THE CATHOLIC KNIGHT: A reading of the papal encyclicals on economic social justice reveals this to be true. Catholics should be Distributists.
I believe we are now entering a time of complete economic and social collapse, which of course will lead to political collapse too, not just for the United States, but for nations around the world. Current trends now being reported in China indicate a massive economic bubble is about to pop in the Chinese housing market. This will likely result in the complete implosion and collapse of the Chinese economy, followed by economies around the world, perhaps delivering the final blow needed to implode the European and American economies as well. This is it! Laissez-Faire Capitalism and State Socialism have failed. The post-enlightenment economic models have left the whole world in financial ruin!
In a desperate attempt to regain control after the inevitable collapse that will soon come, we can look forward to the emergence of big-brother police-states in the Western world, employing strategies of law enforcement similar to those used in Communist China and the old Soviet Union. Even the United States has paved the way for this through recent legislation passed by the Senate, and on its way to be signed by President Obama. The governments of the West are preparing for a soon coming Economic Armageddon! In the midsts of this social upheaval and the police-state to follow, I do not know if 'The Catholic Knight' blog will be able to remain on the Internet. We can pray, and I will certainly try to keep it online for as long as possible. However, when living under a government that fears ideas that contradict the status quo, and has now the legal means to silence those ideas, I do not think it far fetched that Uncle Sam may perhaps shut down this little blogging venture in the not-too-distant future. Should that happen, I want my readers to start thinking about the future. When this is finally all over, we are going to have to rebuild, and I want you to take this idea with you. After the implosion of the economic models given to us by the Enlightenment Era (Capitalism and Socialism), let us all return to the teachings of the Church on economics, because what is economics after all, but morality by another name...
(Wikipedia) -- Distributism (also known as distributionism, distributivism) is a third-way economic philosophy formulated by such Catholic thinkers as G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc to apply the principles of Catholic social teaching articulated by the Catholic Church, especially in Pope Leo XIII's encyclical Rerum Novarum and more expansively explained by Pope Pius XI's encyclical Quadragesimo Anno.
According to distributism, the ownership of the means of production should be spread as widely as possible among the general populace, rather than being centralized under the control of the state (state socialism) or a few large businesses or wealthy private individuals (laissez-faire capitalism). A summary of distributism is found in Chesterton's statement: "Too much capitalism does not mean too many capitalists, but too few capitalists."
Essentially, distributism distinguishes itself by its distribution of property (not to be confused with redistribution of wealth). While socialism allows no individuals to own productive property (it all being under state, community, or workers' control), distributism itself seeks to ensure that most people will become owners of productive property. As Belloc stated, the distributive state (the state which has implemented distributism) contains "an agglomeration of families of varying wealth, but by far the greater number of owners of the means of production." This broader distribution does not extend to all property, but only to productive property; that is, that property which produces wealth, namely, the things needed for man to survive. It includes land, tools, etc.
Distributism has often been described as a "third way", in opposition to both socialism and capitalism. Thomas Storck argues that "both socialism and capitalism are products of the European Enlightenment and are thus modernizing and anti-traditional forces. In contrast, distributism seeks to subordinate economic activity to human life as a whole, to our spiritual life, our intellectual life, our family life".
Some have seen it more as an aspiration, which has been successfully realised in the short term by commitment to the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity (these being built into financially independent local cooperatives and small family businesses), though proponents also cite such periods as the Middle Ages as examples of the historical long-term viability of distributism....
THE CATHOLIC KNIGHT: In what is sure to anger Laissez-Faire Capitalists, irritate international Socialists, and drive American Evangelicals hysterical; a small and obscure Vatican commission today released a non-binding and non-doctrinal proposal calling for the creation of a new global financial order, that would help to regulate and control the excesses and inequalities of the current world monetary system....
(CNS) -- A Vatican document called for the gradual creation of a world political authority with broad powers to regulate financial markets and rein in the "inequalities and distortions of capitalist development."
The document said the current global financial crisis has revealed "selfishness, collective greed and the hoarding of goods on a great scale." A supranational authority, it said, is needed to place the common good at the center of international economic activity.
The 41-page text was titled, "Toward Reforming the International Financial and Monetary Systems in the Context of Global Public Authority." Prepared by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, it was released Oct. 24 in several languages, including a provisional translation in English.
The document cited the teachings of popes over the last 40 years on the need for a universal public authority that would transcend national interests. The current economic crisis, which has seen growing inequality between the rich and poor of the world, underlines the necessity to take concrete steps toward creating such an authority, it said.
One major step, it said, should be reform of the international monetary system in a way that involves developing countries. The document foresaw creation of a "central world bank" that would regulate the flow of monetary exchanges; it said the International Monetary Fund had lost the ability to control the amount of credit risk taken on by the system...
The document itself is likely to be ignored by leaders in the international community, especially in Europe and America, where large corporations and banks are content to leave things exactly the way they are. Not that it really matters, since the document itself is a single commission proposal, which is not part of the magisterial teaching of the Church. It is simply a "note" from one office within the Vatican. It carries no ecclesiastical 'weight' and is designed to be absorbed into a larger, more comprehensive, document later on. The wording may be changed, and some portions may end up being deleted all together. In other words, this 'note' is just a small flexible part of a much larger work in progress.
The contentious point of the document, receiving so much media fanfare, but so few direct quotes as to what it actually says is as follows...
A supranational Authority of this kind should have a realistic structure and be set up gradually. It should be favourable to the existence of efficient and effective monetary and financial systems; that is, free and stable markets overseen by a suitable legal framework, well-functioning in support of sustainable development and social progress of all, and inspired by the values of charity and truth. It is a matter of an Authority with a global reach that cannot be imposed by force, coercion or violence, but should be the outcome of a free and shared agreement and a reflection of the permanent and historic needs of the world common good.
This comes following the most honest assessment ever seen on the causes of the international financial/economic crisis that rocked the world in 2008 and continues with us today. The Vatican is attempting to lead other nations to own up to the fact that the current financial order is corrupt, and that current regulatory methods are not fixing the problem. If anything they are making them worse, and because of this, another financial catastrophe (far worse than 2008) awaits us in the near future.
The document released today emphasizes the need to follow the Catholic principle of subsidiarity. This means that problems should be dealt with from the bottom up, not the top down. It is consistent with the papal encyclicals of the last century, and in no way called for an authoritarian 'New World Order' as some have suggested. Quite to the contrary, the document calls for the voluntary creation of better financial/economic regulating authorities, which implies such things do not currently exist. That by definition excludes the International Monetary Fund (IMF) which is criticised directly, the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the United Nations. Clearly what the document calls for is something new and different, that is not based on the corrupted status quo. It gives no specific details beyond this.
The document IS NOT a call to a 'New World Order' or a 'Centralised Banking System.' It is a call to a new way of regulating international commerce, but it is NOT a call to creating a 'One World Global Government.' Sorry, conspiracy theorists, but you're hyperventilating over nothing. If anything, the Vatican is trying to move the world AWAY from a centralised world tyranny.
Like Rerum Novarum in 1891, and all the papal social encyclicals since then, this is likely to be ignored by the leaders in Europe and America, to the detriment of the third-world and even middle to low income people in Europe and America themselves. (Right now it seems the only people hyperventilating about this are some conservative Catholics, Evangelicals and a few secular conspiracy theorists.)
