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damian_clarke
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Sorry but why do you keep posting in bold font?What!??? where, what document!!??
Just asking but it comes across like you are shouting.
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Just asking but it comes across like you are shouting.
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David_Castlen
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What did you say??? I can’t hear you!!!
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damian_clarke
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Ok that is quite funny.
Sense of humor is obviously intact.
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Abu
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Some dawning here that there are differences, that’s why the Welfare State is condemned.
BTW, social doctrine develops, so try following Bl John Paul II in *Centesimus Annus *and Pope Benedict XVI, and avoid misrepresenting the words in an Encyclical (post #278).
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Abu
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As the Welfare State has helped Europe to its present meltdown, many Governments have slashed its idiocies – Sweden is an example of what has happened.
In the U.S., before being completely revamped in 1996, the “welfare system was successful at nothing except maintaining poverty.” (Rick Santorum, It Takes A Family, ISI Books, 2005, p 127).
In the 1970s to hasten Sweden’s long march towards the Social Democratic nirvana, involved expanding welfare programs, nationalizing many industries, expanding and deepening regulation, and – of course – increasing taxation to punitive levels to pay for it all.
Over the next twenty years, the Swedish dream turned decidedly nightmarish. The Swedish parliamentarian Johnny Munkhammar points out that “In 1970, Sweden had the world’s fourth-highest GDP per capita. By 1990, it had fallen 13 positions. In those 20 years, real wages in Sweden increased by only one percentage point.” So much for helping “the workers.”
Facing severe economic stagnation, Sweden began implementing several rather un-social democratic measures in the early 1990s. This included curtaining its public sector deficit and reducing marginal tax-rates and levels of state ownership. Another change involved allowing private retirement schemes, a development that was accompanied by the state contributing less to pensions.
Over the next 15 years the economy did improve although unemployment is high especially among the 15-25 year olds largely due to the level of the union-imposed minimum wage.
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Abu
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Correct, and greed is a human vice which is precisely why Pope Benedict XVI teaches for you: “Society does not have to protect itself from the market, as if the development of the latter were ipso facto to entail the death of authentically human relations…Therefore it is not the instrument that must be called to account, but individuals, their moral conscience and their personal and social responsibility.” (Caritas in Veritate, 2009, #36).
Free enterprise is the only economic set of principles in accord with the natural law based on cause and effect.
I don’t have that information, David, please advise.
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essie7777
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Nothing like distilling a global economic crisis created and started by US greed and lack of regulation (because obviously you can not infringe on US “freedom”) down to the fact its the welfare state that’s creating the European meltdown!
Seriously are you truly that naive that you don’t think there are numerous reasons for economic strife???
You do realize that your comments are AGAINST the social teaching of the Catholic Church??? The Church agrees and advocates minimum wage for example – your “views” claim this is responsible for unemployment.Your agenda is clearly political not Catholic – you just want to manipulate Catholic teachings to justify your political point of view — the standard US perspective that everyone should do by themselves whether they need help from the state or not --you argue against a minimum wage, against a social system that protects the weak and infirm, you argue against taxes but i’m sure if you found yourself with no living wage, more than one job, children who were sick but no healthcare --i’m sure you’d want a different political world then!!!
Please don’t hijack Catholic beliefs and use them to further your agenda, by misquoting and manipulating. Be honest.
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damian_clarke
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The HOly FAther does not condem the welfare state. Rerum is a ringing endorsement of the welfare system. The welfare state with opportunity for private endeavor is the true reflection of catholic teaching and belief.
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essie7777
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Abu
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The “views” you ridicule are contained in the teaching of Pius XI who recognised that unemployment may be the result of wages that do not understand the state of a business or the common good.
CCC 2434 …."Remuneration for work should guarantee man the opportunity to provide a dignified livelihood for himself and his family on the material, social, cultural and spiritual level, taking into account the role and the productivity of each, the state of the business, and the common good."222 Agreement between the parties is not sufficient to justify morally the amount to be received in wages.
Thus it is incredibly foolish to ignore the practical results following from the wise consideration of “the state of the business, and the common good.”
Pope Pius XI affirms this in Quadragesimo Anno, 1931, #71: “Every effort must therefore be made that fathers of families receive a wage large enough to meet ordinary family needs adequately. But if this cannot always be done under existing circumstances, social justice demands that changes be introduced as soon as possible whereby such a wage will be assured to every adult workingman.”
