Why As Catholics We Ought To Reject Capitialism

[SolomonVII]

Another question...how do you convince those who will not work to starve? Seriously, another reason for a social safety net, even for those who choose not to work, is the protection of all society...say a person doesn't want to work even though there are good jobs available. The also don't want to starve to death so what are their options? Seems that the only thing left is crime.


I also really have a problem with basically forcing people into manual labor because they cannot find work in their area. Do you really think it is right to take someone who is brilliant with computers but never worked outside a day in their lives, who is laid off at 50, and put them to work digging ditches? Do we, as a society, care about people's mental and physical health, job satisfaction, and the like...or should it be a straight equation...work at whatever job is available or die.

The notion of "he who would not work, should not eat" to me seems unworkable as a system to run a modern society. How many people on these boards come here for prayers and support because they have lost jobs they have spent years training for...or can't find employment in a field that they have just invested a lot studying for? Should our response to them be...get whatever job is available, even if it is a miserable job that would ruin their chance to ever be employed in their chosen field, or should it be to keep looking for work in their chosen career?

The risk of starvation in our countires is slim to none. Poor people tend to be the fattest.

People in the Christian communities of Paul almost undoubtedly did not starve either. they got the message and started to contribute.

The social state has been with us since the times of Bismark. Instead of creating the nationalistic pride that he envisioned though, all too often it has bred a resentful people demanding of the next entitlement.

The problem is not that people are going to starve. It is that anybody that becomes dependant on that system is demeaned and humiliated on account of the fact that they are not taking care of themselves.

The humiliation is part of the system. Human nature demands more of us than to be perpetually children suckling at the teat of the nanny state.
Few people would advocate a complete dismantlement of the system

 

[Thekla]

Obesity is often a reflection of poor food quality, not entirely quantity. It has also been found that epigenetic shifts occur that effect diabetes and obesity; the famine conditions of your grandparents has a direct effect on you.

Further,

Obesity levels have risen dramatically in research animals and others living close to humans, suggesting environmental factors are encouraging everyone to gain weight, according to new findings in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Read more: Animals are getting fatter, too - The Scientist - Magazine of the Life Sciences Animals are getting fatter, too - The Scientist - Magazine of the Life Sciences

http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/57821/#ixzz1898bqhS6​

 

[SolomonVII]

Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. - Luke 12:33

all wealth should be treated as a gift. Shall we hoard money for ourselves where moth and rust collect? that moth and rust will show all the more in judgment day. It is christian duty to help the poor by all means. Through the poor is where we see Christ's true face within charity. Rich pomp is sickening to the ultimate degree because of its utter indifference to the poor. The Church is against unrestricted capitalism. Capitalism is wrong when it turns into utter greed and corruption and hurts the poor. Just as when usury becomes unregulated causes enormous amount of people to become victimized and hurt. The current recession was mostly due to unregulated interest and usury. How can the Rich man get through the eye of the needle?

For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, - Matthew 25:35

11 12 Now someone approached him and said, "Teacher, what good must I do to gain eternal life?" 17 He answered him, "Why do you ask me about the good? There is only One who is good. 13 If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments." 18 14 He asked him, "Which ones?" And Jesus replied, " 'You shall not kill; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness; 19 honor your father and your mother'; and 'you shall love your neighbor as yourself.'" 20 15 The young man said to him, "All of these I have observed. What do I still lack?" 21 Jesus said to him, "If you wish to be perfect, 16 go, sell what you have and give to (the) poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." 22 When the young man heard this statement, he went away sad, for he had many possessions. 23 17 Then Jesus said to his disciples, "Amen, I say to you, it will be hard for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God." 25 18 When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and said, "Who then can be saved?" 26 Jesus looked at them and said, "For human beings this is impossible, but for God all things are possible."

It does not seem to me to be a story of greed.

The young man was quite earnest, doing all that he could to do the right thing.
He obeyed the commandment, he loved his neigbour as himself—but he just could not let go of his possessions.

This is not the story of a rich man with a total lack of empathy for Lazarus. It is the story of someone who recognized a lack in himself, but was much too insecure to trust in God and let go of his security blanket.

