Dorothy Day against Social Security

[einhverfr]

OH, but it's a fact that she at one time belonged to the communist party in America. Many Catholics hate to admit this, but they also misunderstood what the communist movement of her time was about. It wasn't Stalinist Communism, but a community based communism.

The problem with their ideals was that unless the entire community is dedicated to that ideology, if fails.


See her biography;
Dorothy Day : Biography

Jim

Many interesting people used to belong to the communist party in one form or another. My mother's uncle used to and yet I remember having this wonderful discussion with him on the Second Amendment in the 1990's where he argued that the correct Constitutional interpretation was exactly that one the Supreme Court held in Heller. Wilhelm Reich used to before he was disillusioned with it, and his "Mass Psychology of Fascism" which was written initially about the Nazis is quite belittling of the Communists. It is full of phrases like "Even Lenin noticed...", the implication being that Lenin was not the brightest bulb when it came to understanding collective behavior.

So I have no problem with her past membership here. In fact I think that would have given her a unique perspective on the writings of Belloc ("The Servile State" in particular) which must have pushed her on the road to distributism.

What I am saying is that her philosophy as a Catholic was pretty purely distributist, and this is different, on a fundamental level, from Communism because of the vast differences in how private property rights were seen. To the communist, personal and family ownership of property is a tool of class oppression. To the distributist, it is a tool of liberation. Both share a common critique of liberal capitalism, but their solutions to the problems diverge so much that they can hardly be seen to have any continuity at all.

The classical distributist view (based largely on the idea that we are created in God's image) is basically that humans are creative and have a need to be creative. Private property rights are thus a right to one's own artistic sandbox, if you will. Because people are happier and more productive when they are creative, and they can only be creative with things they own, everyone must own as an individual or as a family, and to the extent possible, the medium of his or her work. The classical distributist is then skeptical of laws like minimum wage laws, because they help make people dependent on an employment relationship where they do not have the possibility to be creative. Day's general writings are pretty clear that as a Catholic she was clearly in this camp.

Similarly the classical distributist in me in the current crisis hears all this talk about job creation and says "jobs are the problem, not the solution. If the government wants to help, let them help those who are out of work become self-employed and thus masters of their own destiny." But instead we discourage that as a society. We can't have those out of work using their benefits to subsidize going into business for themselves. We must have them dependent on that work relationship.

 

[einhverfr]

I realize we're 54 posts into this but if I can go back to the beginning for just a second:

When did it become en vogue for political conservatives to challenge the Bishops ?

That's sort of ceding the high ground isn't it ?

I don't consider myself a political conservative, a Catholic, or even a Christian (despite my presence here). I do find distributist philosophy, including the religious area, to be an area where I share a great deal of common ground with some Catholics. And no I don't think Ryan is a distributist, nor do I think Dorothy Day would support him. She was a courageous woman and very bright, and I don't think she'd have much qualms about using both sides in this election to illustrate what's wrong with the country and how far we have fallen into the trap of liberal capitalism, and the rise of the servile state which the Distributists believe that leads to (she hinted that in the essay quoted).

But we shouldn't forget that Catholicism itself has never been perfectly philosophically unified. We have six Catholics currently on the Supreme Court, and they range from Sotomayor to Thomas. The arguments between the moralists and the humanists have been going on since the early days of the church and you can see this in the ways in which various different groups of medieval Catholics sought to make sense out of past, pre-Christian traditions. The moralists saw it as devil worship. The humanists saw it as a flawed attempt to know God and hence Christ through reason used to observe nature (entirely foreshadowing the split of secular humanism from Catholic humanism).

What you are saying is that conservatives shouldn't think for themselves on these matters. In that I disagree. If conservatives shouldn't think for themselves, then we have no chance to address the real problems in this country because dialog isn't possible.

I was raised as a Quaker, and sometimes I still consider myself one. The point of Quakerism is listening for the voice of God or Christ, whether it happens from within or from others, even those you may disagree with most. I think there is a tremendous value to that.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

Many interesting people used to belong to the communist party in one form or another. My mother's uncle used to and yet I remember having this wonderful discussion with him on the Second Amendment in the 1990's where he argued that the correct Constitutional interpretation was exactly that one the Supreme Court held in Heller. Wilhelm Reich used to before he was disillusioned with it, and his "Mass Psychology of Fascism" which was written initially about the Nazis is quite belittling of the Communists. It is full of phrases like "Even Lenin noticed...", the implication being that Lenin was not the brightest bulb when it came to understanding collective behavior.

So I have no problem with her past membership here. In fact I think that would have given her a unique perspective on the writings of Belloc ("The Servile State" in particular) which must have pushed her on the road to distributism.