But further: QA72. “In determining the amount of the wage, the condition of a business and of the one carrying it on must also be taken into account; for it would be unjust to demand excessive wages which a business cannot stand without its ruin and consequent calamity to the workers.”
Thus practical real-world restrictions are recognised and allowed for.
Again Pius XI also recognises the harm that can be done in a dictate to higher wages:
74. “But another point, scarcely less important, and especially vital in our times, must not be overlooked: namely, that the opportunity to work be provided to those who are able and willing to work. This opportunity depends largely on the wage and salary rate, which can help as long as it is kept within proper limits, but which on the other hand can be an obstacle if it exceeds these limits. For everyone knows that an excessive lowering of wages, or their increase beyond due measure, causes unemployment. This evil, indeed, especially as we see it prolonged and injuring so many during the years of Our Pontificate, has plunged workers into misery and temptations, ruined the prosperity of nations, and put in jeopardy the public order, peace, and tranquillity of the whole world. Hence it is contrary to social justice when, for the sake of personal gain and without regard for the common good, wages and salaries are excessively lowered or raised; and this same social justice demands that wages and salaries be so managed, through agreement of plans and wills, in so far as can be done, as to offer to the greatest possible number the opportunity of getting work and obtaining suitable means of livelihood.”
That is precisely why the Catholic Late Scholastics favoured leaving wage determination to the ‘common estimation’ of the market, since any other method is inherently arbitrary and leads to endless complications.
[cf. *Christians For Freedom, Chafuen, Ignatius, 1986, p 120 et seq.].
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Abu
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All we get are repetitious impulsive prejudices without any foundation.
The condemnation of the Welfare State is quite clear in Centesimus Annus, see post # 290 and it is only those who don’t know that Catholic social teaching has developed, don’t know of the evils of the Welfare State, and don’t know what Bl JP II has taught, that are mired in such monumental blunders.
The State is expected to assist the Church and society with subsidiarity and the common good the central factors, and further, in #48 of Centesimus Annus, Bl John Paul II makes sure to qualify that while the State can also exercise a substitute function in social sectors or business systems, “Such supplementary interventions, which are justified by urgent reasons touching the common good, must be as brief as possible, so as to avoid removing permanently from society and business systems the functions which are properly theirs, and so as to avoid enlarging excessively the sphere of State intervention to the detriment of both economic and civil freedom.”
It is that refusal to see that the nanny State degrades and turns individuals into serfs, as pointed out so eloquently by Per Byland.
How the Welfare State Corrupted Sweden, Per Byland, May 31, 2006
(Per Bylund works as a business consultant in Sweden, in preparation for PhD studies).
"My grandmother, born in 1920, was of the last generation to have that special personal pride, of having a firm and deeply rooted morality, of being a sovereign in life no matter what — to be the sole master of one’s fate. The people of her generation experienced and endured one or two world wars (though Sweden never took part) and were raised by poor Swedish farmers and industrial workers. They witnessed and were the driving force behind the Swedish “wonder.”
"Their morality assured they could survive any condition. If they found themselves not being able to live off their wages, they would only work harder and longer. They were the architects and construction workers in building their own lives, even though it often meant hard work and enduring seemingly hopeless situations.
"Decent morality is long gone. It was completely destroyed in little more than two generations — through public welfare benefits and the concept of welfare rights.
"From the perspective of a bystander (as I consider myself) this madness all makes sense — teaching people they do not need to worry about the consequences of their actions makes willingly dependent subjects. The welfare state has created the egotistical monsters it claims to save us from — through handing out privileges and benefits to everybody at “nobody’s” expense.
"The social engineers of the welfare state obviously never considered a possible change in morality and perception — they simply wanted a system guaranteeing security for everybody; a system where the able could and should work to support themselves, but where the unable too could live dignified lives. Who would have thought the progressive reforms to secure workers’ rights and prosperity for all in the early 20th century would backfire philosophically and morally?
"It can’t work.
This new morality is the obvious opposite of that of my grandparents’ generation. It is a morality claiming independence can only be achieved through handing over responsibility to others, and that freedom can only be attained through enslaving others (and oneself). The result of this degenerated morality on a social or societal level is a disaster economically, socially, psychologically, and philosophically.