Because our leaders have ignored papal teaching on social justice (or perverted it to suite their own template), the world will continue to languish in economic depravity, oscillating between the 'gods' of capitalism and socialism, until finally the whole thing implodes into a worldwide economic catastrophe. Only then, after the world has been left in financial ruin, will some wise European monarch take up the banner of the Church and actually begin to implement this stuff she has been preaching about for the last 120 years!
To understand this document, it must be put into the full context of a century of papal teaching. To interpret the document in a vacuum, as the news media often does, is to distort what it means. So what does it mean? Well you can read the document and decide for yourself. I've provided a link below to the full text. Before you do however, you need a primer on Catholic Social Justice. So here is the short-version gist of it...
Catholics cannot be Socialists. This is clearly taught by the Church. By the same token however, and perhaps in a more profound way, Catholics cannot be Capitalists either! (When I say 'Capitalists' here I mean the Austrian School of Economics embraced by Neoconservatives and Libertarians.) No honest reading of the Gospels, or the Church's social encyclicals, can produce a Socialist or Capitalist outlook. Both philosophies must be rejected by the Christian mind, or else bow to the altars of man we will, instead of the one true altar of Christ.
The Church has made her social teachings clear in both the Catechism and papal encyclicals. Great Catholic thinkers, such as G.K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc, gave us the philosophical framework for how to apply these encyclicals to modern economics. They called this new way of thinking DISTRIBUTISM, which was an outright rejection of Capitalism and Socialism. For if Capitalism is a wound on the proper economic social order, than Socialism is just a band-aid, and not a very good one at that. The economic social order must be reconstructed in the image of the Gospel, and while that will most certainly not produce a perfect world, it will most certainly make things better than they are. You can read more about Distributism at The Distributist Review.
Until then however, I do hope you will join me in thanking Pope Benedict XVI for his wise instruction through the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, and join me in storing the document in safe keeping until that day when a great monarch will one day implement it. We should do this while we prepare for the onslaught of mockery we will soon get from the Capitalist elite, the frustration we will hear from the international Socialists who will say it doesn't go far enough, and the hysterical "end of the world" rantings of American Evangelicals who will soon tell us the pope is the Antichrist. I have already read the ramblings of some bloggers and comments made on Internet forums. This document will certainly result in a whole new round of Anti-Catholicism in the Western world, particularly in the United States.
You can read the FULL TEXT of the Vatican document HERE.
THE CATHOLIC KNIGHT has detected a new danger in the "Occupy" movement as I've observed emerging patterns over the last week. The Occupy Movement is not designed to last days or weeks, but literally months, and it is not designed to end peacefully. The students and young people in these protests are not the real danger. They are the pawns, and they are designed to be martyrs. Their lives have been designated as "expendable" by those organizing the movement. A significant stock market crash is likely to occur within weeks to months, and when that happens, the United States will be thrown into the depths of a severe double-dip recession. As this occurs, simultaneously, the Occupy Movement will still be protesting on Wall Street, and throughout cities across the United States. This movement will swell in numbers, as more and more Americans find themselves on the wrong end of America's Servile State. Eventually, violence will likely erupt by some of these newcomers, and the current Occupy protesters will be labeled as violent radicals right along with them. Thus, the appearance will be created that average mainstream America is now surrounded by radicals calling for a "revolution" in the middle of a severely depressed economy. The hope of those who have organized the Occupy Movement is that average Americans will eventually call out to the government for help, to put these radicals down, and restore order to America's streets. That's when the government steps in with the Patriot Act and gives average Americans exactly what they asked for, but what none of them expected -- a police state.
The final product of this police state is unknown at this time. Will it be run by the government or the corporations? Will it be run by both? Or are the government and corporations one in the same? I suspect what we will end up with will be something even more deeply associated with the Servile State we already have. Americans will ultimately be forced by law to work for various corporations, and these corporations will be forced by law to take care of them, providing healthcare benefits, education, retirement, etc. On the surface it sounds like the solution to a lot of problems, but in practical reality, what it amounts to is modernized slavery. Failure to work for a corporation will mean the loss of healthcare and other benefits. It may even become illegal.
For this reason, The Catholic Knight, stresses that we must get intimately involved in this process now, before it spirals out of control. I don't know if the American Northeast or West Coast can be helped. After viewing video clips and pictures from the demonstrations, it would appear these 'useful idiots' of the Left cannot be reasoned with. Their fate will ultimately be sealed by riot police. (God have mercy on them.) It is the smaller, and more pliable, "Occupy" demonstrations in the Southeast and Midwest that might be more salvageable. We need to infiltrate their ranks and influence their message. This shouldn't be too hard because many of them cannot articulate their message anyway. Furthermore, much of what they say they want is contradictory, and this is because like most Americans, they don't understand that there are more than two ways to look at economics.
Americans have been trained from early childhood to look at the economy in only two ways -- Capitalist and Socialist. If one is not a Capitalist, so Americans are told, than one must be a Socialist, and vice versa. This is hogwash and pure poppycock! Capitalism is just as an unnatural and contrived system of economics as Socialism, and both will result in tyranny if given free reign. Nor does the answer lie in some artificially contrived hybrid of the two -- ergo The Servile State. No, the current system of economics is the direct result of man's abandonment of the Catholic Christian faith established by Jesus Christ and his apostles, and manifested most clearly in the reign of chivalry during the era of Christendom's medieval period. The Free Market, as it once existed under the reign of Catholic Christianity, was tightly regulated by kings and queens to insure that big business never got too big, and the rights of laborers were protected, most especially the right to acquire their own land and property for the purpose of building their own small business. Thus the system of economics given to us by medieval Christendom was a true "ownership society" wherein property was much more evenly distributed among the common people, thus giving them the means to more effectively control their own destiny. It wasn't a perfect system by far, but it did work, and it was a hell of a lot better than what previously existed under Pagan Rome, and what currently exists in both Capitalist and Socialist nations today. This system of true free market economics is now called Distributism.
We are living in possibly the most perilous time in American history since the Civil War. I suspect it is even more perilous. If we don't try to change the message of some of these Occupy protesters, they will be led to their own demise, and in the process drag the United States down even deeper into The Servile State.
Please, if you live anywhere in or near a city under protest by the Occupy Movement, (especially a Southern or Midwestern city), than organise with other like-minded people and get hundreds of these flyers to the protesters. It would even be better if you could pose as a protester, hand these flyers out to them, and then distribute them to onlookers and those passing by, as if you were a protester yourself. Bring some homemade cardboard signs with you, just to make it look good. We have to change the thinking of these people now, because if we are unsuccessful, the Occupy Movement will eventually turn violent and force our nation into a police state. The United States must be allowed to implode naturally, under the colossal weight of our own federal government, national debt and trade deficit. Allowing a demonstration stunt like the "Occupy" Movement to turn America into a police state during the interim period is unacceptable, and the lives of these naive youths are worth more than the canon fodder of riot police. Helping them helps us, and it's not too late to do that. Please, organise and infiltrate, showing a true spirit of brotherly love and compassion. The flyer you need is here... DOWNLOAD PDF HERE
The Occupy Movement has not reached my area yet, but you can rest assured that when it does, 'The Catholic Knight' will be quietly among them, posing as one of them, and getting this valuable life-saving information to them one way or another. Likewise, I will organise as many people as I can to work with me on this project (just half a dozen should be more than enough). Please, in the name of all that is holy, join me in this most worthy crusade!
