Why is socialism bad by Church teaching?

[Monk21]

Monk,

You are so true on this one. I do agree with you 100% my friend. Detroit is one of the hardest hit areas due to the recession and for the most part it was one of the ground zeroes for this recession that our country is going through. I also agree with you that the government did not due anything positive to help this area. They went and bailed out the auto industry they said to us and that it will be great again. But for all of that money that was thrown into that industry by our wonderful government that we have right now, alot of people still lost jobs in that industry and most probably they are not coming back.

There is a GM plant down in Shreveport, LA where I live that is going to close this year, which is most probably about 1000 jobs just in our town. I feel for the people in that city and other cities like it. Their government let them down and they need to remember that when the November elections come around.

If there is one thing that we should learn from this **** that is going on in our country right now is that if you are going to wait for the government to bail you out, you will be waiting a long time for nothing.

At this time we have the worse government in my lifetime. Even worse than during Carter’s presidency. We have the worse group of people in the White House right now and if Obama doesn’t watch it, he will go down as the worse President in modern history. I know that he means well, but he just doesn’t have the experience nor the advisors to help him manage the crisis that our country is in. Policies are obviously not working and there needs to be a change there. From early numbers it looks like unemployment is going to go up for the month of August and that is truly not good for our country obviously, but it doesn’t look good on him or his administration.

I can remember seeing Detroit like the mess it’s in now, years ago.
I just don’t get you guys, Obama was given an economic mess and you are blaming him for all the sins of the past. Why don’t you all try to pull together? I can remember years ago when Americans would pull together and Demos. and Reps. would say, you help me get my bridge and I’ll help you get your highway. Now it is all for politics, not for country.
I looked up the Mike Moore lies on Google and all were refuted quite nicely, but in truth I only looked at 4 websites. One said he lied abt being in Canada because there was no snow.

 

[CPA2]

I can remember seeing Detroit like the mess it’s in now, years ago.
I just don’t get you guys, Obama was given an economic mess and you are blaming him for all the sins of the past. Why don’t you all try to pull together? I can remember years ago when Americans would pull together and Demos. and Reps. would say, you help me get my bridge and I’ll help you get your highway. Now it is all for politics, not for country.
I looked up the Mike Moore lies on Google and all were refuted quite nicely, but in truth I only looked at 4 websites. One said he lied abt being in Canada because there was no snow.

Why would the recovery fail? It was pretty obvious to me. First, no
amount of money printing can spark a real economic recovery. Period.

No amount of stimulus spending can, either. Both facts have been proven
time and time again.

The socialists in Washington just do not get it, do they?

 

[Edward_H]

Probably all has been said before but…

• emphasis on temporal conditions vs. supernatural ends
• socialist methods involve “forced giving”, not free gift. If the government through taxes takes away 60-80% of my income (via all sorts of taxes), I have less to give in love, out of love.
• focus of the government as provider not God, not true Charity
• removes the action / effects of the Holy Spirit…when I am given something out of love from say my neighbor…effects happen…and when my neighbor, out of love, gives freely effects happen. The network of Christians grows stronger. When the government is the middle man, the Holy Spirit is removed from the equation. Division happens.

Giving forced by the government instead causes resentment to the “giver” and entitlement to the receiver.

Just my 02 cents.

 

[Monk21]

Why would the recovery fail? It was pretty obvious to me. First, no
amount of money printing can spark a real economic recovery. Period.

No amount of stimulus spending can, either. Both facts have been proven
time and time again.

The socialists in Washington just do not get it, do they?

Check out your history and then say gee, I was wrong!

 

[ERose]

I can remember seeing Detroit like the mess it’s in now, years ago.
I just don’t get you guys, Obama was given an economic mess and you are blaming him for all the sins of the past. Why don’t you all try to pull together? I can remember years ago when Americans would pull together and Demos. and Reps. would say, you help me get my bridge and I’ll help you get your highway. Now it is all for politics, not for country.
I looked up the Mike Moore lies on Google and all were refuted quite nicely, but in truth I only looked at 4 websites. One said he lied abt being in Canada because there was no snow.

