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athair_siochain
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ADD TO THAT the 100.000 hectares of old forest , chopped down everyday to make "junk mail " for junk food outlets, again blind greed destroying what God created, there can only be one outcome to all this greed, the parasites will be judged
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jimpres
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Europe has to many on the dole/welfare and some countries they retire at 55. And we are trying the same thing here more welfare and wealth distribution.
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TheRealJuliane
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Who made this “documentary?” Every show like that has its bias. Did you see it on Planet Green?
Are you saying that Shell has no laws to control it? Are you kidding me? Oil companies have the heaviest regulation of any type of corporation, even before the accident in the Gulf.
Your statements say to me that you are already half communist. Do you even understand that the anti-capitalism screeds come from communists? You are being used to achieve an end that you won’t enjoy. Do some reading on communism. Or maybe you already are a communist, in which case…
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AngryAtheist8
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You seem to be saying that socialism is the same as Soviet style communism.Socialism is contrary to democracy in that socialism calls for the redistribution of wealth and abolishment of private property. This means that if you work harder in your job than your co-worker you will not be rewarded.
There is no incentive to excel. All wealth is distributed evenly and everything is state run and owned. Few freedms exist. Couples were not allowed to have public displays of affections and I am sure it is discouraged even now.
Before the Soviet Union reverted to Russia it was primarily and still is very socialist although they are becoming more democratic.
There are different types of socialism and are some often thrive under Communist rule…
Socialized medicine is frowned on in the U.S. and this is basically what is the proposed end result of the new health plan. Canada and Britain have socialized medicine along with other countries. It is not a popular idea in the U.S. because there is no incentive for the doctors to excel or even do a good job and taxes are usually raised to pay for this. Of course, the primary motivator is money and goods in the U.S. and that is threatened in a socialist medical community.
I asked fellow visiting from China to take care of my dad when he was ill and he and his wife who is a doctor were allowed to have two children, the limit imposed by the government is one child per family. Until very recently it was frowned on for any family to have more than one.
China has performed millions of abortions, sterilizations and infanticide since they implemented this policy in the 70’s. They are now having problems because there are an excess of young men and not enough young women available for marriage.
Most of the aborted and murdered children were girls becaused they we valued less. Now they do not have enough women. Socialism in China since the Cultural Revolution has been a vehicle for people to be murdered who excercise free speech and assembly such as the Tiananmen Square massacre. Wiki on Mao-“Mao’s policies and political purges from 1949 to 1976 are widely believed to have caused the deaths of between 50 to 70 million people.” This was the Cultural Revolution that not only brought famine but the murder of any person or group of people who did not fit into the Revolutionary plan. Anything culturally Western was collected and destroyed as were many Christians and foreigners who lived in China at the time.
Where the seeds of Socialism have been sown has meant the loss of millions of lives born and unborn.
Many Chinese have escaped from China and earlier in history from Taiwan to the U.S. to escape the rigid social structure and oppression. I know such a elderly woman and on her journey her she had to “give up” a child to get here.
Also, look up Stalin, you won’t believe how under his brand of socialism he resorted to murder and starve millions of Russians. History is so important and all of this has affected Catholics and the Church as well as Facist governments.
Thank you for the great question, I am sure others have much to add. Are you writing a paper for school?
That is simply not true.
Great Britain is much more socialist than the United States, and it has always been much more free and humane than the Soviet Union.
Socialism is not automatically communism, anymore than conservatism is
automatically fascism.
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Monk21
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And the USA is doing well with trillions of dollars in debt.
I don’t go by theories, I look at what is happening.
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Monk21
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Come on now, wake up…take a look at what these companies are doing in the 3rd world.Who made this “documentary?” Every show like that has its bias. Did you see it on Planet Green?
Are you saying that Shell has no laws to control it? Are you kidding me? Oil companies have the heaviest regulation of any type of corporation, even before the accident in the Gulf.
Your statements say to me that you are already half communist. Do you even understand that the anti-capitalism screeds come from communists? You are being used to achieve an end that you won’t enjoy. Do some reading on communism. Or maybe you already are a communist, in which case…
The Catholic church in Canada is trying to bring these crimes to the attention of the people. You can call me what you like. Are you related to an old senator from Wisconsin.
