Why is socialism bad by Church teaching?

[markbrumbaugh]

Who is favored more highly? Here in Canada, when it comes to health care, we are all equal in the service we receive.

Here in the US it is the democratic onstituents who benefit from the generosity of our public officials. Us rich republicans just support it with high taxes.

 

[markbrumbaugh]

Even your beloved Castro admits communism isn’t working.

news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100908/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_cuba_fidel_castro_5

 

[Monk21]

Even your beloved Castro admits communism isn’t working.

news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100908/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_cuba_fidel_castro_5

This is typical.
Christians according to Jesus, are supposed to love our enemies.

 

[Abu]

Cricket123
My intentions are to defend my position, specifically on single-payer healthcare, as a valid, Catholic one, and to suggest, as far as I can, that the right-wing politics espoused by Fox News are not a necessary consequence of authentic Christian belief.

But, once again, where is the “unregulated laissez-faire market”? It is a myth, even if peddled by some. However much some others may sneer and jeer at free enterprise, the strictures against the Welfare State are real in Catholic social teaching because fallen human nature is real.

The fact is that the Catholic Church has always taught that the state must assist in the welfare of citizens, but to equate the free enterprise system, developed by Her Late Scholastics, as the laws of the marketplace over social justice is not reality. Reality is: Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. Put another way – easy come, easy go. Anyone who thinks that curtailing self-reliance is good is not facing reality.

Mark Steyn pertinently sums up the problem:
nationalreview.com/articles/229215/when-responsibility-doesnt-pay/mark-steyn?page=2
“The problem is there are never enough of “the rich” to fund the entitlement state, because in the end it disincentivizes everything from wealth creation to self-reliance to the basic survival instinct, as represented by the fertility rate. In Greece, they’ve run out of Greeks, so they’ll stick it to the Germans, like French farmers do. In Germany, the Germans have only been able to afford to subsidize French farming because they stick their defense tab to the Americans. And in America, Obama, Pelosi, and Reid are saying we need to paddle faster to catch up with the Greeks and Germans. What could go wrong?

Dr William Luckey makes the point clearly on medical care:
“Firstly, the proper term for what is being discussed is “medical care,” not health care. Health care is the responsibility of each and every person according to his ability to influence events that affect his or her health. This would include eating good foods, getting enough sleep, trying to stay away from dangerous situations if possible, and so forth. But when even doing these things do not work to preserve one’s health, one seeks out medical professionals to aid in returning to health, if possible. So we are really speaking about medical care, not health care.”
See drwilliamluckey.com/index.cfm/Current-Events

There is a wealth of sound Catholic principles discussed and applied at Dr Luckey’s website.

 

[Cricket123]

Here in the US it is the democratic onstituents who benefit from the generosity of our public officials. Us rich republicans just support it with high taxes.

Really? Why not take a look at these statistics, compiled by the “commie-pinkos” at the Tax Foundation. If you do not live in one of the bottom 17 states, in essence, you do not pay any federal tax at all, though you do pay a higher state income tax than you may realize. It is all returned to your state and then some. Sometimes it is doubled.

Two red states (including yours), two "purple states’, and 13 blue states pay all the bills. Even so, it seems to me that it is primarily Republican constituents who benefit disproportionately under the current system.

 

[Cricket123]

Even your beloved Castro admits communism isn’t working.

news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100908/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_cuba_fidel_castro_5

I have seen no posts in this thread expressing a love for Castro or a desire to live under a communist dictatorship. Communism and socialism are not the same thing. Neither is every government intervention or action inherently socialist.

 

[Monk21]

Abu wrote;
Dr William Luckey makes the point clearly on medical care:
“Firstly, the proper term for what is being discussed is “medical care,” not health care. Health care is the responsibility of each and every person according to his ability to influence events that affect his or her health. This would include eating good foods, getting enough sleep, trying to stay away from dangerous situations if possible, and so forth. But when even doing these things do not work to preserve one’s health, one seeks out medical professionals to aid in returning to health, if possible. So we are really speaking about medical care, not health care.”