THE CATHOLIC KNIGHT: It has begun. Actually it began about two years ago. The cultural separation between the Bible Belt and the rest of the United States is becoming political. Below is the covenant which is being signed by hundreds of thousands of Christians throughout the Southland of Dixie, and tens of thousands of Southern Christians (or Christians with Southern heritage) in diaspora around the United States. Read and review at your own risk. Fair warning; it is militantly Christian and no less radical than America's Declaration of Independence. The only difference being this is a personal pledge designed for individuals and not an actual act of legislation. You can read more about the SOUTHERN NATIONAL CONGRESS here. A PDF version of the document below can be downloaded here...
The Southern National Covenant
UPDATED:16 September 2009
(NOTE: The Southern National Covenant was adopted by the 2nd. Southern National Congress on 12 September 2009 while assembled upon Cheaha Mountain, Alabama)
The undersigned Men and Women of the South to our fellow Southerners and on their behalf.
Our forefathers’ worst nightmare has now come upon us. They created a free government, limited in its powers and a servant to the people. But today the United States has become an empire, fast decaying into tyranny; and we their children have become strangers and subjects in the land our fathers won. Instead of a free and just social and political order, today we are threatened by a godless national culture and a corrupt, despotic federal government that knows no limits to its power.
Our political leaders, setting themselves above the law, have forged an unholy alliance with large corporations and the international money cartel. These elites have purchased the law-makers who are sworn to serve the People, enabling them to expropriate our wealth in the greatest act of plunder in human history. Through threat of force, government seizes half of all we make for taxes, yet it is still not enough to satisfy the vaulting greed of our rulers. Thus government spends staggering sums above its revenues, saddling our People with debt so colossal that it cannot be repaid to the fifth generation. To service this debt, the government-banking alliance has stolen our Constitutional and God-ordained right to sound money and has given the power to create money out of nothing to corrupt, private banking interests. Federal law forces us to use only this bank-created money; and because it must be borrowed into existence, our once free people have become enslaved to debt. The burden of confiscatory taxation, combined with runaway federal spending and a currency manipulated to benefit the ruling elites, has brought our country to the brink of bankruptcy and economic collapse, with all the political and social turmoil that must inevitably follow.
The federal regime has loosed upon us floods of immigrants, strangers to our laws and language embodying cultures and values contrary to those upon which our nation was founded, who are displacing us on the soil our fathers won with their sweat and blood. Fomenting hostility between the races and regions, our rulers have destroyed hope and spread despair. Injustice, tyranny, corruption, and deceit are the hallmarks of their governing. They call good evil and evil good, the recompense for which is divine judgment. Accelerated by dishonesty and corruption at every level of society and swept along by a daily torrent of official lies, America is plunging toward the abyss. We watch transfixed with horror at the destruction of a once free and prosperous country and are forced to acknowledge the American political and economic system is no longer sustainable. It has become a long train of abuses, evidencing a design to reduce us under absolute despotism. Thus it cannot be salvaged or redeemed, only replaced.
We Southerners proclaim our right to be free of these evils our ancestors warned against and shed their blood to prevent. The seeds of our deliverance remain alive within our faith, culture, and historic principles of governance of individual liberty, rule of law, and impartial justice. Southern culture is founded on the enduring and permanent: trust in God, family, tradition, manners, property, community, loyalty, courage, and honour. We know that free and just government cannot derive from laws, regulations, bureaucracies, and ideologies. It springs only from the soil of faith and love, watered by struggle and sacrifice, and the harvest of which is liberty, justice, prosperity, and peace.
Before all the nations of the earth we affirm that we are a separate and distinct People, with an honourable heritage worthy of the respect of all mankind. Bound together by a shared history, faith, and blood, we have endured hardship and tragedy but have also enjoyed the fruits of Christian civilisation built by God’s grace and the works of our hands. Under heaven, we possess the right to govern ourselves in our own land under our own laws, customs, and religion.
With more sadness than anger we recognize that the country our forebears bequeathed to us no longer exists. By depending on the central government’s increasingly worthless currency, its loans, subsidies, and payments, its putrescent schools, and its false promises of security, we have forged our own chains. But if we have forged our chains, we can also sever them.
We are left with no recourse but to look to our own counsel to secure our welfare. We must “abjure the realm,” withdrawing our support from the tyrannical government and corporate institutions created for our enslavement. Then we must work to restore the power of our States, the first bulwark of freedom, self-government, and Southern identity. As our forefathers did, we must establish a new foundation for law and government by all honourable means.
Therefore, with humble trust in the Sovereign Lord of Nations, and in the name of the Southern Nation and People whom we serve, we the Delegates of the Fourteen Southern States, in Congress assembled September 12, 2009 in Delta, Alabama; make and publish this Covenant, to which we invite all Southerners who yearn for liberty and justice to join us in subscribing.
By this Covenant we corporately pledge ourselves to the protection of our Southern cultural heritage and to the defence of liberty and justice for the Southern People and States. We bind and oblige ourselves, as we are by God and nature tied, with our lives, fortunes, and sacred honour to stand in defence of our native soil and People, contrary to this perverse and infamous regime now arrayed against the South. We swear that we will be ever ready to use all our best endeavours for her preservation, and that we will not cravenly and shamefully bow the knee to tyrants. By this bond, each of us faithfully promises to assist one another as the need demands. All of which before God we most solemnly vow and promise to adhere to and never to turn from, all the days of our lives.
In mutual support of one another as Christian Southerners, we covenant together
To renounce the evils of corrupt government that our forebears warned against, and to resist by all honourable means acts of federal tyranny, as our circumstances permit and as the Lord leads.
To seek to revive our local economies, working together to promote every man’s prosperity as our own and toward freeing ourselves from the snare the Empire’s worthless money and perpetual debt which are the lifeblood of tyranny, and seeking a return to honest public money in daily use -- gold and silver coin or currency backed by gold and silver.
To support every measure which restores the sovereignty of our State and local governments, and the sovereignty of the Southern people.
To resist any Federal statute or Presidential directive that threatens our fundamental freedoms of speech, press, assembly, exercise of religion, and petition for redress, freedom from illegal search and seizure, and the right of due process under law.
Never to allow ourselves willingly to be disarmed nor submit to the confiscation of our means of lawful self defence; nor comply with any firearms registration scheme, which is the certain precursor to confiscation.
We declare before God and men that we earnestly desire to restore a Godly order in our respective States by peaceful means. We seek only that which may turn to the honour of God and the increase of peace and justice in our States and communities. Yet the growing evils of the time may not grant us the choice of peaceful means of redress. In such a pass, when criminal violence may be directed against one of us by the state, our fortunes shall be as their fortunes, their wives or husbands as our wives and husbands, their children as our children, their losses as our losses, and injuries done them as injuries to our own persons; and we shall not rest till they be delivered.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF to the God of our Fathers, to all Southern People, to all powers, nations, and states, and to all humankind, we affix our names to this Covenant, beseeching the favour of Almighty God on a just cause. May God bless our Covenant and keep us faithful to perform all we have covenanted together to do.
_______________
Subscribed by the undersigned Citizens of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.