"But this is also a personal tragedy for many thousands of Swedes. People seem unable to enjoy life without responsibility for one’s actions and choices, and it is impossible to feel pride and independence without having the means to control one’s life. The welfare state has created a dependent people utterly incapable of finding value in life; instead, they find themselves incapable of typical human feelings such as pride, honor, and empathy. These feelings, along with the means to create meaning to life, have been taken over by the welfare state.
“Perhaps this explains why such a large part of the young population now consumes antidepressant medication, without which they are unable to function normally in social situations. And presumably it explains why the number of suicides among very young people who never really knew their parents is increasing dramatically (the total number of suicides remaining about the same). Still people are totally unable to see the problem or find a solution. Like spoiled children, they call for “help” through the state.”
mises.org/daily/2190
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chevalier
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The problem is not really with a modern capitalism that has safeguards to protect the less economically powerful. The problem is with the kind of capitalism that believes that, essentially, (economic) might gives right.
Just because no physical force is used, or even threat, doesn’t mean it’s okay to pay below subsistence wages to unemployed people who have nowhere else to go. Neither is it okay to force unfair conditions on buyers, sellers, suppliers, basically anybody in the chain, or unfairly exploit their dire situation.
Many people today don’t get the concept of “fair” or “unfair”. They believe that as long as the market allows it and the law does, it’s perfectly okay. Businesses nowadays are looking at “reputational risks” and all sorts of “compliance” issues, as opposed to “ethics” or “obeying the law”. (And as a lawyer I can tell you that people aren’t always really interested in acting legally. Rather in pulling it off and not answering for it.)
These are some problems with capitalism that truly are problems with people rather than the system. But we need to have good laws and other safeguards to protect people from other people.
We can have free market. But we need legal and other safeguards. Without them the market won’t even remain free actually (once conquered by anybody, it is no longer free, there is dictate of the victors).
A lot of the problem with political, social and economic systems seems to me to come down to who we side with. Do we side with the landowners? Military? Farmers? Wage workers in the industry? Factory owners? Merchants? We’ve probably been through all of it and while some bias isn’t probably necessarily immoral (I believe) and may be within the state’s or the people’s authority to choose, but it’s not like it’s Catholic to favour the employer over the employee or the other way round (or wheat farmer or dairy farmer or the merchant or the factory owner), more like be fair to everybody and stick with the guy who has the point.
Just because no physical force is used, or even threat, doesn’t mean it’s okay to pay below subsistence wages to unemployed people who have nowhere else to go. Neither is it okay to force unfair conditions on buyers, sellers, suppliers, basically anybody in the chain, or unfairly exploit their dire situation.
Many people today don’t get the concept of “fair” or “unfair”. They believe that as long as the market allows it and the law does, it’s perfectly okay. Businesses nowadays are looking at “reputational risks” and all sorts of “compliance” issues, as opposed to “ethics” or “obeying the law”. (And as a lawyer I can tell you that people aren’t always really interested in acting legally. Rather in pulling it off and not answering for it.)
These are some problems with capitalism that truly are problems with people rather than the system. But we need to have good laws and other safeguards to protect people from other people.
We can have free market. But we need legal and other safeguards. Without them the market won’t even remain free actually (once conquered by anybody, it is no longer free, there is dictate of the victors).
A lot of the problem with political, social and economic systems seems to me to come down to who we side with. Do we side with the landowners? Military? Farmers? Wage workers in the industry? Factory owners? Merchants? We’ve probably been through all of it and while some bias isn’t probably necessarily immoral (I believe) and may be within the state’s or the people’s authority to choose, but it’s not like it’s Catholic to favour the employer over the employee or the other way round (or wheat farmer or dairy farmer or the merchant or the factory owner), more like be fair to everybody and stick with the guy who has the point.
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Abu
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That’s what the State is there for – just laws as we have stated over and over, not for finagling.
That’s called prejudice, and what is required is a careful understanding of economics and the Church’s social teaching and the wise, prudent, just and temperate application of these principles with fortitude.
BTW an enterprise is a cooperation of employees, managers and investors for supplying goods and services that a people require at a price they are willing to pay. Not enough understand that.
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essie7777
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It is always interesting to read posts where commentators try desperately to force Catholic Teaching into their political point of view.
I’d challenge that unfortunately you don’t seem to have any true understanding of complex macro economics and certainly can’t explain or define free enterprise correctly.
Please stop hijacking sound moral Catholic beliefs to try and further your personal political agenda. This is not the right forum for that type of post.