This is the same type of stupid argument that went on when Rwanda’s Tutsis were under attack. If the UN and the USA had used the term genocide, the UN would have had to move in to stop it. So to save the bother they would not say it was a genocide. General Delair begged for help, but to no avail. Nearly a million people were killed because of a word not used. It is so easy to twist an argument to suit your cause, just call it something else.

 

[Geowitz]

Cricket123 - I guess you’re not up to defending your assumed premise?

Were you expecting a typical “republican right wing” response from your last post directed at me? Sorry, I can’t defend redistribution of wealth in the way you claimed “we” benefited from it. I’m consistent in my views and on a seperate but somewhat related issue I actually understand the distinction between crony capitalism and true free market capitalism. As ABu has rightly pointed out - The presence of a true free market does not mean social justice will not exist. In fact it is the oppposite. Social justice is better served through a free market in that they are seperate goals and functions, but both rely on freedom, justice, and subsidiarity etc… to be understood properly. The problem is that everyone wants to “implement” economic policy. Economics is not able to be implemented, only understood. The laws of economics are just that - Laws. How we understand them is what determines our success in economics and social justice.

Here again lies the problem with socialism. It aims to implement economics, not understand the laws of economics. Do you implement physics or do you understand the laws of physics?

Socialism…ideas so great they have to be mandatory…

 

[Cricket123]

But, once again, where is the “unregulated laissez-faire market”? It is a myth, even if peddled by some.

I did not say we have an unregulated laissez-faire market, I said I am opposed to that. We have regulations. The problem is the regulatory agencies are essentially owned by the very industries that they were intended to regulate. Where they are not, they are underfunded to the point of ineffectiveness. Our regulations favor predatory capitalism over the common good.

However much some others may sneer and jeer at free enterprise, the strictures against the Welfare State are real in Catholic social teaching because fallen human nature is real.

I agree that fallen human nature is real. “Economic activity… is to be exercised within the limits of the moral order, in keeping with social justice so as to correspond to God’s plan for man.” Even so:

Even if it does not contradict the provisions of civil law, any form of unjustly taking and keeping the property of others is against the seventh commandment: thus, deliberate retention of goods lent or of objects lost; business fraud; paying unjust wages; forcing up prices by taking advantage of the ignorance or hardship of another.

The following are also morally illicit: speculation in which one contrives to manipulate the price of goods artificially in order to gain an advantage to the detriment of others; corruption in which one influences the judgment of those who must make decisions according to law; appropriation and use for private purposes of the common goods of an enterprise; work poorly done; tax evasion; forgery of checks and invoices; excessive expenses and waste. Willfully damaging private or public property is contrary to the moral law and requires reparation. CCC 2409

Yes, fallen human nature is real, yet I would argue we’ve seen far more of the above than any excesses of “the Welfare State.”

I will look at Dr. Luckey’s writings in more detail when I have time. As much as I would like to surf and write all day, I can’t right now. Even so, the first article I saw posted there included this:

"…the Keynesian-Obamaites do not understand that people learn from previous events. The most recent one is the housing boom, which started this economic downturn in the first place. The Federal Reserve, to stimulate interest-sensitive industries like the housing market, pumped money into the economy, forcing interest rates to an artificial low…

…In addition to this government-caused disaster, the Federal government passed the Community Reinvestment Act, which pressured banks to give housing loans to those who were hardly credit-worthy (in English, this means to those who probably could not afford to pay back the money). Banks, with the help of government corporations like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, lost tons of money because of defaults."

The problem with this is it begins one step too late in the story of the housing bubble and misrepresents the nature of the agencies involved. It is easy to consider the Fed, Fannie, and Freddie “government corporations.” This is no accident. Even I do this, though rarely, and usually in a decaffeinated state. It is true that Fannie and Freddie have now been taken over by the government, but they were not government run then.

All three of these were created, as privately owned, for-profit corporations, by the government for the sole benefit of the banks. Think about it: Fannie and Freddie were publicly traded, had CEOs, failed to declare profits, were fined by government agencies, made campaign contributions (primarily to Republicans) &c. &c.

