Which is better for society: Capitalism or Communism?

[CWBetts]

Lack of government oversigt? People took out bigger loans than they could reasonably afford to pay back and with risk beyond what they could endure. Then when they can not fulfil the contrat they agreed to, they call it predatory lending? I could almost grant that there are some people out there who are incompetant as it relates to such basic daily decisions such as a mortgage, but such people need to have caretakers look after them. The rest of us do not need a nanny state making day to day decisions for us.

Yes, lack of goverment oversight. ARMs should be against the law. Lenders share some of the burden here. In many casesm the terms of the loan were not explained in common language, and these borrowers, who were not fully aware of what the legalese menat were left holding the bag. In fulfilling its obligation to “promote general welfare” the Government would have been well within its rights to restrict these lenders from taking advantage of the American People. But of course you disagree. That goes aginst the capitalist policy of “Do whatever it takes to make a profit in the short term; if people get put on the streets, so be it. Its not our problem anymore.”

 

[CWBetts]

I did do factory work although I was not working on the heavy machinery. As far as dismembermentd, If kids had jobs after school insted of going trying to pull crazy stunts on bikes and skate boards they would be much safer.

You are completely ignorant of the conditions people wrked under during the Gilded Age. If you weren’t you would see the need for government regulation of industry. Industry, if left to itself, abuses the workforce in the name of higher profit.

 

[CWBetts]

You are a full fledged leftist. What you call predatory lending, I call lack of personal responsibility of borrowers coupled with government coercion forcing these loans to be made to poor people.

Banks were responsible at one point. They refused to give mortgages to people who lived in high risk zip codes. This is what responsible businesses do - avoid inappropriate risks. Then Janet Reno threatened court action, so that the Dems social justice tyranny could be enforced.

That’s a new one. I will have to tell the local branch of the SDS. According to them I am a radical conservvative. In truth, am a moderate.

 

[royal_archer]

Yes, lack of goverment oversight. ARMs should be against the law. Lenders share some of the burden here. In many casesm the terms of the loan were not explained in common language, and these borrowers, who were not fully aware of what the legalese menat were left holding the bag. In fulfilling its obligation to “promote general welfare” the Government would have been well within its rights to restrict these lenders from taking advantage of the American People. But of course you disagree. That goes aginst the capitalist policy of “Do whatever it takes to make a profit in the short term; if people get put on the streets, so be it. Its not our problem anymore.”

I had an ARM it was very helpfull when we bought a house to live in while we were preparing to build our dream home. Because it was an ARM we got a great rate. Are you really saying that because some people are not smart enough to understand legalese, I should not have a right to make such an arrangement with my bank? By the way there are people who are very good at understanding legalese, they are called lawyers. I used a lawyer when I bought my first house and the lot where we intended to build our dream house.

The government has a role to protect people from being deceived. If someone was unlawfully taken advantage of; the court systems are there to provide for redress. Instead of trying to take rights from the the population at large you should consider how to get these people get the help they need.

 

[royal_archer]

You are completely ignorant of the conditions people wrked under during the Gilded Age. If you weren’t you would see the need for government regulation of industry. Industry, if left to itself, abuses the workforce in the name of higher profit.

Yep, there aren’t to many old enough to remember that bygone era. However in Communist China children are forced to labor in pitiful conditions. Power corrupts moving power to the government just increases the tendancy for corruption in the government.

 

[CWBetts]

Yep, there aren’t to many old enough to remember that bygone era. However in Communist China children are forced to labor in pitiful conditions. Power corrupts moving power to the government just increases the tendancy for corruption in the government.

