helping many of my friends in the UK who can’t afford private heath care.
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I’m happy you received the care you needed. But the NHS is not great. Any institution that provides “free” abortions is immoral. It would be better for all of us if the health system was backed by a form of national insurance. The free market would improve standards.
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Respectfully a free market tends to leave the poor with no heath care. Or heath care so expensive that it destroys them. Two of the people I know in the UK are disabled, they struggle to have jobs due to this, and without the NHS they would not be able to afford the heath care they need.
 
It is a relatively similar system in Australia.
Personally I also don’t think the Australian public system is good and I avoid it whenever possible.
Relatively speaking,it is of course better than third world countries hospitals particularly due to the equipment but regarding staff themselves though,while there can sometimes be some very good staff,generally there’s a big difference in the mentality between private health staff vs public health system staff.
Ie:private health staff will often talk to patients with respect,dignity,great with smile etc because they know the patients are customers and they value their business but I’ve noticed public health staff can often be unpleasant or sometimes even outright rude or aggressive because there is a mentality of they need us,we don’t need them (patients) and there is a reluctancy to improve internal cultures or have goals of excellence and customer service.
That’s one of the draw backs of such a system.

Regarding welfare,it’s a tough area to solve because on one hand you have the types of mentalities that you mentioned,but then on the other hand there are many genuine people who are recipients of welfare too.

The issues you mentioned about the NHS paying for abortions etc seems to me less due to being semi socialist but more due to the medical profession being very “liberal”?
Ie:it is doctors and their associations that are usually pro abortion,pro teen birth control,pro transgender assignment operations ect and they wield political power.
 
Do you know any rich people? When I say “rich,” I mean people who make millions or at least close to it. I’m not talking about the thrifty people who manage to give half their income to charity even though they only make twenty thousand a year (I wish I could be like that!)

The free clinics in our city are largely funded by rich people. Many of the buildings used for the arts and recreation were built by rich people. Two of the hospitals were built by rich people, and all three hospitals have large community funds funded by rich people. The Rescue Mission and many other charitable outreaches in our city are funded by rich people–in fact, I would say that most of the charitable events in our city receive major donations (over half of the monies received) from the wealthy. The private schools, secular and religious, were build and continue to be funded mainly by rich people, as are many of the colleges in the U.S. ALL of the churches were built by rich people. And it goes on.

Yes, many regular people and even poor people chip in our “widow’s mites” and our $100 checks ($100 is a sacrifice for regular people, and for many regular folks, $20 is a sacrifice).

But it’s the rich people that make life fuller for all the rest of us.

For a building campaign in our parish, five families each gave a million dollars each, and many of the rich families are giving extremely large amounts. I know all of these rich families, and they are not as you describe.

One of my relatives was quite well off due to a lifetime of very hard work and taking on more than one job, and also investments in real estate. This relative was extremely generous and helped lots of people who were in trouble financially by giving them housing for an extremely cheap rent and helping them keep their dignity by asking them to mow the lawn or clean the apartment regularly in exchange for the cheaper rent.

Please don’t judge people so harshly. I know that there are rich people who appear to live frivolously or sinfully, but many don’t. And even those who do spend a lot of money on something you consider frivolous also give a lot of money to worthy causes.

If you were thinking about President Trump when you posted, I can tell you from personal knowledge that he has given a great deal of money to worthy causes.
 
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Christianity is non-ideological. The test solely whether a nations policies create a just result using just means.

Strict application of either capitalist or socialist theories is guaranteed to produce unjust results. Each system is incomplete, and must be modified based on local and national needs. Both are only models of human behavior, which will vary considerably based on cultural and economic situations.
 
Then the problem isn’t the Healthcare System itself, but its pro-abortion and pro-contraception politics, things that can be changed while still maintaining Public Healthcare.
Here in Argentina we are battling against a Law for abortion, but prior to that Public Healthcare has been useful to many people (logistically it’s a disaster but even with hospitals in ruins the poor people are being treated).
 
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Both systems are inherently unjust. They must be modified significantly in order to even give the appearance of justice.
 
