Is Christianity Socialism?

[Laudate_Dominum]

That's SPACE hippie Herbert.

[Winchester]

Maybe the Chestertonian could explain Distributism.

[Laudate_Dominum]

[quote name='Winchester' date='11 October 2009 - 05:06 PM' timestamp='1255295195' post='1983234']
Maybe the Chestertonian could explain Distributism.
[/quote]

[N/A Gone]

Aloy...

I am very confused about what you said about socialism. You are willing to say that "capitalism" can have different definitions but you don't grant that privilege to "socialism." Socialism isn't against private property in the sense of your car, Jon's house, etc. What socialism is against is the private ownership of the means of production. In other words, it wants labor-owned and labor-managed factories, so that what is produced, how much of it is produced, why it is produced, and what is done with production is not up to an elite minority but up to the people who are actually doing the work. That's what socialism means when it talks about "private property."

[Winchester]

[quote name='Revprodeji' date='11 October 2009 - 08:32 PM' timestamp='1255307544' post='1983384']
Aloy...

I am very confused about what you said about socialism. You are willing to say that "capitalism" can have different definitions but you don't grant that privilege to "socialism." Socialism isn't against private property in the sense of your car, Jon's house, etc. What socialism is against is the private ownership of the means of production. In other words, it wants labor-owned and labor-managed factories, so that what is produced, how much of it is produced, why it is produced, and what is done with production is not up to an elite minority but up to the people who are actually doing the work. That's what socialism means when it talks about "private property."
[/quote]
Unless labor is government, it's privately owned.

And I believe the lack of support of socialism is qualified by its atheism.

Edited October 12, 2009 by Winchester

[Sternhauser]

John Paul II in [i]Centesimus Annus:

[/i] "Is this the model [capitalism] which ought to be proposed to the countries of the Third World which are searching for the path to true economic and civil progress? The answer is obviously complex. If by"capitalism" is meant an economic system which recognizes the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property and the resulting responsibility for the means of production, as well as free human creativity in the economic sector, then the answer is certainly in the affirmative, even though it would perhaps be more appropriate to speak of a "business economy", "market economy" or simply "free economy". But if by "capitalism" is meant a system in which freedom in the economic sector is not circumscribed within a strong juridical framework which places it at the service of human freedom in its totality, and which sees it as a particular aspect of that freedom, the core of which is ethical and religious, then the reply is certainly negative."


I subscribe to the first definition of capitalism.

But then, what is the State but socialism? The State is the idea that those in power may determine how much of your labor is yours, and which part belongs to "the People." The whole rallying cry of the socialists is that "the rich [or anyone who has a little more than necessary to sustain himself] are selfish and greedy, and if they do not have their labor taken by violence, needy people will not get the goods and services they need." And it is a bogus, consequentialist rallying cry.

~Sternhauser

Edited October 12, 2009 by Sternhauser

[Winchester]

I don't capitalism is a system based on the notion that the end of commerce is solely profit.

Winnieism is pretty much the only acceptable Catholic economic system.

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='Winchester' date='11 October 2009 - 08:52 PM' timestamp='1255308753' post='1983424']
I don't capitalism is a system based on the notion that the end of commerce is solely profit.

Winnieism is pretty much the only acceptable Catholic economic system.
[/quote]

Well, one of the intrinsic ends of commerce is profit. It a free-market transaction were not profitable in some way, the transaction would never take place. However, the notion of what the most important end of a commercial transaction is actually depends on [i]you, [/i]the individual[i] [/i]involved in the transaction.

~Sternhauser

Edited October 12, 2009 by Sternhauser

[Winchester]

Solely. That's the key word.

[Sternhauser]

I am a capitalist, or as John Paul II said, I believe in a "free economy." Capitalism/free marketeers do not necessarily hold that profit is the exclusive (sole) end of an economic transaction. There is nothing in the tenets of capitalism/the free market that requires believing that monetary gain is the ultimate end of any transaction.

~Sternhauser

Edited October 12, 2009 by Sternhauser

[add]

Socialism is evil because it removes free will.

[add]

Socialism is evil because it removes free will, therefore the two can not exist together

[Winchester]

[quote name='Sternhauser' date='11 October 2009 - 09:04 PM' timestamp='1255309449' post='1983448']
I am a capitalist, or as John Paul II said, I believe in a "free economy." Capitalism/free marketeers do not necessarily hold that profit is the exclusive (sole) end of an economic transaction. There is nothing in the tenets of capitalism/the free market that requires believing that monetary gain is the ultimate end of any transaction.

~Sternhauser
[/quote]
However, truly free economy results in children being sent down mineshafts. The government must regulate commerce because when one truly considers profit the ultimate goal, justice goes out the window.

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='apparently' date='11 October 2009 - 09:24 PM' timestamp='1255310659' post='1983462']
Socialism is evil because it removes free will, therefore the two can not exist together
[/quote]

Does the State remove, or at least attempt to coerce the free will?

~Sternhauser

[Sternhauser]

[quote name='Winchester' date='11 October 2009 - 09:26 PM' timestamp='1255310771' post='1983465']
However, truly free economy results in children being sent down mineshafts. The government must regulate commerce because when one truly considers profit the ultimate goal, justice goes out the window.
[/quote]

Sometimes, free economies do result in children going down mineshafts. Children have gone down mineshafts for centuries. They've also chopped cords of wood, hauled sacks of feed, plowed, sown wheat, and harvested wheat. One does that which economic reality requires one to do to survive.

In other countries, such as Indonesia, children who are not sewing things in factories are being forced into prostitution. You can't look at one century in a rich country and say, "This is the way it has always been, and must always be."

You speak of "regulation." What is the ultimate goal of those in the State? Do politicians often have and keep selfless motives for gaining and maintaining power? Does the discernment of justice really rest with them? Who regulates the regulators? No one. And I'll tell you why: Joe Average does a really good job at running his own life, but he doesn't know how to run yours. But that's just what he does by voting. Unfortunately, an aggregate of votes by all the Joe Averages does not result in the selection of a truly virtuous man: it results in a collective aggregate of the values of Joe Average, with the exception that the aggregate-selected average man suddenly has a lot more power than the average man. That is not a good thing. You cannot stop an avalanche once you've started it, and likewise, you cannot wrest power over your own life out of the hands of the person Joe Average foolishly and unjustly chooses to return to power, year after year.

~Sternhauser

Edited October 12, 2009 by Sternhauser