You right-wing radicals have to stop using China and the Soviet Union as examples of Communism, because, strictly speaking, they aren’t. They might call themselves Communist or Socialist, but that does not make it so. Anyone who has even the slightest understanding of Marxist thoery would agree. In a Marxist system, the Means of Production is controlled by the Proletariat. In the Soviet/Maoist model, the Means of Production is not controlled by the Proletariat, but by the State. Factory managers are replaced with govenment officials, but the plight of the worker is unchanged. So you see, the Soviet model isn’t Marxist Communism at all, but state-controlled capitalism. What I am calling for is regulations to protect the consumer and the working class from corporate corruption, wheras you seem to prefer a system built upon opression of the masses by the few that have capital. Unregulated capitalism has but a single end result: Proletarian revolt. If anything, our labor laws and federal welfare programs have helped prevent socialist uprisings because of safeguards put in place to protect the worker from abuse. I am by no means a Marxist, but I know enough about Marxist thought to expain why I am not. Extreme Marxism is atheistic. Extreme Capitalism is idolatrous. There is room for Christianity in the middle.

 

[royal_archer]

You right-wing radicals have to stop using China and the Soviet Union as examples of Communism, because, strictly speaking, they aren’t. They might call themselves Communist or Socialist, but that does not make it so. Anyone who has even the slightest understanding of Marxist thoery would agree. In a Marxist system, the Means of Production is controlled by the Proletariat. In the Soviet/Maoist model, the Means of Production is not controlled by the Proletariat, but by the State. Factory managers are replaced with govenment officials, but the plight of the worker is unchanged. So you see, the Soviet model isn’t Marxist Communism at all, but state-controlled capitalism. What I am calling for is regulations to protect the consumer and the working class from corporate corruption, wheras you seem to prefer a system built upon opression of the masses by the few that have capital. Unregulated capitalism has but a single end result: Proletarian revolt. If anything, our labor laws and federal welfare programs have helped prevent socialist uprisings because of safeguards put in place to protect the worker from abuse. I am by no means a Marxist, but I know enough about Marxist thought to expain why I am not. Extreme Marxism is atheistic. Extreme Capitalism is idolatrous. There is room for Christianity in the middle.

Those comparisons are more relevant than comparing capitalism today to buisness practices in the post feudal era.

I do not subscribe to the theory that you have to take from the productive and give to the lazy other wise they will revolt.

 

[CWBetts]

Those comparisons are more relevant than comparing capitalism today to buisness practices in the post feudal era.

I do not subscribe to the theory that you have to take from the productive and give to the lazy other wise they will revolt.

The Gilded Age is not “the post feudal era.” The Gilded Age ran from the end of Reconstruction to the beginning of the Progressive Era. (1877-1912) This is VERY recent history. Perhaps you should actually learn some recent American or European history, you will be better able to make informed decisions.

Since when is the working class “lazy”? It is the working class that makes the wealthy their money. It is the working class who are productive. Exactly how productive are the Paris Hiltons of the world? If you feel that it should be the productive who deserve wealth, then you are in line with Marxist thought: it should be the workers who own the means of production. You sound like one who was born into money and has never had to work a day in their life. If I am incorrect, then that means you have failed to learn from life experiences.

Lastly, the working class will revolt. It happened in both Europe and the United States. Look into the Pullman Strike and the Haymarket Square Strike. This is an example of workmen who have had enough. Even as recent as 1968, there was a general strike in France, where more than 1,000,000 laborers refused to work.Prelude to Revolutionby Daniel Singer is a history of the events of May 1968 in France. And then there was the violence in the United States that led to the recognition of labor unions in the US. Just about any college-level histroy book should be sufficent.

 

[mpi]

Centesimus annus

vatican.va/edocs/ENG0214/_INDEX.HTM

This is a great encyclical. It is a wonderful rebuke of socialism and the welfare state. I wish more Catholics would understand the evils of the welfare state that PJPII pointed out. He basically criticizes Western European/Canadian welfare states - the same welfare states that many “social justice” Catholics want the USA to emmulate.

An excerpt:

1. These general observations also apply to the role of the State in the economic sector. Economic activity, especially the activity of a market economy, cannot be conducted in an institutional, juridical or political vacuum. On the contrary, it presupposes sure guarantees of individual freedom and private property, as well as a stable currency and efficient public services. Hence the principle task of the State is to guarantee this security, so that those who work and produce can enjoy the fruits of their labours and thus feel encouraged to work efficiently and honestly. The absence of stability, together with the corruption of public officials and the spread of improper sources of growing rich and of easy profits deriving from illegal or purely speculative activities, constitutes one of the chief obstacles to development and to the economic order.