So Luckey has left out the issue of why the Fed (also a private, for-profit bank) wanted to stimulate the housing market. The answer is, Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street firms had decided to inflate a bubble and make a killing, specifically through selling mortgage-backed securites and credit default swaps. Essentially, they were setting up securities that were designed to fail, betting both sides of the game, and making money coming and going.

(continued)

 

[Cricket123]

The problem was the housing market was saturated - everyone who could get and wanted a mortgage under the usual standards already had one, and more or less all of these had already been securitized and sold. The only way Wall Street could get the mortgages that it needed to play this game was to encourage them to be written to lower and lower standards. So its friends at the Fed, Fannie, and Freddie (private, for-profit corporations, remember) complied. Other lenders jumped in, eager at the opportunity to sell mortgages to Wall Street. This necessarily resulted in mortgages being aggressively marketed to ever less credit-worthy clients.

CRA really had little to do with it. It is just a convenient scapegoat. The housing market really didn’t begin to heat up until 2002 or so, 25 years after CRA. The pressure on the banks to create an unending supply of mortgages came not from CRA but from Wall Street. The low-income and minority borrowers were the last in the chain and the biggest losers in this scam.

Some banks lost money from defaults, but the biggest banks had already sold off most of their CDOs and made even more money from the credit default swaps. The biggest “success stories” from this episode are JPMorganChase and Goldman Sachs, not because they are so well-managed, but because they set up the game to begin with.

And then came the bailouts, which were fought for and signed into law by which president? Believe me, I’m no fan of our current president, but I cannot understand the seeming nostalgia of some people for the Bush administration. Personally, I believe the bubble was “burst” intentionally at the end of the Bush administration to guarantee a massive bailout, and strong financial support for the Obama campaign was bartered for Democratic support of TARP: thus, the odd coalition of President Bush and the previously hostile Democratic Congress. It’s just a little theory of mine, but it seems to fit the facts.

So, to bring this huge digression back to socialism, in a sense, we have plenty of socialism. We let private, for-profit corporations masquerade as arms of government; we privatize profits and socialize losses. We have a Welfare State all right, it just provides welfare for the rich.

 

[Cricket123]

Cricket123 - I guess you’re not up to defending your assumed premise?

Were you expecting a typical “republican right wing” response from your last post directed at me?

Socialism…ideas so great they have to be mandatory…

Actually, I intend to make an attempt when I have time to do so, which unfortunately, is not now. I’ve just killed too much time online lately. Real life has a way of intruding on the joys of surfing, reading, posting, &c.

I do not see you as “republican right-wing,” but more “libertarian.” I hear the influence of Ron Paul, but I could be wrong there. Believe it or not, I have heard Ron Paul speak and I thought him interesting and engaging, and had substantial agreement with his thoughts specifically on the Federal Reserve.

At any rate, I thought him worth listening to, and not a Wall Street shill like so many of the others. Even if I disagree with him, I respect his opinions, as I do yours.

Be careful, not everything that is “mandatory” is foolish.

I’ll be back, how soon depends on “real life.”

 

[Cricket123]

Geowitz -

One last question, in all seriousness, before work and family take over for the day:

Do you believe that, in setting up a universal health care system, the Canadian government has acted unjustly, immorally, and contrary to the Divine Law: depriving its citizens of their legitimate freedom, and abrogating their obligations to personal charity?

 

[markbrumbaugh]

I have seen no posts in this thread expressing a love for Castro or a desire to live under a communist dictatorship. Communism and socialism are not the same thing. Neither is every government intervention or action inherently socialist.

You have GOT to be kidding. You can’t have a socialist or communist system without an all powerful arbiter that decides who gets what and who pays what. If you don’t want to call that a dictatorship, then call it a benevolent leader, but it is the usurpation of freedom just the same. All you liberal slanted arguers may as well call it what is it…Socialism, Statism, Communism. They are all the same when compared to capitalism.

Quit trying to boil the frog by gilding the lily.

By the way, What did the the second S in (the former USSR) Communist Russia stand for?

