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The Sin of the Socialist


Guest Aluigi

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Some good points.
I think the basic issue is whether one lives in a society where one is free to do with his property as he chooses (within lawful limits), include donate it to charity, or one in which this is decided by the state.

I think private charity is does the job more effectively than government beaurocracies.

On another point, the market itself can help curb its own abuses.
For instance, let's say Joe is an evil capitalist, whose company defrauds and rips off its clients, and treats its employees like dirt, and does not pay them just wages.
Joe's employees leave his company for others that pay better and treat them better. People refuse to do business with his cheating company.
Joe is forced to either change his practices or go broke.

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those employees still don't own even a shmidgit of their own means of production.

i will make the thread "the sin of the capitalist" eventually as well. i gotta categorize it into a commandment but it too is slavery. actually, you know what, i'm classifying it under number ten as well.

You can be a good capitalist. But the system of capitalism promotes indifference and is wrong.

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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.

God bless,

Mikey

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Here's the thing: it doesn't matter. Entire nations are not called to give up the GOOD of private property. That's like saying that if everyone voluntarily wanted to be in a celibate nation (the government illegalized sex) then it'd be good to have a govenrment like that.

Private property is good just like sex is good. A nation that denies sex is wrong. A nation that denies private property is wrong. A religious order that denies sex is okay. A religious order the denies private property is okay.

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Celibate nation won't happen, but in ACts all those people were in a Christian community where they owned no property that was wholly theres. Same with socialism, if everyone wants to live where everything belongs to the community, why not? The Christian community in Acts had it as a law that one must help another, and this is clearly seen when the man and woman in the passage tried to withold money, they were committing a crime against the Spirit and were killed. They were bound to help other Christians if they were to live in the community. Same with socialism. They are bound to share. But just like the Christians, if you don't want to be in the community, you don't have to be.

God bless,

Mikey

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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.

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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.

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[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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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"? :D


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 by Aluigi
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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.

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