Another task of the State is that of overseeing and directing the exercise of human rights in the economic sector. However, primary responsibility in this area belongs not to the State but to individuals and to the various groups and associations which make up society. The State could not directly ensure the right to work for all its citizens unless it controlled every aspect of economic life and restricted the free initiative of individuals. This does not mean, however, that the State has no competence in this domain, as was claimed by those who argued against any rules in the economic sphere. Rather, the State has a duty to sustain business activities by creating conditions which will ensure job opportunities, by stimulating those activities where they are lacking or by supporting them in moments of crisis.

The State has the further right to intervene when particular monopolies create delays or obstacles to development. In addition to the tasks of harmonizing and guiding development, in exceptional circumstances the State can also exercise a substitute function, when social sectors or business systems are too weak or are just getting under way, and are not equal to the task at hand. 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.

In recent years the range of such intervention has vastly expanded, to the point of creating a new type of State, the so-called “Welfare State”. This has happened in some countries in order to respond better to many needs and demands, by remedying forms of poverty and deprivation unworthy of the human person. However, excesses and abuses, especially in recent years, have provoked very harsh criticisms of the Welfare State, dubbed the “Social Assistance State”. Malfunctions and defects in the Social Assistance State are the result of an inadequate understanding of the tasks proper to the State. Here again the principle of subsidiarity must be respected: a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help to coordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good.100

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. In fact, it would appear that needs are best understood and satisfied by people who are closest to them and who act as neighbours to those in need. It should be added that certain kinds of demands often call for a response which is not simply material but which is capable of perceiving the deeper human need. One thinks of the condition of refugees, immigrants, the elderly, the sick, and all those in circumstances which call for assistance, such as drug abusers: all these people can be helped effectively only by those who offer them genuine fraternal support, in addition to the necessary care.

 

[RobertLGarrett]

My favorite encyclical too! …only you didn’t bold enough…

Centesimus annus

vatican.va/edocs/ENG0214/_INDEX.HTM

This is a great encyclical. It is a wonderful rebuke of socialism and the welfare state. I wish more Catholics would understand the evils of the welfare state that PJPII pointed out. He basically criticizes Western European/Canadian welfare states - the same welfare states that many “social justice” Catholics want the USA to emmulate.

An excerpt:

1. These general observations also apply to the role of the State in the economic sector. Economic activity, especially the activity of a market economy, cannot be conducted in an institutional, juridical or political vacuum. On the contrary, it presupposes sure guarantees of individual freedom and private property, as well as a stable currency and efficient public services. Hence the principle task of the State is to guarantee this security, so that those who work and produce can enjoy the fruits of their labours and thus feel encouraged to work efficiently and honestly. The absence of stability, together with the corruption of public officials and the spread of improper sources of growing rich and of easy profits deriving from illegal or purely speculative activities, constitutes one of the chief obstacles to development and to the economic order.

Another task of the State is that of overseeing and directing the exercise of human rights in the economic sector. However, **primary responsibility in this area belongs not to the State but to individuals and to the various groups and associations which make up society. **The State could not directly ensure the right to work for all its citizens unless it controlled every aspect of economic life and restricted the free initiative of individuals. This does not mean, however, that the State has no competence in this domain, as was claimed by those who argued against any rules in the economic sphere. Rather, the State has a duty to sustain business activities by creating conditions which will ensure job opportunities, by stimulating those activities where they are lacking or by supporting them in moments of crisis.

The State has the further right to intervene when particular monopolies create delays or obstacles to development. In addition to the tasks of harmonizing and guiding development, in exceptional circumstances the State can also exercise a substitute function, when social sectors or business systems are too weak or are just getting under way, and are not equal to the task at hand. 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.