What I am saying is that her philosophy as a Catholic was pretty purely distributist, and this is different, on a fundamental level, from Communism because of the vast differences in how private property rights were seen. To the communist, personal and family ownership of property is a tool of class oppression. To the distributist, it is a tool of liberation. Both share a common critique of liberal capitalism, but their solutions to the problems diverge so much that they can hardly be seen to have any continuity at all.

The classical distributist view (based largely on the idea that we are created in God's image) is basically that humans are creative and have a need to be creative. Private property rights are thus a right to one's own artistic sandbox, if you will. Because people are happier and more productive when they are creative, and they can only be creative with things they own, everyone must own as an individual or as a family, and to the extent possible, the medium of his or her work. The classical distributist is then skeptical of laws like minimum wage laws, because they help make people dependent on an employment relationship where they do not have the possibility to be creative. Day's general writings are pretty clear that as a Catholic she was clearly in this camp.

Similarly the classical distributist in me in the current crisis hears all this talk about job creation and says "jobs are the problem, not the solution. If the government wants to help, let them help those who are out of work become self-employed and thus masters of their own destiny." But instead we discourage that as a society. We can't have those out of work using their benefits to subsidize going into business for themselves. We must have them dependent on that work relationship.

I don't disagree with your assessment on Dorothy Day, and yes, in her time, many college professors and students were part of the Communist Party. But it was a distributive form of Communism that they believed in and not one which prohibited ownership of private property.

One of the books I read a while ago which was of her era on the Communist Mindset of her culture was, "The Man Who Stayed Behind," by Sidney Rittenberg. Rittenberg graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel hill. During his studies, he joined the communist party. WWII breaks out and he ends up in Intelligence where he serves in China, which was great for him. While there, he seeks out Mao's communist and does what he can to support them. When the war ends, he manages to stay in China getting a job with the UN. He eventually joins up with Mao's Communist Rebels and serves them all the way into power. After being thrown in prison twice by the Communist he manages to leave China and return to the United States. He realizes that his version of Communism, like those of his peers in his college days, was not what Stalin and Mao's Communism was. He rejects his own version of communism, which is the distributive form as you've described, because it's an impossible ideology to achieve on a national level.

Anyway, I don't fault Dorothy Day's embracing of Communism, for it was a misguided idealistic ideology, which had never been tried on a national basis.

As far as Social Security goes, it's not a distributive system, nor is it socialistic, because you have to pay into it to receive the benefits.

In fact, Social Security has proven itself to be a huge success as far as a government run system goes. I just hope it doesn't get destroyed by the young conservative mindsets fueled by the likes of Paul Ryan.


Jim

 

[Fantine]

Good heavens! I have come to the conclusion that some people need another Great Depression to come to their senses.

And, should Romney succeed in getting elected, they will get their wish sooner than they think, without a safety net.

My father, a very well-respected accountant in public service, always said that the only thing that prevented the U.S. from falling into another depression during the rest of his long lifetime were FDR and LBJ programs--Social Security, unemployment insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, etc.

He was a brilliant man with many years of relevant experience to back his educated opinion up.

But hey, if you want to sell apples in the street at the next economic downturn, you are free to try, but I will fight you with my dying breath.

 

[MKJ]

I don't disagree with your assessment on Dorothy Day, and yes, in her time, many college professors and students were part of the Communist Party. But it was a distributive form of Communism that they believed in and not one which prohibited ownership of private property.

One of the books I read a while ago which was of her era on the Communist Mindset of her culture was, "The Man Who Stayed Behind," by Sidney Rittenberg. Rittenberg graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel hill. During his studies, he joined the communist party. WWII breaks out and he ends up in Intelligence where he serves in China, which was great for him. While there, he seeks out Mao's communist and does what he can to support them. When the war ends, he manages to stay in China getting a job with the UN. He eventually joins up with Mao's Communist Rebels and serves them all the way into power. After being thrown in prison twice by the Communist he manages to leave China and return to the United States. He realizes that his version of Communism, like those of his peers in his college days, was not what Stalin and Mao's Communism was. He rejects his own version of communism, which is the distributive form as you've described, because it's an impossible ideology to achieve on a national level.

Anyway, I don't fault Dorothy Day's embracing of Communism, for it was a misguided idealistic ideology, which had never been tried on a national basis.

As far as Social Security goes, it's not a distributive system, nor is it socialistic, because you have to pay into it to receive the benefits.

In fact, Social Security has proven itself to be a huge success as far as a government run system goes. I just hope it doesn't get destroyed by the young conservative mindsets fueled by the likes of Paul Ryan.


