The Sin of the Socialist

[Guest Aluigi]

As G.K. Chesterton said, if St. Francis is a mirror of Christ, then Christ is a mirror of St. Francis. So too with Christ's early community. They gave their money to the bishop who shared it with the whole Church. That's far different from giving it to the government. The early Christian communities you speak of were communities, like we nowadays have Franciscan communities or Benedictine communities .

Nations are not supposed to exist in a state where everyone gives up their right to private property (part of what separates us from the beasts). Christian communities are privately communistic because that's the vocation of its members.

Confused about my Chesterton comment? Read G.K. Chesterton's biography of St. Francis, it'll blow your mind.

[Guest Aluigi]

it's not about whether a celibate nation could happen (though doesn't the Bible prophesy about people making everyone not have sex? that's population control though, and it's not unfeasable that that could happen).

same thing would be a nation that forbids alchohol. sure, certain people can do penance to give up alchohol, but a state would be unjust in being a prohibition state even if the entire population agreed.

[kjvail]

[quote name='MichaelFilo' date='Jan 20 2005, 10:29 PM'] All my posts were under the assumption that the person wants to be in teh socialistic nation. Giving up of it and not owning anything of your own is a holy thing, since you are giving up a good thing. See that passage in acts, thats exactly what they did, they wanted to be there and gave up freely, even their only land possession.

[/quote]
I don't usually debate with socialists, they are far more attached to their idealogy than their faith as a rule, so I'll only say this once.
Socialism is evil. It violates the guiding principle of Catholic social thought - subsidiarity.
If you want to have your little commune (which is essentially what the Christian community in Acts was, it was composed of a few hundred people) that's great, go for it. That's subsidiarity in action. You have absolutely no right to confiscate the property of others at the point of a gun and distribute it as you see fit. There is no "voluntary socialist nation" - no such thing can exist under socialism. Furthermore democracy naturally leads to socialism, unless you intend to restrict sufferage exclusively to property owners (which was pretty much what Jefferson had in mind).
Socialism is the economic portion of the political idealogy of communism. The goal of communism was world domination. Socialist economies are very hard on businesses obviously so as long as any capitalist nation exists business will prefer to operate there, leaving the socialist nation. Therefore socialism must constantly expand or it dies. Witness the consolidation of political authority taking place in the EU and the gradually disappearing borders between nations on the American continent. The final goal is the world-wide socialist state from which there is no escape.
Equality of outcome is antithetical to human liberty because it is plain to all that men are not equal to one another in ability or ambition. Therefore the only way to create equality between men is thru the judicious application of force.
While capitalism is hardly ideal it does give one the option of not prioritizing the material. In a capitialist economy I have the option of being a "wage slave", as the distributists put it, or dedicating myself to the pursuit of the material. It's my choice.
I would prefer a distributist, agarian economy. Industrialization and centralization of population are dehumanizing forces. However this is not likely to occur in the near future. Unfortunately this current trend towards centralization of political authority and population will likely continue for the forseeable future until it all comes crashing down - it will be very bloody I have no doubt, not unlike the collapse of the Roman empire.
The good news is that Holy Mother Church will be there once again to pick up the pieces and put Humpty-Dumpty back together, again.

[MichaelFilo]

Don't take me for a hard line socialist. Far from it, I prefer in full blast monarchies balanced with a constitution and even a parliment but thats just a power struggle asking for corruption.

I think the shaker's attempted to have a celibate population by force, and well, as we all know, it's hard to keep going if everyone is celebate.

As far as the government and bishop thing, in small community, the bishop is the head of that "little government". When I think of socialism, I understand it to be agrarian in sense and not wholly a give up of property of business. I've come to realize that socialists are far seperated in what their beliefs for socialism is. Also, the idea of giving up of all property isn't what I consider socialism, thats communism. Socialism is merely sharing what you have. As such, what is mine is yours, and vice versa, but it is still mine to share with you. This varience on what socialism means can become quite understandable when the time period of 1814-1860's is brought to view. Many political ideas were being flung about. Socialism had many variations, from Owenistic socialism ( small agrarian communities in which sharing is stressed) to Marxism (full blast communism with the proletariate running things). What has to be relized here is that when I refer to socialism, I lean on Owen's version more so than Marxist ideology. Owen never advocated the removal of property, but isntead said that every family controls it's means of production and shares the product with the community. This would seem to be in line with the community in Acts, and even less socialistic than that community in many respects.