In recent years the range of such intervention has vastly expanded, to the point of creating a new type of State, the so-called “Welfare State”. This has happened in some countries in order to respond better to many needs and demands, by remedying forms of poverty and deprivation unworthy of the human person. However, excesses and abuses, especially in recent years, have provoked very harsh criticisms of the Welfare State, dubbed the “Social Assistance State”. Malfunctions and defects in the Social Assistance State are the result of an inadequate understanding of the tasks proper to the State. Here again the principle of subsidiarity must be respected: a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help to coordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good.100

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. In fact, it would appear that needs are best understood and satisfied by people who are closest to them and who act as neighbours to those in need. It should be added that certain kinds of demands often call for a response which is not simply material but which is capable of perceiving the deeper human need. One thinks of the condition of refugees, immigrants, the elderly, the sick, and all those in circumstances which call for assistance, such as drug abusers: all these people can be helped effectively only by those who offer them genuine fraternal support, in addition to the necessary care.

There…fixed it. I’m big on the subsidiarity thing. It is basically the strongest defense of returning to the original intent of our nations founders when they wrote up the Constitution.

 

[mpi]

My favorite encyclical too! …only you didn’t bold enough…

There…fixed it. I’m big on the subsidiarity thing. It is basically the strongest defense of returning to the original intent of our nations founders when they wrote up the Constitution.

Why doesn’t more of this make it into the CCC? I find the CCC has to be comewhat ambiguous on economic matters, perhaps as a matter of brevity. The CCC cannot afford to allocate the number of pages promoting capitalism that PJPII can in his encyclical.

 

[CWBetts]

Why doesn’t more of this make it into the CCC? I find the CCC has to be comewhat ambiguous on economic matters, perhaps as a matter of brevity. The CCC cannot afford to allocate the number of pages promoting capitalism that PJPII can in his encyclical.

Neither the CCC, nor this encyclical promote laissaiz-faire capitalism. Belrive it or not, I am not a socialist, leftist, or supporter of a so-called “welfare state.” But since right-wing radicals call everything except for laissaiz-faire socialism, Marxism, or some other unsavory label, I had serve as a role of educator, because you obviously never took a history, sociology, philosophy, or political science course in college, if you went at all. There is a huge difference between a welfare state and a government having laws to ensure justice for the consumer and the laborer. To hear the right-wingers talk, all labor laws should be repealed, and OSHA, NLRB, and FTC should be dissolved, because they put restrictions on industry. And finally, how much of your wealth have you donated to charitable organizations, and how mych have you spent on frivilous luxuries? If more people would take care of their human family on their own instead of buying flat-screen televisions and luxury cars, the state would noy have to step in and force people to do through taxation what they should be doing voulentarily on their own. Remember, stewardship involves, time, talents, and treasure, simply spending an hour at Mass and dropping a meager offering in the basket doesn’t cover it.

 

[royal_archer]

The Gilded Age is not “the post feudal era.” The Gilded Age ran from the end of Reconstruction to the beginning of the Progressive Era. (1877-1912) This is VERY recent history. Perhaps you should actually learn some recent American or European history, you will be better able to make informed decisions.

Since when is the working class “lazy”? It is the working class that makes the wealthy their money. It is the working class who are productive. Exactly how productive are the Paris Hiltons of the world? If you feel that it should be the productive who deserve wealth, then you are in line with Marxist thought: it should be the workers who own the means of production. You sound like one who was born into money and has never had to work a day in their life. If I am incorrect, then that means you have failed to learn from life experiences.

Lastly, the working class will revolt. It happened in both Europe and the United States. Look into the Pullman Strike and the Haymarket Square Strike. This is an example of workmen who have had enough. Even as recent as 1968, there was a general strike in France, where more than 1,000,000 laborers refused to work.Prelude to Revolutionby Daniel Singer is a history of the events of May 1968 in France. And then there was the violence in the United States that led to the recognition of labor unions in the US. Just about any college-level histroy book should be sufficent.

Even at the turn of the last ceuntury the world was still recovering from the feudal era. It took several generations before many people fully adjusted to having control of their own destinies.

