Why is socialism bad by Church teaching?

[Abu]

To my “Even the notoriously anti-Catholic historian W E H Lecky admitted that the Church’s sheer scope and commitment to the poor constituted something new in the Western world, representing a dramatic improvement over the standards of classical antiquity. [Dr Thomas E Woods, Jr., *How The Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, Regnery 2005, p 7]”, comes the farcical “could you provide an elegant summary instead of just reference the work of right-wing Catholics?”

This gem from the self-styled “tentative Catholic” Black Rose, doesn’t even recognise that Lecky’s admiration comes from a “notoriously anti-Catholic”. This continued diatribe against anything Catholic reveals the hatred of Christ’s Church and mixes in political hype like a true comrade.

BTW here is the quotation:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodality_(Catholic_Church
The British historian and social writer, William Lecky (1880), notes that around 1200 AD:
"Christianity for the first time made charity a rudimentary virtue, giving it a leading place in the moral type, and in the exhortation of its teachers. Besides its general influence in stimulating the affections, it effected a complete revolution in this sphere, by regarding the poor as the special representatives of the Christian Founder, and thus making the love of Christ, rather than the love of man the principle of charity . . . . . A vast organization of charity, presided over by Bishops, and actively directed by the deacons, soon ramified over Christendom, till the bond of charity became the bond of unity, and the most distant sections of the Christian Church corresponded by the interchange of mercy.” (History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne, Part 2, p 79)
books.google.com.au/books?id=bGoOir9MWnQC&pg=PA95&lpg=PA95&dq=Lecky+on+the+Catholic+Church+and+the+poor&source=bl&ots=m-8deuCbK6&sig=Qde1IFfXeuGVkcHVE3sEInwMpiQ&hl=en&ei=HDadTPHgMJPEvQOrt7GNDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBQQ6AEwAA#v=snippet&q=rudimentary&f=false

How great that even he could see that it is the love of Christ that motivates the Catholic faithful to Christ through His Church.

 

[Black_Rose]

To my “Even the notoriously anti-Catholic historian W E H Lecky admitted that the Church’s sheer scope and commitment to the poor constituted something new in the Western world, representing a dramatic improvement over the standards of classical antiquity. [Dr Thomas E Woods, Jr., *How The Catholic Church Built Western Civilization

, Regnery 2005, p 7]”, comes the farcical “could you provide an elegant summary instead of just reference the work of right-wing Catholics?”

This gem from the self-styled “tentative Catholic” Black Rose, doesn’t even recognise that Lecky’s admiration comes from a “notoriously anti-Catholic”. This continued diatribe against anything Catholic reveals the hatred of Christ’s Church and mixes in political hype like a true comrade.

BTW here is the quotation:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodality_(Catholic_Church
The British historian and social writer, William Lecky (1880), notes that around 1200 AD:
"Christianity for the first time made charity a rudimentary virtue, giving it a leading place in the moral type, and in the exhortation of its teachers. Besides its general influence in stimulating the affections, it effected a complete revolution in this sphere, by regarding the poor as the special representatives of the Christian Founder, and thus making the love of Christ, rather than the love of man the principle of charity . . . . . A vast organization of charity, presided over by Bishops, and actively directed by the deacons, soon ramified over Christendom, till the bond of charity became the bond of unity, and the most distant sections of the Christian Church corresponded by the interchange of mercy.” (History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne, Part 2, p 79)
books.google.com.au/books?id=bGoOir9MWnQC&pg=PA95&lpg=PA95&dq=Lecky+on+the+Catholic+Church+and+the+poor&source=bl&ots=m-8deuCbK6&sig=Qde1IFfXeuGVkcHVE3sEInwMpiQ&hl=en&ei=HDadTPHgMJPEvQOrt7GNDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBQQ6AEwAA#v=snippet&q=rudimentary&f=false

How great that even he could see that it is the love of Christ that motivates the Catholic faithful to Christ through His Church.

I stand corrected and I thank you for the resource; I accept WEH Leaky as a secondary source, and you are indeed correct about the charity based on agape conducted by the Early Christians.

But I wonder if such agape is useful today; I doubt it can be as efficacious as the modern welfare state. But there is a social stigma to receiving charity; for instance, no one wants to receive charity since it is humiliating.

 

[Geowitz]

If one accepts what you have written, then one could say that a laissez-faire government is amoral; there is nothing moral about free-market outcomes. It supposedly makes “morality” easier since, by your definition, the laws of economics have no economic component, and embracing laissez-faire is embracing the laws of economics.

