Why is socialism bad by Church teaching?

[Cruxis117]

Why am I not surprised? Simple – the many identified errors in failing to know, and understand little, of Catholic social teaching and the development of the laws of economics by the Medieval Catholic schoolmen, has left a yawning chasm in understanding.
Dr Alejandro Chafuen is Peruvian born, and the newest edition of his most informative book is available as: *Faith and Liberty: The Economic Thought of the Late Scholastics *(Studies in Ethics and Economics), Lexington Books, 2003.
Useful references are:
Thomas E Woods, Jr., How The Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, Regnery 2005
The Church And The Market, Thomas E. Woods, Jr., Lexington Books, 2005
The Victory of Reason, Rodney Stark, Random House, 2005
Meltdown, Thomas E Woods, Jr., Regnery, 2009

Interested readers can access:
drwilliamluckey.com/
mises.org/daily/4310
thomasewoods.com/articles/
mises.org/articles.aspx

On Pope Benedict XVI’s *Caritas in Veritate *Fr. Robert Sirico, president and co-founder of the Acton Institute (U.S.A.), explains…“his encyclical contains no talk of seeking a third way between markets and socialism. [Italics added]. Words like greed and capitalism make no appearance here. But if they look to this document as a means for the moral reconstruction of the world’s cultures and societies, which in turn influence economic events, they will find much to reflect upon…. The pope is pointing to a path neglected in all the talk of economic stimulus, namely a global embrace of truth-filled charity. Benedict rightly attributes the crisis itself to ‘badly managed and largely speculative financial dealing.’ But he resists the current fashion of blaming all existing world problems on the market economy. Further: ‘Society does not have to protect itself from the market, as if the development of the latter were ipso facto to entail the death of authentically human relations…Therefore it is not the instrument that must be called to account, but individuals, their moral conscience and their personal and social responsibility. More, not less, trade is needed: ‘the principal form of assistance needed by developing countries is that of allowing and encouraging the gradual penetration of their products into international markets.’…
Benedict does see a role for the state here [in wealth redistribution], but much of the needed redistribution is the result of every voluntary and mutually beneficial exchange.”

.
Another falsehood… The Catholic Church realises that *“If I were to pronounce on any single matter of a prevailing economic problem, I should be interfering with the freedom of men to work out their own affairs. Certain cases must be solved in the domain of facts, case by case as they occur…[M]en must realise in deeds those things, the principles of which have been placed beyond dispute…[T]hese things one must leave to the solution of time and experience.” [Pope Leo XIII. Quoted in The Church And The Market, Dr Thomas E. Woods, Lexington Books, 2005, p 4].

Keynes fantasy is to reduce interest rates in a boom to keep the boom. Another is to apply stimulus spending by governments – it has absolutely nothing to do with the Catholic Church.

Facing reality necessitates acknowledging and following Christ’s Church in understanding the nature of man and encouraging the right use of the laws of economics for the benefit of mankind, not any bozo intent on a selfist fantasy in denying what His Church clarifies.

So, I must ask, you believe that the Government should not interfere or regulate economy at all? Because everything that you state for some reason contradicts what I find in the CCC. Furthermore, it seems that you misunderstand Keynesian economics. He did not want to “keep the boom” and you erroneously suggest (showing a lack of education in economic theory) but wanted to shorten the drastic booms and busts that arose because of free enterprise without government economics). How is it a fantasy, if it works? (Wait, it worked…until Capitalists from America (for example, Chile and the so called “Chicago Boys”).

Refer to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 2425.

I just don’t understand why you ignore the Great Depression and the recent recession, all examples of the failures of unchecked Capitalism and Free Trade. Many of the posters here have actually addressed things which you ignore, which you then primarily (but not completely) focus on my statements. This is how I see it- The Catholic Church condemns the atheistic ideologies attached to Socialism and Communism, but also reject leaving people to the whim and mercy of the Free Market. Why don’t you see that? It’s clearly stated there in what I have suggested to you. Are you suggesting that you actually do advocate government intervention and regulation of the economy? Because that puts you farther away from Capitalism, towards a Mixed Economy, which as worked for many countries, far better than Capitalism has for the U.S.