The working class is not lazy, the welfare class is. Paris Hilton’s family earned their money fairly though years of hard work. The great thing about freedom is that anyone can start with nothing and achieve great things. I don’t have much money but I earned every penny I have through hard work.

I fully support workers using strikes as a means of negotating appropriate wages and bennefits. However, using violence to revolt to take from those who earned money is evil. I relize there is such evil in the world. But that does not justify governments taking from the productive and giving it to the greedy to pacify them.

 

[CWBetts]

The best place to find the truly greedy is in the corrupt CEO’s og large corporations. They live at a level of luxury that is obscene. It is the responsibility og the “haves” to provide for the “have nots.” In this responsibility they have failed miserably. Since they will not do it on their own, the govenrment steps in to force the issue. I agree that the government is a grossly ineffective vehicle for feeding the masses, but where else are they to turn?

 

[royal_archer]

The best place to find the truly greedy is in the corrupt CEO’s og large corporations. They live at a level of luxury that is obscene. It is the responsibility og the “haves” to provide for the “have nots.” In this responsibility they have failed miserably. Since they will not do it on their own, the govenrment steps in to force the issue. I agree that the government is a grossly ineffective vehicle for feeding the masses, but where else are they to turn?

The haves provide for the have nots through wages, salaries, and purchases. The only failure in this system is that so many feel they are entitled to the wealth of the haves with out earning it.

 

[CWBetts]

You are wrong, pure and simple. The New Testament Church, according to Tertullian “held all save wives in common” If any member of the Christian community lacks anything, the rest of the community is to see that those needs are met. It is clear you have replaced God with an idol of gold.

 

[mpi]

The best place to find the truly greedy is in the corrupt CEO’s og large corporations. They live at a level of luxury that is obscene. It is the responsibility og the “haves” to provide for the “have nots.” In this responsibility they have failed miserably. Since they will not do it on their own, the govenrment steps in to force the issue. I agree that the government is a grossly ineffective vehicle for feeding the masses, but where else are they to turn?

How many Americans have starved to death between 1900 and the 1930s when the “social safety net” was introduced with the New Deal? Not many. Who are these people that will starve to death if the government doesn’t step in. If you know of many mass starvations prior to the New Deal (which you likely won’t) then there would surely be fewer now, even without a safety net from government.

 

[royal_archer]

You are wrong, pure and simple. The New Testament Church, according to Tertullian “held all save wives in common” If any member of the Christian community lacks anything, the rest of the community is to see that those needs are met. It is clear you have replaced God with an idol of gold.

Lacking something is not the same as needing something.

He who does not work should not eat.

There is also a difference between the community and neighbors helping someone out of their own free will and government taking from one and giving to another through use of force.

Are you willing to satisfy earthly needs at the sacrifice of your eternal soul?

 

[CWBetts]

We are commanded to take care of the poor.

It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.

If a man who does not work should not eat, then the people who are “old money” should not eat, for they life lives of leisure.

It is part of the government’s job to take car of the poor.

Your beliefs are called “social darwinism”. There is nothing more reprehensible.

Your views put self above others. Expalin how this is a Godly way of thinking, given that Christ spoke against amassing wealth.

No one deserves to be poor. No one deserves to be wealthy. We are all to use what God has given us to help others, not spend it on frivolity.

 

[mpi]

We are commanded to take care of the poor.

It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.

If a man who does not work should not eat, then the people who are “old money” should not eat, for they life lives of leisure.

It is part of the government’s job to take car of the poor.

Your beliefs are called “social darwinism”. There is nothing more reprehensible.

Your views put self above others. Expalin how this is a Godly way of thinking, given that Christ spoke against amassing wealth.

No one deserves to be poor. No one deserves to be wealthy. We are all to use what God has given us to help others, not spend it on frivolity.

So are you endorsing the welfare state? Are you rejecting PJPII’s rejection of the welfare state? How does subsidiarity fit into your belief system (please provide specifics wrt gov. policies)?