Posted on 05/13/2007 5:07:33 PM PDT by NYer
This can be seen in some of the recent news coming out of China. The petfood recalls, The anti-freeze being substituted for glycerine. In Russia it is the rise of the Russian Mob. These are examples of what happens when profits becomes god. This is capitalism unchecked by moral or ethical considerations.
Christianity can thrive in a capitalist society the two are not automatically in opposition to one another. The right use of property and money strengthens a society. The right to property and to our earnings is one of the best defenses against tyranny. A society that is in constant fear of coups, invasions, and war has a very hard time providing the stability that a family needs to thrive. When families break down because of societal stress the society is further weakened. It becomes a vicious cycle. But in a system where a man's property is safe from unlawful seizure, where a man's wage belongs mostly to him and where a man has a voice in the legal and political system, tyrants are given short shift.
Christianity is quite welcome in this type of society. Especially as it reminds us that our first duty shall be to God. You might get away with cheating your customers now, but what about in eternity? Christianity however can never thrive in a Marxist society. Marxism depends on crushing Christianity and on making the State the new god. It thrives where there is chaos, envy, hatreds and injustice. It has no room for Jesus who can move men's hearts to reconcile and to seek peace.
Greed, as your tag line says, is not a virtue.
I'm sorry. I didn't know the Pope had a blog.
The Pope raps ungodliness in any "ism."
He has said that capitalism is enormously useful and productive but it cannot nor is it supposed to be a substitute for faith in God nor the sole informer of the conscience.
Puh-leeze.
Indeed, he says that the real enemy is the ideology called secularism, which reduced everything to questions of earthly power. Without the right moral compass, the rich can do great harm while thinking to do great good, such as the philanthropy of a Warren Buffet, who is deep into population control.
Thank you. Capitalism = freedom (of exchange). It’s the necessary condition - the soil, if you will - that allows us to strive to our full potential (piety, productivity, etc).
Good observation. Both Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI have recognized that a free-market system is much more conducive to authentic human development than a Marxist system. However, any socio-economic system is going to emphasize the human tendency to turn from God in particular ways.
A key difference between socialism and a market system is that the market system allows potential - including moral potential - to flourish for the benefit of others. The structure of socialism defeats even the best intentions; a society of smart, educated, holy people *still* cannot make socialism work.
Socialism does work — provided one makes certain allowances. A command economy works where resistance to command is zero. The military is an example: an army has its own cities (forts), its own schools, its own power, water, and sewerage utilities, its own airline, postal system, telecom networks, religious institutions, and justice system. Everyone in the army works for the same “company”, gets paid on the same day each month, and accepts the work assignments and duties issued them by their superiors. Job placement is accomplished from above, with people being placed into jobs on the basis of aptitude testing and the needs of the army rather than on personal desire. No one is free to quit his/her job at a whim. An army holds absolute control over the lives of its “citizens” (the individual soldiers) and can order any of them to perform dangerous or even potentially fatal tasks with no explanation or possibility of appeal. All work is done for the good of the collective, not the individual. No one is paid extra for longer hours or overtime; work proceeds until completed, however long a given task might take. Clothing is issued by the collective and is uniform, subject to frequnt inspections. Rations are provided by the collective and are plentiful and nutritious, if not always high in variety or flavor. Housing, transportation, and utilities are provided by the collective. Every member of the army works and produces according to his or her ability and receives in return the neccesities of life in accordance with his or her needs. An army (and to an even greater extent, a navy) is an example of socialism that works.
Other examples of succesful socialism exist (medieval monastaries, for example). The thing these institutions have in common is that in each the individual surrenders his own desires and ambitions to the will of the collective. If the individuals making up a given population do not object to living in a society structured like an army (or a monastery), then socialism can work for that society.
However, for those populations with a moral or cultural orientation opposed to collectivism, socialism cannot be made to function. In such a situation, socialism can only be imposed upon the population by force or fraud by a small elite of ideologues with the backing of a substantial portion of the army. This “revolutionary vanguard” then simply liquidates the smallholders, religious institutions, and hereditary landowners who possess capital (i.e. the means of production and other physical plant) and expropriates their holdings “on behalf of the proletariat”. Systems of administration form as the revolutionaries become the established authorities; tructures of control form as those with more charisma and/or ruthlessness “game” the system to accumulate power for themselves. Once one or more of these power players achieve the ability to liquidate their rivals, they overthrow the other members of the revolutionary vanguard and consolidate power in their own hands.
