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The WorldCom default on its loans, amounting to some $4 billion (plus an additional $3.3 billion just revealed), is just the most recent example and testament to the virtual reality that has become a substitute for an economic system in which real men own real property and from that real property operate real businesses making real products, which in turn would produce real profits. As G.K. Chesterton states it, Now what is the matter with the financial world is that it is a great deal too fullof imagination, in the sense of fiction. What is most amazing about this state of affairs is not so much the hazardous state into which corporate and financial America has placed the wage-earning families of the world, but rather, that so few men are asking the obvious question concerning the theoretical basis for a system in which so many are placed at such risk because of the self-interested actions of so few. With corporate collapses like Enron, WorldCom, and Kmart, with national defaults on bank loans as have never been seen before in human history by nations such as Russia, Argentina and, soon, Brazil, would not such a re-evaluation of the fundamentals of the Liberal Capitalist system, universally triumphant-at least in theory-since the break-up of the Soviet empire in 1991, be at the forefront of every thinking mans mind, especially the thinking men who inherit the religious and intellectual traditions of Chesterton, Belloc, Pope Leo XIII, and Pope Pius XI. The reason this is not on every thinking Catholics mind is, I believe, simple. Too many Catholics, who should know better, reject or ignore the warnings and admonitions which issued from the popes from Leo XII to Pius XII, and have, also, remained ignorant of the critiques of the Liberal Capitalist system which have issued from Catholic intellectuals such as G.K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc. With this said, we must also state that there are those who see the problem, know the Churchs Social Teaching, and, yet, reject the solutions the Church proposes to the economic situation of the age. Such enthusiasts of the Liberal Capitalist System have recently published a number of articles to this effect in various American Catholic journals. Their outright rejection of the economic teaching and practical agenda for Catholic social and economic reconstruction, as offered to us by Pope Leo XIII in Rerum Novarum and by Pope Pius XI in Quadragesimo Anno, is often subtly laden with a hint of irritation that anyone would seek to challenge a system which, so obviously, works. There are those on the other extreme, who identify with the Social Teachings of the Church, but who only are interested in an immediate implementation of that teaching in their own lives and not in any theoretical defense of the need to resort to the Social Teachings. If most of us cannot do now, why spend time reading about or discussing the matter?
Scripture speaks of all Christians pooling all they have and using it for all. Interesting that they were able to live this way and we are not.
Actually what Scripture speaks about concerning the Early Christians, was pure communism.
Jim
This is the first I have heard a Christian seem to insult the Christian community set up with the Apostles.
The community of believers was of one heart and mind, and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they had everything in common.
Perhaps you misunderstand what the term "communism," actually means.
When people live together in "common," that is communism. Everything is given over to the common good of the people living in the community.
It works well in convents, monasteries and some secular communities.
From Acts 4:32
Don't confuse it with Socialist Communism ala Marx or Mao.
Jim
Have you seen what bridled "corporatist" capitalism has been doing lately? Capitalism married to the State (State Capitalism, i.e., fascism) is far more exploitative than unbridled capitalism. Socialism is to be rejected because of its stance on private property, as is communism. Mercantilism leads to fascism in that the State controls access to raw materials and distribution of finished goods, feudalism is rejected because it is tantamount to slavery. What does that leave? There is no economic system that has been approved of by the church. Since capitalism does the most to promote freedom, individualism, and the sanctity of individual human dignity, its the best we got.We shouldn't reject capitalism per se, but unbridled capitalism should be feared.
Jim
Have you seen what bridled "corporatist" capitalism has been doing lately? Capitalism married to the State (State Capitalism, i.e., fascism) is far more exploitative than unbridled capitalism. Socialism is to be rejected because of its stance on private property, as is communism. Mercantilism leads to fascism in that the State controls access to raw materials and distribution of finished goods, feudalism is rejected because it is tantamount to slavery. What does that leave? There is no economic system that has been approved of by the church. Since capitalism does the most to promote freedom, individualism, and the sanctity of individual human dignity, its the best we got.
Distributism.Have you seen what bridled "corporatist" capitalism has been doing lately? Capitalism married to the State (State Capitalism, i.e., fascism) is far more exploitative than unbridled capitalism. Socialism is to be rejected because of its stance on private property, as is communism. Mercantilism leads to fascism in that the State controls access to raw materials and distribution of finished goods, feudalism is rejected because it is tantamount to slavery. What does that leave? There is no economic system that has been approved of by the church. Since capitalism does the most to promote freedom, individualism, and the sanctity of individual human dignity, its the best we got.
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