Well, this isn't policy, it's Catholic social teaching which, over the years, has been hijacked for various purposes. It's never taught the way the encyclicals actually read.
In Caritas in Vertitate itself, Benedict states that this is a continuation of Rerum Novarum written by Leo XIII in 1891 and there were two others in between, one by Paul VI and one from JPII. All said basically the same thing - in order for markets and governments to work in serving all equally and justly, ethics and morality must be applied to everyday dealings and decisions. It's a warning against greed. There's no policy involved. Like all the others, this encyclical cannot be separated from the others. It's a continuous stream. The best thing to do is read them in order with some knowledge of what happened historically.
Greed is a word that seems to be on the verge of being tossed around a lot by the left, to blackmail people with money into buying into any program they can come up with.
The idea is that anyone with money had to be either greedy to accumulate the money, or greedy to keep any of it. I say, hogwash! This mindset always precedes efforts to separate good men from their holdings.
To my way of thinking, anyone who advocates this ‘taking’, should be subject to something tantamount to being lined up against the village wall and shot. And just the attempt to denigrate based on wealth, should warrant a person or a group a stiff warning, that they are very close to crossing the line.
I do not think these writings do cross the line, but I would be very leery of writing on the subject of greed.
When you start talking about greed, there’s something you need to know up front. You can’t precisely define greed. You open a whole Pandora’s box when you encourage the public to think of people who are better of than themselves, are in need of judging. It gets real ugly real quick when this mindset is encouraged.
Our economic system encourages everyone to be creative, to develop their own wealth. That way people who aspire to become wealthy, are less likely to “HATE” people who have more than they do, because they intend to have more money than they presently do.
Loose talk about greed, is dangerous. I very rarely every address people as greedy. I have in some isolated instances, but it’s a real iffy thing to do.