Pope condemns idolatry of cash in capitalism
POSTED BY: Magonsdaughter
UPDATED: Wednesday, April 23, 2025 13:26
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Sonny Bono hit a tree and died while skiing. God didn't put "his little hand in mine" that time.
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Not that the Pope had this particular example in mind, but this, too, is Capitalism:
In Soul By Soul, an awesome history of the antebellum slave trade, the historian Walter Johnson takes the measure of the system
Quote:Natchez, Mississippi, a major slave-trading hub, was home to more millionaires per capita than any city in the country.
As those people passed through the trade, representing something close to half a billion dollars in property, they spread wealth wherever they went. Much of the capital that funded the traders' speculations had been borrowed from banks and had to be repaid with interest, and all of it had to be moved through commission-taking factorage houses and bills of exchange back and forth between the eastern seaboard and the emerging Southwest.
And the slaves in whose bodies that money congealed as it moved south had to be transported, housed, clothed, fed, and cared for during the one to three months it took to sell them. Some of them were insured in transit, some few others covered by life insurance. Their sales had to be notarized and their sellers taxed. Those hundreds of thousands of people were revenue to the cities and states where they were sold, and profits in the pockets of landlords, provisioners, physicians, and insurance agents long before they were sold. The most recent estimate of the size of this ancillary economy is 13.5 percent of the price per person-tens of millions of dollars over the course of the antebellum period.
In 1836, cotton from the South accounted for 59 percent of the USA's exports. Effectively, in the run up to the Civil War, the leading export was produced by slave labor. This cotton enriched the country financially and powered it into the modern world. "Whoever says industrial revolution," wrote the historian Eric Hobsbawm, "must say cotton."
Slavery is no problem for Capitalism; it's an opportunity.
The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity," where Wash lives, is
Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:
Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
Co-op groups and various unions exist in a number of capitalist economies. You really need specifics?
Not to mention China has a mix - though I grant they started off with state communism - and there are many mixed economies in European nations.
There is not one choice or one option for anyone. Nor should there be. If monopolies in business are bad, then logically a lack of competing options for economies is also bad.
co op groups and union groups don't exist outside the capitalist system, they exist within it.
China has enough capitalist features to allow it to be tolerated/tolerate less state controlled entities.
It seems to me that there is one criteria that allows for co-existence - can you trade with us, is there money to be made. If so, anything is tolerated, extreme human rights abuse/tyranny - all swept under the carpet.
The minute that an entity takes itself out of that being possible, then it is considered a threat and ultimately military intervention and/or coup staging is orchestrated. I can give you lots of examples of that.
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Well yeah.
So I'm not really sure what you're arguing now. You asked me for examples of different economic systems and organization schemes existing, then say all my examples are actually capitalist. They exist in a global capitalist system, but it doesn't change that they are distict concepts from capitalism coexisting with it. All I'm saying is multiple economic systems with redundancies, sans xenophobia, is a good idea, and we can build on the basis of what we already have.
But in any case, you answered your own question. Different economic systems have to exist for them to be able to trade with each other. And I don't see one global currency just yet, however overrated the American dollar might be.
Are you saying TRADE is what's evil here and what the pope is arguing against? I'll give you that the US has a terrible history of supporting oppressive brutal dictatorships. There are also times we impose economic sanctions on some of them. I'm under no illusion those decisions about WHICH dictator to stop supporting are probably made for economic reasons more than anything moral, but surely that has to count for something.
And I also happen to think it's a far better approach than war and country building.
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Quote:No. Try this instead as an explanation of the Pope's motive: Capitalism gives zero moral guidance [which is why capitalism, slavery and lesser sad transactions can harmoniously coexist. It's all about just making a little money.] Getting rich is the measurable goal of Capitalism, but not of Catholicism.
Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
Are you saying TRADE is what's evil here and what the pope is arguing against?
I know there are Prosperity Christian churches that identify gaining wealth as an Earthly sign that you have gained God's love, but those churches ain't Catholic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_theology
The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity," where Wash lives, is
Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:
No. Try this instead as an explanation of the Pope's motive:
I was asking if that was how Magons was interpreting it and why. I already have my own idea what the pope means, and I think he's right in some ways, but a little iffy in others.
The problem with capitalism isn't necessarily people getting rich, it's people getting rich at the expense of others.
I mean the pursuit of money and capital as an end in of itself a shallow, material, empty endeavor, but it only becomes a PROBLEM if other people are getting hurt.
What needs to be asked is if people getting hurt is an inherent design flaw in capitalism and a side effect of people getting rich.
Which, the way our capitalist system works, is a big yes. Upwards limits on the amount of cash in circulation that is completely separate from real world value manufacturing and services means that when one person has more, everyone else has less. There's also arguments to be made about the exploitative organization schemes of various capitalistic endeavors, which involve delegation of both work and wages.