Socialism denies the right to private property and its entailing freedom and promotes a class struggle. Free market capitalism creates a Darwinian “survival of the fittest” economy where the strong dominate the weak and property ends up consolidated in the hands of the few who oppress the many. Ultimately, it therefore has the same problems as socialism.

The Church teaches man to be both an individual and a member of a society. It also teaches that public authority exists to serve the common good of society and therefore its purpose is to order and direct society’s activities toward the common good. As a result, Catholic social doctrine promotes the right to private property–which helps ensure that man can freely fulfill his rights and duties–and generally free economic activity subject to public authority who must ensure such activity is ordered to the common good.

The Church has produced volumes and volumes of material on its social doctrine, which is is all good of course, but IMO, the most relevant one to the specific question in the OP is Quadragesimo Anno of Pius XI;

http://w2.vatican.va/content/pius-x...s/hf_p-xi_enc_19310515_quadragesimo-anno.html
 
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Sadly, most Catholics are not aware of the Churches social teaching about Distributism
 
AlbMagno said:
Then the problem isn’t the Healthcare System itself, but its pro-abortion and pro-contraception politics, things that can be changed while still maintaining Public Healthcare.
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I agree. But I still oppose public healthcare because it always involves some kind of rationing. This means that deserving people are denied access to healthcare when they need it or are forced to wait a long time. When you pay for healthcare yourself, you receive the best possible service.

In any public healthcare system, the government will make decisions about how your money is spent. I resent having to pay tax funds to provide abortions to promiscuous teenagers, gender reassignments to confused men, and methodone for heroin addicts.

Anybody who thinks healthcare is great should read about the poor baby, Charlie Gard. The government of the UK even refused to allow the Pope to provide healthcare for this child. Disgraceful.
 
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Thanks for your reply peeps,

I’d really like to clarify that I’m definitely not suggesting that all rich people are like how I mentioned or wanting to come from a place of judgement and sorry if I gave that impression.
The context of my answer was in reply to a post mentioning the taxation “system” robbing people of their money.
While there are many good wealthy people who believe the haves have a responsibility to help the have nots,it is also a reality that there are many other wealthy people who have a “worldly” mindset of self -focused living/lavishness which is the reason why a tax system is probably necessary.

That is not to be in judgment of anyone but just coming from a level headed perspective.
 
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Socialism has been condemned by the Church. I don’t know about capitalism…
 
SebastianMary said:
I don’t know about capitalism…
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The Church condemns crony capitalism because it concentrates all of the property and wealth into the hands of a small group; it condemns socialism because it concentrates all of the property and wealth into the hands of a small group. The Church teaches that everybody should own property and have wealth. The wealth and the property should be distributed to everybody in society; this is why the teaching often gets called ‘distributism.’ In my interpretation, it means that the Church wants us all to become capitalists who own businesses and houses.

I should add that it isn’t the job of the state to distribute wealth using force and coercion. The state should encourage everybody to work hard, save their money, and invest in their own property. The state should be friendly towards small business owners.
 
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One system has done more to lift more people out of poverty than any other economic system in the world.

The other has repeatedly destroyed wealth creation and led to people starving (see Venezuela as a recent example).
 
JanSobieskiIII said:
The other has repeatedly destroyed wealth creation and led to people starving (see Venezuela as a recent example).
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Exactly. Socialism robs money from those who create it and encourages laziness among the masses. It grants enormous power to the government because the citizens begin depending on it for their daily bread. And the government can take away your bread if you say or do anything that is against their version of political correctness. Socialism is a disgusting system that creates slaves.

Capitalism rewards hard work and creativity. It encourages people to take responsibility for their lives. It keeps the government small and out of our lives. Capitalism = preferential option for the poor.
 
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I recommend everybody to read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. The philosophy is bull crap but she does a good job in describing what happens when socialist looters take control of society. It shows what happens when men like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk are punished and made to feel guilty for creating wealth.
 
The “lift” capitalism has done is debatable, as for any achievement it has done with enterprises or increases in GDP, it has also sunk entire countries in crisis through tax-free importations and IMF politics.

And I’m not saying communism hasn’t done equal evil, the difference is that it has done it more directly, with a Dictator and a state, while in capitalism all you have are institutions and corrupt/fraudulent corporations, much more abstract
 
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