Oh, and to your last point, I merely wish to say that I agree, and I wish that you would realize that and stop advocating such a foolish system of economic theory (therefore ending your foolishness and recognizing that freedom includes responsibility to help the poor and the lowly. If FDR could (using the Socialist Concept of the New Deal) the American Economy out of the gutter (which also involved WWII), then you can realize that Pure Capitalism, without government regulation of the economy, fails utterly and completely.

 

[Abu]

Black_Rose
politics was extremely laissez-faire. The depression was exacerbated, according to Keynesians, by the fiscal conservatism of Hoover who wanted balanced budgets, and the tight monetary policy of Fed Chair Roy Archibald Young.

False. See below.

Cruxis117 (#761)
you misunderstand Keynesian economics. He did not want to “keep the boom” and you erroneously suggest (showing a lack of education in economic theory) but wanted to shorten the drastic booms and busts that arose because of free enterprise without government economics). How is it a fantasy, if it works?

Get real and learn –“The remedy for the boom is not a higher rate of interest but a lower rate of interest! For that may enable the boom to last. The right remedy for the trade cycle is not to be found in abolishing booms and thus keeping us permanently in a semi-slump; but in abolishing slumps and keeping us permanently in a quasi-boom.” [John Maynard Keynes, *The General Theory of employment, Interest, and Money, New York: Harcourt Trade, 1964 [1936], p 332].
There is your fantasy and crackpot Keynesian ideas that just don’t work.
It is because of government manipulation that booms and busts are created. Those who learn free enterprise understand that.

I just don’t understand why you ignore the Great Depression and the recent recession…If FDR could (using the Socialist Concept of the New Deal) the American Economy out of the gutter (which also involved WWII), then you can realize that Pure Capitalism, without government regulation of the economy, fails utterly and completely.

Get real – the Great Depression was fuelled by Hoover and then F.D.R. using his socialist New Deal by raising taxes, expanding public works spending, establishing welfare programs, destroying existing crops, imposing acreage reduction requirements, legislating for cartels to establish minimum selling prices, and limit output. We all know how deep and long that fiasco was.

Without those policies econometric estimates show that the “Depression would have been completely over (less than 5% unemployment) by 1936.” [Richard K Vedder & Lowell E Gallaway, *Out of Work: Unemployment and Government in Twentieth-Century America (New York, Holmes & Meier, 1993, p 142.

From 1929 to 1933, when prices and wages were artificially propped up by the federal government, real consumption declined by 19%, GNP dropped by 19%, and real gross investment fell by 91%. [See *Meltdown, Dr Woods, Regnery, 2009, p 102]. From 1933 to 1940 the unemployment rate averaged 18%. But, in the first three quarters of 1937 money wages rose by 13.7% through union activity which naturally reduced employment and economic activity slowed.

Dr Thomas E Woods, Jnr., exposes the errors in assuming that the World War II fiscal stimulus saved the economy. 29% of the pre-war labour force was at some time drafted into the armed forces, with some 40% of national output devoted to the War, and prices rose by arbitrary imposition of the government, not reflecting consumer choice. The GDP figures are meaningless, with rationing, uncertain product quality, inability to purchase new homes, cars and appliances, and an increased work week.

The unforseen prosperity in 1946 that followed the end of the War was due to shifting to producing things consumers needed with an increased and improved labour force.

You were shown the reasons for the present recession in #519, “government finagling, unrecognised by some who post here, in what is a travesty of free enterprise.”

everything that you state for some reason contradicts what I find in the CCC…2425.

Because you don’t understand that the CCC is not spelling out what theories specifically should be used in economics, in contrast to the discovered laws and the right to economic initiative – the Church cannot and will not – and popes have realised this. In #755 Fr Schall, S.J., has shown: “She has had to acknowledge, as did the socialist systems themselves, that there are certain ways that must be employed if mankind is to meet its economic problems. These ways can be known and imitated, but they must include a juridical system, profit, enterprise, knowledge, exchange, a market, voluntary organisations, a relatively independent economy, private property, and respect for work and excellence.”
*Does Catholicism Still Exist?, *Alba House 1994, p 184-185].

