The Sin of the Capitalism

[MichaelFilo]

[quote name='Socrates' date='Jan 21 2005, 12:46 AM'] I very strongly disagree.
I do not see the point of the economy to "control" greed. Economy and the government can never do this. The point of the economy is simply to create wealth.

We as individuals must control our greed by not buying into materialistic values, and by living and preaching the gospel. This is not the job of "the economy" or of government.

I've got to go to bed now, but I'll be back. [/quote]
You can't stop greed because people have to make that descion. However, you can make environmenets more preventive of greed. Just as someone who grows up in a home with pornographic magazines laying about is more likely to be a lustful person, so too does the idea that capatlism depends on greed to work and in effect causes the loss of many souls. You cannot control things that destroy moral standards, you can only promote them less or not at all. In a capatlistic society, where materialism abounds, greed will be a driving force behind that economic success. Yes, people will be materially wealthy, at the cost of many lost souls however, including their own. This logic would make sense if viewed like that. When you try to see the economic style as a form of "control" over greed and other related sins, then yes you are wholly right, no form of economy will control sin any better than another. The real situation is, however, that certain forms tend to lead to more sin than others. Capatlism can only function off of greed. Better the whole world be at substinence than one man perish in the eternal flame.

God bless,
Mikey

[Guest Aluigi]

the same person posted the thread condemning socialism as posted the thread condemning socialism

G.K. Chesterton was right, we all noticed that Socialism is evil so we had to ally ourselves with Capitalism

[jessinoelw]

There are more options than just socialism vs. capitalism vs. communism. Distributivism (a.k.a. distributism and other names) is a better road and compatible with Catholic teaching. Check out [url="http://www.distributism.com/"]http://www.distributism.com/[/url]

--Jessica

[ironmonk]

[quote name='crusader1234' date='Jan 21 2005, 01:16 AM'] I disagree with you, Ironmonk. So far, theres no evidence Socialism doesn't work. Scandanavia and Canada are all doing just fine (and to the dozen of you out there with a friend named Joe from Canada that says the healthcare system smells of elderberries, I'm Rich from Canada and you can look up United Nations ratings of our system and its doing just fine). Socialism doesn't breed laziness neccesarily...

Anyways, back on topic: Capitalist societies are set up in a manner which prohibits growth and success for the vast majority of entrepreneurial endeavours. Restaurants are constantly closing, farmers are constantly having to sell out due to the high price of competition, etc.

Wal-Mart, McDonalds, and other companies give their employees horrible wages, jobs with no dignity, and don't allow them to form unions. These workers own nothing, which is clearly outlined as being wrong in Rerum Novarum.

Its not a simple issue of Capitalism being right of Socialism being right, there are other options. I hate the way people look at everything as black and white. [/quote]
Every job has dignity.

It's a job, and someone has to do it.

Some endevors fail. If they fail, then they need to try something else.

People need to work to support themselves.

I don't want to support a restaurant that no one wants to eat at. If the owners don't have a good restaurant and fail at it, then they should try something else or work for someone else.

We all can't have equal jobs.

Unions are not needed in today's age.

A worker has no right to force someone to pay them what the worker thinks that he's worth. A prime example is Christ's parable about the workers hired in the morning, at noon, and at the end of the day... they all got paid the same, and those that agreed to work for a set wage and worked all day for it complained that those who worked only part of the day should not have gotten the same amount as they did.


Socialism is the result of envy.


[b]St. Matt 20:12 [/b]
saying, 'These last ones worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us, who bore the day's burden and the heat.'
[b]13 [/b]He said to one of them in reply, [color=red]'My friend, I am not cheating you. 4 Did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage?[/color]
[b]14 [/b][color=red]Take what is yours and go. What if I wish to give this last one the same as you? [/color]
[b]15 [/b](Or) [b][color=red]am I not free to do as I wish with my own money? Are you envious because I am generous?[/color][/b]'




[b]2 Thess. 3:10 [/b]
In fact, when we were with you, we instructed you that if anyone was unwilling to work, neither should that one eat.



Part of life is failing. We learn by failing. If people are satisfied with mediocre then socialism might be right for them.

As for me, I want quality and if someone is putting out quality, they should be rewarded for it. If someone is not putting out quality, they shouldn't be rewarded for it.

Sometimes people loose, that's part of life. To be able to win, some must loose. Life will go on for them, maybe they won't be able to own a business, but they'll get a job somewhere.

As far as a "job with dignity" myth... any honest job is honorable with dignity. Someone has to do them. Not everyone can have a high paying job - economies fail when that happens. Certain jobs will not get completed. And Wal-Mart and McDonalds pay their employees well for being totally new to work. There must be entry level jobs for teens. Etc...

There is ample evidence that socialism fails, do a search and study. I have but I don't have time to go over every little failure.