They owned him. This was his lack. Jesus recognized it, told him the antidote, but the poison was much too strong.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

that is ridiculous. Christianity is at odd ends with communism.

..

From the Catholic Encyclopedia;

The communistic principle governed for a time the lives of the first Christians of Jerusalem. In the fourth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles we learn that none of the brethren called anything that he possessed his own; that those who had houses and lands sold them and laid the price at the feet of the Apostles, who distributed "to everyone according as he had need"

and


Most of the religious, that is, ascetic and monastic orders and communities which have existed, both within and without the Christian fold, exhibit some of the features of communism.

CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Communism

For the 20th time. Don't confuse the true definition of "communism," with socialistic communism of the USSR and People's Republic of China.



Jim

 

[Thekla]

Why a safety net ?

The Food Bubble: How Wall Street Starved Millions and Got Away With It

Commodity market restructuring by Goldman, etc., artificially exploded the cost of wheat.

Full article subscription only, so televised interview with author.
The full televised interview, bottom of post, is much better than clip.

Clip:

YouTube - Food Bubble: How Wall Street Starved Millions and Got Away With It 2/2 - Democracy NOW!

Full interview:
The Food Bubble: How Wall Street Starved Millions and Got Away With It

 

[Thekla]

And here we go again:

Investment bankers blamed for driving up the price of turkeys

First they swallowed tasty bonuses - now speculation in wheat by City traders has swollen the cost of Christmas dinner

• • Share3
  • 
  • 

• Terry Macalister
• guardian.co.uk, Thursday 16 December 2010 17.41 GMT <li class="history">Article history
  
  Turkeys bred for the Christmas market, like these freerange Norfolk Black birds, are likely to cost more this year because of speculation in the wheat market. Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images Investment bankers have come in for more abuse &#8211; not over their bonuses this time but for allegedly driving up the price of Christmas turkeys.
  Paul Kelly, the poultry industry's "turkey man of the year", blames them for driving up the cost of wheat-based animal feed from £95 per tonne to £177.
  "My contacts in the City tell me the price of wheat is soaring because of financial speculation," he said. "It's not good for farmers or consumers. What is happening is fundamentally wrong and obscene."
  The boss of Kelly Turkey Farms in Essex warns that consumers can expect to pay up to £3 extra for their birds while Waitrose confirmed that its turkeys will cost 5% or 6% more than last year.
  The increase in feed prices comes despite strong commodity supplies. Wildfires destroyed some Russian wheat during the summer, but the US and other grain producing regions have had good harvests.
  Since the financial crisis began, market analysts have watched speculative money pouring into commodity derivative markets, including food. Many experts link this activity by banks and hedge funds to recent volatility and sudden inflation in the retail costs of food and energy.
  The World Development Movement, a UK-based anti-poverty group, said the government needed to support measures being discussed inside the EU to regulate markets better and curb the behaviour of investment bankers and hedge funds.
  "As City traders enjoy their Christmas bonuses, their speculative activities are fuelling food price inflation," said Deborah Doane of the WDM.

• 
  Investment bankers blamed for driving up the price of turkeys | Business | The Guardian
  
  

 

[Thekla]

And here we go again:

Investment bankers blamed for driving up the price of turkeys

First they swallowed tasty bonuses - now speculation in wheat by City traders has swollen the cost of Christmas dinner

• • Share3
  • 
  • 

• Terry Macalister
• guardian.co.uk, Thursday 16 December 2010 17.41 GMT <li class="history">Article history
  