 

[Black_Rose]

Apparently Liu plagiarized from this essay or I at least got his source:

One major reason was that the post-World
War I broadening of the franchise in most European countries due to the spread
of universal suffrage had made it far more difficult than before for governments
and central bankers to resist electoral pressures for increased social spending
and the reduction of interest rates, regardless of such policies’ impact upon
the international monetary system.54

The broadening of the political franchise in most European countries after the war had made it far more difficult for governments and central bankers to resist electoral pressures for increased social spending and the demand for ample liquidity with low interest rates, as well as high tolerance for moderate inflation, regardless of their impact on the international financial architecture.

henryckliu.com/page23.html

Now back on topic: you did not address what I said about the cause of the Great Depression. I guess by not addressing the majority of my posts means you cannot rebut its major point:

Austrian economists cannot blame the “scourge” of Keynesian economics [for the Great Depression] since John Maynard Keynes’ The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money was published in 1936 and fiscals conservatives largely had ideological control of fiscal policy [during the 1920s]. Keynesianism most certainly wasn’t a vogue school of thought during the 1920s in the United States.

Even Woods evades it here as he goes into a theoretical discussion on the Austrian Business Cycle Theory:

Ludwig von Mises and F. A. Hayek both pointed to artificial credit expansion, normally at the hands of a government-established central bank, as the non-market culprit. (Hayek won the Nobel Prize in 1974 for his work on what is known as Austrian business cycle theory.) When the central bank expands the money supply—for instance, when it buys government securities—it creates the money to do so out of thin air. This money either goes directly to commercial banks or, if the securities were purchased from an investment bank, very quickly makes its way to the commercial banks when the investment banks deposit the Fed’s checks. In the same way that the price of any good tends to decline with an increase in supply, the influx of new money leads to lower interest rates, since the banks have experienced an increase in loanable funds.

Yes, Hayek was the sole winner of the 1974 Nobel Prize in Economics, giving credence to the Austrian School since he did not have share the prize with other economists with different political inclinations. I learned new something today.

Had the lower interest rates in our example been the result of voluntary saving by the public instead of central-bank intervention, the relative decrease in consumption spending that is a correlate of such saving would have released resources for use in the higher-order stages of production. In other words, in the case of genuine saving, demand for consumer goods undergoes a relative decline; people are saving more and spending less than they used to. Consumer-goods industries, in turn, undergo a relative contraction in response to the decrease in demand for consumer goods. Factors of production that these industries once used—trucking services, for instance—are now released for use in more remote stages of the structure of production. Likewise for labor, steel, and other nonspecific (name removed by moderator)uts.

…

Thus, when lower interest rates are the result of central bank policy rather than genuine saving, no letup in consumer demand has taken place. (If anything, the lower rates make people even more likely to spend than before.) In this case, resources have not been released for us in the higher-order stages. The economy instead finds itself in a tug-of-war over resources between the higher- and lower order stages of production. With resources unexpectedly scarce, the resulting rise in costs threatens the profitability of the higher-order projects. The central bank can artificially expand credit still further in order to bolster the higher-order stages’ position in the tug of war, but it merely postpones the inevitable. If the public’s freely expressed pattern of saving and consumption will not support the diversion of resources to the higher-order stages, but, in fact, pulls those resources back to those firms dealing directly in finished consumer goods, then the central bank is in a war against reality. It will eventually have to decide whether, in order to validate all the higher-order expansion, it is prepared to expand credit at a galloping rate and risk destroying the currency altogether, or whether instead it must slow or abandon its expansion and let the economy adjust itself to real conditions.

Note how Woods does not offer any concrete details on what caused the Great Depression or the political environment that nurtured it.