 

[Cricket123]

You have GOT to be kidding. You can’t have a socialist or communist system without an all powerful arbiter that decides who gets what and who pays what. If you don’t want to call that a dictatorship, then call it a benevolent leader, but it is the usurpation of freedom just the same. All you liberal slanted arguers may as well call it what is it…Socialism, Statism, Communism. They are all the same when compared to capitalism.

Quit trying to boil the frog by gilding the lily.

By the way, What did the the second S in (the former USSR) Communist Russia stand for?

The country under discussion here is Canada. Seen many “FREE CANADA!” bumper stickers lately?

By the way, it is preferable to sauté the frog:

FROG LEGS – The delicate meat is tender and lightly sweet and can be most closely compared to the white meat of a very young chicken. Fresh frog’s legs can be found from spring through summer in the fish section. They’re usually sold in connected pairs ranging from 2 to 8 ounces. Look for those that are plump and slightly pink. Store, loosely wrapped, in the refrigerator for up to 2 days. Frozen frog’s legs can usually be purchased year-round, though the flavor doesn’t compare to fresh. Thaw in the refrigerator overnight before cooking. Because their flavor is so subtle, frog’s legs should be cooked simply and briefly. A quick dusting of seasoned flour before sautéing in butter or olive oil will gild the lily perfectly. Overcooking frog’s legs will cause them to toughen.

More delicious recipes here.

 

[Geowitz]

Geowitz -

One last question, in all seriousness, before work and family take over for the day:

Do you believe that, in setting up a universal health care system, the Canadian government has acted unjustly, immorally, and contrary to the Divine Law: depriving its citizens of their legitimate freedom, and abrogating their obligations to personal charity?

Without a doubt, yes.

Atleast so far in this post you have always been pretty quick to reply so I was expecting a quicker response to my question. No problem, when you get the time I would love to see your justification that healthcare is a right or even a responsibility of the federal government to take on. Like I said before…

Whether you think it is a legitimate function or not is not a part of the debate. The constitution is clear as well as the principle of subsidiarity. You are mistaken in your premise that only the federal government has the capacity or even responsibility to provide healthcare for all. You must prove your premise first and foremost before you can even consider whether single payer is a good idea or not. Subsidiarity and your church demand justification, for very serious reasons, that this matter cannot be handled closer to the need. Prudential judgment based upon all principles must be used. I love these arguments because if I fall into your little trap and start talking about the benefits/pitfalls of nationalized healthcare we start arguing about how to implement a system, NOT whether it should be implemented in the first place. You can’t just skip over that. Instead of assuming your premise, you must frst prove it.

And as to Ron Paul, I actually have not listened to him much. My views are based upon principles, not someone elses ideas. Sure, I may achieve a better understanding of a certain issue when it is spoken about by someone else, but really once I defined my set of principles based upon my faith my ideas flow from those principles. Not a knock at you, that’s just the way I judge ideas.

 

[Geowitz]

All three of these were created, as privately owned, for-profit corporations, by the government for the sole benefit of the banks. Think about it: Fannie and Freddie were publicly traded, had CEOs, failed to declare profits, were fined by government agencies, made campaign contributions (primarily to Republicans) &c. &c.

So Luckey has left out the issue of why the Fed (also a private, for-profit bank) wanted to stimulate the housing market. The answer is, Goldman Sachs and other Wall Street firms had decided to inflate a bubble and make a killing, specifically through selling mortgage-backed securites and credit default swaps. Essentially, they were setting up securities that were designed to fail, betting both sides of the game, and making money coming and going.

(continued)

Created by the government specifically to create a secondary mortgage market and they are controlled by the Government. They were created in 1938 by the federal govt and have remained under govt “eyes” continuing as GSE’s(government sponsored enterprise). Yeah, they have stockholders, but they are a GOVERNMENT SPONSORED ENTERPRISE. Do you think there isn’t any control there? The government should not be creating any private business, because then IT’S NOT PRIVATE. Who cares whether it seemed to line republican or democrat pockets. You’re only proving our points! The federal government created these entities and if you think they were run like a real private business you’re sorely mistaken again. Hands were in pockets all over the place with fannie, freddie, ginnie, etc. as well as with the fed. The fed and others are no more private than GM is. This is crony capitalism. It is a perversion of the free market. You’re only proving my point when you highlight where the government gets involved and things go wrong. Do you really expect healthcare to be any different?