No, this is a simple concept. Quit trying to make it so complicated with your pseudo intellectualism. You want this subject to seem so complicated that only someone such as yourself can understand it. There are natural laws of economics dealing with supply and demand. You keep wanting to classify economics as some kind of system like “laissez-faire”. It’s not some system you implement. It’s an understanding you work within. Just like you work within biology for success. Can you physically violate the laws of biology? Yes, you can and you get perverted results. It’s the same with economics. What you call “laissez-faire” violates the laws of economics because there is a disregard for supply and demand and the focus is not in fulfilling true supply and demand.

Henry CK Liu has written something similar about Hayek’s social philosophy:

atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/LD15Dj04.html

But one purpose for understanding the “laws of biology” (which are essentially reducible to the interactions of molecules behaving in a Darwinian fashion for billions of years), is so one can manipulate it for one’s own benefit. For example, understanding cholesterol biosynthesis, prostaglandin synthesis from omega-6 fatty acids, the signal transduction pathways of some cancers allows sufficient knowledge to develop pharmaceuticals such as statins (which inhibits HMG-CoA reductase, the enzyme involved in the committed step in cholesterol biosynthesis), COX (cyclooxgenase) inhibitors, and kinase inhibitors. The same could be said about economics too since the laws can be used to benefit the economy of a nation-state, or perhaps the global economy if there is sufficient cooperation. But pharmacology, like economic intervention, is inherently interventionist since one intends to deliver a molecule that would disrupt a “natural” biochemical process for the benefit of a patient. Of course, economic intervention can be a net positive, but like pharmaceuticals, there are gross negatives (like side-effects) and contraindications for certain policy prescriptions of monetary and fiscal interventionism.

There is a key distinction missed here in the definition of “intervention”. Intervention is too broad of a term. One can intervene in biology or economics, but they should not violate the laws of either. You must intervene within the laws to expect success. If you don’t work within those laws you will have failure…which is exactly what we have going on in the US. And don’t try to tell us that capitalism got us here. You’d be a fool to even humor the thought that capitalism has been around in the last 100 years.

So going against the “laws” of biology and economics are immoral? Is taking Lipitor going against the “laws” of biology?

What a silly example. Work within the system and you’ll be fine. Work against it and failure is imminent.

But I do not accept that morality only enters the situation when one tries to go “against” the laws of biology and economics because it allows condones sins of omission because it is a disincentive for any meliorative action.

This again shows your need for control. You want to force meliorative action, which then removes charity. If you understand the laws of economics you’d understand that economics and charity are two totally separate things. You seem to want to tie them together in a typical liberal way. You’re obsessed with money, but you misunderstand money. Money is a mere tool which crosses both realms of economics and charity making it easy to confuse the two. Understanding and working/intervening within the laws of economics to improve one’s life does not mean there will be a disregard for meliorative action just as working within the laws of biology to improve one’s life does not mean there will be a disregard for human life. There is no condoning of sins of omission because you work within the laws of economics. In fact working within the laws of economics, just like working within the laws of any science, will bring greater good than any of your interventionist ideas.

Oh yeah, and I meant to ask you. Didn’t you say this “wasn’t my outing”. I thought you weren’t going to post anymore?

 

[Abu]

Great post Geowitz.

Black_Rose
I stand corrected and I thank you for the resource; I accept WEH Leaky as a secondary source, and you are indeed correct about the charity based on agape conducted by the Early Christians.

I’m happy that we can agree on truth.

But I wonder if such agape is useful today; I doubt it can be as efficacious as the modern welfare state

Efficacious? The modern Welfare State is most inefficient – and worse, it savages subsidiarity and encourages sloth.

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.

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.”

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?

 

[luvzminis]

Didn’t the Roman Empire administer a grain dole?

Ok, could you provide an elegant summary instead of just reference the work of right-wing Catholics?

For example, could you write your own summary (or copy and paste it) about how the Catholic Church took care of the poor (and most importantly why would we should try to emulate that system today). Use this example provided here for the Tang Dynasty.

My post says what it says; Christianity did not have a significant influence in China, especially during the Tang Dynasty. There were some Nestorian missionaries in China around that period, but it is your burden of proof to show that they had a significant influence on Tang culture.

Please be aware of certain “history” sources, as they are becoming more and more anti-Christian in general. They simply don’t tell the full story–and have an agenda of their own.

 

[Geowitz]

Great post Geowitz.

Thanks… And thanks for your many great posts and citations as well.

 

[Geowitz]

I would like to add a point to my post in regards to the suggestion that we should “intervene” in economics just as we intervene in biology.