Also, much of the content in Woods’ essay can be used to support the notion that “fiscals conservatives largely had ideological control of fiscal policy [during the 1920s]”. Alan Greenspan does mention Benjamin Strong’s internationalism in his “Gold and Economic Freedom” before the essay degenerates into an incoherent rant against welfare statists.

 

[Abu]

Black_Rose
Austrian economists cannot blame the “scourge” of Keynesian economics [for the Great Depression] since John Maynard Keynes’ The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money was published in 1936 and fiscals conservatives largely had ideological control of fiscal policy [during the 1920s]. Keynesianism most certainly wasn’t a vogue school of thought during the 1920s in the United States.

Who says they do? Although Keynes was as yet unknown, the polices that caused the Great Depression were due to government intervention – interventionist policies caused the Great Depression as shown.
The recession of the 1921 was fairly mild compared to Great Depression – you did not address what I said about the cause of the Great Depression
The causes of the Great Depression are indicated in #762.

On the 1920-21 depression: in fact the Federal Reserve Board increased the discount rate from 4.75 to 6 percent in late January of 1920 and to 7 percent on June 1, 1920. By the middle of 1920, economic activity and employment were rapidly falling, and prices had begun their downward spiral in one of the sharpest price declines in American history – 21% by mid-1920. The Federal Reserve System kept the discount rate at 7 percent until May 5, 1921, when it was lowered to 6.5 percent. The recovery was swift because there was no other significant intervention and free enterprise made the adjustment – no public works spending, government deficits, inflationary monetary policy that was to plague the use of Keynesian interventionist type policies.

 

[Black_Rose]

Who says they do? Although Keynes was as yet unknown, the polices that caused the Great Depression were due to government intervention – interventionist policies caused the Great Depression as shown.
The recession of the 1921 was fairly mild compared to Great Depression – you did not address what I said about the cause of the Great Depression
The causes of the Great Depression are indicated in #762.

On the 1920-21 depression: in fact the Federal Reserve Board increased the discount rate from 4.75 to 6 percent in late January of 1920 and to 7 percent on June 1, 1920. By the middle of 1920, economic activity and employment were rapidly falling, and prices had begun their downward spiral in one of the sharpest price declines in American history – 21% by mid-1920. The Federal Reserve System kept the discount rate at 7 percent until May 5, 1921, when it was lowered to 6.5 percent. The recovery was swift because there was no other significant intervention and free enterprise made the adjustment – no public works spending, government deficits, inflationary monetary policy that was to plague the use of Keynesian interventionist type policies.

How do you know that it has something to do with “free enterprise”:

Unfortunately, a figure I wanted to use for debt-gdp ratio did not show up on my previous post:

I will do it again with another figure:

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

Why couldn’t the “fast” recovery be due to a low debt-to-GDP ratio in the 1920s? Debt deflation dynamics did not play a role during that recession, but it most certainly did during the Great Depression. You are underestimating the severity of the Great Depression when you fail to acknowledge the large debt-to-GDP ratio accumulated in the late 1920s and the subsequent deleveraging occurring in the 1930s.

 

[St_Francis]

Oh I agree, that is the full post and I stated that full post earlier. I’m not a believer of either Communism, or Capitalism, but of a Mixed Economy with a Democratic Government that regulates the economy. This is often known as many things, including a Welfare State and Democratic Socialism. And I only stated that paragraph of the CCC partially because I know that it clearly stated something that was the exact opposite of what Abu was advocating, which is Laissez-Faire Capitalism. I didn’t mean to take the paragraph out of context, but to merely state a point.

Too much social assistance has also been condemned by the Church, in Centissimus Annus, paragraph 48: 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.

 

[Cruxis117]

**Too much social assistance **has also been condemned by the Church, in Centissimus Annus, paragraph 48: 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.

You are completely right, the Church has condemned too much social assistance, but that does not detract from the fact that the Church does agree with and advocate some government regulation and social programs provided by the government, as stated in the CCC.

