Why As Catholics We Ought To Reject Capitialism

[JimR-OCDS]

Jim have you read any of the Distributism stuff by Chesterton and Belloc?

No, it sounds like a sleeping pill though.

Jim

 

[ScottBot]

Distributism.

Based on what I've read so far, seems fair enough. Similar to small scale capitalism implemented by the Pilgrims when communism almost killed them off.

 

[_Shannon_]

No, it sounds like a sleeping pill though.

Jim

LOL! I am far too nerdy to find it sleep inducing.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

Based on what I've read so far, seems fair enough. Similar to small scale capitalism implemented by the Pilgrims when communism almost killed them off.

Huh?

The Pilgrims at Plymouth Plantation, lived well with their version of communism, until the Merchant Adventurers from Europe used unbridled capitalism to buy the Natives out of their land.



Jim

 

[JimR-OCDS]

LOL! I am far too nerdy to find it sleep inducing.

I can cure insomnia with books on economics.

Jim

 

[ebia]

Since capitalism does the most to promote [...], individualism, [...], its the best we got.

Promoting individualism is good?

 

[Sphinx777]

Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology, or social outlook that stresses "the moral worth of the individual". Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and so independence and self-reliance while opposing most external interference upon one's own interests, whether by society, family or any other group or institution.

Individualism makes the individual its focus and so it starts "with the fundamental premise that the human individual is of primary importance in the struggle for liberation." Classical liberalism (including libertarianism), existentialism and anarchism (especially individualist anarchism) are examples of movements that take the human individual as a central unit of analysis.

It has also been used as a term denoting "The quality of being an individual; individuality" related to possessing "An individual characteristic; a quirk." Individualism is thus also associated with artistic and bohemian interests and lifestyles where there is a tendency towards self creation and experimentation as opposed to tradition or popular mass opinions and behaviors as so also with humanist philosophical positions and ethics.

 

[ScottBot]

Promoting individualism is good?

As opposed to collectivism? Absolutely.

 

[ScottBot]

Huh?

The Pilgrims at Plymouth Plantation, lived well with their version of communism, until the Merchant Adventurers from Europe used unbridled capitalism to buy the Natives out of their land.



Jim

Your take seems at odds with the historical record:

In mid-December 1620 the Mayflower landed at Plymouth. In a duplication of the terrible hardships of the first Virginia settlers, half of the colonists were dead by the end of the first winter. In mid-1621 John Peirce and Associates obtained a patent from the Council for New England, granting the company 100 acres of land for each settler and 1,500 acres compulsorily reserved for public use. In return, the Council was to receive a yearly quitrent of two shillings per 100 acres.

A major reason for the persistent hardships, for the "starving time," in Plymouth as before in Jamestown, was the communism imposed by the company. Finally, in order to survive, the colony in 1623 permitted each family to cultivate a small private plot of land for their individual use. William Bradford, who had become governor of Plymouth in 1621, and was to help rule the colony for thirty years thereafter, eloquently describes the result in his record of the colony:

All this while no supply was heard of…. So they began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop than they had done, that they might not still thus languish in misery. At length … the Governor (with the advice of the chiefest among them) gave way that they should set corn every man for his own particular, and in that regard trust to themselves…. And so assigned to every family a parcel of land … for that end, only for present use…. This had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the Governor or any other could use, and saved him a great deal of trouble, and gave far better content. The women now went willingly into the field, and took their little ones with them to set corn; which before would allege weakness and inability; whom to have compelled would have been thought great tyranny and oppression.

The experience that was had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years and that amongst godly and sober men, may well evince the vanity of that conceit of Plato's … that the taking away of property and bringing community into a commonwealth would make them happy and flourishing…. For this community … was found to breed much confusion and discontent and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. For the young men, that were most able and fit for labour and service, did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men's wives and children without any recompense. The strong … had no more in division of victuals and clothes than he that was weak and not able to do a quarter the other could; this was thought injustice…. Upon … all being to have alike, and all to do alike, they thought … one as good as another, and so … did … work diminish … the mutual respects that should be preserved amongst men…. Let none object this is men's corruption … all men have this corruption in them…. (William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, 1620–47, New York: Knopf, 1952, pp. 120–21.)
​

 

[JimR-OCDS]

Your take seems at odds with the historical record:

In mid-December 1620 the Mayflower landed at Plymouth. In a duplication of the terrible hardships of the first Virginia settlers, half of the colonists were dead by the end of the first winter. In mid-1621 John Peirce and Associates obtained a patent from the Council for New England, granting the company 100 acres of land for each settler and 1,500 acres compulsorily reserved for public use. In return, the Council was to receive a yearly quitrent of two shillings per 100 acres.