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Cruxis117
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Cruxis117
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Then it does seem that we are in agreement. I am not advocating that the government must become Communist, but it does bother me that there are people who assume that the instant you start to go on the left side of the political/economic spectrum, you MUST BE COMMUNIST. When many countries are middle/left of the spectrum and seem to be doing well. And likewise, I am aware that countries centre/right do not instantly become Fascist. You see what I mean when I say these things. Yes, there are certain things that are either/or (God or Satan, so on and so forth). But there is a gray area for some other things too. Such as the political spectrum.
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Cruxis117
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Exactly. Some people seem to forget that while America does have the largest GDP, it also has the largest debt, nearly on par with the GDP actually…
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Abu
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Some people never learn and make their own trouble.
The debt in the U.S. is largely due to the failed interventionist Keynesian stimuli.
Post#762:
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.
Post #775:
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.
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.
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].
What this great system needs, as in everything in life, is moral people to be engaged in it. The vocations of the entrepreneur, manager, and staff in a business are tremendous. As St Escriva of Opus Dei has taught: “work is a prayer”!
There is a solid basis of economic Catholic thought from the fourteenth century. In the fifteenth century the Late Scholastics who were Thomists (followers of St Thomas) “writing and teaching at the University of Salamanca in Spain, sought to explain the full range of human action and social; organization.” They “observed the existence of economic law, inexorable forces of cause and effect that operate very much as other natural laws. Over the course of several generations, they discovered and explained the laws of supply and demand, the cause of inflation, the operation of foreign exchange rates, and the subjective nature of economic value…” For these reasons Joseph Schumpeter applauded them as the first real economists. (Thomas E Woods Jr, The Church And The Market, Lexington Books, 2005, p 8).
In developing an understanding of the laws of free enterprise, “The Schoolmen determined that wages, profits and rents are not for the government to decide. Since they are beyond the sphere of distributive justice, they should be determined by common estimation in the market.” Christians For Freedom, Dr Alejandro Chafuen, Ignatius 1986, p 122].
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Cruxis117
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(New York, Holmes & Meier, 1993, p 142.
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].
What this great system needs, as in everything in life, is moral people to be engaged in it. The vocations of the entrepreneur, manager, and staff in a business are tremendous. As St Escriva of Opus Dei has taught: “work is a prayer”!
There is a solid basis of economic Catholic thought from the fourteenth century. In the fifteenth century the Late Scholastics who were Thomists (followers of St Thomas) “writing and teaching at the University of Salamanca in Spain, sought to explain the full range of human action and social; organization.” They “observed the existence of economic law, inexorable forces of cause and effect that operate very much as other natural laws. Over the course of several generations, they discovered and explained the laws of supply and demand, the cause of inflation, the operation of foreign exchange rates, and the subjective nature of economic value…” For these reasons Joseph Schumpeter applauded them as the first real economists. (Thomas E Woods Jr, The Church And The Market, Lexington Books, 2005, p 8).
**
In developing an understanding of the laws of free enterprise, “The Schoolmen determined that wages, profits and rents are not for the government to decide. Since they are beyond the sphere of distributive justice, they should be determined by common estimation in the market.”** Christians For Freedom, Dr Alejandro Chafuen, Ignatius 1986, p 122].
'Regulating the economy solely by centralized planning perverts the basis of social bonds; **regulating it solely by the law of the marketplace fails social justice, for “there are many human needs which cannot be satisfied by the market.”*207 Reasonable regulation of the marketplace and economic initiatives, in keeping with a just hierarchy of values and a view to the common good, is to be commended." *
Hmm, I’ll stick with the CCC first.
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Abu
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The above is from CCC 2425, and illustrates the selfism that is rampant – taking a truism out context to suit a mirage, unfortunately common with this poster. St Escriva reminds us to be simple, not simpletons.
Of course there are many needs which are not meant to be satisfied by economic laws. That is precisely why the Catholic Church insists on:
- 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.” [John Paul II, *Centesimus Annus #42, ].
- “Hence work is a duty: ‘If anyone will not work, let him not eat.’ ” (2 Thess 3:10). [CCC 2427].