To each his own. Free markets are better than heavy government controlled markets.


God Bless,
ironmonk

[Guest Aluigi]

yeah I'm promoting Distributism

[jessinoelw]

Other distributist links:

[url="http://www.medaille.com/distributivism.htm"]http://www.medaille.com/distributivism.htm[/url]
[url="http://distributism.blogspot.com/"]http://distributism.blogspot.com/[/url]

--Jessica

[crusader1234]

Living Justice and Peace's (Nihil Obstat, Imprimatur) Summary of the themes of Rerum Novarum states that Workers must receive a just wage - an amount sufficient to provide a decent life for a workers whole family - [u]and must be free to organize associations, now known as unions, to negotiate working conditions.[/u]

[james]

[quote name='Aluigi' date='Jan 21 2005, 01:08 AM'] the same person posted the thread condemning socialism as posted the thread condemning socialism

G.K. Chesterton was right, we all noticed that Socialism is evil so we had to ally ourselves with Capitalism [/quote]
Satan strives to create the illusion that there are only two choices, both evil, and that we must choose the lesser of them, but supporting the lesser of evils is support for a percieved evil.


Socialism and Capitalism are both evil. We cannot support either of them if we are to honor the Kingship of Christ and the dignity of man.

We should be aligning ourselves not with socialism or capitalism, but with Christ.

Trade guilds and the just wage coupled with the abolishment of usury and fiat currency is what we need to return to.

[ironmonk]

[quote name='A Primer on Distributism']Yes, the formal right to private property exists for all under capitalism, but in practice it is restricted to the rich.
From a Primer on Distributism: [url="http://www.theuniversityconcourse.com/V,5,1-28-2000/Storck.htm"]http://www.theuniversityconcourse.com/V,5,...2000/Storck.htm[/url][/quote]

Wrong. The premis of distributism makes too many false assumptions. The practice is not restricted to the rich - [b]maybe in 1891 [/b]it was, but not today. People who say this in today's time don't know much about America. Anyone working at McDonalds can earn enough to buy property. Some places it is more expensive than others but the bottom line is that people can move to somewhere that it's cheaper. For example, here in my town the average price for a home lot is about $60,000... where I'm from someone can buy a lot for around $4000. Putting a decent house on that lot could cost as little as $50,000... Someone working at McDonalds can afford a mortgage of $54k over 20 or 30 years.

As for minium wage - it's for entry level positions, the majority of min. wage earners in America are teenagers in high school. The majority of people who make min. wage do not need to live off of it. Not all jobs should pay a living wage.


American Capitalism it's easy for everyone to own property if they only put a little effort into it.


God Bless,
ironmonk

Edited January 21, 2005 by ironmonk

[Socrates]

[quote name='MichaelFilo' date='Jan 21 2005, 12:59 AM'] You can't stop greed because people have to make that descion. However, you can make environmenets more preventive of greed. Just as someone who grows up in a home with pornographic magazines laying about is more likely to be a lustful person, so too does the idea that capatlism depends on greed to work and in effect causes the loss of many souls. You cannot control things that destroy moral standards, you can only promote them less or not at all. In a capatlistic society, where materialism abounds, greed will be a driving force behind that economic success. Yes, people will be materially wealthy, at the cost of many lost souls however, including their own. This logic would make sense if viewed like that. When you try to see the economic style as a form of "control" over greed and other related sins, then yes you are wholly right, no form of economy will control sin any better than another. The real situation is, however, that certain forms tend to lead to more sin than others. Capatlism can only function off of greed. Better the whole world be at substinence than one man perish in the eternal flame.

God bless,
Mikey [/quote]
No offense intended, Mikey, but yours is proabably the weakest argument against captialism I have read.
Greed is a sin of the heart and soul. It is not caused by an economic system.
The economy is about creating and building material wealth, nothing more. It does not force people to be greedy.
The argument that the government should restrict the economy and deliberately make people poorer for the purpose of saving souls is an absurd one. This would be the worst form of unjust government. It would not save souls, but simply build (rightful) resentment against the government.

If I were to rob you, stealing what items and money of yours I deemed excessive, for the sake of saving your soul from materialism and greed and claimed I knew better than you what to do with these goods, what would you think?
I'd still be a thief.

Your arguments make as much sense as saying the government should promote ineffective agricultural methods to hamper farmers in the production of food, so we will not create an over-abundance of food and an atmosphere promoting gluttony!

[Guest Aluigi]

Belloc says so long as there is property tax you don't really own your own property, you're leasing it from the government. That in many respects is quite a true statement.

The idea is that there would be more owners of a means of production, more small businesses. It's not just about decent living wages, that cheapens Rerum Novarum. It's about more people owning their own private businesses. With big businesses the owners are far removed from the employees. Instead of a local manager at the local McDonald's, it's a local owner of a local restaurant. People are failing to grasp the concept of distributism.