A major reason for the persistent hardships, for the "starving time," in Plymouth as before in Jamestown, was the communism imposed by the company. Finally, in order to survive, the colony in 1623 permitted each family to cultivate a small private plot of land for their individual use. William Bradford, who had become governor of Plymouth in 1621, and was to help rule the colony for thirty years thereafter, eloquently describes the result in his record of the colony:

All this while no supply was heard of…. So they began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop than they had done, that they might not still thus languish in misery. At length … the Governor (with the advice of the chiefest among them) gave way that they should set corn every man for his own particular, and in that regard trust to themselves…. And so assigned to every family a parcel of land … for that end, only for present use…. This had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the Governor or any other could use, and saved him a great deal of trouble, and gave far better content. The women now went willingly into the field, and took their little ones with them to set corn; which before would allege weakness and inability; whom to have compelled would have been thought great tyranny and oppression.

The experience that was had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years and that amongst godly and sober men, may well evince the vanity of that conceit of Plato's … that the taking away of property and bringing community into a commonwealth would make them happy and flourishing…. For this community … was found to breed much confusion and discontent and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. For the young men, that were most able and fit for labour and service, did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men's wives and children without any recompense. The strong … had no more in division of victuals and clothes than he that was weak and not able to do a quarter the other could; this was thought injustice…. Upon … all being to have alike, and all to do alike, they thought … one as good as another, and so … did … work diminish … the mutual respects that should be preserved amongst men…. Let none object this is men's corruption … all men have this corruption in them…. (William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, 1620–47, New York: Knopf, 1952, pp. 120–21.)
​

Actually, what is described is still communism. Although they were allowed their own little parcels of land to farm for themselves, they still had to provide collectively to the welfare of the plantation.

Also, it wasn't communism that caused their hardship so much as the fact that they arrived in New England in November, and also the fact that none of them were experience farmers or craftsmen as in Jamestown. Despite these facts, the Jamestown settlement failed where the Plymouth settlement succeeded and grew outside of itself.

In the book, "Mayflower," the author Nathaniel Phillbrick wrote of how they had to work together for the common good, in order to survive. Farming was just one portion of their work. They had to fish and trap in order to provide the means to pay off the note they signed back in England.

That being said, in time, capitalism took over as more and more Europeans arrived in the new world, to the chagrin of the Pilgrims, who had fled Europe to live separately from the society they saw as corrupt and evil.

Jim

 

[fated]

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.

Christians still do this, especially religious communities. It isn't impossible to see this work in a other places, but one assumes the control is weaker and the groups also be fairly small, certainly not the size even of a large state or city.

Still, we need to see the situation with all the nuance and complexities that exist. We know that most people perform best when there is some temporal gain for additional work, but also when they have enough time to spend on the important things in life. We know they are fairly happy and healthy when they have enough money to take care of their basic needs and a bit more.

Many times large amounts of wealth especially if earned to easily can cause people the fail in very serious ways. There are other problems associated with large amounts of money like oppressing small companies and even peoples (such as Monsanto often does by patenting people crops or foods or suing them for growing grain that has been tainted by their seed, against the owners will, still Monsanto does do some good, AND they are especially good at getting judges on the Supreme Court of the US), increase pollution, inflating prices on basic commodities... and at length controlling so much capital that the size of their horde even changes the economy.

That's a pretty good start on the 'problems with capitalism' portion.