 

[DLG123]

Citation please. Furthermore, I don’t see any of this in any, ANY economic book, nor in any high school course, Catholic or Public. Ironically, what Keynes advocates is what the Church advocates, but I guess your greed and lust for wealth blind you to that. You say that I’m unintelligent, yet you don’t see America as the top country in any ranking of Education, Standard of Living, etc. You see France, Norway, Sweden. Socialist Countries. You, sir, have no understanding of this and should leave alone what you obviously don’t understand.

You obviously havent looked at a tv for a week or so. Have you seen the wonderful world of socialism in France… Riots, looting, shutting down factories, stikes, all over the government trying to raise the retirement age to 62 thats correct from 60 to 62!!! France as a Nation is lazy, produced nothing of value and for the most part irrelevant in world affairs all due to socialism.

 

[DLG123]

Yet another mirage that the free enterprise developed and encouraged by Christ’s Church should be falsified to “Laissez-Faire Capitalism”. His ranting on this has been exposed (posts #654, # 725) – what he tilts at has never existed in any society or country, only in the minds of a few economists, with whom I disagree as any observer can see. Christ’s Church has never allowed as moral, any manipulation of the nature of man.

As the guardian of morals and of the right to economic initiative in free enterprise, Christ’s Church has taught that the operation of free enterprise must be based on what has been well–expressed by Fr James A Schall: “Since the Catholic Church wants poverty confronted, since She wants this confrontation to be done justly and with the interest and cooperation of the workers and the poor, She has had to acknowledge, as did the socialist systems themselves, that there are certain ways that must be employed if mankind is to meet its economic problems. These ways can be known and imitated, but they must include a juridical system, profit, enterprise, knowledge, exchange, a market, voluntary organisations, a relatively independent economy, private property, and respect for work and excellence.”
Does Catholicism Still Exist?, Alba House 1994, p 184-185].

The ranting and raving of frantony has no place in reasoned discussion – what both he and Cruxis117 display is the utter failure to understand:

1. That the laws of economics were discovered and developed by the great Late Scholastics who were faithful Catholics and that the right to economic initiative, and the operation of those laws in society has been acknowledged by Christ’s Church.
2. That this development started in the great Catholic monastic estates of the ninth century
3. The free enterprise system of economics by its nature and results has enabled the creation and spread of wealth for untold billions since the days of eking out an existence before the 18th century. Nothing can compare with the wealth created and widely spread from this great system developed by faithful members of Christ’s Church.
4. That socialism has been totally condemned by Christ’s Church and has no place in human endeavour.
5. That free enterprise has been shackled and largely crippled by those government agencies which interfere to distort the laws of economics based on the false economic theories such as the Keynesian fallacies of stimului, which are largely responsible for putting the world’s largest economy, the U.S.A., in its present plight, and have squandered the massive surplus of a previous government in Australia. (At least frantony has some inkling here).

So for many years, the benefits which free enterprise has enabled have been shackled by the false economic theories which various “schools” have concocted, despite the enormous growth of the U.S. previously.

HE SWINGS… IHe connects… ts a high fly ball… its goiong, going, it could be… GONE!!! ABU has hit a GRAND SLAM!!!

 

[athair_siochain]

How many Capitalists practice Capitalism in their homes? Why not?

Does the baby in your home receive food in proportion to what work he has done, or according to the number of hours of work he has done?
On whom is the maximum money spent in a home? On the healthy persons who work, or on the sick, invalid, and under aged who are incapable of working?
Why can’t the whole world live like a family? We can, if we kill all the capitalists, or send them to outer space.
Capitalists are like the healthy family member who wants to selfishly blow up all the money he/ she earns without caring for others who are in his family and who may be more in need of the money. But a time will come when he will be sick or old himself, and will need help from others.

For your information, ON THE DAY after the fiscal year closed - Oct 1, 2010 - the National debt of the Great United States of America increased to 13.61 trillion - and is increasing at the rate of 500 million, or HALF A BILLION dollars - in a day! Don’t take my word for it. Run the numbers at the Treasury link for yourself at treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np

It should be obvious to even the most mentally challenged, that any government give-away programs that do not come from treasury abundance, are nothing more than selfish, morally bankrupt and reprobate, debt transfer programs, onto the backs of our children and their children.

But then why should politicians care when they have no skin in the game? How do they loose when they squander the capital that they confiscate from the citizen as taxes, as well as the future wealth that our children are expected to create, to pay the debt?

All the money given away has only served to further strengthen the banks, the real estate, and other capitalistic institutions who were fleecing the public during the boom time and blowing up their booty in expensive yachts, parties and holidays.

The automobile tycoons during their heydays bought up all the American Railroads and dismantled them, so that they could sell more cars. Today, even when he is job-less, the average American has to depend on cars and petroleum, for transport.

The release of the official U.S. trade balance numbers in October 2010 by the Commmerce Department shows that the U.S. Trade Deficit with China has expanded to $46.3 billion in August, up 8.7% from July and 49% from a year ago. Dissecting the numbers shows the deficit in goods increased $3.9 billion to $59 billion, while the surplus on the services side edged up $100 million, to $12.6 billion. The trade deficit with China totaled $28 billion, up from July’s $25.9 billion.

The capitalists conveniently ignore the above facts and figures, and shamelessly talk about the Great Capitalistically Prosperous United States whose citizen are now actually surviving on borrowed money.

Americans today are no longer the caring, honest, rugged, diligent and industrious workers they were in the yester-years. Today they are bloated, lazy and stupid, and believe all the lies the bankers and auto-mobile Industry and the Medical Industry tell to fool them. They believe that they can continue to live their lazy lives if they supported Capitalists and Capitalistic Governments who are good salesmen. They will realise that they too deep in **** only when it is too late. Instead of going to church and reading the Bible and live honest caring lives, they lie in their couch with a beer and listen to meaningless economic jargon like Friedman’s Money Supply Rule and Keynesian theory on their TVs.

Jesus’ teachings are simple, and targeted to the simple man. He spoke in parables in reference to birds and seeds so that the simple truths could be understood by them. They were not meant for the learned Pharisees or Nobel Prize winning Economists or learned Theologians in Rome. These teachings however went above the head of the learned ones of Jesus’ time (The Pharisees) because they learned the scripture to such a level that they twisted it to serve their selfish purposes. But all tricks and lies have short life and come with an expiry date. Just like the Pharisees, the Capitalists, the Doctors, the Economists and their admirers will soon start seeing the Real Plain Truth in the Gospels./QUOTE

HEAR HEAR,

 

[anthony022071]

Weird, It seems that most of the teachings of Christ sound socialistic to me. You know, the common good, equality, etc. Ultimately, this is what you are proposing to be in line with Church teaching:

Capitalism: Favors the individual Good over the Common Good.

Socialism: Favors both the Individual Good and the Common Good.

Communism: Favors the Common Good.

Capitialism is about making a profit from the sale of products or services. When a business sells products and services that people need,it can serve the common good even though that is not the intention.

Socialism is a system of government that takes too much money (private property) from the people and from businesses (private property) and has too much control over businesses. It takes over the responsibilities of neighbors,parents,communiites and churches to care for their own and thus fosters an unnatural dependency upon government.

Communism is about the abolition of private property by the government,which is against natural law and thus against the common good.

Jesus Christ did not teach about the common good of all society or economic equality,he taught about himself,his sacrifice,and obedience to the commandments of God,which are directed at individual persons. The common good does not entail a socialistic government that takes away a large measure of what people earn and redistributes it to social programs,it entails moral justice and prudential judgement. As for economic equality,it is not necessary for the common good,and it is wrong to impose it.

 

[anthony022071]

You are completely right, the Church has condemned too much social assistance, but that does not detract from the fact that the Church does agree with and advocate some government regulation and social programs provided by the government, as stated in the CCC.

We already have too much government regulation of businesses and too much government assistance. It is inappropriate for the government to exercize so much power and influence over people’s lives.

