- comment
James Atticus Bowden - body
- In 3000 BC when a young lady in Mesopatamia might have a baked mud necklace there was corruption. The ability of one person to produce more food than they could eat and barter the balance with an artisan who could make necklaces, as a full time job, better than anyone in any village around was wealth.
Jealous, less civilized tribesmen living on the periphery of the first civilizations attacked, conquered, and gained the civilization they couldn't develop on their own.
Excess stuff doesn't create greed, envy, jealousy, coveting, etc. Any stuff will create greed, envy, jealousy, coveting, etc.
Capitalism creates incredible freedom of opportunity for labor. Everyone doesn't have work from a limited number of vocations. More capitalism and more stuff create more freedom.
The sinfulness of persons comes from the fallen nature of man, not from the inanimate stuff.
- comment Shaun Kenney
- body
- Agreed -- the free market is the best and only moral system of economy (remarkably, because it mimics the economy of grace Origen postulated in the 2nd century)!
This having been said, there are excesses in both socialism and capitalism. Facism would be an excess of capitalism (and I would argue that at that point, it no longer is capitalism but a command economy).
At the root of this is power. Power can be collected by the few, or by the "proletariat" (for lack of a better term). One can either arrive at a fascist state, or a communist state, with the ultimate collectivization of personal power being nothing short of anarchy.
Power is either taken by government, or as Hobbes, Locke, Jefferson, Grotius, Aquinas, or the host of scholastic/British Enlightenment thinkers arrived upon, it is given by consent of the governed.
In this respect, the free market is indeed most moral, because the person chooses to interact with society and constrains himself only by participating. They only way such a system can preserve itself is by recognizing the fullness of the human person -- not merely as individuals but as persons worthy of respect (the difference between Mill and Aquinas' when it comes to an approach to classical liberalism).
I could go on and on, but I'll not bore folks with the details. I do certainly believe that capitalism can be excessive when it treats individuals for what they produce rather than as imago Dei. This was the prime fallacy of John Stuart Mill and the British Enlightenment, which ultimately leads towards a response from society -- ultimately through government and with no reasonable end because human nature will always tend towards safeguarding the person rather than towards the wheels of commerce, shortsighted or no.
- comment julian
- body
- ooof. not sure if more stuff=more freedom is a dogma i
can subscribe to.
i'd still consider myself a neophyte but i feel like
i've read enough to distrust some of the experts at
the Acton Institute. I may eek out a living in the
belly of the beast but it doesn't help me to have a
theology or philosophy developed to try to make me
content with the beast. i need something more
consistent with the Gospel, a system that isn't
willing to tolerate a few casualties at the expense of
progress.
yes, i live well, compared to the rest of the world,
and I'm extremely thankful, (no, liberal guilt here
thank you very much). but i think that in order to
form a sturdy apology for the free market system, (or
any system for that matter), we need more than just
the sunny fly-over assesment that Rev Sirico provides.
I'm always suprised at how little commentary is given
to Chesterton's writings on Distributism. Heck,
Acton's response to any Papal encyclical that touches
on the economy always sounds to me, like "yes, but in
America we know what we're doing." Anyway, Chesteton
had some interesting observations on economic systems
that encourage Empire over private ownership. i read
him as a warning that the natural outcome of both
Socialism and Capitalism is tyranny and empire at the
expense of private ownership. maybe so, we all know
socialism is a sham. but i have my doubts about
capitalism or even the ideal of free market economy,
too. i mean, take a look at the level of consumer debt
in America and tell me how many citizens in the
wealthiest country in the world actaully "own"
anything. i think more often, its: more stuff=more
debt=more slavery. I'm not sure that the global
economy has been executed so well that it should be
deemed an all-out success for the citizens of the
world. Call centers and software developent in India
and Ireland have been good for those countries but
elsewhere, globalization in core economies like
agriculture and textiles seem to only further
centralize wealth and take land away from more people.
I observe that there is certainly an equal ammount of
dogma driving both Marx and Adam Smith, (all though in
oposite directions). Both are dogmas that are opposed
to the person.
I took a class last year at JPII Institute and had to
get familiar with "Rerum Novarum" and then read Max
Weber's "Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of
Capitalism." I would highly recomend both. i'm not
sure the free market system can preserve and respect
the fullness and dignity of the human person when the
system, at its core, is in conflict with that
particularly ontology. The Free Market is built on a
Cartesian idealogy that only considers cogs, not
persons.