People shouldn't be made poorer. There should be competition and working harder to get more. There simply should not be big businesses and franchises spanning all over the place. It makes less and less people the owners of their own means of production, they sell themselves and their time to the corperation. Yes, good for the economy. Slavery was good for the economy too.

Franchises should be dissolved to a bunch of locally owned businesses. The structure that kept them together should be converted to a guild that sets prices and standards and helps keep the economic stability.

In capitalism, most people are forced into jobs in big businesses. They do not own their own means of production, they are as dependent on the business as serfs were on their lords. That's the problem with Capitalism. Distributism is about distributing the ownership of businesses (so long as people will work for them.) Competition is good, and some businesses will do better than others. Classes will be maintained, but the RELATIONSHIP between the classes is cultivated because of the locality of owners to the employees.

[Guest Aluigi]

BUMP for Laudate_Dominum

[Guest Aluigi]

So who wants to take bets on who will destroy Capitalism first, me or LD?

[Laudate_Dominum]

Thank you Aloysius! (Aluigi I suppose)

My experience of Capitalism has been entirely negative, and I've been on both sides of the fence. I've been the capitalist and the slave labourer.

I've had some discussions (and bitter arguments) with different people regarding capitalism and I've noticed that there seems to be a pattern for how people deal with it.
There seem to be people who respond to criticisms of capitalism in an emotionally charged way and often say things like, "there isn't anything better" or, "get with the real world man, this is the way it is, there isn't anything better", or, "capitalism is good, anyone can get rich if he just works hard" (this is a terrible lie). The common element of this category of reaction is what I might call the slave mentality because the responses reflect a person in slavery who has become content in this state. The emotional charge in the statements is because deep down the person knows they are not really happy with capitalism. Also this type of reaction has been most common (in my limited experience) among people in lower class situations.

Another type is the person who is materialy prosperous but who's life is really a struggle to overcome capitalism on its own terms. I don't know how many people I've met who are in this category. They believe that if they work hard and have some lucky breaks they can transcend the state of animal labour and attain a freedom from the shackles of the capitalist system. This is usually not a conscious thing by any means. The mentality is evidenced by the fact that the person works and makes plenty of money (they may be fairly well off or even quite well off) but there ultimate goal is some state that would seem to transcent the capitalism dynamism (for example retirement in a tropical paradise, perhaps buying a farm and being self-sufficient, etc..). So these people are content to play the Capitalism game because they envision an end to their labours which represents liberation from animal labour and the impersonal life structured around capital.

The third type is the person who simply embraces capitalism and who's life is driven by greed and money lust for its own sake. Scrooge would be the textbook example of this type. This is another way to resolve the tension brought about by life in a capitalism system, to surrender to it and become the true capitalist.

I'm being very general but I really believe I have seen these generic types in people. All of them are based on lies and provide no escape from capitalisms dehumanizing forces. The idea that one can defeat capitalism by go along with it for a time (which is usually most of ones life) is false because built into it is the tendency toward consumerism and structures of debt that ensure that the person will be securely kept in capitalisms snare. Also the idea that one can work hard and become rich (an example of defeating capitalism on its own terms) is false because, while it is possible for an average person to start a business or whatever, the system is really structured in favour of the corporate fatcat so most small businesses will fail miserably (resulting in debt) or else succeed for a time but ultimately be devoured by a larger entity. And even if the person is lucky enough to survive and prosper to some extent they have simply become "the capitalist" instead of the exploited worker, and they are still a slave of capitalism, maybe even in a worse position because they may believe the illusion that they are now free.

This post is probably going to tick some people off. I'm really just ranting a bit so don't take me too seriously.

[Guest Aluigi]

Ever read stuff by Belloc or Chesterton?

PM me your email adress and I'll send you Belloc's essay on the Faith and Industrial Capitalism. It's pretty good, but I've never seen it online so I don't think I'm supposed to just post it up here, but through Email I can share my book

Anyway, I agree. But you know what else is slavery: socialism. Unless people can own things, and especially their own means of production, it's still serfdom/slavery

[MichaelFilo]

[quote name='Socrates' date='Jan 21 2005, 11:51 AM'] No offense intended, Mikey, but yours is proabably the weakest argument against captialism I have read.
Greed is a sin of the heart and soul. It is not caused by an economic system.
The economy is about creating and building material wealth, nothing more. It does not force people to be greedy.
The argument that the government should restrict the economy and deliberately make people poorer for the purpose of saving souls is an absurd one. This would be the worst form of unjust government. It would not save souls, but simply build (rightful) resentment against the government.

If I were to rob you, stealing what items and money of yours I deemed excessive, for the sake of saving your soul from materialism and greed and claimed I knew better than you what to do with these goods, what would you think?
I'd still be a thief.