Might I remind everyone that it is exactly our worldly desire to intervene that creates the situations we are in now. We have been intervening in economics against its natural laws just as we intervene in biology with abortion or birth control, which goes against natural law.

There is no debate over the necessity of humans to work within economics. The debate is HOW we work within economics. Do we work with the natural law or against it? Both are an option, but you must prove that your means of “intervention” align with natural law.

“Intervene” is a horrible word to use here though. You don’t really “intervene” with the laws of biology when you create medicine. You FOLLOW the laws of biology to create medicine. Actually, it’s intervention with the laws of biology that originally created illness because intervention with natural law by definition creates perversion. Again, you shouldn’t intervene with natural law, you follow it.

BlackRose likes to come on here and say something like, “look, as Catholics we are told to take action”, and then goes directly on to argue that this means we MUST implement certain “economic policies”. When she does this it’s a clever, but unintentional, way of shifting and controling the debate. She focuses on what policies she believes should be implemented to “intervene” in economics instead of the debate focusing on whether intervention is an option in the first place. She’s skipped over defending her premise that intervenening to control economics is even right. The natural laws of economics prove time and time again that intervention perverts the system. FOLLOWING the laws of economics is the only way out of our mess, not “intervening”.

It’s like the healthcare debate - Liberals say single payer will work great, but fail to prove the premise that it’s the states responsibility in the first place so it’s just assumed that the state should run healthcare and we all go along arguing the details of implementing a single payer system.

Again, herein lies the problem with socialism AND it’s individual seperate policies. They all seek to intervene in natural law and ignore subsidiarity, thus perverting the system.

 

[athair_siochain]

Christ was a Socialist of sorts , Christ was not a Capitalist or a Communist. if you study both political organizations Idealogical frameworks you will find 99% of those with the most power, control the roofs over peoples heads, they are landlords and moneylenders, parasites in the eyes of Christ,
Christ booted them out of the Temple, so why do they still control humanity ? religious groups accommodate them. if we really followed in the footsteps of Christ we would ban them from entering places of worship, how many places of worship pay rent or repayments to a landlord/moneylender.?

 

[Abu]

athair_siochain
Christ was a Socialist of sorts

No. Why would you feel that?

His Church tells you what’s wrong with socialism.
The socialism that is condemned by Pius XI in Quadragesimo Anno, 1931 has the following false theories:
The Welfare State as the supreme objective.
Everything belongs to the State, thus excluding the real rights to private property.
The elimination of free enterprise in favour of state-controlled production and stribution.
Rejects the principle of subsidiarity.

As Fr John Corapi explains:
“The common error is to think that socialism helps the poor and disenfranchised. As Pope Leo XIII pointed out as long ago as 1891 in his Encyclical Rerum Novarum, socialism does not help the poor. Rather, it reduces everyone to the same lowest common denominator of poverty and misery, while at the same time drying up the very sources of capital.”

 

[Monk21]

Christ was a Socialist of sorts , Christ was not a Capitalist or a Communist. if you study both political organizations Idealogical frameworks you will find 99% of those with the most power, control the roofs over peoples heads, they are landlords and moneylenders, parasites in the eyes of Christ,
Christ booted them out of the Temple, so why do they still control humanity ? religious groups accommodate them. if we really followed in the footsteps of Christ we would ban them from entering places of worship, how many places of worship pay rent or repayments to a landlord/moneylender.?

I agree, and how many of the freedom loving people have ordinary or even poor citizens in power? Only the rich are in politics. And they still think they are free.

 

[Monk21]

Christ was a Socialist of sorts , Christ was not a Capitalist or a Communist. if you study both political organizations Idealogical frameworks you will find 99% of those with the most power, control the roofs over peoples heads, they are landlords and moneylenders, parasites in the eyes of Christ,
Christ booted them out of the Temple, so why do they still control humanity ? religious groups accommodate them. if we really followed in the footsteps of Christ we would ban them from entering places of worship, how many places of worship pay rent or repayments to a landlord/moneylender.?

I agree, and how many of the freedom loving people have ordinary or even poor citizens in power? Only the rich are in politics. And they still think they are free.

 

[Black_Rose]

Please be aware of certain “history” sources, as they are becoming more and more anti-Christian in general. They simply don’t tell the full story–and have an agenda of their own.

I do not see how my post is anti-Christian in any respect.

The reference I used that referred to the positive aspects of the Tang Dynastycannot be construed as anti-Christian since it never referred to Christianity.

 

[luvzminis]

I do not see how my post is anti-Christian in any respect.

The reference I used that referred to the positive aspects of the Tang Dynastycannot be construed as anti-Christian since it never referred to Christianity.