HOWEVER, it had been the case the Christian capitalist societies were good at employing people. Now, the businesses are so big the high ups don't see the situations of the poor, and they even hire slave labor in other countries to do work, all in the name of getting more money of the owners (which is important, especially, because on the edges here are retired people and people who are unable to work, but not so important to ignore the unemployment outside your front door, or the underemployment in your same building).

Part of the problem occurs because you are not expected to buy your neighbors products. Quality products are not valued as highly as disposable products, and telling the difference is very difficult (also with where things are made).

Now, it must be clear that already this is plenty of back scratching going on in government today, SO, the best thing is probably good turnover. We also need to have more, but less attractive jobs, such as basing programs in counties, using local money, as a preferred method. Under our current legal system it could be difficult to get sound judgments on which states NEED the assistance of the others and who is only doing business to bring home the bacon.

There are various causes for the utter lack of integrity at high government level.

A big part of this is the coming of age of the radical feminists. Their goal appears to be a culling of the world population, shifting the population to something they feel is made up of more people that they value. If they are to get it done, it will need to be quick, because the overpopulated myth is not passing well to the next generation even to atheists, if my experience is any indicator.

It would also be wrong to conclude that our economy is SO FAR OFF that we need to change to a Marxist system or something. Most of the problem is the access to power of the high level of government and the money machines self feeding of campaign contributions by government employees and contract organizations (like Planned Parenthood).

Also, our legal system isn't that far off either that we need to scrap the whole thing, instead, we need to gradually transform it by dealing with its problems as the occur.


OK, there is my initial report.

 

[ScottBot]

Actually, what is described is still communism. Although they were allowed their own little parcels of land to farm for themselves, they still had to provide collectively to the welfare of the plantation.

Also, it wasn't communism that caused their hardship so much as the fact that they arrived in New England in November, and also the fact that none of them were experience farmers or craftsmen as in Jamestown. Despite these facts, the Jamestown settlement failed where the Plymouth settlement succeeded and grew outside of itself.

In the book, "Mayflower," the author Nathaniel Phillbrick wrote of how they had to work together for the common good, in order to survive. Farming was just one portion of their work. They had to fish and trap in order to provide the means to pay off the note they signed back in England.

That being said, in time, capitalism took over as more and more Europeans arrived in the new world, to the chagrin of the Pilgrims, who had fled Europe to live separately from the society they saw as corrupt and evil.

Jim

What is described fits the classic definition of distributism, not capitalism nor communism.

 

[SolomonVII]

Why As Catholics We Ought To Reject Capitialism

There is something very wrong with Capitialism .

Capitalism however is a mixed bag.

 

[ScottBot]

Why As Catholics We Ought To Reject Capitialism

There is something very wrong with Capitialism .

Capitalism however is a mixed bag.

Yes, one must never capitialize.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

What is described fits the classic definition of distributism, not capitalism nor communism.

No, because distributionism is taking of one person's wealth and distributing it among the rest against their will. This isn't what happened.

The 50 Separatist Pilgrims came freely and had signed a promissory note obligating their repayment of the loan used to fund their portion of the voyage to the new world.

What they had to pay in goods was actually a tax to pay off the note for their voyage.

However, that was the 50 religious separatist. The other 52 were merchant adventurers who had funded their own voyage or signed loans of their own and they quickly settled outside of Plymouth Colony and in the area around Boston.

The 50 separatist however lived in common as they had in Holland as they made restitution on the loan.


Jim

 

[Virgil the Roman]

Thanks Shannon.

 

[Rebekka]

subscribing, no time to read now.

I hate capitalism. I hate communism even more.

Politically I'm probably much more left-wing than the rest of you. I don't know enough about distributism to have a clear opinion on it, but so far it looks much better than capitalism.

 

[Virgil the Roman]

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

That is laughable. Early Christendom was more akin to primitive monasticism and communalism. Communism, it never was. To think it was akin to such is absolute naïveté at least and supremely credulous at worst.

 

[SpiritualAntiseptic]

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.

Those were the Israeli Christians that did that very early in the Church, likely because they believed the end was going to come at any moment. It looks like they had to bailed out by the Greek Christians who sent money at Paul's request when the apocalypse didn't come as quickly as they thought.

 

[Virgil the Roman]

Distributism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia