How is the Church going to cope with the transition to a post-capitalist society?

[SaintOfVirtue]

Income inequality is a key term here because the moment you bring it into the equation you are no longer talking about the poor being poor and how to help them, you're talking about the rich being rich and what they should be doing to help the poor.  So instead of it being a conversation of how to help the poor help themselves it becomes a conversation of how to make the rich pay for the poor.

[Guest]

"Today's problems, they are enough for today".  I think speculation about the future, if of course there is to be one, speaks to the fact that The Church desperately needs those in The Laity (perhaps especially) in the various fields of expertise, science, commerce and economics to mention a few to be committed to Jesus and His Gospel and to reflect on their particular field of expertise prayerfully and to speak out from there.  They and all of us need to invite The Holy Spirit into a seemingly rather unpredictable sort of future, if of course we are to have one, and to be our inspiration and motivation as we possibly move into a difficult future.

History has proven over and over again that the totally unexpected and unanticipated or X The Unknown Factor is always waiting in the wings and in any and all speculations and conclusions.  Whether X gets to come on stage is not a foregone conclusion - it may or it may not.

Doctrine of Divine Providence, which is NOT passive resignation, precisely the opposite in fact.

V. GOD CARRIES OUT HIS PLAN: DIVINE PROVIDENCE http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p1s2c1p4.htm

[4588686]

On 2/3/2017 at 9:48 PM, SaintOfVirtue said:

Income inequality is a key term here because the moment you bring it into the equation you are no longer talking about the poor being poor and how to help them, you're talking about the rich being rich and what they should be doing to help the poor.  So instead of it being a conversation of how to help the poor help themselves it becomes a conversation of how to make the rich pay for the poor.

And the problem with that is?

[SaintOfVirtue]

Incentivizing laziness.

[4588686]

3 hours ago, SaintOfVirtue said:

Incentivizing laziness.

Nah

[SaintOfVirtue]

20 hours ago, Hasan said:

Nah

I hope to be as eloquent as you someday. 

[4588686]

4 hours ago, SaintOfVirtue said:

I hope to be as eloquent as you someday. 

It's as substantive as anything you've said. 

[Anomaly]

4 hours ago, Hasan said:

It's as substantive as anything you've said. 

Ostensibly? 

[Ice_nine]

give hasan a break. it's been a rough few months for him.

[havok579257]

On 2/20/2017 at 11:26 PM, SaintOfVirtue said:

Incentivizing laziness.

so everyone who is poor who would receive help is lazy?

[polskieserce]

CBS Special ~ "America: Manufacturing Hope"

Robert Reich: Universal Basic Income

Some interesting pieces I recently came across...

[SaintOfVirtue]

On Tuesday, February 28, 2017 at 4:38 PM, polskieserce said:

CBS Special ~ "America: Manufacturing Hope"

Robert Reich: Universal Basic Income

Some interesting pieces I recently came across...

Robert Reich is a literal charlatan wind bag. He is deliberately twisting Milton Friedman words by quoting a single line completely out of context. Even the briefest, cursory GLANCE at Friedman's economic philosophy will reveal he opposed all forms of socialism and even opposed minimum wage laws.  

The reason you are so uninformed on this subject is because you are gobbling up sugar coated lies from people who are deliberately trying to mislead you. There is not a single shred of evidence to support your position. Stop drinking the kool-aid.

[polskieserce]

On 3/2/2017 at 2:18 AM, SaintOfVirtue said:

Robert Reich is a literal charlatan wind bag. He is deliberately twisting Milton Friedman words by quoting a single line completely out of context. Even the briefest, cursory GLANCE at Friedman's economic philosophy will reveal he opposed all forms of socialism and even opposed minimum wage laws.  

The reason you are so uninformed on this subject is because you are gobbling up sugar coated lies from people who are deliberately trying to mislead you. There is not a single shred of evidence to support your position. Stop drinking the kool-aid.

And that's going to be your response for every shred of evidence there is to support coming mass unemployment.  More and more wealth has been accumulated at the top since the implementation of trickle down economics.  People continue to struggle to find work and new jobs being created pay rather poorly.

Where are all of these new, decent paying jobs supposed to come from?  I always hear skeptics like you say that plenty of new jobs will be created but nobody is able to give a concrete answer as to what those jobs will be.  1/2 the population can't be plumbers and electricians (the demand for those services high enough to support such a number).  Most people don't have the mental capacity to be computer programmers and even if they did, we don't need 50 million programmers in the US (presently around 20 million worldwide).

Most likely, the next wave of automation will be self-driving cars.  A few million jobs are in the cross-hairs.  It doesn't mean every driving/car-related job will be automated but a lot of companies will do exactly that when the CEO is put in a bind about why stock dividends aren't being paid to shareholders.

[Era Might]

On 2/1/2017 at 8:31 PM, SaintOfVirtue said:

History has actually shown that a capitalist system is the single most effective method of bringing people out of poverty (as an example I offer Andrew Carnegie).

Capitalist systems have not even solved poverty within themselves, let alone in the world. Part of the fear is that advanced capitalist-industrial societies will be too smart for their own good, and capitalism will simply shift its base of operations to regions where capitalism still has a lower class to exploit. The success of Andrew Carnegie simply demonstrates that a person can amass massive capital, not that capitalism is a viable, moral system. Slavery brought lots of people out of poverty, just not the slaves.

[Era Might]

Re: technology, I think the fundamental premise of Socialism will be important to addressing the problem. That is, workers are the means of production, and should own themselves. Whatever problems are faced must be faced by worker's collectively, not by capitalists finding new ways to organize workers.