THE CATHOLIC KNIGHT is looking for intelligent and thoughtful feedback. Please take a look at the above video and link. Compare the message of this organization with that of Distributism, Subsidiarity and Chivalry. Post your comments below.
I am not interested in inane comments from pro-federal big-government apologists. I do not want to read ridiculous comments about "racist rednecks" and "backward hillbillies." These types of ad hominems serve no purpose other than to pacify the intolerance of those who post them. They will be deleted and never see the light of day on this blog. I do not allow racist comments on this blog, nor will I allow comments from those who race bait. I personally see no functional difference between a hardened Klansman, and a person who points the finger and cries "racism!" at the mere sight of pride in one's heritage and beliefs. They are both the same in my book -- people of intolerance who are beyond the pale of civil discussion. This will remain a civil discussion about real ideas and possible solutions to real problems. There are no less than half a dozen credible secessionist movements in the United States today. All of them are legitimate in my view, and the Southern secessionist movement is just one of them. They will all be treated equally here in this discussion.
As a practicing traditional Catholic, an American and a Southerner, I believe the empire called the United States of America has gotten too big, and the federal government is now beyond reform. Furthermore, I believe the federal government is controlled entirely by big-business and banking cartels. I do not believe the common people of the United States are represented by the United States government anymore, nor do I believe they have been represented for a very long time. I believe the entire system has become fraudulent and manipulated. I believe the best solution to this problem is to simply allow the inevitable collapse of the United States federal government, and then allow the various regional cultures of the United States to forge their own forms of government and assume their places among the nations of the earth.
In my opinion, the proposals now being put forth for the restoration of the Confederate States of America (Dixie) best reflect our traditional Catholic beliefs and sensibilities. I could be wrong about that, and I admit the possibility of error, but at this juncture I do not see it. So whether you are Catholic or not, I invite your thoughts here, keeping in mind the reasonable limitations I have spelled out above....
THE CATHOLIC KNIGHT: The great Anglo-Catholic convert to Rome, G. K. Chesterton, said the following about economics and politics. "The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected."
Karl Marx
With that in mind I would like to turn our attention to economics. There are basically two schools of economics at work in the modern world. The first comes to us from Karl Marx in the form of Socialism, and we are all too familiar with the rabid Christophobia associated with that. How many millions of Christians died under the oppression of forced Socialist (i.e. Communist and Fascist) regimes during the 20th century? I suppose only God knows. Socialism is a total failure economically. It has raped the taxpayers of every country it's influenced. While it simultaneously drained their national treasuries to nothing, leaving them only with debt. In America we see these very same ideas embraced by progressive universities, the entertainment industry and the Democratic Party. During the 20th century, socialist policies enacted in the United States eventually brought the world's last remaining superpower to it's knees economically. The progressive Democrat government put in place in 2008 has only exacerbated the problem. As of 2010, over 56% of the U.S. federal budget was spent on "entitlement" programs, which are essentially socialist ponzi schemes, while the government ran a federal deficit of $1.17 trillion to pay for them. The U.S. now faces a debt crisis that threatens to undermine it's very sovereignty. So as the world ever so slowly begins to understand the failures of Marx, it gradually turns to another guru of economic despair - Ludwig Von Mises.
Ludwig Von Mises
Ludwig Von Mises was the founder of the Austro-Libertarian school of economics. The Von Mises school of thought advocates minimal to zero government intervention in economics with maximum free trade on a global level. In America, it's an idea that is frequently promoted on conservative talk radio, and there are many advocates within the Republican Party. The Libertarian Party is practically based on it. Many see it as the exact opposite of Socialism, and therefore the cure to what ails us in this post-Socialist environment. Sadly, there are problems, and this is not the "fix" many are hoping for. Austro-Libertarian policies are what gave us NAFTA and GATT. These are free trade deals that allow American corporations to outsource their workforce, making products in other countries for a fraction of the cost, then selling them back to Americans with no tariffs to lower their profit. It puts Americans out of work, and rewards companies for hiring virtual "slave labor" overseas.
The only Christian voice that has truly tackled the issue of economics in the modern world is that of the Catholic Church. From the social encyclicals of the popes, we see that what the Church advocates is something akin to what G. K. Chesterton called "Distributism." In today's terminology, it might better be described as "Micro-Capitalism." Perhaps the term "Distributed-Capitalism" may be another way of putting it. By this is meant the free market. But the market is not truly "free" if it is dominated by a handful of men who have cornered it with monopolies. In this sense, the government truly does have a role in economics in the form of protecting the free market from those few powerful businesses that would seek to crush the free market trade of smaller businesses. For the most widely distributed ownership of property, via legitimate free market trade at a local level, is the most sure safeguard against widespread poverty and dependency. It is also the most consistent producer of charity for the poor among individuals. The problem with Austro-Libertarian economics is that a locally controlled market is lost to international free traders and cutthroat competition coming from the "big box" retail outlets.
Christopher A. Ferrara
Thomas E. Woods
To make matters worse however, the founder of this school of thought was just as Anti-Catholic and Christophobic as the father of Socialism - Karl Marx himself. Mises, like so many of his followers today, failed to understand the nuance of Catholic Social Doctrine, describing it as authoritarian in nature, and even going so far as to accuse the Catholic Church of embracing Socialism for it's own self interest. While it is fair to say that both Catholic and Protestant individuals have in the past abused Church social teaching for Socialist ends, it is not true to say that the Church itself in any way supports Socialism. In fact, the Holy See has a reputation of excommunicating Socialists masquerading as theologians, and has actually condemned all forms of collectivism in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. This is a "straw-man" logical fallacy, used by Mises to justify his own philosophy and malign Catholic Social Doctrine. The following are excerpts from the Ludwig Von Mises Institute. They were compiled as a reference for a heated exchange between Christopher A. Ferrara, author and President of the American Catholic Lawyers Association, and respected historian Dr. Thomas E. Woods, both practicing Catholics. Dr. Woods, a scholar and author, has sided with the Von Mises perspective on economics and has written some articles in defense of it. While Mr. Ferrara has faithfully held to the traditional Catholic perspective of the popes. In this open written exchange, Ferrara takes Woods to task on his departure from the traditional Catholic understanding of social teaching and calls upon him to reconsider his views. Drawing from the Ludwig Von Mises Institute's website as a source, Ferrara demonstrates the blatantly anti-Catholic and Christophobic position of Mises and his Austro-Libertarian school of economics.
The source of this text (and accompanying open letter) can be found HERE.
1. Jesus’ preaching of a Kingdom to come destroys all social ties:
The expectation of God’s own reorganization when the time came and the exclusive transfer of all action and thought to the future Kingdom of God, made Jesus’s teaching utterly negative. He rejects everything that exists without offering anything to replace it. He arrives at dissolving all existing social ties….
2. Jesus is like the Bolshevists:
…His zeal in destroying social ties knows no limits. The motive force behind the purity and power of this complete negation is ecstatic inspiration and enthusiastic hope of a new world. Hence his passionate attack upon everything that exists. Everything may be destroyed because God in His omnipotence will rebuild the future order. No need to scrutinize whether anything can be carried over from the old to the new order, because this new order will arise without human aid. It demands therefore from its adherents no system of ethics, no particular conduct in any positive direction. Faith and faith alone, hope, expectation—that is all he needs. He need contribute nothing to the reconstruction of the future, this God Himself has provided for. The clearest modern parallel to the attitude of complete negation of primitive Christianity is Bolshevism. The Bolshevists, too, wish to destroy everything that exists because they regard it as hopelessly bad. But they have in mind ideas, indefinite and contradictory though they may be, of the future social order. They demand not only that their followers shall destroy all that is, but also that they pursue a definite line of conduct leading towards the future Kingdom of which they have dreamt. Jesus teaching in this respect, on the other hand, is merely negation.