Trying to redeem the free market is like trying to
evangelize your car. Slap on all the fish stickers you
want, its still not a "Christian" car. I'm ranting a
bit here. Certainly don't mean to sound jaded or
cynical. Actually, I feel quite the oposite. But like
Shaun, my thoughts are also slowly emerging on this. I
know enough to know what I don't know. However, on
reading "Deus Caritas est" I am floored by how timely
it seems. Here, I think is where we will be informed
or reminded of what a just society, and therefore a
just economy, will look like.
3 Comments:
Jealous, less civilized tribesmen living on the periphery of the first civilizations attacked, conquered, and gained the civilization they couldn't develop on their own.
Excess stuff doesn't create greed, envy, jealousy, coveting, etc. Any stuff will create greed, envy, jealousy, coveting, etc.
Capitalism creates incredible freedom of opportunity for labor. Everyone doesn't have work from a limited number of vocations. More capitalism and more stuff create more freedom.
The sinfulness of persons comes from the fallen nature of man, not from the inanimate stuff.
This having been said, there are excesses in both socialism and capitalism. Facism would be an excess of capitalism (and I would argue that at that point, it no longer is capitalism but a command economy).
At the root of this is power. Power can be collected by the few, or by the "proletariat" (for lack of a better term). One can either arrive at a fascist state, or a communist state, with the ultimate collectivization of personal power being nothing short of anarchy.
Power is either taken by government, or as Hobbes, Locke, Jefferson, Grotius, Aquinas, or the host of scholastic/British Enlightenment thinkers arrived upon, it is given by consent of the governed.
In this respect, the free market is indeed most moral, because the person chooses to interact with society and constrains himself only by participating. They only way such a system can preserve itself is by recognizing the fullness of the human person -- not merely as individuals but as persons worthy of respect (the difference between Mill and Aquinas' when it comes to an approach to classical liberalism).
I could go on and on, but I'll not bore folks with the details. I do certainly believe that capitalism can be excessive when it treats individuals for what they produce rather than as imago Dei. This was the prime fallacy of John Stuart Mill and the British Enlightenment, which ultimately leads towards a response from society -- ultimately through government and with no reasonable end because human nature will always tend towards safeguarding the person rather than towards the wheels of commerce, shortsighted or no.
can subscribe to.
i'd still consider myself a neophyte but i feel like
i've read enough to distrust some of the experts at
the Acton Institute. I may eek out a living in the
belly of the beast but it doesn't help me to have a
theology or philosophy developed to try to make me
content with the beast. i need something more
consistent with the Gospel, a system that isn't
willing to tolerate a few casualties at the expense of
progress.
yes, i live well, compared to the rest of the world,
and I'm extremely thankful, (no, liberal guilt here
thank you very much). but i think that in order to
form a sturdy apology for the free market system, (or
any system for that matter), we need more than just
the sunny fly-over assesment that Rev Sirico provides.
I'm always suprised at how little commentary is given
to Chesterton's writings on Distributism. Heck,
Acton's response to any Papal encyclical that touches
on the economy always sounds to me, like "yes, but in
America we know what we're doing." Anyway, Chesteton
had some interesting observations on economic systems
that encourage Empire over private ownership. i read
him as a warning that the natural outcome of both
Socialism and Capitalism is tyranny and empire at the
expense of private ownership. maybe so, we all know
socialism is a sham. but i have my doubts about
capitalism or even the ideal of free market economy,
too. i mean, take a look at the level of consumer debt
in America and tell me how many citizens in the
wealthiest country in the world actaully "own"
anything. i think more often, its: more stuff=more
debt=more slavery. I'm not sure that the global
economy has been executed so well that it should be
deemed an all-out success for the citizens of the
world. Call centers and software developent in India
and Ireland have been good for those countries but
elsewhere, globalization in core economies like
agriculture and textiles seem to only further
centralize wealth and take land away from more people.
I observe that there is certainly an equal ammount of
dogma driving both Marx and Adam Smith, (all though in
oposite directions). Both are dogmas that are opposed
to the person.
I took a class last year at JPII Institute and had to
get familiar with "Rerum Novarum" and then read Max
Weber's "Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of
Capitalism." I would highly recomend both. i'm not
sure the free market system can preserve and respect
the fullness and dignity of the human person when the
system, at its core, is in conflict with that
particularly ontology. The Free Market is built on a
Cartesian idealogy that only considers cogs, not
persons.
Trying to redeem the free market is like trying to
evangelize your car. Slap on all the fish stickers you
want, its still not a "Christian" car. I'm ranting a
bit here. Certainly don't mean to sound jaded or
cynical. Actually, I feel quite the oposite. But like
Shaun, my thoughts are also slowly emerging on this. I
know enough to know what I don't know. However, on
reading "Deus Caritas est" I am floored by how timely
it seems. Here, I think is where we will be informed
or reminded of what a just society, and therefore a
just economy, will look like.
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