Monk,

Here is the reason why I blame Obama’s administration and the Dems in congress. The Republicans have no power right now. They do not have the ability to stop anything that Obama and the other Dems want to do. Did they inherent a mess? Yes, but it was a mess that they helped create. Everybody wants to blame Bush for the recession that is fine and dandy. But the way our government works is that the Congress creates bills and the President signs them into law. The President cannot create a bill and then sign it into law. He does not have that power. Guess who has been running Congress for the last 4 years? The Democrats.

Yes there was a time that both sides of the isle worked together to fix issues and tackle crisis in this country, but the republicans have been shut off from coming to the table. This recession would have been over with by now but it isn’t.

Concerning your Moore issue. I can’t make you believe what you do not want to believe. I am no longer trying. There are two sides of the issue and for the most part I don’t care about tackling it. What Moore says does not have in this country much weight except with the extreme left. Believe what he tells you if you want. I do not care.

 

[ERose]

Check out your history and then say gee, I was wrong!

Nice reply Monk. But if you checked out our history then you may say gee, I was wrong.

 

[estesbob]

I can remember seeing Detroit like the mess it’s in now, years ago.
I just don’t get you guys, Obama was given an economic mess and you are blaming him for all the sins of the past. Why don’t you all try to pull together? I can remember years ago when Americans would pull together and Demos. and Reps. would say, you help me get my bridge and I’ll help you get your highway. Now it is all for politics, not for country.
I looked up the Mike Moore lies on Google and all were refuted quite nicely, but in truth I only looked at 4 websites. One said he lied abt being in Canada because there was no snow.

So far the only thing Obama has done is put us into deeper debt, imposed crippling taxes on businesses and put millions more out of work. It would have been better had he done nothing to screw things up as bad as he has.

You will have one your wishes come true however. We are going to pull together this November-pull together to end this nightmare and bring sanity back to the government.

 

[ERose]

So far the only thing Obama has done is put us into deeper debt, imposed crippling taxes on businesses and put millions more out of work. It would have been better had he done nothing to screw things up as bad as he has.

You will have one your wishes come true however. We are going to pull together this November-pull together to end this nightmare and bring sanity back to the government.

Amen, brother.

 

[Monk21]

Probably all has been said before but…

• emphasis on temporal conditions vs. supernatural ends
• socialist methods involve “forced giving”, not free gift. If the government through taxes takes away 60-80% of my income (via all sorts of taxes), I have less to give in love, out of love.
• focus of the government as provider not God, not true Charity
• removes the action / effects of the Holy Spirit…when I am given something out of love from say my neighbor…effects happen…and when my neighbor, out of love, gives freely effects happen. The network of Christians grows stronger. When the government is the middle man, the Holy Spirit is removed from the equation. Division happens.

Giving forced by the government instead causes resentment to the “giver” and entitlement to the receiver.

Just my 02 cents.

It is funny that myself living in Canada, a country where we are supposed to be taxed to death I still manage to give money to special needs hospitals, my church, I sponsor people in marathons who have to raise $4500. to enter. I donated a large sum to the tsunome flooding, the Haitian earthquake, and now a $100. will be sent for Pakistan relief. I have adopted two boys, one in Nigeria whose parents died of aids and a boy in Haiti whose mother can’t work for more than 5 years now. These boys who started school late in life (ages 9) are now at the front in their class. When our 7 children were growing up we adopted 3 families in India
I do this now on just my pensions. I do not boast of this, I just want you to know that most people here show fear of things they haven’t even tried and condemn things that could help your fellow countrymen on silly old fashion principals . I am surprised that you have not stopped your different levels of governments from paying for your police, your firemen, your schools, your libraries and all those socialist things that you have already.
We are not supposed to give just from our excesses, but also from our own needs.
I have much opportunity to give with Love and I do.
St Francis said, “preach the gospels always, and when necessary use words”

 

[Edward_H]

Quite true. We do the same thing.