3. Jesus despises the rich, inciting the world to violence against them and their property, and His teaching has borne “evil seed”:
One thing of course is clear, and no skilful interpretation can obscure it. Jesus’ words are full of resentment against the rich, and the Apostles are no meeker in this respect. The Rich Man is condemned because he is rich, the Beggar praised because he is poor. The only reason why Jesus does not declare war against the rich and preach revenge on them is that God has said: “Revenge is mine.”
In God’s Kingdom the poor shall be rich, but the rich shall be made to suffer. Later revisers have tried to soften the words of Christ against the rich, of which the most complete and powerful version is found in the Gospel of Luke, but there is quite enough left to support those who incite the world to hatred of the rich, revenge, murder and arson. Up to the time of modern Socialism no movement against private poverty which has arisen in the Christian world has failed to seek authority in Jesus, the Apostles, and the Christian Fathers, not to mention those who, like Tolstoy, made the Gospel resentment against the rich the very heart and soul of their teaching.
This is a case in which the Redeemer’s words bore evil seed. More harm has been done, and more blood shed, on account of them than by the persecution of heretics and the burning of witches. They have always rendered the Church defenseless against all movements which aim at destroying human society….
4. The Church, not Enlightenment liberalism, cleared the way for Socialism:
…. It would be foolish to maintain that Enlightenment, by undermining the religious feeling of the masses, had cleared the way for Socialism. On the contrary, it is the resistance which the Church has offered to the spread of liberal ideas which has prepared the soil for the destructive resentment of modern socialist thought. Not only has the Church done nothing to extinguish the fire, it has even blown upon the embers….
5. Christian doctrine is destructive of society, prohibits concern for sustenance and work, preaches hatred of the family, and even endorses castration:
…. So it is that Christian doctrine, once separated from the context in which Christ preached it—expectation of the imminent Kingdom of God—can be extremely destructive. Never and nowhere can a system of social ethics embracing social co-operation be built up on a doctrine which prohibits any concern for sustenance, and work, while it expresses fierce resentment against the rich, preaches hatred of the family, and advocates voluntary castration.
6. The Gospel played no part in the building of Western civilization:
The cultural achievements of the Church in its centuries of development are the work of the Church, not of Christianity. It is an open question how much of this work is due to the civilization inherited from the Roman state and how much to the idea of Christian love completely transformed under the influence of the Stoics and other ancient philosophers. The social ethics of Jesus have no part in this cultural development. The Church's achievement in this case was to render them harmless, but always only for a limited period of time….
7. Because it opposes liberalism, the Church is an enemy of society:
The fate of Civilization is involved. For it is not as if the resistance of the Church to liberal ideas was harmless. The Church is such a tremendous power that its enmity to the forces which bring society into existence would be enough to break our whole culture into fragments. In the last decades we have witnessed with horror its terrible transformation into an enemy of society. For the Church, Catholic as well as Protestant, is not the least of the factors responsible for the prevalence of destructive ideals in the world today…
8. Liberalism is superior to Christianity and has restored humanity by overthrowing the Church, which is why the Church hates it:
Historically it is easy to understand the dislike which the Church has shown for economic liberty and political Liberalism in any form. Liberalism is the flower of that rational enlightenment which dealt a deathblow to the regime of the old Church and from which modern historical criticism has sprung. It was Liberalism that undermined the power of the classes that had for centuries been closely bound up with the Church. It transformed the world more than Christianity had ever done. It restored humanity to the world and to life. It awakened forces which shook the foundations of the inert traditionalism on which Church and creed rested. The new outlook caused the Church great uneasiness, and it has not yet adjusted itself to even the externals of the modern epoch.
9. Christianity has become a religion of hate, seeking to destroy the “wonderful new world” of liberalism:
True, the priests in Catholic countries sprinkle holy water on newly laid railways and dynamos of new power stations, but the professed Christian still shudders inwardly at the workings of a civilization which his faith cannot grasp. The Church strongly resented modernity and the modern spirit. What wonder, then, that it allied itself with those whom resentment had driven to wish for the break-up of this wonderful new world, and feverishly explored its well-stocked arsenal for the means to denounce the earthly struggle for work and wealth. The religion which called itself the religion of love became a religion of hatred in a world that seemed ripe for happiness. Any would-be destroyers of the modern social order could count on finding a champion in Christianity.
10. Because they follow the Gospel and have not been “inoculated” with liberal philosophy, priests and monks are the enemies of society:
11. The Church and the Papacy seek to enslave men by depriving them of reason and the spiritual freedom of capitalism:
The Church knows that it cannot win unless it can seal the fount from which its opponent continues to draw inspiration. As long as rationalism and the spiritual freedom of the individual are maintained in economic life, the Church will never succeed in fettering thought and shepherding the intellect in the desired direction. To do this it would first have to obtain supremacy over all human activity. Therefore it cannot rest content to live as a free Church in a free state [the very slogan of Cavour, the great Masonic enemy of the Church and Blessed Pius IX - CAF]; it must seek to dominate that state. The Papacy of Rome and the Protestant national churches both fight for such dominion as would enable them to order all things temporal according to their ideals. The Church can tolerate no other spiritual power. Every independent spiritual power is a menace to it, a menace which increases in strength as the rationalization of life progresses.
12. Christianity needs socialism in order to maintain theocracy against the threat of “independent production”:
Now independent production does not tolerate any spiritual over-lordship. In our day, dominion over the mind can only be obtained through the control of production. All Churches have long been dimly aware of this, but it was first made clear to them when the socialist idea, rising from an independent source, made itself felt as a powerful and rapidly growing force. It then dawned upon the Churches that theocracy is only possible in a socialist community.
13. The Church must “transform” itself by embracing capitalism rather than papal teaching, such as that of Pius XI:
If the Roman Church is to find any way out of the crisis into which nationalism has brought it, then it must be thoroughly transformed. It may be that this transformation and reformation will lead to its unconditional acceptance of the indispensability of private ownership in the means of production. At present it is still far from this, as witness the recent encyclical Quadragesimo anno.
If These Sisters Can Show Up To A TEA Party - So Can YOU!
THE CATHOLIC KNIGHT: I've blogged on this before, and I'll blog on it again. Faithful orthodox Catholics are needed at the TEA Parties. As Catholic Americans it is incumbent upon us to show up in our nation's time of need. America is in peril, and the very survival of our republic is at stake. If you won't do this for yourself, than at least do it for your children. For if we don't act now, our children will pay an unimaginable price as America falls. The TEA Parties are a grassroots movement, (not a political party), that protests the expansion of big government, wasteful deficit spending and oppressive taxation on the middle class. They are family-friendly events, which usually involve mothers and children, as well as their fathers and elders. Their intention is good, but they lack clear direction. The problem with the TEA Parties is lack of participation by faithful practicing Catholics who are vocal about orthodox Catholic Social Teaching. The National Review Institute and McLaughlin & Associates conducted a survey of the TEA Parties and found that only 28% of participants are Catholic in comparison to some 60% Protestant. That needs to change. When you consider the strong social teachings of the Catholic Church, and the nature of the TEA Party rallies, there is no excuse for Catholics to make up any less than 35%-40% of the TEA Party participants.