Socialism… ideas so great they have to be mandated…some ideas are good, yes, but that dang subsidiarity just keeps getting in the way for you doesn’t it.

 

[markbrumbaugh]

The country under discussion here is Canada. Seen many “FREE CANADA!” bumper stickers lately?

By the way, it is preferable to sauté the frog:

FROG LEGS – The delicate meat is tender and lightly sweet and can be most closely compared to the white meat of a very young chicken. Fresh frog’s legs can be found from spring through summer in the fish section. They’re usually sold in connected pairs ranging from 2 to 8 ounces. Look for those that are plump and slightly pink. Store, loosely wrapped, in the refrigerator for up to 2 days. Frozen frog’s legs can usually be purchased year-round, though the flavor doesn’t compare to fresh. Thaw in the refrigerator overnight before cooking. Because their flavor is so subtle, frog’s legs should be cooked simply and briefly. A quick dusting of seasoned flour before sautéing in butter or olive oil will gild the lily perfectly. Overcooking frog’s legs will cause them to toughen.

More delicious recipes here.

I believe I introduced Cuba as an example of socialisms many failures, now even admitted by Fidel.
Thanks for the recipe. But the frog is just as dead in either case.

 

[markbrumbaugh]

And as to Ron Paul, I actually have not listened to him much. My views are based upon principles, not someone elses ideas. Sure, I may achieve a better understanding of a certain issue when it is spoken about by someone else, but really once I defined my set of principles based upon my faith my ideas flow from those principles. Not a knock at you, that’s just the way I judge ideas.

“They” all think we get our daily marching orders on thought from someone else.

 

[Abu]

Cricket123
Our regulations favor predatory capitalism over the common good.

Such a generalization ignores the ad nauseam government tapering with the laws of free enterprise.
I notice that you are unable to point to any “unregulated laissez-faire market”.

Yes, fallen human nature is real, yet I would argue we’ve seen far more of the above than any excesses of “the Welfare State.”

The Welfare State (post #469) plan has intrinsic defects – *Centesimus Annus *(John Paul II, 1991):
“Malfunctions and defects in the Social Assistance State [Welfare 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.”

Laws and regulations can, should and must be adequate and enforced in a free enterprise democracy to control and reduce the deleterious effects of human misbehaviour. Politicians and welfare bureaucrats are no less subject to Original Sin, anyway.

On medical care, which you have dropped, Dr Luckey makes these points for U.S. medical care:
“The medical care system in the United States is the best in the world. We have the best-trained physicians, nurses and technicians in the world, and we have the most up-to-date medical equipment.
We have the best medical financing system in the world.
Fourthly, physicians and hospitals are willing to take payments.
Fifthly, there is Medicare and Medicaid for the poor.”
[See http://www.drwilliamluckey.com/index.cfm/Current-Events ]

 

[Cricket123]

I notice that you are unable to point to any “unregulated laissez-faire market”.

I have not pointed to any example of an unregulated, laissez-faire market because I never claimed such a thing exists. You will notice, however, the constant calling of business for deregulation and the ever-increasing willingness of politicians to provide it.

On medical care, which you have dropped, Dr Luckey makes these points for U.S. medical care:

“The medical care system in the United States is the best in the world…

I have not dropped the subject. I am taking the time to consider and prepare a careful answer to Geowitz’s hostile but fair and intelligent question.

I have not yet read the article you have linked to; however, if it begins with the assumption that “the medical care system in the United States is the best in the world,” then it is quite likely worthless, as it has begun under a false premise. By most measures, our system is not the best in the world, just the most expensive.

If you look at the WHO rankings for the US:

Overall - 37
Preventable Deaths - 14
Life Expectancy - 24
Health Performance - 72
Health Expenditure - 2

We are second only to the Marshall Islands, a US occupied territory from 1944-1979 and the site of significant nuclear testing: considered by the AEC to be the most contaminated place in the world. I hardly find this a consolation.