  Turkeys bred for the Christmas market, like these freerange Norfolk Black birds, are likely to cost more this year because of speculation in the wheat market. Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images Investment bankers have come in for more abuse – not over their bonuses this time but for allegedly driving up the price of Christmas turkeys.
  Paul Kelly, the poultry industry's "turkey man of the year", blames them for driving up the cost of wheat-based animal feed from £95 per tonne to £177.
  "My contacts in the City tell me the price of wheat is soaring because of financial speculation," he said. "It's not good for farmers or consumers. What is happening is fundamentally wrong and obscene."
  The boss of Kelly Turkey Farms in Essex warns that consumers can expect to pay up to £3 extra for their birds while Waitrose confirmed that its turkeys will cost 5% or 6% more than last year.
  The increase in feed prices comes despite strong commodity supplies. Wildfires destroyed some Russian wheat during the summer, but the US and other grain producing regions have had good harvests.
  Since the financial crisis began, market analysts have watched speculative money pouring into commodity derivative markets, including food. Many experts link this activity by banks and hedge funds to recent volatility and sudden inflation in the retail costs of food and energy.
  The World Development Movement, a UK-based anti-poverty group, said the government needed to support measures being discussed inside the EU to regulate markets better and curb the behaviour of investment bankers and hedge funds.
  "As City traders enjoy their Christmas bonuses, their speculative activities are fuelling food price inflation," said Deborah Doane of the WDM.

• 
  Investment bankers blamed for driving up the price of turkeys | Business | The Guardian
  
  

 

[Veritas]

That text was specific to its time, in that it was aimed at Christians who had ceased to work in anticipation of the Parousia's being imminent.

Dom Helder Camara, late Archbishop of Recife, Brazil, indicated the nature of capitalism succinctly: "To examine capitalism is to indict it."

It was the same Archbishop who once remarked: "When I give to the poor, they called him a saint, but when I ask why they have no food, they called him a Communist."

Capitalism is, in fact, open-ended, systematised greed, and in recent times has been rendered more demonic by its being founded on the tenet that the only morality a corporation must observe is to make a profit. In short, the bottom-line is God. Thank you for that precious insight, Milton Friedman.

See, what'd I tell yall.

Another question...how do you convince those who will not work to starve? Seriously, another reason for a social safety net, even for those who choose not to work, is the protection of all society...say a person doesn't want to work even though there are good jobs available. The also don't want to starve to death so what are their options? Seems that the only thing left is crime.


I also really have a problem with basically forcing people into manual labor because they cannot find work in their area. Do you really think it is right to take someone who is brilliant with computers but never worked outside a day in their lives, who is laid off at 50, and put them to work digging ditches? Do we, as a society, care about people's mental and physical health, job satisfaction, and the like...or should it be a straight equation...work at whatever job is available or die.

The notion of "he who would not work, should not eat" to me seems unworkable as a system to run a modern society. How many people on these boards come here for prayers and support because they have lost jobs they have spent years training for...or can't find employment in a field that they have just invested a lot studying for? Should our response to them be...get whatever job is available, even if it is a miserable job that would ruin their chance to ever be employed in their chosen field, or should it be to keep looking for work in their chosen career?

I really can't believe this. Is this the thinking of most on the Left? "How dare anybody force me to work at something I'm not experienced, trained, etc. for or take a job I don't want".

Could somebody please point me to the part of the US Constitution where we are all guaranteed a job of our preference at compensation commensurate with a lifestyle of our choosing? I must have missed it.

 

[shinbits]

Actually what Scripture speaks about concerning the Early Christians, was pure communism.


Jim

I know this is a late response to post, I'm just reading it for the first time.

That's actually not true. Communism is government regulated distribution, while what early Christians did want completely voluntary. Big difference. The early church never mandated this, only encouraged it.

 

[TheOtherHockeyMom]

See, what'd I tell yall.



I really can't believe this. Is this the thinking of most on the Left? "How dare anybody force me to work at something I'm not experienced, trained, etc. for or take a job I don't want".

Could somebody please point me to the part of the US Constitution where we are all guaranteed a job of our preference at compensation commensurate with a lifestyle of our choosing? I must have missed it.

No one is saying anyone is guaranteed a good job...it's just that some think that all should be guaranteed enough income to live on by virtue of being a member of society. The notion of a basic income guarantee, I think, is a valid one, and has some support from a variety of people (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income_guarantee)

Speaking of force....what are you proposing in your second sentence? What do you suggest people do who can't find employment in fields that suit them, relate to their education, or otherwise fulfill their needs? What would you have the government do in regards to people who are not willing to work at whatever jobs are available and prefer to hold out for the right job? What would you do with the members of society who were just lazy?