Please note that I never said your post was anti-Christian. I’m referring to historical “resources” which simply can’t be trusted as they are subjective, not objective.

 

[luvzminis]

Christ was a Socialist of sorts , Christ was not a Capitalist or a Communist. if you study both political organizations Idealogical frameworks you will find 99% of those with the most power, control the roofs over peoples heads, they are landlords and moneylenders, parasites in the eyes of Christ,
Christ booted them out of the Temple, so why do they still control humanity ? religious groups accommodate them. if we really followed in the footsteps of Christ we would ban them from entering places of worship, how many places of worship pay rent or repayments to a landlord/moneylender.?

I’ve heard this argument from Leftists several times before, so it’s quite obvious their sources are repeating it to “educate” them about Socialism. Be very careful.

While Christ cared deeply about the poor, he certainly did nothing like the Socialists in Washington today are doing to this country. Would Christ be ‘for’ the killing of the innocent in the womb? (Socialists are!) Would he urge us to put unnatural chemicals and gadgets into our bodies (which are temples of the Holy Spirit) so that we cannot procreate? How about making sure there are not enough jobs, nor pay is not sufficient for families to survive on? Would Christ approve that? Socialists do! Would Christ want us to lose control over our lives and have the government nanny-state us in every way conceivable? Socialists are all for that.

Socialism is NOT about equality–it’s about tyranny. While a tiny percentage of it is positive, realistically, it does not, and has never worked, and “the people” always end up losing, while the government dictates their lives. I might add that Socialism does not respect religious liberty, unless you want to call erecting pseudo churches (with ‘teachings’ dictated by the state) “religious liberty.” Certainly, again, Christ would not be ‘for’ that!

I’m reminded of Hitler and the Nazis, as doesn’t ‘Nazi’ stand for National Socialist Party?

The Capitalist system is far from perfect, but it certainly invites more freedom. It does need much improvement, however.

 

[illmatic]

No. Why would you feel that?

His Church tells you what’s wrong with socialism.
The socialism that is condemned by Pius XI in Quadragesimo Anno, 1931 has the following false theories:
The Welfare State as the supreme objective.
Everything belongs to the State, thus excluding the real rights to private property.
The elimination of free enterprise in favour of state-controlled production and stribution.
Rejects the principle of subsidiarity.

As Fr John Corapi explains:
“The common error is to think that socialism helps the poor and disenfranchised. As Pope Leo XIII pointed out as long ago as 1891 in his Encyclical Rerum Novarum, socialism does not help the poor. Rather, it reduces everyone to the same lowest common denominator of poverty and misery, while at the same time drying up the very sources of capital.”

He said Christ was a socialist… not that the people entrusted with guiding his church are. In fact, everything cast up by anti-Christians as an evil committed by the church seems to have some link to the political right: to greed, power craving, money gathering nonsense.

 

[Monk21]

Luvziminis wrote;
“While Christ cared deeply about the poor, he certainly did nothing like the Socialists in Washington today are doing to this country. Would Christ be ‘for’ the killing of the innocent in the womb? (Socialists are!) Would he urge us to put unnatural chemicals and gadgets into our bodies (which are temples of the Holy Spirit) so that we cannot procreate? How about making sure there are not enough jobs, nor pay is not sufficient for families to survive on? Would Christ approve that? Socialists do! Would Christ want us to lose control over our lives and have the government nanny-state us in every way conceivable? Socialists are all for that.”

Seems to me that all of the above has happened in the good ole USA under Capitalism.

 

[Abu]

Monk21
Luvziminis wrote;
How about making sure there are not enough jobs, nor pay is not sufficient for families to survive on? Would Christ approve that? Socialists do! Would Christ want us to lose control over our lives and have the government nanny-state us in every way conceivable? Socialists are all for that."
Monk21: Seems to me that all of the above has happened in the good ole USA under Capitalism.

You’ve learned nothing from Post #400:

Monk21: look at capitalism

You’re still looking but not understanding because you’re blinkered. You repeat your error having learned nothing – the fact that many governments in the West have chosen, over many years, to manipulate the free enterprise system which has led to the massive distortions now evident in all. Only a return to the sound principles established through reason and the theology of Christ’s Church, with the thrift of individuals, can restore economies to providing that acknowledgement of subsidiarity which is the backbone of free enterprise.
Free enterprise was developed by Catholic Late Scholastics and has enabled the banishment of the dire poverty which preceded it, part of how the Church built Western civilization. Pope John Paul II acclaimed the free economy that recognises the “fundamental role” of private property and the freedom of mankind to economic creativity, as “the path to true civil and economic progress” within “the fundamental and positive role of business, the market”… “and the resulting responsibility for the means of production.” Centesimus Annus #42, 1991].