- “Everyone has the right to economic initiative.” [CCC 2429].
- One task of the state “is of overseeing and directing the exercise of human rights in the economic sector. However, primary responsibility in this area belongs not to the state but to individuals and to the various groups and associations which make up society.” [CCC 2431].
- “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.” (Caritas et Veritate, Benedict XVI, 2009, #36).
- Pope Benedict XVI in Caritas in Veritate stipulates that true world political authority not only “would need to be regulated by law, [but also] to observe consistently the principles of subsidiarity” (#67). Subsidiarity “is the most effective antidote against any form of all-encompassing welfare state” (#57).
- Rejecting socialism always and everywhere.
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Cruxis117
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#42, ].
2) “Hence work is a duty: ‘If anyone will not work, let him not eat.’ ” (2 Thess 3:10). [CCC 2427].
3) “Everyone has the right to economic initiative.” [CCC 2429].
4) One task of the state “is of overseeing and directing the exercise of human rights in the economic sector. However, primary responsibility in this area belongs not to the state but to individuals and to the various groups and associations which make up society.” [CCC 2431].
5) “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.” (Caritas et Veritate, Benedict XVI, 2009, #36).
6) Pope Benedict XVI in Caritas in Veritate stipulates that true world political authority not only “would need to be regulated by law, [but also] to observe consistently the principles of subsidiarity” (#67). Subsidiarity “is the most effective antidote against any form of all-encompassing welfare state” (#57).
7) Rejecting socialism always and everywhere.
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.
Hmm, so, I assume you speak for the Church then, Abu? Certainly, you realize that the CCC does specifically say what theories should be used in economics. They cannot be Capitalistic or Communistic. It has been clearly stated. They reject both. This means that they are saying that and theory that does not fall into those two extremes is accepted by the Catholic Church. Rather plain, which “this poster” sees, why don’t you?
Hmm, for one who knows Scripture, Titus 3:9-11 should be read.
Other scripture that you should read includes
Leviticus 25: 35-38 “'If one of your countrymen becomes poor and is unable to support himself among you, help him as you would an alien or a temporary resident, so he can continue to live among you. 36 Do not take interest of any kind [a] from him, but fear your God, so that your countryman may continue to live among you. 37 You must not lend him money at interest or sell him food at a profit. 38 I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God”
Acts 2: 44-45 “And all that believed were together, and had all things common; and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.”
Acts 4: 32 “Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common”
It appears that the Apostles lived in a communal way. Now, let’s go back to what we’re saying here. We agree that the Church is led by the Holy Spirit. And it says that, in the CCC, that Capitalism is not agreed with by the Church. Likewise, neither is Communism and Socialism. But Democratic Socialism, or Modern Liberalism, is. Which I have previously stated beforehand. And you still argue that Capitalism is sound and is advocated by the Church, even though I say that while we agree that the Church does agree with Free Will and the Market, “Reasonable regulation of the marketplace and economic initiatives, in keeping with a just hierarchy of values and a view to the common good, is to be commended.”
This does not have Capitalism in mind. Elements of it, yes, but not Capitalism itself.
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Abu
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False, the Church does NOT teach what economic theories are to be used, and you continue to reject the open condemnation of socialism and the Welfare State. Take off the blinkers. Such lack of knowledge is incredible.
Too many are blissfully unaware of the practicality of some of the Catholic Church’s social teaching:
- 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].
41. Yet before proceeding to explain these matters, that principle which Leo XIII so clearly established must be laid down at the outset here, namely, that there resides in Us the right and duty to pronounce with supreme authority upon social and economic matters.[27] Certainly the Church was not given the commission to guide men to an only fleeting and perishable happiness but to that which is eternal. Indeed" the Church holds that it is unlawful for her to mix without cause in these temporal concerns"[28]; however, she can in no wise renounce the duty God entrusted to her to interpose her authority, not of course in matters of technique for which she is neither suitably equipped nor endowed by office, but in all things that are connected with the moral law.
Pius XI acknowledged that there are limits to what the moral theologian may say within the economic sphere, since each “employs each its own principles in its own sphere.” (#42).