Capitalism has a similar pattern of progression, but that is beside the point. The point is that a command economy can be made to work so long as the people comprising a given population do not object to being under command.
Interesting points, but the examples you give of “command economies” in fact (when successful) function within a larger context of economic freedom. I agree that the “command concept,” shall we say, has its successes, but those successes are limited by the information limits of the structure, as well as by the human limitations of the participants.
For example, the myriad errors and inefficiencies of the military (ours and others, now and historically) demonstrate the weakness of a system that relies on the information-processing and decision-making of a few, rather than on the widest possible distribution of both functions.
Thanks for your well-thought-out response.
You are correct in yoru assessment of the socialism of the military: it does function within a larger context of economic freedom. However, so do all other systems. The capitalist system we employ itself developed in the context of economic freedom — the distributist model that preceded it. When the property of crofter, church, and aristocrat was expropriated by the early capitalists, the organic structure and distributed capital of the medieval economy was replaced by the imposed structures and concentrated capital of the mercantilists. The invisible Hand of God was slapped aside, to be replaced by the invisible hand of capitalist rational self-interest (and, later, the iron hand of the socialist State).
And of course it is important to note that other militaries than our own can and do function outside the context of economic freedom. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army owns its own farms, flocks, factories, and foundries, yet exists within the context of China’s state-directed capitalist economy.
You are also correct about the inefficiencies of the military economy. However, it must be noted that “military socialism” (for lack of a better term) is literally designed to survive under combat conditions; though the military’s command economy may be sluggish, it is extremely robust. Our capitalist system is flexible but fragile, and could be shattered like an egg by one well-placed, well-timed act of terrorism; on the other hand, the U.S Army could concievably survive the destruction of the United States itself.
I’m not arguing in favor of command economies here; I myself am an advocate of medieval distributist economics. I’m merely pointing out that command economies can be viable given certain initial conditions.
Our capitalist system is flexible but fragile, and could be shattered like an egg by one well-placed, well-timed act of terrorism; on the other hand, the U.S Army could conceivably survive the destruction of the United States itself.
Excellent point.
I'm not making claims of overwhelming excellence for "capitalism," either. A free-market system does, however, have intrinsically a much greater economic potential, productive of generally greater prosperity, than a command system. Obviously, as the Popes mention, material prosperity is not the end of our existence, and to imagine that it is causes us great harm.
You are correct. Please note, I’m not advocating “military socialism”, either — as a U.S. Navy veteran, I’ve eaten one too many bland mess-deck meals to be in favor of that sort of thing! I believe in small, private enterprise; in fact, back on the ship of that name I often used to wonder what would happen if the crew had permission to operate private business aboard ship, or if the ship were owned by shareholding sailor-owners, and permitted to hire itself out to the highest-bidding nation.
I think we’re more or less on the same page here, and I appreciate your thoughtful commentary.
"Military private enterprise" has been tried, of course ... privateering, and the condottieri in the Italian city-state period. I think it has efficiency advantages, but of course governments don't really like it!
“Military private enterprise” has been tried, of course ... privateering, and the condottieri in the Italian city-state period. I think it has efficiency advantages, but of course governments don’t really like it!”
In a way, the military has been doing precisely this in Iraq, by contracting out many services and particular jobs to private companies. Kind of an interesting concept, a basically socialist enterprise (the army) contracting out to capitalist businesses in order to achieve cost and service efficiencies. Just as an aside, I have thoroughly enjoyed the interchange between you and B-Chan. It is such a treat to read such thoughtful commentary, so intelligently put, and so politely stated. Kudus to both of you.
What I've noticed missing from the equation, however, and from private contracting at my husband's current Place of Employment, is contract enforcement. If the contractor blows the job, but still gets paid, what's his motivation to do better the next time?
Thomas Sowell's column this morning brings up some of the basic points we've been discussing:
If you start from a belief that the most knowledgeable person on earth does not have even one percent of the total knowledge on earth, that shoots down social engineering, economic central planning, judicial activism and innumerable other ambitious notions ...
If no one has even one percent of all the knowledge in a society, then it is crucial that the other 99 percent of knowledge -- scattered in tiny and individually unimpressive amounts among the population at large -- be allowed the freedom to be used in working out mutual accommodations among the people themselves.
This is the key element in Dr. Sowell's contention, strongly supported by the evidence, that command systems can't work as well as free systems, no matter how knowledgeable and virtuous the participants are.
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