Just as you now know that police, fire services and schools are NOT socialistic, and that Sadam Hussein DID gas the Iranians, contrary to what you once thought, you really need to appreciate the facts on free enterprise versus socialism.

 

[luvzminis]

Luvziminis wrote;
“While Christ cared deeply about the poor, he certainly did nothing like the Socialists in Washington today are doing to this country. Would Christ be ‘for’ the killing of the innocent in the womb? (Socialists are!) Would he urge us to put unnatural chemicals and gadgets into our bodies (which are temples of the Holy Spirit) so that we cannot procreate? How about making sure there are not enough jobs, nor pay is not sufficient for families to survive on? Would Christ approve that? Socialists do! Would Christ want us to lose control over our lives and have the government nanny-state us in every way conceivable? Socialists are all for that.”

Seems to me that all of the above has happened in the good ole USA under Capitalism.

Precisely because we no longer live in a truly Capitalistic nation. Socialism and Communism are ever so slowly being imposed on us, and they have been for several decades now. Few people living today in the U.S. are old enough to remember a purely Capitalistic nation.

 

[luvzminis]

You’ve learned nothing from Post #400:

You’re still looking but not understanding because you’re blinkered. You repeat your error having learned nothing – the fact that many governments in the West have chosen, over many years, to manipulate the free enterprise system which has led to the massive distortions now evident in all. Only a return to the sound principles established through reason and the theology of Christ’s Church, with the thrift of individuals, can restore economies to providing that acknowledgement of subsidiarity which is the backbone of free enterprise.
Free enterprise was developed by Catholic Late Scholastics and has enabled the banishment of the dire poverty which preceded it, part of how the Church built Western civilization. Pope John Paul II acclaimed the free economy that recognises the “fundamental role” of private property and the freedom of mankind to economic creativity, as “the path to true civil and economic progress” within “the fundamental and positive role of business, the market”… “and the resulting responsibility for the means of production.” Centesimus Annus #42, 1991].

Just as you now know that police, fire services and schools are NOT socialistic, and that Sadam Hussein DID gas the Iranians, contrary to what you once thought, you really need to appreciate the facts on free enterprise versus socialism.

I really hope people wake up soon, or they’ll find themselves living in a banana republic in cheap tenements with the government throwing them a crumb or two when they feel like it (read Socialism and Communism), all the while controlling their every move… Yeah–we’ll be “equal” alright–equally miserable! Don’t fall for the phony baloney “Socialism is equality” argument–it’s bunk.

Unfortunately, too many people believe the daily “news” (read socialist) sources in our country. Oh yeah–these sources preach about freedom (“freedom to choose,” usually) and wave the flag–but if you look close enough and are able to see beyond their words, you’ll notice it’s not the American flag they’re waving! I have to wonder how much they’re being paid off behind closed doors to push the Socialist/Communist agenda. Some of them may not realize how enslaving and dangerous such agendas are to freedom, but I think the majority in the media and in Washington (especially the “Democrat” Party (which really should change their name!) well know what they’re promoting—and it ain’t freedom, folks. Take a closer look and never accept the “news” they’re supposedly giving us. Rely on the Church as an authentic source. I recommend The National Catholic Register (do NOT confuse this with The National Catholic Reporter which is ultraliberal and does not represent the Church very often!) and Relevant Radio, which, if not local, you can listen to online at www.relevantradio.com

Also, read the Cathechism and study the Encyclicals. Much food for thought–and divinely inspired!

 

[luvzminis]

He said Christ was a socialist… not that the people entrusted with guiding his church are. In fact, everything cast up by anti-Christians as an evil committed by the church seems to have some link to the political right: to greed, power craving, money gathering nonsense.

Am I understanding you correctly? You believe Christ was a socialist? My apologies if you’re saying something else here, but that’s how it’s coming across.

Please be more specific: What specific “link(s) to the political right” can you cite, and where are you getting this information??

You’ve got the wrong word there–it obviously should be the political Left.

So you then must believe Christ is all for greed, power craving,money gathering nonsense, etc.? Funny–I only think of the current administration in Washington, myself–oh, and let’s not forget all the corruption and back door deals…

Why ignore the fact Christ wants freedom for everyone–not enslavement to a government and a loss of religious and civil rights? Please don’t be duped by your sources. Speaking of which, I recommend the book “Dupes” by Dr. Paul Kengor.