Thus the TEA Parties have lacked a clear direction of reform. Tea Party demonstrators have thus far relied on the message of the nation's founding fathers, such as Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin. That's nice to a certain extent, but these men are not necessarily the kind of role models we want our children to emulate. Their message of limited government was mixed with Masonic Deism and civil disobedience. We Catholics are called to a much higher standard, and a good number of Evangelical Christians would agree.
The message of the TEA Parties is a good one, but it's not clear. It needs to be tweaked just a little, to bring people back to a proper understanding of limited government from a truly Christian perspective. Therefore, I'm calling upon all of my readers to show up at the next TEA Party in your area with a large bright yellow home-made sign with one single word written on it. That word in capital letters should read...
S U B S I D I A R I T Y
Have your sign in one hand, and rosary in the other, then stand where everyone can see it and pray. With any luck, others will soon join you. You might want to bring some printed copies of this text, should anyone ask what "subsidiarity" means. That way you can easily just hand it to them. Simply click here and then print 25 to 50 copies for the event. Of course, if you have a good understanding of subsidiarity, you could always just explain it yourself.
Bring the family. Teach your children what real Christian solidarity is, the kind advocated by Pope John Paul II. Come on! Do it for your kids! It's their future we're fighting for.
If you don't know when or where the next TEA Party in your area is going to be, visit this link here and sign up for email updates. Please share this article with others by using the "share" icons below.
UPDATE 11/9/2010.....
Already Catholics from around the nation are beginning to rally to the call of The Catholic Knight above. They are constructing the signs I suggested in their own creative ways and preparing to show up to the next wave of TEA Parties. One creative version comes to us from Steve Mueller and family...
Materials and paint cost less than $10.
As requested above, these faithful Catholics have created bright yellow signs with the word "SUBSIDIARITY" written across it. In my original post above, I imagined hand written signs on yellow construction paper. Mr. Mueller has taken this to a whole new level. Using discarded window blinds he cut them into the shape of submarines, spray painted them yellow, and stenciled the word SUBsidiarity across them. The catch phrase being: "Sink communism, save the family!" You gotta love it! There is a deep symbol of irony to all of this. I'll let you amateur historians figure it out.
So let the Catholic SUBmarines sail out of port this coming year, and let "phase two" of the Second American Revolution begin. You thought last year's TEA Parties were a spectacle? Just wait until the Catholics come out. You haven't seen anything yet!
THE CATHOLIC KNIGHT: The following is a checklist of things you can do to save America from total and complete demise. This checklist will work for any Western nation, including Canada, Mexico, Australia, England, Italy, France and many more. However, those reading this in European nations will have to be much more aggressive in it's implementation - extremely aggressive! Please consider sharing this blog entry with as many people as possible.
Keep in mind, this is not a checklist for averting disaster. Western Civilization is now set on an irreversible course toward an economic and social crisis unparalleled in history. Nothing can prevent this. It is inevitable. What this checklist will do however, if implemented on a wide scale, is reduce the negative results of this crisis and increase the speed of recovery. Before we get into the checklist however, we must make sure a couple things are understood....
First, in order to understand the solution, we must first understand the causes of our current crisis. The crisis Western nations now face is the result of philosophies and ideologies implemented in the late 18th through middle 20th centuries. They are both economic and social. They are both interconnected. We must understand this. It started with the late so-called "Enlightenment" period, with the abandonment of Christianity in favor of a naturalistic "religion" (called "Deism") embraced by the social elites of Europe and North America. The Masonic Lodges played a huge role in this process. By the end of the 18th century, two revolutions took place that would shape the Western World for the next two-hundred years. The first revolution took place in North America with the British colonial War of Independence (1776-1783) sometimes called the American Revolution. The second revolution took place in Europe and was simply called the French Revolution (1789-1799). While the second war was far more violent than the first, and took things to far greater extremes, both revolutions were based on the Masonic-Deist principles of social egalitarianism and religious secularism. In America they kicked out the Christian king. In France they killed him. With the establishment of secular republics, wealthy tycoons were now able to control vast resources and influence economies, by influencing the governments in ways that were impossible under Christian monarchies. Capitalism was born, and for a while it seemed like a pretty good thing, especially if you were a white land-owner of European descent. However, within a hundred years, the majority of property and wealth concentrated into the hands of just a few people (monopolies). Small family farms collapsed in favor of massive agricultural plantations. People moved into the cities and were forced to scrape by on meager wages primarily in factories. In response, the people began to clamor for Socialism. Once Socialism was implemented in various countries, primarily in Russia through a revolution (1917-1923) that resulted in the Christian king's assassination (1918), people began turning away from Christ and his Church in massive numbers all over the Western world. You see, Socialism kills religion faster than anything. It turns the state into a "church" of sorts, where all charity becomes "welfare" and there is no material need for religion. By the end of the 20th century virtually every nation on planet earth had implemented some form of Socialism. It was at this time the populations of Europe and North America began to decline, due to the widespread use of artificial birth control and the loss of the Christian ethic against it. To maintain the Socialist systems of the West, nations needed more taxpayers to support the aging population in the absence of a growing native population. (Artificial contraception killed the birth rate you see.) In order for Socialism to work, you MUST have a growing population. So since the state could not force people to have babies, and refused to make artificial contraception illegal, it simply imported new taxpayers in the form of immigrants. Unfortunately, the overwhelming vast majority of those immigrants were Islamic Africans and Middle Easterners. Most of these people remained Muslim and continued to practice the Muslim sexual ethic of marriage with lots of children. As a result, the European Muslim birthrate remained at 4 to 8 children per household, while the Native (non-Muslim) European birthrate dropped below 2 children per household. Do the math! Within half a century, Europe had absorbed so many Muslims that its very historic Christian identity was threatened. Canada now faces a similar future, and the only thing keeping the mosques out of the United States is rampant illegal immigration from Mexico. Once that is shut off however, even the United States will need to import legal immigrants (primarily Muslims) to shore up the failing Socialist schemes of the government. This is not to mention the collusion that has gone on behind the scenes between wealthy mega-Capitalist tycoons and godless-Socialist politicians, to create in many nations (including America) what can only be called the Servile State. This is a system that is not fully Socialist and not fully Capitalist either, but rather a hybrid between them, resulting in the concentration of property ownership between big government and large corporations, and the impoverishment of as many people as possible who are forced to rely on the big government and large corporations for their very existence. Once again, with native birthrates curtailed, more immigrants (usually Muslim) are needed to keep the system afloat. The whole system came crashing down in the fall of 2008, and in spite of massive government (socialist) spending to prop it back up, it all threatens to implode anyway. This is the inevitable demise of the Servile State.