Your arguments make as much sense as saying the government should promote ineffective agricultural methods to hamper farmers in the production of food, so we will not create an over-abundance of food and an atmosphere promoting gluttony! [/quote]
I am sorry for a weak arguement, but I hope you'll keep in mind, I am much younger than the other folk at the debate table.

The arguement against capitalism isn't neccessarily weak, however. The government's job is to follows God's Will and use the power that has been granted it to do so. If an over abundence of food did exist which did result in gluttony, there are many solutions to that, including distrubuting the food to needy countries, or make non-agrarian jobs more appealing. There isn't one cure to a problem. I will continue to reassert that environment is exactly what breeds certain sins. In captialism, you find that, as before mentioned, it is based on greed ([i]Wealth of Nations[/i], Adams Smith). This would neccessarily cause more greed to exist. It is indeed the government's sole responsiblity to carry out God's Will. This includes creating the environment so God's work can be done. If you post pornography on every wall in every room in the country, then you effectivly increase sexual sins throughout the country. Same with the economic system, if it not only allows greed, but requires it to function, then neccessarily it follows that you are breeding greed. While all sins must be avoided by everyone, a government that does no service to it's people in this struggle is no more doing the Will of God then is Lucifier.

Your example of the theif is rather poor. A person who robs me is NOT the government, nor is the government robbing anyone if it rejects captialism and instead uses a form of economic thinking that is less of a breeding ground for evil. The government has been handed power from God, it is it's job to keep doing God's Will which neccessarily includes aiding the citizen to a greater spiritual good.

God bless,
Mikey

[Winchester]

If I have to pay yearly on something or it can be siezed from me or have lein placed upon it, it is not my property.

We are not allowed to own land in the United States. Mineral Rights--typically not ours. School Districts--communism/socialism. Property tax--unregulated and tends to hit residents harder than businesses.

[MichaelFilo]

I never even realized that. Then again I probably won't really get it until I have to start doing my own accounting. I'm only a week into being 16 here.

God bless,

Mikey

[Winchester]

I speak for Houston in the tax area. But I believe it's rather typical, as tax breaks aren't given to residents.

[Socrates]

[quote name='MichaelFilo' date='Jan 25 2005, 12:42 AM'] I am sorry for a weak arguement, but I hope you'll keep in mind, I am much younger than the other folk at the debate table.

The arguement against capitalism isn't neccessarily weak, however. The government's job is to follows God's Will and use the power that has been granted it to do so. If an over abundence of food did exist which did result in gluttony, there are many solutions to that, including distrubuting the food to needy countries, or make non-agrarian jobs more appealing. There isn't one cure to a problem. I will continue to reassert that environment is exactly what breeds certain sins. In captialism, you find that, as before mentioned, it is based on greed ([i]Wealth of Nations[/i], Adams Smith). This would neccessarily cause more greed to exist. It is indeed the government's sole responsiblity to carry out God's Will. This includes creating the environment so God's work can be done. If you post pornography on every wall in every room in the country, then you effectivly increase sexual sins throughout the country. Same with the economic system, if it not only allows greed, but requires it to function, then neccessarily it follows that you are breeding greed. While all sins must be avoided by everyone, a government that does no service to it's people in this struggle is no more doing the Will of God then is Lucifier.

Your example of the theif is rather poor. A person who robs me is NOT the government, nor is the government robbing anyone if it rejects captialism and instead uses a form of economic thinking that is less of a breeding ground for evil. The government has been handed power from God, it is it's job to keep doing God's Will which neccessarily includes aiding the citizen to a greater spiritual good.

God bless,
Mikey [/quote]
Sorry if I may have come across as a bit harsh in my criticism.
I still disagree with you about the role of government and the economy.
The government and economic systems can really only do so much. The point of the economy is the production and trade/distribution of material goods. In itself it will not make anyone virtuuous or non-virtuous. Government systems will do nothing to eliminate greed, etc. The government should certainaly not strive to make its citizens poorer. If people choose to live lives of poverty, or ont have an excess of material goods, this should be their own choice, not that of the government. Voluntary poverty is a virtue. Poverty enforced by the government is not.
Governments are generally very poor at planning the economy and "fairly" distibuting wealth! (Look at the collosal failure of Communism) The system you propose would require unfallen, sinless men to work, and if men were unfallen, government as we know it would be unnecessary anyway.

Your comparison with pornography is also faulty. Pornography is intrinsically sinful and evil. Making money or producing goods or food is not. It is an inordinate love of these things that is sinful. On the other hand, any production or use of porn is a sin.
And it is not the place of government to determine what is inordinate and what is not. This is something that only God can judge. Government officials are as prone to corruption as anyone else. The government that acts as a theif is still a theif. Your ideas are utopian and do not take into account the fallen nature of man.