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essie7777
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Actually the opinions i disagree with are your thinly veiled attempts to promote a political point of view by manipulating Church Teachings for your own agenda.
:banghead: Your own comment and quotes advocate a minimum wage, as well as a structure from which to ensure all parties cooperate. Strangely this is in direct opposition to your previous comment i was responding to as well as the one that followed this.
Really you are going to try and “abuse” what the Church leaders have written and take the view point that advocacy against greed equates to not wanting minimum wagesAgain taken from your comment to just prove you are maligning the intent and belief of Church leaders and teachings by trying to change what they were saying in totality … your own quote above clearly emphasizes AGAIN, that the Church is against greed and abuse of power not minimum wages or unions etc.
, Chafuen, Ignatius, 1986, p 120 et seq.].
Actually this is blatantly false.
To be clear the Catholic Late Scholastics are a group of Catholic theologians, often Spanish, of the 16th and 17th centuries. They don’t favor leaving wages down to "common estimation’ of the market rather they simply state it should be amount agreed upon by all parties.
Please don’t immediately assume i don’t know what i’m talking about feel free to look up any of the framed Catholic Late Scholastics that you are so quick to point to with a quote not from their works themselves, but rather someone who is simply “collating” their views and clearly can not write everything they wrote in a short summary book.
I’d recommend starting with St. Thomas Aquinas and then move the more distinguished writes and theologians: Martín de Azpilcueta (1492–1586), Luis de Molina (1535–1600), Domingo de Soto (1494–1570).
As i have shown here the Church is very clear on this, so please stop trying to manipulate it to advance a particular political point of view. This is not an appropriate forum for you to try and foist your political point of view on us.
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Abu
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Continued denigration of Bl JPII with no facts. His definition is what is at stake:
‘If by “capitalism” is meant an economic system which recognizes the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property and the resulting responsibility for the means of production, as well as free human creativity in the economic sector, then the answer is certainly in the affirmative, even though it would perhaps be more appropriate to speak of a “business economy”, “market economy” or simply “free economy”.’
Since here capitalism = free economy, and reaffirmed by Bl John Paul II is the ‘fundamental human “right to freedom of economic initiative.” ’ (*Sollicitudo Rei Socialis *(On Human Concerns), Encyclical, 1987, #42), and initiative = enterprise, it is clear what the pope means.
The very term “capitalism” is a derogatory term coined by Karl Marx, and that’s perhaps why Bl John Paul II dislikes it, as he makes clear as he emphatically affirms free enterprise in Centesimus Annus.
The free economy is a set of principles developed by the Catholic Late Scholastics which may be easily followed.
Dr William Luckey tackles the confusion: “Pope John Paul II’s…reservations are not about the free market but the social context in which that market, or, quite frankly, anything else, operates. Everything in society functions in an environment of ethical/religious, political/juridical and economic reality. For the free market to work, there needs to be a moral society, backed up by revealed religion, and a system of just law, respected by the people and enforced justly by the courts. Economists have created a whole body of literature on the effect of institutions on economic life. If there is a problem with how the market operates, the first place to look is the society and the government. Obviously Pope John Paul II realized this. Now if only other Catholics would be as informed.”
BTW, Dr Luckey is Professor of Political Science and Economics at Christendom College and has expertise in Political Philosophy, Business and Economics, and Theology. He is an Adjunct Scholar of the Mises Institute and of the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty. Dr. Luckey is also on the advisory board of the Center for Economic Personalism, and is on the Board of Scholars of the Virginia Institute for Public Policy Studies.
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essie7777
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Absolutely YOU NEED to stop this immediately.
As you have failed to answer any of the comments that i used to prove this – i take that to be tacit agreement that you were mistaken, in charity i presume it was intentionally manipulative rather you were over eager.
I never gave an interpretation of capitalism.
HOWEVER only someone with little or NO understanding of macro economics would list three unique terms of economic structure (and one duplicate) and then suggest they are all the same
Rather than make sweeping statements that are intellectually, morally and socially incorrect as i stated in my previous comment please read and learn in depth what you are discussing.
I am sure you have heard the phrase “a little knowledge is dangerous”? This unfortunately describes your posts.
Quoting one or two words phrases from a Pope’s Encyclical does not make your radical point of view factual, as you demostrate below:
Again, i would suggest that you actually learn something about macro economics before making such an easily refutable sweeping statement.