Is it always? Could there be a capitalist system in which this does not happen? Difficult to say. Unlikely perhaps, but also not impossible.
There is sometimes as much knee jerk reaction against capitalism as there was in the McCarthy era against communism. And the thing is, you know, I actually probably don't like capitalism any more than you do, or the pope does. Rich people are generally first in line on my list of assholes. And it's a long list.
And yet, some people LIKE it. They do well in it without causing much harm to other people. If I demanded they give up their system, I'd be no better than a tyrant myself. Kinda like how I don't really like this whole system of government thing either. I'm pretty sure that if I tried to force a different system of government on everyone, a lot of people would try to shoot me.
People should be able to choose their economic preferences, and there should be multiple choices with overlap. Because if there's only one system, that forces people to play by those rules.
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Quote:What is the Pope's gripe with Capitalism? He was vague: "A new, invisible and at times virtual, tyranny is established, one which unilaterally and irremediably imposes its own laws and rules."
Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
People should be able to choose their economic preferences, and there should be multiple choices with overlap. Because if there's only one system, that forces people to play by those rules.
Ethics, he said, were too often dismissed as a nuisance. "There is a need for financial reform along ethical lines that would produce in its turn an economic reform to benefit everyone," he said. "Money has to serve, not to rule."
The Joss Whedon script for "Serenity," where Wash lives, is
Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly
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Quote:
Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
Well yeah.
So I'm not really sure what you're arguing now. You asked me for examples of different economic systems and organization schemes existing, then say all my examples are actually capitalist. They exist in a global capitalist system, but it doesn't change that they are distict concepts from capitalism coexisting with it. All I'm saying is multiple economic systems with redundancies, sans xenophobia, is a good idea, and we can build on the basis of what we already have.
But in any case, you answered your own question. Different economic systems have to exist for them to be able to trade with each other. And I don't see one global currency just yet, however overrated the American dollar might be.
Are you saying TRADE is what's evil here and what the pope is arguing against? I'll give you that the US has a terrible history of supporting oppressive brutal dictatorships. There are also times we impose economic sanctions on some of them. I'm under no illusion those decisions about WHICH dictator to stop supporting are probably made for economic reasons more than anything moral, but surely that has to count for something.
And I also happen to think it's a far better approach than war and country building.
I don't think we are saying the same things. I am simply arguing against your premise that different systems do co exist, because the examples you have given all work within the capitalist system. Systems that exist outside of that system end up in conflict, usually violent. My belief is that capitalism does not tolerate any other system.
\
Because I am acknowledging that that is an historic pattern does not mean that I support war or acts of aggression.
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You keep moving the goal posts. You asked me if different economic systems can coexist. They obviously do, because 1) there are different types of currency, and 2) not all economic systems have the same regulatory controls or same method of distribution of wealth.
Most economic systems ARE varying degrees of capitalist nowadays, but they are still technically different systems. Furthermore, even when certain economies were NOT as capitalistic (like China), trade still happened. You have to remember that China introduced capitalist aspects back in 1978, though state control of major manufacturing continued until the late 1990s. Made in China has been a thing for a lot longer than that.
Back in 1977 even I can find documentation of import numbers from China. They primarily sold Americans cars and various vehicle parts. And they imported a helluva lot of grain from Americans.
Hell, even in the height of the cold war, Americans were importing Russian vodka.
That's WITH xenophobia and hostility between the nations over said economic systems, mind you. But trade doesn't stop being a thing JUST because of economic reaons. We have a trade embargo on Cuba, and probably a few other communist states. But we also had them against Iraq (not communist).
Now if you want to talk about why certain formerly communist systems have had a change over or have experienced creeping capitalism, that's a question of economic competition from already established capitalist power bases, but it doesn't mean that the presence of capitalism will always choke out any other kind of economic arrangement.
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is it worth it? and all the filth and corrupt and child abuse and theft in that church if you believe
Some believe strongly in the Philippines in Latin America, in parts of Europe
the All-Seeing-Eye and other symbolism on the US Dollar?
Another one dead, maybe a more relevant thread
Pope Francis born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the first pope from the Society of Jesus (the Jesuit Order.
before him Pope Benedict Ratzinger, Pope John Paul II Józef Wojtyla they credit him for taking on communists in the time of the USSR, Pope John Paul I Luciani, Pope Paul VI Giovanni Montini, Pope John XXIII Angelo Giuseppe, Pope Pius XII Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli, Pope Pius XI born into the Austria Empire as Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti, Pope Benedict XV born Giacomo in the Kingdom of Sardinia, Pope Pius X Pio X born Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto Austrian Empire, Carpineto Romano, French Empire and the pope before him went back to the Papal States
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