In Centesimus Annos, 1991,
3. John Paul II affirmed the same idea: “It goes without saying that part of the responsibility of Pastors is to give careful consideration to current events in order to discern the new requirements of evangelization. However, such an analysis is not meant to pass definitive judgments since this does not fall per se within the Magisterium’s specific domain.”
“43. The Church has no models to present; models that are real and truly effective can only arise within the framework of different historical situations, through the efforts of all those who responsibly confront concrete problems in all their social, economic, political and cultural aspects, as these interact with one another.84 For such a task the Church offers her social teaching as an indispensable and ideal orientation, a teaching which, as already mentioned, recognizes the positive value of the market and of enterprise, but which at the same time points out that these need to be oriented towards the common good.”
You continue to confuse various economic schools, with the laws of economics developed by faithful Catholics, the Late Scholastics. Thus you promoted the Keynesian fallacy of stimulus to continue booms, but denied that’s what he taught.
- You continue to reject the plain teaching of the Church by your fantasy of what is “capitalism”, but the free economy that recognises the “fundamental role” of private property and the freedom of mankind to economic creativity, is “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.” [John Paul II, *Centesimus Annus #42, ].
More fallacies. See #634 which demolished your fantasy that “in the Book of Acts, it shows how the Apostles lived Communally, sharing what they had and working for what they needed. THAT, is the beauty of a socialistic system.” (Your #633).
You not only never learn, you now actively promote confusion.
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TheRealJuliane
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Due in large part to the current admnistration’s tripling of the national debt, spending trillions of dollars that we don’t have, and printing more money so that our dollars are worth less. Not worthless yet, but that is still to come.
I didn’t say that we aren’t also in trouble, just that Europe is broke and the French are going to have to suck it up and work for a change instead of throwing a tantrum about a whopping 2 more years before going on the dole.
All this argument about what the Church says about “social justice.” No matter what, it all comes back to: Whose job is it to take care of the needy? Is it government’s job? It never has been in these United States, until progressives started to undermine the natural altruism of men who are truly free. By taking away the responsibility of communities to decide how to deal with the needy, liberalsim/progressivism/socialism destroys the moral fabric of society as well. The Biblical way is to work with your church, and to do service work. But the government has removed the need for people to get involved, so that urge to help others gradually disappears and we end up detached, self-centered, selfish, and always dependent upon an over-reaching government to meet our needs.
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athair_siochain
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The market place is corrupt, costs are managed by profiteers and racketeers,
Where did the Trillions of dollars in equity “CREATED” on property go over the past decade, those invented dollars were used to buy more property and luxury items. is this not a capitalistic invention to create money out of thin air, the worker has to work to make ends meet,
Whenever Corporate Executives begin to talk about how they support the “free markets” and “competition” check to see if you still have your wallet
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TheRealJuliane
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And whenever a government says it’s going to take care of poverty and redistribute wealth, your wallet is long gone.
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Cruxis117
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Hmm, I would rather have the government taxing my money so that it can go to things that I will actually benefit from, then going to the Capitalistic route, letting the right have all of the wealth and hoping that the money will “trickle down” to the poor and the needy.
Here, let’s look at Scripture:
Romans 13:1-7 1Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 3For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. 4For he is God’s servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. 5Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience. 6This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. 7Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.
So, you say government is bad, Scripture says that government is good. I’ll stick with Scripture first
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Cruxis117
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And likewise, it has the Open Condemnation of Capitalism as well.
Let’s look at the economic spectrum:
Communism________Socialism________Mixed Economy________Welfare Capitalism_______Capitalism
2425 The Church has rejected the totalitarian and atheistic ideologies associated in modem times with “communism” or “socialism.” She has likewise refused to accept, in the practice of “capitalism,” individualism and the absolute primacy of the law of the marketplace over human labor.206 Regulating the economy solely by centralized planning perverts the basis of social bonds; regulating it solely by the law of the marketplace fails social justice, for "there are many human needs which cannot be satisfied by the market."207 Reasonable regulation of the marketplace and economic initiatives, in keeping with a just hierarchy of values and a view to the common good, is to be commended
What’s left? Mixed Economy, and everything in between the two extremes. They do specify. It cannot be Communist or Socialist or Capitalist.
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