Second, the purpose of the checklist below is to repair the damage done to our Christian culture, and address those problems created by both socialism and unbridled capitalism, which have both effectively manipulated and destroyed the free market for individuals and small family-run business. The solution is to restore social stability and the free market by returning to the Christian principles of family life, small business and cooperative ownership. In other words, we must return to the most widely distributed ownership of property possible. Only by doing this can we hope to lessen the effects of the economic crisis and restore the foundations of Western Christian civilization. This checklist is designed for individuals and families. It's something that can only be implemented on a personal and family level. There is no sense bothering government officials with this, as they won't do anything anyway. If ever any government gets involved to help, it will only be local city municipal governments or maybe county governments at the highest level. Expect no help from the state or national levels. These organizations are totally corrupt and cannot be salvaged. They are headed for collapse, and sadly, we're just going to have to let that happen. Perhaps in time the state governments will wake up, but it will be a cold day in hell before the national governments do anything to help. The way to kill the beast is to starve it to death, and the following checklist (if implemented widely) will do this...
THE CHECKLIST...
Go back to Church and practice the Christian faith in your home. This is absolutely necessary. If our Christian culture is not rebuilt all of this will be in vain. Stay-at-home (or television) Christianity is no longer an option. We need the Church (a real parish life) to teach us, challenge us and guide us.
Network with people in your local church community for the exchange of goods and services.
Get married and start making babies - seriously!
Make no less than three babies, but it would be preferable to make at least four or five. (Yes, seriously! The Muslims aren't going to stop at two babies, so why should you?)
Get your money out of the banks! (The banks are a huge engine of the Servile State.) Instead, try to get your money into a Credit Union or Savings & Loan. When you put your money in one of these you become a co-owner with voting rights and entitlement to profit shares.
Boycott mega-capitalist superstores that destroy small business here at home and support communist economies overseas. Examples would include Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Lowes, Home Depot, Sams Club and similar "big box" outlets. Every time we spend a dollar at one of these outlets, we contribute to the destruction of "mom & pop" stores nearby and in turn prop up communist China and other despotic regimes. We must understand that these superstores are the engines that feed the beast of the Servile State.
Support small businesses instead, particularly those that are locally owned. This brings business back into the community, and increases local wealth through property ownership, thus depriving the Servile State of corporate capital and making more money available for church and local charities.
Start your own family-run small business, even if it's just to supplement a little income on the side. This may help bring one of the spouses home from work to stay at home with the kids. (See item 10 below.)
Use community cooperatives instead of large corporations whenever possible. This can often be done for electricity and utilities. There are even cooperatives for retail goods and services. Again, membership has it's privileges. You get voting rights and may be entitled to profit benefits. If it is possible to switch your employment over from a corporation to a cooperative than do it! Otherwise, if you must work for a corporation, than try to buy stock in it somehow, if it is available to the public.
Consider private or religious school for your children (if you can afford it) and if not consider home schooling your children. Government run public school is another engine that drives the beast of the Servile State. (See item 8 above.)
That is the entire list. Ten items in total will renew our society and rebuild our civilization after it's eminent economic, social and political collapse. You'll notice that none of the items above involved politics or government. That's because they are simple things that individuals and families can do all by themselves, and these will make a big difference, far bigger than any political campaign or governmental policy could ever hope to accomplish. Don't expect to implement all ten items simultaneously. That just isn't possible for all of us. If you can't do all ten items, then do eight. If you can't do eight, then do five. Do whatever it takes. If you can only implement five, then rest assured in time a day will come when you can do six, then seven, then eight and so on. That's why it's called a "checklist." You check off the items slowly, as you go along, and are able to implement whatever items you can as your circumstances permit. Sadly, because of our current state of affairs, there will be plenty of people who will never be able to implement all ten items, but if those people could just implement half, our world would be a much better place.
Now you understand the crisis, how we got where we are today, and now you have the solution laid out before you in ten simple steps. These are things we can do all by ourselves, without help from any political or governing agency. It can be done, all we need do now is implement it, and spread this list to as many people as possible. Please consider forwarding this blog entry. You can use the "share" icons below, or forward the link manually. Here's the link: http://catholicknight.blogspot.com/2010/09/how-to-save-america.html
THE CATHOLIC KNIGHT: As Christians we are all familiar with the political parties and economic theories of the various nations we inhabit. In America it's the Democrats vs. the Republicans, or Liberals vs. Conservatives, or just Socialists vs. Capitalists. Most of us don't like to think in economic terms. We often take those for granted. Instead we prefer to look at the social issues, such as abortion, prayer in schools, gay-marriage, etc. What we often fail to realize is that all of these social issues are interrelated with economics, and that economics often shapes society's moral views without us even realizing it. The two prevailing economic theories operating in our world today are Socialism and Capitalism. What a lot of people don't know is that while they appear to be opposed to each other on the surface, they are actually related to each other underneath on a moral level. Both systems of thought operate on a similar principle that people are commodities, mere "things" to be used as needed for the goals of those "in charge." In the end Capitalism results in Socialism. Because both systems devalue life, marriage and family. Both systems, in their most pure form, know nothing of subsidiarity.
Subsidiarity is an organizing principle that matters ought to be handled by the smallest, lowest or least centralized competent authority. The Oxford English Dictionary defines subsidiarity as the idea that a central authority should have a subsidiary function, performing only those tasks which cannot be performed effectively at a more immediate or local level.
Socialization also presents dangers. Excessive intervention by the state can threaten personal freedom and initiative. The teaching of the Church has elaborated the principle of subsidiarity, according to which "a community of a higher order should not interfere in the internal life of a community of a lower order, depriving the latter of its functions, but rather should support it in case of need and help to co-ordinate its activity with the activities of the rest of society, always with a view to the common good."
We are all familiar with the evils of Socialism. It's all around us. Our governments gradually (and sometimes not so gradually) take away our earnings and property to "re-distribute" them as they see fit, replacing the work of charity within the Church and setting themselves up as God. Along with our resources and property, these same governments deprive us of our freedoms. Make no mistake about it "re-distributism" (a.k.a. "Socialism") is THEFT! It is a violation of the Ten Commandments and an act of lawlessness. Those who advocate it are toying with their souls and placing their salvation in jeopardy. Socialism is a moral evil which the Catholic Church has always stood squarely against in it's doctrinal teaching. Sadly, many Catholics (including some clergy) are Socialists. For this they are denying the clear teachings of the Church and will have to answer before God. Along with Socialism however, comes a social ethic, or morality, which is really immorality. Anyone who reads the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels will quickly discover that the path to Socialism is paved with immorality - particularly sexual immorality. Yes, one sin leads to another, and the fathers of Socialism had no problem using vice as a means of furthering the "revolution." Make no mistake about it. Socialism destroys faith, turning the Church into a mere "religious institution" without sufficient works of charity. It is the Church's right to feed and shelter the poor. When the government takes this responsibility away from the Church, it deprives her of her right, and effectively strips her of her social mantle. In time, people lose faith in the Church. Who needs it? you see, when we have the government to take care of the poor. Socialism destroys families in a similar way, undermining subsidiarity and depriving the mother and father of their parental duties in favor of state-run schools, daycare and various "programs." Once the children are in the hands of the state, they can be further indoctrinated according to the immorality of socialism. Finally, Socialism destroys civilization, because once the faith and family of millions is broken, society starts to break down, causing an increase in lawlessness.
Yes, we all know the evils of Socialism, or at least we SHOULD know them. Sadly, it seems that every government in the world now is heading down the Socialist tracks straight for the cliff of tyranny.