As far as Kjvail, socialism is not the economic ideology of Communism, since socialism would have to stem out from Communism, which is far from the truth. Socialistic ideas from Owen, Saint-Simonian, and Fourier preceded Communism. Saint-Simonian died when Marx was 7. Communism was never realized so I will just infer you refered to the ideology, not the actual practiced examples. Communism used Marx's take on socialism, which indeed wasn't really his take on it, but his prophecy. Communism was a prochpecy that never came true, and so therefore Marx's radical socialism was never practiced, and righly so shouldn't be seen as what socialism is.

All I am saying is that socialism is not inherently bad, and when taken down to agrarian communities, is the most effective in breeding the least amount of greed. But like any other economic stance not based on greed, there needs to be some motivation to live in that manner, or else production would be at an all time low, and working hard would reap no reward. For the community in Acts, the motivation was religious.

God bless,
Mikey

[Socrates]

Is socialism is not inherently bad, why have the Holy Fathers repeatedly condemned it?

[Guest Aluigi]

small Catholic communities with the vocation to a vow of poverty may be socialist. other than that, socialism is wrong. now, if you're reducing it simply to voluntary sharing by individuals, that's not socialism in policy so that's fine. I personally can share my property, because it's private property I can do anything I want with it. no government should compel people to share their private property, it ceases then to be private property. sharing motivated by the private sector is fine. sharing motivated by the Church is fine. sharing motivated by or compelled by the government is an overstepping of the government's authority.

[Laudate_Dominum]

Would that really make socialism a sin? You wouldn't be covetting your neighbors property because it wouldn't be their property in the first place. That commandment is about stealing anyway.

[Guest Aluigi]

there's a whole other commandment about stealing

read my subsequent posts especially the one where I quote Rerum Novarum. THe first post was not designed to be a big explanation, notice "more later" and "discuss"?


that's where I classify the major sin of socialism (all major sins can be classified somewhere under the ten commandments). because it is a sin against private property.

Edited January 23, 2005 by Aluigi

[Laudate_Dominum]

dang. I knew you were going to say something like that. Sorry I didn't read the whole thread before I posted. I'm in favor of private property just for the record, but I'm a fierce enemy of capitalism. I will defeat capitalism or die trying.

[Guest Aluigi]

me too. Go find my The Sin of the Capitalism thread and/or my The Virtue of the Distributist thread

[Laudate_Dominum]

[quote name='Aluigi' date='Jan 22 2005, 08:03 PM'] me too. Go find my The Sin of the Capitalism thread and/or my The Virtue of the Distributist thread [/quote]
Aww sweet! I was expected a confrontation after my last post. How neat.

[MichaelFilo]

[quote name='Socrates' date='Jan 22 2005, 08:28 PM'] Is socialism is not inherently bad, why have the Holy Fathers repeatedly condemned it? [/quote]
Socialism is a VERY broad range of economic ideals that have more or less have all officially originated during the 18th and 19th century, but have been practiced prior to in many forms ranging from Buddhist monastaries to the Christian community in Acts.

Just like all the Fathers condemn abortion, so too they condemn with socialism. However, even in abortion indirect abortions with no intent to kill anyone but to save a life are permitted. So too when you talk about something as broad as socialism, to consider the Fathers and all Church officials who have condemned it as making a blanket statement would be errenous. Voluntary socialism has never been condmend but instead is part of the Catholic life for many before and many to come. The community in Acts, monastaries and nunneries, and I'm sure many other examples all serve to show the Church's use of voluntary socialism throughout history to this day.