My point though remains…the increasingly large portion that doesn’t flow through the action of the Holy Spirit is what is troubling…and what leads to resentment and entitlement…vs. joy and gratitude.

Do you experience the joy of giving from the Holy Spirit when you fill up your tank of gas, a largish portion of which goes into tax? Is that giving apparent and direct as if you had helped your neighbor rebuild his deck out of love?

Do you experience gratitude - sincere gratitude as if being handed something by a human hand, every time you use your food stamp credit card?

What we see in this country is a building resentment and a growing sense of entitlement…around medicare, medicaid, welfare, now health care, social security.

Entitlement, not gratitude.

Not the same if it all get channeled through socialistic fingers.

 

[Monk21]

Quite true. We do the same thing.

My point though remains…the increasingly large portion that doesn’t flow through the action of the Holy Spirit is what is troubling…and what leads to resentment and entitlement…vs. joy and gratitude.

Do you experience the joy of giving from the Holy Spirit when you fill up your tank of gas, a largish portion of which goes into tax? Is that giving apparent and direct as if you had helped your neighbor rebuild his deck out of love?

Do you experience gratitude - sincere gratitude as if being handed something by a human hand, every time you use your food stamp credit card?

What we see in this country is a building resentment and a growing sense of entitlement…around medicare, medicaid, welfare, now health care, social security.

Entitlement, not gratitude.

Not the same if it all get channeled through socialistic fingers.

I never think of what goes into taxes as I make a purchase. I know that taxes are necessary and if you don’t like paying taxes you can go to a country that does not have income tax. It is called Haiti.
In Canada we think of it as a good life, a blessing, not an entitlement. Our elected MPs had the foresite to put politics aside and look after the people and their health needs.
Sure there are problems sometimes, but, like myself I had my heart looked after with mounds of tests and there was no bill at the end except for $45.00 for a middle of the night ambulance ride.
For people to say they have insurance and are ok and then basically say to hell with the millions who are not able to pay for medic treatment is so unchristian that I just can’t understand that type of mentality]
I final thing on Michael Moore is that Sicko was a documentary on Americans with insurance and how they were cheated, overcharged and denied treatment even wwhen they had paid for it. One girl was denied ambulance payment because she did not pre-book the ambulance after a traffic accident. Another was denied payment because she had cervical cancer and the insurance company said she was too young to have that type of cancer. The list went on and on.

When you are laid out on a stretcher and you need help, I don’t think you will bother to think of how you feel abt how it is paid for unless of course it is going to bankrupt you. we don’t have that stress.

 

[RonGawthorp]

1. Socialism, against which Our Predecessor, Leo XIII, had especially to inveigh, has
   since his time changed no less profoundly than the form of economic life. For Socialism,
   which could then be termed almost a single system and which maintained definite teachings
   reduced into one body of doctrine, has since then split chiefly into two sections, often
   opposing each other and even bitterly hostile, without either one however abandoning a
   position fundamentally contrary to Christian truth that was characteristic of Socialism.

From: QUADRAGESIMO ANNO (On Reconstruction of the Social Order)
Pope Pius XI

This seems pretty cut and dry to me. Authoritative. How does someone wiggle out of this? Let’s see.

 

[Vezelay]

It is funny that myself living in Canada, a country where we are supposed to be taxed to death I still manage to give money to special needs hospitals, my church, I sponsor people in marathons who have to raise $4500. to enter. I donated a large sum to the tsunome flooding, the Haitian earthquake, and now a $100. will be sent for Pakistan relief. I have adopted two boys, one in Nigeria whose parents died of aids and a boy in Haiti whose mother can’t work for more than 5 years now. These boys who started school late in life (ages 9) are now at the front in their class. When our 7 children were growing up we adopted 3 families in India
I do this now on just my pensions. I do not boast of this, I just want you to know that most people here show fear of things they haven’t even tried and condemn things that could help your fellow countrymen on silly old fashion principals . I am surprised that you have not stopped your different levels of governments from paying for your police, your firemen, your schools, your libraries and all those socialist things that you have already.
We are not supposed to give just from our excesses, but also from our own needs.
I have much opportunity to give with Love and I do.
St Francis said, “preach the gospels always, and when necessary use words”

LOVELY POST!!! thank you so much. Such a relief from the crazies. We in the US pay less in taxes than any other industrialized nation. As Oliver Wendell Holmes said, “Taxes are the price we pay for civilisation.” Maybe we would be more civilised if we paid just a bit more in taxes so that everyone could live as well as they do in the other modern democracies. I too wonder why the fanatics do not want to stop “socialized” police, firefighters, libraries, schools, hospitals, parks, roads, highways… all government run, horrors!!! Social Security and Medicaid and Medicare… government run, how awful. I wonder why they are the most loved programs in the history of the country. I guess we just have to put up with the rantings of the lunatics.

 

[Edward_H]

I never think of what goes into taxes as I make a purchase. I know that taxes are necessary and if you don’t like paying taxes you can go to a country that does not have income tax. It is called Haiti.
In Canada we think of it as a good life, a blessing, not an entitlement. Our elected MPs had the foresite to put politics aside and look after the people and their health needs.
Sure there are problems sometimes, but, like myself I had my heart looked after with mounds of tests and there was no bill at the end except for $45.00 for a middle of the night ambulance ride.
For people to say they have insurance and are ok and then basically say to hell with the millions who are not able to pay for medic treatment is so unchristian that I just can’t understand that type of mentality]
I final thing on Michael Moore is that Sicko was a documentary on Americans with insurance and how they were cheated, overcharged and denied treatment even wwhen they had paid for it. One girl was denied ambulance payment because she did not pre-book the ambulance after a traffic accident. Another was denied payment because she had cervical cancer and the insurance company said she was too young to have that type of cancer. The list went on and on.

When you are laid out on a stretcher and you need help, I don’t think you will bother to think of how you feel abt how it is paid for unless of course it is going to bankrupt you. we don’t have that stress.

I don’t know…I work with a team in Toronto and they’re pretty tired of waiting for medical care, especially if it’s off the routine path. Drawing comparisons between Canada and the US risks serious errors. The population size, composition, threats, histories, are quite different.

Drawing a comparison to Haiti is ludicrous…what matters in an economy are the MARGINAL rates of taxation. The clip levels imposed at arbitrary points in income earned, and whether a system anticipates “the next natural” movement by its population when the marginal rates are changed. Do they work harder, do they move their creativity energy into other pursuits when those rates are changed.

This is the classic failure of Keynesian economics…static analysis of macroeconomic effects in the population; if we raise taxes…our people will continue to do/work as they have been. But people aren’t passive; high producers - those that turn capital into opportunities - decide to retire early. I know a lot of small business owners…and these guys are so far ahead of the government it makes your head spin. The “revenue” (I always hate using that term when associated with incoming taxes) the government expects to squeeze from these people won’t be there to squeeze.

For you to generalize and say “we in Canada think” of course rings loud alarm bells. The Generalizer.

There’s not just evidence that Canada is having to rethink things, there’s quickening evidence that there are a lot of sticky myths associated with the Canadian model.

city-journal.org/html/17_3_canadian_healthcare.html

sickothemovie.com/canadians-tell-you-the-truth/index.html

The thread is about Socialism and the Church. My prior pionts stand.

 

[Monk21]

I don’t know…I work with a team in Toronto and they’re pretty tired of waiting for medical care, especially if it’s off the routine path. Drawing comparisons between Canada and the US risks serious errors. The population size, composition, threats, histories, are quite different.

Drawing a comparison to Haiti is ludicrous…what matters in an economy are the MARGINAL rates of taxation. The clip levels imposed at arbitrary points in income earned, and whether a system anticipates “the next natural” movement by its population when the marginal rates are changed. Do they work harder, do they move their creativity energy into other pursuits when those rates are changed.

This is the classic failure of Keynesian economics…static analysis of macroeconomic effects in the population; if we raise taxes…our people will continue to do/work as they have been. But people aren’t passive; high producers - those that turn capital into opportunities - decide to retire early. I know a lot of small business owners…and these guys are so far ahead of the government it makes your head spin. The “revenue” (I always hate using that term when associated with incoming taxes) the government expects to squeeze from these people won’t be there to squeeze.