The antithesis of Socialism is Capitalism - or so it would seem on the surface. Capitalism in it's most pure form is laissez-faire, meaning the government has virtually no role in directing the economy. The problem with this model is that it leads to corporate tyranny, wherein wealth and property are concentrated into the hands of the few, while the many are deprived of it. It creates a two-class society. The first class is the investor class, which is wealthy enough to live off capital investments. The second class is the labor class, and this is the class which subsists day to day on a meager wage that may (or may not) be enough to live on. Wealth and property are scarcely within reach for most of these people. Only a small few break out of the labor class and into the investment class. Small businesses are usually gobbled up by big business. The "mom & pop" general store is unable to compete with the mega-chain supermarket. Monopolies are created, driving out competition. The system becomes immoral because it is another kind of THEFT, that deprives families of their ability to own their own property and work it for their own livelihood. When this happens it attacks faith and family. In this case, the corporations become like gods, deciding the fate of their employees with little to no say-so from the employees themselves. Both husbands and wives are forced to work to pay the bills, resulting in children having to be left in daycare or home alone without parental guidance. The labor class becomes slave to the investor class, and unfortunately, this kind of a situation can only last so long before the people begin to demand Socialism. So long as there is wide-spread extreme social inequity as a result of unbridled capitalism, there shall always be those who cry out for Socialism.
Now the sad reality in all of this is that neither model works in it's most pure form. Socialism ultimately has to rely on some Capitalism in order to stay afloat and keep the system going. A perfect example of this is the City of Hong Kong. Originally a colony of the British Empire and now a district of Communist China, Hong Kong is a thriving center of laissez-faire Capitalism that helps support the Socialist policies of the Chinese government. Without Hong Kong, Red China would have collapsed around the same time as the Soviet Union. Inversely, in the United States, Socialism is regularly employed to prop up Capitalism. Large American corporations have, for their own benefit, manipulated government regulations for decades. Everyone who understands American politics knows that Wal Street in New York intersects with K Street in Washington DC. (K Street is where most government lobbyist are headquartered.) This backroom deal-making between big business and government is what made large corporations "too big to fail." Thus when they did fail in the Fall of 2008, the U.S. federal government supplied some $4 trillion of taxpayer money to bail them out. This effectively consolidated the government/corporate conglomerate - another type of Socialism. This is not to mention the multiple times big-business corporations have advocated (and even lobbied for) Socialist redistribution schemes. Social Security and Socialized Medicine are two forms of Socialism that greatly benefit big-business, effectively eliminating their moral responsibilities toward their employees. So on paper both Socialism and Capitalism would appear to work, but in practical application it would seem they are just two sides of the same coin.
“Socialism is the exploitation of man by man; capitalism is the opposite.” -- Old Polish Proverb
As Christians (particularly as Catholic Christians) we are called to a higher standard. In the late 1800s to early 1900s, to counter the rising tide of Socialism, the popes proscribed a means of Christian Economics that was later called "Distributism" sometimes called "Micro-Capitalism" or "The Third Way." This radically differs from the Socialist concept of "re-distributism" through the state, or the Capitalist concept of "re-distributism" through big business corporations. Distributism, in contrast, uses capitalism as it's core, micro-capitalism, based on the Biblical and moral value of private property. In other words, private property is good, and everyone has a right to seek it. Furthermore, it is immoral and sin for anyone (including the government) to take it away without permission. However, it is equally immoral for others to use unfair business practices in such a way that deprives the little people of a fair shot at seeking property. In other words, according to Distributism, such a thing as a monopoly (corporate or government) would be an anathema. This is the basis of it anyway. The idea is to allow individual enterprises and morally-regulated market forces to naturally "distribute" the property and resources of a region all by themselves. Instead of one or two giant chicken producers supplying meat and eggs to a whole country, we would instead see thousands of independently owned chicken ranches, each supplying meat and eggs to their local regions.
Distributism supports the local family, encouraging private enterprise and small business. It also supports faith, forcing each man to rely on God (not government or corporations) for his daily bread. Private wealth is based entirely on personal merit and hard work. Likewise, the work of charity is returned to the Church, and eliminated from the state.
Let me be perfectly clear here. Distributism does not regulate personal wealth. People are free to work or invest as they see fit, and the amount of wealth they attain from this is their own private property. The Distributist system demands small and localized government. In other words, government starts from the bottom up, gradually getting weaker as you go up the chain. The highest form of government, federal or national level, is simultaneously the weakest and the smallest, limited to very few and defined functions. In other words, the government that governs best, governs close to home. This is subsidiarity, and it goes hand in hand with Distributism.
The implementation of Distributism does not begin at the national politics level. It can't. Rather, it begins at home, with families and individuals. It begins by boycotting the big-business chains, and making a conscious decision to patron cooperatives and family run small-businesses. Of course this begins with where you keep your money. First things first, get your money out of the banks! Invest in a local credit union. Why on earth would you store your money somewhere where somebody else can make a profit on it? Shouldn't YOU be the one who makes the profit? or at least a portion of it? Unless you own your own bank, get into a credit union and divest yourself of the very system that is slowly destroying us. Next we must patron the locally run general stores, and independently owned restaurants, however, this would also include franchise establishments so long as they're locally owned. That's the key. If a franchise establishment is not locally owned, we and our families should boycott it. The next step is to start your own family run business of whatever type you want. If you can't do that, try to work for a cooperative rather than a corporation. If that's not available, try to work for a locally owned family business. Finally, if it's just impossible to get out from under the corporate environment, than turn around and buy some stock in it! For heaven's sake, you work there, so you out to at least own a piece of it. Now, if you're one of the fortunate ones who has been blessed with wealth, than please put it to good use and invest it locally. Finally, the last step on a local level is to work with others preparing a pamphlet or website (or both) listing all the locally owned family run business in your immediate area. Then get that list out to people in the most efficient way possible. This is the core of Distributism. It is the engine that makes it run. Without this it's just a theory on paper.
On a political level it all begins locally as well. We must corner our local politicians running for office - city, county and state. We must pressure them to focus their economic policy on supporting locally owned small business, and protecting them from interstate and international big business corporations. This is why. We need to hit them with these facts to drive the point home and make it stick...
The estimated 29.6 million small businesses in the United States:
Employ just over half of the country’s private sector workforce
Hire 40 percent of high tech workers, such as scientists, engineers and computer workers
Include 52 percent home-based businesses and two percent franchises
Represent 97.3 percent of all the exporters of goods
Represent 99.7 percent of all employer firms
Generate a majority of the innovations that come from United States companies
Source: U.S. Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy, September 2009
These are points we need to keep driving home to our politicians again and again and again. If our government would finally learn that protecting small business is the key to a good economy (and thus better tax revenue) it would be well on it's way toward restoring national stability. That of course leads to national politics. If the state and local governments are won over first, the federal and national politicians will follow suit, if they know what's good for them. Otherwise, they'll find themselves looking for new jobs after election day.
Of course what I describe here is a very simplified model, and of course people usually do require more detail. There are certain books written on this. One is titled Jobs of Our Own by Race Matthews. Another is titled Toward a Truly Free Market by John C. Medaille. Many more titles can be acquired from IHS Press. For Internet resources I will refer you to THE DISTRIBUTIST REVIEW, an online publication featuring FREE articles about Distributism and how it applies to everyday life. LEARN MORE HERE
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by Race Matthews. Another is titled 
by John C. Medaille. Many more titles can be acquired from 