Jim

You can't have a distributive form of communiism. If it's distributive, it is no longer communal.

A lot of Catholics and Christians in that period went from being socialists or communists to becoming distributists. They were looking for similar things in both places - a way to escape the serious problems of capitalism, a way to have the workers own the means of production, a way to have a communitarian rather than purely individualistic social-Darwinism sort of society.

But they found that their initial hopes of socialism or communism didn't work out - the problem of property being owned collectively and by an abstract entity had serious deficits, both practical and philosophical.

That is why they moved to a distributist approach - to accomplish the same goals but in a way that worked and respected their Christian principles. But you can't really say they remained communists just because their goals were the same. There was a fundamental change in what they saw as the means to accomplish those goals.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

MKJ;

You can't have a distributive form of communiism. If it's distributive, it is no longer communal.

Absolutely you can have communism with a distributive system. Distributing the wealth of the nation for the "COMMON GOOD," is the heart of true communism.


Jim

 

[einhverfr]

Good heavens! I have come to the conclusion that some people need another Great Depression to come to their senses.

Looking around, wondering why people keep denying that we are in one.

BTW, not blaming Obama btw. These things don't just happen out of thin air. The Reagan-Bush-Clinton era is entirely to blame than Obama or even GWB (and I would single out policies of Reagan and Clinton as the biggest causes --- both enacted key financial deregulation bills and pushed for lax lending policies). Nor am I blaming Obama for the slow recovery. We have massive economic issues and a fed which has very little ability to, say, continue to cut interest rates, so they are doing what they can to inflate away debt. It will take a while. Now that I have insulted the archetypal leaders of both parties, I guess I should explain why I say this.

Hyman Minsky's theories of financial instability in fact predicted melt-downs like we currently have been going through. Basically he points out that banks become lax in lending practices during prosperous times and crack down on lending during tight times. During prosperous times three kinds of lenders borrow money.

The first, Minsky calls "hedge borrowers" (no relation to hedge funds, I promise). These are financially conservative borrowers who can actually afford to pay the principle and interest payments from income. The "speculative borrower" can afford to pay interest payments from income but is counting on the appreciation of property to make money. If property values drop, the speculative borrower will default further depressing asset prices. Finally the ponzi borrower finances the loans by further borrowing against appreciating value of the asset in a bubble. The ponzi borrower cannot afford to pay even interest and so can only make money when the asset is increasing in value.

So what happens when credit becomes tight as in the sub-prime mortgage crisis (mostly ponzi borrowers there in part cause and in part effect of high interest rates there), this leads to a rash of foreclosures which reduces property values. This sinks speculative borrowers, and leads to businesses being unable to borrow money even if they can pay it back. This damages the economy, causes decreased wages, job loss, etc. and sinks even hedge borrowers.

We are dealing with a private debt crisis which is causing massive economic problems.

As for the election, I will be voting for a third party. The biggest debate item appears to be:

1) Whether Obamacare was a good idea, as the Democrats say, and

2) Whether Medicare should be turned into Obamacare, as Ryan suggests.

And we are told this is a choice of utmost importance. All I can conclude is that both sides will probably get what they want over time and that should scare anybody.

With political choices like these, I think I will go hide in a hole.

 

[einhverfr]

MKJ;



Absolutely you can have communism with a distributive system. Distributing the wealth of the nation for the "COMMON GOOD," is the heart of true communism.


Jim

The issue I think is that socialism and communism are usually based on a foreign set of assumptions to Distributism. I would have no problem with the statement that Distributism is the perfect system of communist libertarian socialist capitalism. I am however entirely sure that such a statement would make no sense to anyone who does not already subscribe to Distributism as an economic philosophy, but I think that this shows why distributism is needed.

Communism and libertarianism, communism and capitalism, and libertarianism and socialism all appear to be polar opposites under the set of assumptions I think we can call "liberalism" in the sense of Locke and Hume. But if we challenge the assumptions that get us there, solutions exist which have worked in the real world to the very problems we currently face.

 

[einhverfr]

You can't have a distributive form of communiism. If it's distributive, it is no longer communal.

I don't think that works. One of the basic points of distributism is the necessity of integration, of individuals into families, of families into communities, more or less as laid out by Aristotle in "Politics." (I must cite Father Cassian Sibley of the Russian Orthodox church as the one who pointed me to the role of Aristotle here.)

I think the truth is you can't separate cleanly the distributive and the communal. The town commons have been usually praised, and the closing of the commons in England were important points that distributists have usually looked to as bad.

The difference I think is that instead of an assumption that you juxtapose individual, business, and state, the important juxtiposition is between family and various forms of community (both public and private sector so to speak).