God bless,
Mikey

[Socrates]

[quote name='MichaelFilo' date='Jan 25 2005, 12:29 AM'] Socialism is a VERY broad range of economic ideals that have more or less have all officially originated during the 18th and 19th century, but have been practiced prior to in many forms ranging from Buddhist monastaries to the Christian community in Acts.

Just like all the Fathers condemn abortion, so too they condemn with socialism. However, even in abortion indirect abortions with no intent to kill anyone but to save a life are permitted. So too when you talk about something as broad as socialism, to consider the Fathers and all Church officials who have condemned it as making a blanket statement would be errenous. Voluntary socialism has never been condmend but instead is part of the Catholic life for many before and many to come. The community in Acts, monastaries and nunneries, and I'm sure many other examples all serve to show the Church's use of voluntary socialism throughout history to this day.

God bless,
Mikey [/quote]
I think a distinction needs to made between socialism in the usual source of the word (as a government's system of contrtolling a nation's in economy) and voluntary "socialism" in the monastic sense.

What you call "socialism" in monastary's etc. is voluntary poverty - an Evangleical Counsel.
Socialism is involuntary state-enforced poverty, and is disasterous as a national policy.

[MichaelFilo]

I still don't see the logic on looking down on owenistic socialism. If implamented on the community level and having some form of representation for each community under a unified state, neither property is lost, simply shared (but still owned), and the country isn't reduced to autonomous communities.

God bless,
Mikey

[Guest Aluigi]

voluntary sharing is ok. state or community regulated sharing isn't.

I have not merely stated that PROPERTY is a right, but even moreso that PRIVATE property is a right. That means private, choose what you want to do with it.

[MichaelFilo]

Why the need of private property. Property belong to a person, but not private, is still that person's. Except he is to share it. I don't think the Church has specified that private property is the Will of God, merely property.

God bless,
Mikey

[Guest Aluigi]

[quote]4. To remedy these wrongs the socialists, working on the poor man's envy of the rich, are striving to do away with [b]private property[/b], and contend that individual possessions should become the common property of all, to be administered by the State or by municipal bodies. They hold that by thus transferring property from private individuals to the community, the present mischievous state of things will be set to rights, inasmuch as each citizen will then get his fair share of whatever there is to enjoy. But their contentions are so clearly powerless to end the controversy that were they carried into effect the working man himself would be among the first to suffer. They are, moreover, emphatically unjust, for they would rob the lawful possessor, distort the functions of the State, and create utter confusion in the community.



9. Here, again, we have further proof that [b]private ownership[/b] is in accordance with the law of nature. Truly, that which is required for the preservation of life, and for life's well-being, is produced in great abundance from the soil, but not until man has brought it into cultivation and expended upon it his solicitude and skill. Now, when man thus turns the activity of his mind and the strength of his body toward procuring the fruits of nature, by such act he makes his own that portion of nature's field which he cultivates - that portion on which he leaves, as it were, the impress of his personality; and it cannot but be just that he should possess that portion as his very own, and have a right to hold it without any one being justified in violating that right. [/quote]
-Rerum Novarum, Pope Leo XIII

That is among many references to the RIGHT of PRIVATE property the Church has made.

Property that is not private is barely property in the first place, except that it is possessed. If one does not have the option to do with it as they please, they do not really own it.

<Note to Socrates who is reading this topic, I sent you an Email by Hillaire Belloc entitled The Faith and Industrial Capitalism. I think you will enjoy it >

Edited January 26, 2005 by Aluigi

[MichaelFilo]

Seems your right, but I'm not sure if I'm convinced. Is this teaching binding upon Catholics, or sound advice? Either way, I'll give up my arguement since A catholic isn't a legalist, and so doesn't only take things they HAVE to believe, but things that are good to believe.


God bless,
Mikey

[Guest Aluigi]

It's based upon scripture and the constant teaching and traditions of the Church and is the very reason she has always condemned socialism

Edited January 27, 2005 by Aluigi