 

[Cruxis117]

We already have too much government regulation of businesses and too much government assistance. It is inappropriate for the government to exercize so much power and influence over people’s lives.

Is it? So, we should have it where people are subject to the owners of factories and companies? So, it should be where you get paid about 5 bucks, have to work 12 hour shifts, and work in dangerous conditions which could hurt or kill someone, where job security is minimal?

You’re telling me that you want to regress to 19th Century England. That’s pretty much what you’re saying. From where you live, the U.S., you are already considered to be very far right, meaning that you ALREADY have minimal government regulation. I’m sorry, but I prefer to have the government actually make laws (Laws! The Horror!) to actually exert it’s responsibility (Responsibility! Oh no!) to protect it’s citizens from unfair treatment and to actually encourage and improve the economy and the country as a whole. It is inappropriate to leave everything to the “laws of economics” or the “Free Market” (or the Invisible Hand, for that matter), both logically and ethically.

 

[athair_siochain]

This thread has lost its way, we have a argument that is fueled with untruths , it also seems many Capitalist receive a education reading headlines in propaganda magazines, they failed to read the story behind the headlines,
If the Catholic Church accommodates Capitalistic ideas then it is listening to Satan, who is offering them the whole World , Capitalism is evil, created out of blind greed by landlords and money lenders, having said that, the Catholic Church is the Worlds third richest landowner, makes you wonder,

 

[Abu]

Black_Rose
How do you know that it has something to do with “free enterprise”…Why couldn’t the “fast” recovery be due to a low debt-to-GDP ratio in the 1920s? Debt deflation dynamics did not play a role during that recession, but it most certainly did during the Great Depression. You are underestimating the severity of the Great Depression when you fail to acknowledge the large debt-to-GDP ratio accumulated in the late 1920s and the subsequent deleveraging occurring in the 1930s

The free enterprise system was developed by the Catholic Late Scholastics from reason – from cause to effect – and operates most effectively without government interference; that’s why the 1920 Depression was quickly overcome.

Each year in the 1920’s, the federal government generated a surplus, in some years as much as 1 percent of GNP. The surpluses were used to reduce the federal deficit and it declined by 25 percent between 1920 and 1930. Contrary to simple macroeconomic models that argue a federal government budget surplus must be contractionary and tend to stop an economy from reaching full employment, the American economy operated at full-employment or close to it throughout the twenties and saw significant economic growth. In this case, the surpluses were not contractionary because the dollars were circulated back into the economy through the purchase of outstanding federal debt rather than pulled out as currency and held in a vault somewhere.
[eh.net/encyclopedia/article/Smiley.1920s.final]](http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/Smiley.1920s.final])

That’s not to say that the government doesn’t have a role in civilised society. It most certainly does. Its role is to guarantee and enforce clear rules that establish and protect the ownership of private property and enforce contract, as well as punish people who take what is not theirs. The Law – transparent, providing equal justice, and impartially administered – is as important an institution to civilised society as the free market, which itself could be described as a mechanism for communicating prices.
whiskeyandgunpowder.com/even-a-little-government-intervention-is-destructive-socialism/

At Hoover’s insistence, followed by FDR, wages remained high even throughout the Great Depression propping up unemployment at an average of 18% throughout. The Keynesian “purchasing power” fallacy of prosperity had trumped over the fact that savings are the source of investment. Yet Americans bought more than twice as many refrigerators in 1935 with unemployment over 20% than they bought in 1929 with unemployment at 3.2%, but over a million had no wages at all. By 1938, 1.2 million were out of work. The continued failure was to realise that wages are a cost of doing business and that for maximum employment have to reach a sustainable level.

We know that Christ’s Church has condemned socialism and we know why; because of its effect on human nature.

 

[TheRealJuliane]

Just take a look at what is going on in France right now - the government has told people they have to work for 2 more years to get their retirement pensions - from age 60 to age 62, and the whole country is in turmoil. Students, who haven’t ever worked for a living to this point, are striking! There is rioting and vandalism. Strikers have blockec access to refineries and nuclear power plants and there are shortages. President Sarkozy is having to import energy from other countries.

This is what “benevolent” socialism leads to. Dependent, passive citizens, used to getting handouts, throwing childish tantrums when their handouts are reduced. France can no longer afford for its citizens to retire at age 60, and take from the government for another 20-30 years of their lives, but “YOU PROMISED!” say the babies.

bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11591517

Liberalism/socialism is a plague upon the earth.

 

[St_Francis]

You are completely right, the Church has condemned too much social assistance, but that does not detract from the fact that the Church does agree with and advocate some government regulation and social programs provided by the government, as stated in the CCC.

And I totally agree with that. The Church, as it always does, goes for the virtue in the middle as opposed to the vicious extremes.

We cannot have what some call free-market anarchy, where there is no government at all but only private contracts between individuals and businesses–that is totally insane.

The government needs to regulate business to a certain extent, just as the government needs to regulate individuals to a certain extent. The free-market extremists seem to think that the laws of the marketplace will suffice to make everyone in business good when not everyone in business is good now! That seems based on the fallacious Rousseauian idea that it is exposure to society which corrupts and that freedom from the constrictions of society enable children to develop better.

At the same time, however, too much government regulation stifles business, like pulling the reins on a horse: everything comes to a grinding halt. How can we say that someone “owns” a business if he or she has to follow an exact path laid out by the government?

 

[Monk21]

You obviously havent looked at a tv for a week or so. Have you seen the wonderful world of socialism in France… Riots, looting, shutting down factories, stikes, all over the government trying to raise the retirement age to 62 thats correct from 60 to 62!!! France as a Nation is lazy, produced nothing of value and for the most part irrelevant in world affairs all due to socialism.

You don’t have all the facts. There is a two level system in France. The biggest complaint is that they want to raise the age from 65 to 67 as well as the 60 to 62 group and I think most Americans would complain abt that too.

 

[Monk21]

And I totally agree with that. The Church, as it always does, goes for the virtue in the middle as opposed to the vicious extremes.

We cannot have what some call free-market anarchy, where there is no government at all but only private contracts between individuals and businesses–that is totally insane.

The government needs to regulate business to a certain extent, just as the government needs to regulate individuals to a certain extent. The free-market extremists seem to think that the laws of the marketplace will suffice to make everyone in business good when not everyone in business is good now! That seems based on the fallacious Rousseauian idea that it is exposure to society which corrupts and that freedom from the constrictions of society enable children to develop better.

At the same time, however, too much government regulation stifles business, like pulling the reins on a horse: everything comes to a grinding halt. How can we say that someone “owns” a business if he or she has to follow an exact path laid out by the government?

Last night I watched a documentary on the devastation that Shell and other oil companies are causing in 3rd world countries. Included in the doc. were mining companies that pollute land and water tables. Canadian mining companies were among the worst. People are protesting and being arrested. Canada has a bill before parlament to control these guys.
One mayor in Guatemala was paid $1000.00 a month to keep protesters at bay.
The world bank demanded that countries like Bolivia and others privatize their water supply if they wanted loans from the bank. When people were loosing their houses because they could not pay their water bills the whole country protested and got back local government control over their water.
Another company cleared out 100 villages to fill 100 sq. kms with papyrus trees to make toilet paper. This was in Brazil. The land was ruined and these self sufficient natives had their water table reduced to trees that were planted a meter apart.

This is what happens when corporations have no laws to control them and greed takes over.

 

[TheRealJuliane]

You don’t have all the facts. There is a two level system in France. The biggest complaint is that they want to raise the age from 65 to 67 as well as the 60 to 62 group and I think most Americans would complain abt that too.

Oh, wah, wah, wah, boo-hoo, those people over there are always complaining if someone takes their benefits away! I have plenty of facts, my husband is over there RIGHT NOW and is having problems getting home because of the strikes. I know more about this than your theories.

EUROPE IS BROKE! They don’t have enough producers to make up for the takers! Coming soon to a country near you!