For you to generalize and say “we in Canada think” of course rings loud alarm bells. The Generalizer.

There’s not just evidence that Canada is having to rethink things, there’s quickening evidence that there are a lot of sticky myths associated with the Canadian model.

city-journal.org/html/17_3_canadian_healthcare.html

sickothemovie.com/canadians-tell-you-the-truth/index.html

The thread is about Socialism and the Church. My prior pionts stand.

We will all know when we are in Heaven, when we don’t have to worry abt this stuff.
BUT, I never said we were perfect, I said we had problems, and no matter how good we get, we will still run into glitches. We do however have a more compassionate system than the USA.
Here is how Corporations are changing things with the blessing of our conservative government. Back in the 50’s corporations and the people, each accounted for 50% of all government income. In the late 90’s corporations in Canada paid only 7% of moneys collected by the government. Corporations have bullied themselves at the expense of the people to getting tax cuts that only cause more hardships for Canadians. They cry and weep that they need tax breaks to be competative. Since the present conservative gov. has been in power over 500 Canadian owned companies have been sold to foreign companies.
When a foreign company operates in Canada the head office off shore invoices the Canadian office for administrative costs and it has been know to be as high as 1.5 billion dollars. This money leaves Canada with no taxes paid on it.
There are very modern day gangsters in corporations and we sit back and let it happen.
Also, what group are you working with in Toronto that is lacking medical care???

 

[CPA2]

This is the classic failure of Keynesian economics…static analysis of macroeconomic effects in the population; if we raise taxes…our people will continue to do/work as they have been. But people aren’t passive; high producers - those that turn capital into opportunities - decide to retire early. I know a lot of small business owners…and these guys are so far ahead of the government it makes your head spin. The “revenue” (I always hate using that term when associated with incoming taxes) the government expects to squeeze from these people won’t be there to squeeze.

You made your point very well. I view Keynesian economics as a failure, along with socialism.

When taxes go up next year taxpayers will demand more of my services and the underground economy will increase! Additionally, taxable activity will decrease and non-taxable activities will increase.

Here are my ramblings on economics:

Economics is the allocation of scarce resources to meet insatiable wants. Economics is a social science like sociology and psychology. Economics studies one facet of human behavior, economic behavior. Economics does not give us the answer to all human behavior, however. Surely the terrorists on September 11, 2001 were not motivated by economic behavior!

Scarcity is the key word in the definition of economics. If there were unlimited resources, there would be no economics.

There is no such thing as a free lunch. Someone always pays for “free lunches.” Economics is interesting because economics reads like a detective novel. “Who done it?” Who benefits and who pays?

Adam Smith’s genius was that he recognized the value of voluntary
exchanges. Voluntary exchanges produce a win-win situation. Both
buyers and sellers benefit. The price that they agree upon is the
market price, or the equilibrium price. Adam Smith said that a seller,
seeking only his interests, and through no conscious effort, is led by
an invisible hand to seek the public good.

Milton Friedman postulated his own invisible hand theory. He states
that an individual, seeking only the public good through government
regulation, and through no conscious effort is lead by an invisible hand
to seek the good of the individual. Milton Friedman, in his book, Free to
Choose, states that he has seen the government do little good.

Thomas Jefferson, in his first inaugural address, stated that the role
of government was an umpire, not a participant. Thomas Jefferson’s
political theories and Adam Smith’s economic theories go hand-in-hand.

The market economy means power to the people! Which goods are produced, how they are produced, and whom should get them are determined by you and me.
We vote with our dollars.

Is the market economy fair? Economists cannot define “fair” or “needs.” Give away new cars, and suddenly everyone “needs” a new car!

Incentives matter. Benefits have to exceed costs. Even a thief makes that economic decision.

Employers are constrained by scarce resources just like everyone else. The only way that an employer can get more resources is to bid the resources away from someone else. That is why the supply curve has a positive slope. A manufacturer will only produce more if he can get a higher price.

