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No, because distributionism is taking of one person's wealth and distributing it among the rest against their will....
No, because distributionism is taking of one person's wealth and distributing it among the rest against their will. This isn't what happened.
As if government of the people would be any more moral than the peopel themselves......
It is too bad when people become so immoral that the government has to increase. Also, too bad this could be construed as radical socialism.
Especially not to make the left into the Left.Yes, one must never capitialize.
If people were willing to sell off their property to fill the common pool, they were welcome to. No scripture was every written where this was a requirement of anyone.Actually what Scripture speaks about concerning the Early Christians, was pure communism.
Jim
Until a reputable economist shows how distributism is a workable economic model for technologically advanced countries with large urban/suburban populations, an ethnically, culturally and religiously diverse culture, and a population of hundreds of millions all of this talk is either hot air or (more likely) a diversionary tactic by conservatives to prevent the poor and sick the help they need in any meaningful, effective way.
Diversionary tactic? As opposed to the socialist propanganda you want us to imbibe?.... a diversionary tactic by conservatives to prevent the poor and sick the help they need in any meaningful, effective way.
I am not sure if I am reading your posts correctly, so forgive me if I am misinterpreting. People didn't get zapped with lightening bolts (that would be Zeus, not YahwehIf people were willing to sell off their property to fill the common pool, they were welcome to. No scripture was every written where this was a requirement of anyone.
Literal lightning bolts from heaven were used to strike down anyone who said they were part of that system, when they really had no intention of doing so.
It was very much private charity in the NT, purely voluntary, and the concept of private property was fully honored.
This shares a lot with a free enterprise economic system actually (except for getting zapped with the lightning bolts), and very little with any of the corporatist or socialist alternatives that exist to what is called capitalism today.
Of course it is unrealistic with the totalitarian government monstrosity we have created over the last 100 years. If people owned their own means of production, then the government has less capacity to control them. Since government is about control, why would they encourage or try implementing a system that gives people the freedom to run their own lives. Distributism could be a means to and end of class warfare, but since politicians use class warfare to get themselves elected, why would they take an arrow out of their quiver?humorous. The conservatives view distributivism with distrust, seeing it as a likely liberal end around.
The liberals apparently see it as a conservative diversionary tactic.
personally, I'd like to see it... but I also, as previously stated, find it to be unrealistic.
Excellent post, Simon, reps to you.It seems to me that people don't really understand capitalism and communism (at least if this conversation is anything to go by).
Capitalism and Communism are both generally described in terms of high level ecnomics and talk about "the means of production".
In capitalism, for example, the "means of production" are individually privately owned.
In communism, on the other hand, the "means of production" are owned by the collective.
Now, when people think of "the means of production" they generally think of factories, mines, etc. Those things are, of course, means of production, but again at a high level.
When you get down to the most basic level, the means of production are two things, property and labor.
In a capitalist view, property and labor belong to the individual to do with as he sees fit.
In the communist view, property and labor belong to the collective and not to any individual.
In short, capitalism is freedom and communism is slavery. Thats not just rhetoric, it is the fundamental truth of both systems. In one you are free to dispose of yourself and yours as you see fit. In the other you belong to the collective, and not to yourself.
The idea that the early Christians were communist is pure twaddle. It is abundantly clear in the New Testament that Christians owned their own property. Further they were not required to give anything, let alone everything to the Church.
See the words of Peter to Ananias and Saphira when they lied to the Holy Spirit 'while you owned the property it was yours to do with as you wished...'
From the mouth of St. Peter himself.
Now, the response I'm sure will be that Christians were encouraged to give, and if anyone was in want, their need was met by the rest of the believers. I agree, and I wish the Church functioned like this today.
However, in order to give, you must first own. In a communist system, no own can give anything because no one owns anything. They can not even give themselves, or their labor.
This effectively also makes Communism the most uncharitable of all economic systems because in a communist system it is impossible for anyone to give.
In a sense, Communism is anti-christ. This is obvious in the practical working out of the philosophy which was from its beginning atheistic. However, at a more fundamental level, it essentially depicts man as owned by 'the collective' the state, the class, the race, whatever... a collective which essentially does not exist in real terms. The individual is completely enslaved to and exists for human society. It is essentially the reverse of Christianity in which each individual belongs to God, and under God, to himself.
Distributivism is interesting in that in a sense it is not a new economic view, or theory but rather is is a modification of capitalism.
Distributivism is at the basic level fundamentally a capitalistic system because it requires individual, private ownership.
In a certain sense, distributivism could be argued to be fundamentally a return to pre-industrial economy. It has elements that are medieval, and so on.
However, distributivism is, in my opinion, fundamentally flawed in that it is impossible to maintain.
Distributivism requires the freedom of capitalism. However it also requires the prevention of any one or few people accumulating too much so as to become "industrial".
It also requires a level of cooperative effort which is simply unrealistic given human nature.
In that sense it is a largely idealistic system that has little chance of ever happening, or working in reality.
Tis a sure sign that it's probably lock step with Church teaching.humorous. The conservatives view distributivism with distrust, seeing it as a likely liberal end around.
The liberals apparently see it as a conservative diversionary tactic.
.
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