I know that it really bothers a lot of people to see their hard earned money being given to people who didn't work as hard...but I do think it is important to consider the alternative...if there was no social safety net, what would that do for crime, for your families security?

 

[TheOtherHockeyMom]

I know this is a late response to post, I'm just reading it for the first time.

That's actually not true. Communism is government regulated distribution, while what early Christians did want completely voluntary. Big difference. The early church never mandated this, only encouraged it.

Not so much for Ananias and Sapphira.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

I know this is a late response to post, I'm just reading it for the first time.

That's actually not true. Communism is government regulated distribution, while what early Christians did want completely voluntary. Big difference. The early church never mandated this, only encouraged it.

No, that's government run socialistic communism and what many think of when the term is used, but not true communism.

True comminism is as the Early Christian Church lived, where everyone turned over all their property to the Church and lived in "common." Everyone was supported equally according to their needs.

Monasteries, you don't own property per se, but all belongs to the community.

Once again;


From the Catholic Encyclopedia;

The communistic principle governed for a time the lives of the first Christians of Jerusalem. In the fourth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles we learn that none of the brethren called anything that he possessed his own; that those who had houses and lands sold them and laid the price at the feet of the Apostles, who distributed "to everyone according as he had need"

and

Most of the religious, that is, ascetic and monastic orders and communities which have existed, both within and without the Christian fold, exhibit some of the features of communism.

CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Communism
​

Jim
​

 

[Thekla]

I know that it really bothers a lot of people to see their hard earned money being given to people who didn't work as hard...but I do think it is important to consider the alternative...if there was no social safety net, what would that do for crime, for your families security?

I'm sorry to piggyback on your post to someone else, but I do have a related observation to make.

First, this is how the social safety net actually protects those with "more"; where there is more to protect, the provided protection (and foreign policy that is market driven) also benefits and often benefits moreso those who have more.

Then, there is another "question"; do the traders at Goldman etc. who drive up the cost of commodities (oil, wheat, pork, etc.) through speculation actually work harder than those who produce
the commodities ?

As commodity and other prices increased exponentially (oil and wheat and just about everything else in '08), many struggled to keep up financially. It seems to me that the financial crash we experience now, including massive unemployment and foreclosure, is at least in part fed by these drastic increases.

To the extent that markets, and the ability of some to make fortunes from speculation, have such a deep effect on those who work, the safety net protects those who are struck by the reverberating effect of greed.

So, if we note the "laziness" of the poor (and this is a sweeping generalization, imo), we should also decry perhaps the "laziness" of those who attain wealth through such speculation - and are also bailed out and supported by the government.

 

[shinbits]

Not so much for Ananias and Sapphira.

Their wrong-doing wasn't in not giving, it was in lying about it. Peter even says so when he rebuked them:

Acts 5:3-4:

3 Then Peter said, &#8220;Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? 4 Didn&#8217;t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn&#8217;t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human beings but to God.&#8221;

Peter makes it clear that the money was theirs to do what they wished. In the last verse of the chapter just before, a man named Joseph was recognized for selling his property and laying it at the apostles feet. Ananias and his wife aparently wanted the same recognition that Joseph got, and also sold thier property, but held part of earnings. But Peter makes it clear the sin wasn't in holding back, it was in lying about holding back.

 

[QuantaCura]

Not so much for Ananias and Sapphira.

If you read the previous chapter, everyone was gathered together and inspired by the Spirit they decided to live in common. The beginning of the next chapter is about how those two pretended to also give everything up, but fraudulantly kept some on the side. This is why St. Peter rebukes them for lying to the Holy Spirit before they fall dead.

That is more akin to a Franciscan taking a vow of poverty, then lying to his superior and keeping some private property on the side.

 

[shinbits]

No, that's government run socialistic communism and what many think of when the term is used, but not true communism.

True comminism is as the Early Christian Church lived, where everyone turned over all their property to the Church and lived in "common." Everyone was supported equally according to their needs.