There is really no point continuing to engage as when i prove and demonstrate what your are saying id false and manipulative, you ignore it and the deflect. As Catholics this is not moral behavior.We stand for truth. Unfortunately as myself and other posters have continued to point out to you directly — you stand for a political point of view which you are trying to force Catholic teachings to justify.
On a Final note i will leave you with the words of John Paul II from September 27, 1998. When recalling the day’s liturgical celebration of St. Vincent de Paul, he drew our attention to “one of the great challenges which confronts our conscience, the truly intolerable contrast between that portion of mankind which enjoys every advantage of economic well-being and scientific progress and the enormous masses of those who live in conditions of extreme need.”
The Holy Father added that, “in the strident contrast between the indifferent rich and the poor who need everything, God is on the side of the latter. It is not licit to resign ourselves to the immoral spectacle of a world in which there are still those who die of hunger, who do not have a home, who lack even the most basic education, who do not have the necessary help when they are ill, who cannot find work.”
If this doesn’t finally provide you with enough evidence that Catholic Teachings are not to let people decide themselves what they should earn, allow employers to say they can only pay pverty level wages with no protection … there really is no hope.
You will be in my prayers and i sincerely hope that you will find the truth and live a Catholic life based on the true teachings and intent of the Church and stop manipulating words for political gain.
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Abu
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No one has claimed that the Church is NOT against greed – it has been a common emphasis as a vice, nor against unions per se, so these are more red herrings.
Advocating a minimum wage set by a government was not advocated by the Late Scholastics: a minimum wage sufficient to maintain the labourer and his family has never been proposed in the belief that set above the common estimation level it would cause unemployment. (Chafuen, p 130-131).
In fact the question of a just wage has been discussed in On wage fixing, by Fr Brian Harrison, O.S., in *Religious Liberty And Contraception *(John XXXIII Fellowship Co-op (Australia), 1988, p 22-23), concerning “the practical order: human rights and duties.
“But for a certain norm of action to be a matter of doctrine, it would clearly have to be proposed as a universally binding norm – one which is of certain validity always and everywhere. Thus, we could not elevate to the status of doctrine a norm which is proposed provisionally, and as a subject to possible future correction after future consideration; nor one which is a particular ad hoc decision applying to given circumstances which might turn out to be transitory; nor, finally, one which is a concrete directive designed to give practical force to a doctrine which is in itself too broad or general to have much effect without such further application or specification. (An obvious example of such a doctrine would be the teaching – both natural and revealed – that a labourer deserves a just wage.)”
Everything outside of faith and morals is meant to be learned and developed by non-Magisterial Catholics (and others) in the world of living and acting using reason, without exercising "religious authority”.
catholicity.com/commentary/johansen/00051.html
The Minimum Wage and Catholic Social Teaching
by Rev. Robert Johansen - April 3, 2007
Extracts:
'Aquinas wrote in the Summa Theologica, “Human law cannot prohibit everything that is contrary to virtue” (II-II, q. 77, a. 1). By extension, then, it follows that the state cannot, by law, mandate all things virtuous. And so the Church, in advocating the establishment of just wages, acknowledges that “primary responsibility in this area belongs not to the State but to individuals and to the various groups and associations which make up society.” ’ (CA 48).
‘But because of the potential for creating unemployment, extreme care must be exercised in evaluating the occasional calls for increasing the minimum wage.’
Since employees differ from single to married with several children, Catholic thought has proposed that family allowances be made by the State according to family size out of tax revenue – a worthy development.
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Abu
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That’s why the revered Fr James V Schall, S.J., in *Does The Catholic Church Still Exist?, *Alba House 1994, points out re CA that “The very meaning of ‘options for the poor’ need no longer be ideological in overtones but directed instead to the very real possibilities for a poor people to overcome their own problems with the intelligent aid of those who know how to produce wealth in the first place.’ (p 178).
As Fr James Schall, S.J., points out this is how poverty in the world is alleviated:
“Since the Church wants poverty confronted, since She wants this confrontation to be done justly and with the interest and cooperation of the workers and the poor, She has had to acknowledge, as did the socialist systems themselves, that there are certain ways that must be employed if mankind is to meet its economic problems. These ways can be known and imitated, but they must include a juridical system, profit, enterprise, knowledge, exchange, a market, voluntary organisations, a relatively independent economy, private property, and respect for work and excellence.” (Fr James V Schall, S.J., in *Does Catholicism Still Exist?, *Alba House 1994, p 184-185).
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