 

[Edward_H]

I am afraid you missed my key earlier point. A government isn’t capable of “compassion”.

Only people are…and truly if it’s compassion vs. guilt-incented action…it’s Jesus acting through us. So the Canadian government…even if indirectly through the vote of its people…isn’t compassionate. It may be accommodating, it may be broad reaching, but it’s not compassionate.

God is Love. A “system” isn’t Love.

When the Holy Spirit is removed from the equation…there is only forced exchange, not free gift. This is a fundamental tenet of the Catholic understanding of Love. Free gift, self-donation.

Anytime you’ve worked on a real sweaty volunteer project you’ve noticed the effect on the group at the completion of the project. If more and more projects are taken over by an ever reaching “system”…there is no such effect seen by the doers or the receivers.

To you other question, we work for a multinational company, and they lament all the time about the way the Canadian system works…for the run of the mill procedure, preventive health care no problem…but if you need an MRI or you need your vertebrae fused, get in a very long line.

 

[Edward_H]

CPA,

well said and supported.

 

[Edward_H]

Just imagine the difference in enduring effect between what Mother Teresa and her sisters did vs. if the “job” had been chopped out to the UN.

The Holy Spirit was clearly present and Whose presence is still producing divine effects in Calcutta, and around the world wherever her sisters have gone and loved in a personally “costly” manner.

Contrast these efforts, to what happens with UN projects in various countries. I’ve been to Africa and seen the enormously short term effects of “well designed systems and programs” implemented by well meaning sociocrats. There are two interesting/insightful expressions used by people long associated/familiar with such projects (in order to keep their expectations grounded in reality)…in the 70s…the expression was “West Africa Wins Again” (WAWA) and today in the Horn of Africa the expression is “Africa always wins” Well meaning ‘compassionate’ UN or government sponsored programs have but temporary effects that evaporate about as fast as water in the desert, due to tyrants, pestilence, civil wars, disease, etc.

The programs run by people who are doing them for Him, done with costly love, and self-donation seem to last longer and have greater effect.

 

[Black_Rose]

Edward I do not think private charity is superior to a welfare state.

I posted this on another thread:

Matthew 25 can also apply to a welfare state because essential a welfare state serves those functions on a public instead of a private level. If one pays taxes to a welfare state, and does so cheerfully, one can regard them doing a loving, charitable act, but if one does it reluctantly then the act of financially supporting the welfare state would be devoid of any virtue.

I would prefer a welfare state to private charity, simply because the former is more effective. Personally, private charity gets me dejected because I am often too tough on myself; resentful that my meager charitable acts do not have much measurable impact on the world. I would gladly be relieved of my personal “responsibility” of providing for the poor domestically, since it is a source of frustration due to my personal inefficacy, while welcoming it as a collective burden. When living in an extensive welfare state, my moral responsibilities have not completely evaporated, I would still have the burden of not only financially supporting the state, but I also would have to fervently commit my intellect to relentless defending the system and treating my fellow citizens with respect, amity, and friendship while not being judgmental on the unfortunate. I must never castigate a fellow citizen who is suffering from misfortune for an alleged lack of “personal responsibility” nor harbor any prejudice about him/her being lazy from self-righteous condescending attitude, instead I would be expected to cheerfully extend an attitude of sympathy and benevolence along with financial support through the apparatus of the state, to him or her. But I would expect my fellow citizens to reciprocate the same attitude, with the assistance of a repressive culture and inculcation, towards me and other citizens, and share the same concern for their welfare too.

Supporting the welfare state can be virtuous since it is a respect for objective outcomes, measured by the welfare of the poor. Those who are net beneficiaries of the welfare state can still be virtuous, though, by being grateful for the prevailing macroeconomic system of the welfare state, and, most importantly, treating their fellow citizens with amity and respect. They might not be able to contribute financial to the welfare state nor have the intellect necessary to defend it as a political philosophy, but they can contribute by promoting an ethos and public sentiment conducive to the welfare state.