Monasteries, you don't own property per se, but all belongs to the community.

Once again;


From the Catholic Encyclopedia;

and




Jim
​

Okay. So communism can be voluntary as well, I didn't know that. Thanx for the info.
As long as everyone knows the early church didn't require people to give, just encouraged it.

 

[Thekla]

A sample of the ECFs on 'private property':

Property is theft.
- St. Basil the Great



"When we attend to the needs of those in want, we give them what is theirs, not ours. More than performing works of mercy, we are paying a debt of justice."

- St. Gregory the Great

All things belong to God, who is our Father and the father of all things. We are all of the same family; all of us are brothers. And among brothers it is best and most equal that all inherit equal portions.
- St. Gregory of Nyssa


Share everything with your brother. Do not say "it is private property." If you share what is everlasting, you should be willing to share that much more the things that do not last.


- the Didache

It isn&#8217;t because the affluent are unable to provide food easily that men go hungry; it is because the affluent are cruel and inhuman&#8230;Every day the Church here feeds 3,000 people. Besides this, the Church daily helps provide food and clothes for prisoners, the hospitalized, pilgrims, cripples, churchmen, and others. If only ten people were willing to do this, there wouldn&#8217;t be a single poor man left in town.

&#8211; St. John Chrysostom



Those who oppress the poor must know that there sentence is heavier because of those they try to hurt. The more they press their power over these wretched lives, the more terrible their future condemnation and punishment will be.


&#8211; St. Isidore



Some think that the Old Testament is stricter than the New, but they judge wrongly; they are fooling themselves. The Old Law did not punish the desire to hold on to wealth; it punished theft. But now the rich man is not condemned for taking the property of others; rather, he is condemned for not giving his property away.

&#8211; St. Gregory the Great

 

[Thekla]

"Commerce in itself is not bad; indeed it is an intrinsic part of God's order. What matters is how we conduct our commerce. The reason why commerce is necessary is that God created human beings with different ambitions and skills. One person is a good carpenter, another a good preacher; one can make crops grow in the poorest soil, another can heal the most terrible diseases. Thus each person specializes in the work for which God has ordained him; and by selling his skills, or the goods he produces, he can obtain from others the goods he needs. The problems arise because some people can obtain a far higher price for their work than others, or because some people employ others and do not pay a fair wage. The result is that some become rich and others poor. But in God's eyes one skill is not superior to another; every form of honest labor is equal. So inequalities in what people receive for their labor undermine the divine order."

St. John the Chrysostom

 

[JimR-OCDS]

Okay. So communism can be voluntary as well, I didn't know that. Thanx for the info.
As long as everyone knows the early church didn't require people to give, just encouraged it.

Correct, and its the only form of communism that works, but it only works in small communities.

On a larger scale, human corruption destroys its original purpose.

Before WWII, there were many American college students who had joined the American Communist Party, holding to the ideals of true communism.

One of those people was a man named Sidney Rittenberg, who later in life published a book, "The Man Who Stayed Behind." He tells in the book, how he was a member of the American Communist Party, with all the ideals of communism in his belief system. So much so, that when he was drafted into the military at the start of WWII, he ended up volunteering for the Intelligence Service, hoping to be sent to China. He was fluent in Mandarin Chinese and his desire was to join up with Mao Zedong and help the people of China overthrow the capitalist system and bring communism into their system of government.

Well, he does get a military assignment in China, and he manages to stay in China after his discharge, working for the UN. He eventually links up with Mao's revolutionary forces and joins them and works diligently for them, writing propaganda in Chinese and English. He becomes close to Mao and believes in communism. That is, until he's arrested and thrown in prison as a spy. He's arrested two more times before he starts to see the communism he believed in, isn't the communism that is being put in place.

He's eventually allowed to leave Red China and return to the states with his Chinese wife and children. He still has a belief in communism but eventually is persuaded about its errors as he sees how its carried out in China, the USSR and elsewhere.

Interesting book and I was surprised he was never arrested in the USA for treason. However, he ended up helping the US government establish business ties with China, after Nixon got them to open the doors to their country.

Jim