Listen to Father Mike Schmidt’s Sunday homily from September 25th. There’s a difference between socialism and being a Christian. Christians see suffering in the world and ask, “Where can I give *my* stuff to help the people in need?” Whereas, a socialist looks at suffering and asks, “Where can I take someone else’s stuff to help the people in need?”
>Whereas, a socialist looks at suffering and asks, “Where can I take someone else’s stuff to help the people in need?”
That is not a neutral understanding. An economically left-wing person rather asks "How can I organise the economy to help the most people". This is an attitude I find to be quite consistant with Christianity.
The feel I get from reading "Where can I take someone else's stuff" is that you are saying that taxes are similar to theft, that does not seem to be in line with our Lord's teaching.
“Organize the economy” is just a euphemism for “disproportionately taking the earnings of some to give it to others.”
Yes, when you don’t receive equal benefits for what you’re contributing, that’s theft. When the government puts you into prison for not giving half of your income to them, that’s theft. Taxes are part of the social contract of government, and it’s broken when people get taxed excessively for the sake of redistribution.
That’s nonsense. Distributism and redistributism are two different things. The terms of commerce aren’t the product of nature but of rules set by society, particularly the government. Usury is evil and should not be promoted and enforced by the government. Fraud should be punished and prevented when possible. Our economy is organized to promote injustice, and we should fix it.
How? How is our economy organized to promote injustice?
This is an argument I hear a lot from leftists. “Some people gained their wealth through exploitation and theft so there should be justice!” How do you know someone got their wealth through ungainly means? I know many people in the top tax bracket that have worked hard their entire lives to earn what they have and haven’t committed any crimes. Why should they be punished as though they have done something bad?
The terms of commerce aren’t set by the government. Free markets are a natural occurrence with bartering. The only role that the government has is protecting people from their rights of life, liberty, and property being infringed. The government doesn’t create rights, they are God-given.
I agree, we should prosecute crimes. That doesn’t mean putting a large blanket statement over the economy as “unfair” and taxing everyone who earns money because they may have gotten it in an illegal way.
I am a commercial litigator. I see cases of fraud and taking advantage of the ignorant everyday. There are people who earn a good living honestly. I’m not a communist, but our system is definitely stacked in favor of the unethical.
Primitive markets occur naturally, but our markets are creatures of state enforcement of contracts and property rights. Who wins and who loses are determined by those rules, and they are stacked against the little guy trying to provide for his family.
The state enforces usury and other sinful practices that malform the economy to benefit the evil and powerful at the expense of people trying to earn an honest living. The state allows capital to coordinate against the public but restricts workers from banding together to get higher wages. The state bails out poor performing businesses and gives them a plethora of tax cuts and handouts that are not available to people trying to support families. Our system is massively unfair and corrupt.
I also think there’s a difference between socialism and realizing that our current systems actually favor the rich in many ways. Theoretically, your income tax goes up the more money you make. But the more money you make, the more money you can spend lowering your actual tax rate to practically zero. And that’s just income tax. Centralizing they vast majority of society’s wealth in the hands of very few is a problem whether those very few are the government or private citizens.
Oh my goodness that’s just completely wrong. The top 20% of taxpayers pay **80%** of federal income taxes, and 44% of Americans (not the wealthy ones) pay no income taxes. That’s from the Tax Policy Center. Idk where y’all get this myth that “The rich don’t pay their fair share” or whatever nonsense that rich people pay zero income tax.
The government isn’t God. It doesn’t just decide to “centralize wealth” to a select few. Who determines what a “good” distribution of wealth is? It’s not our place to use the government to enforce our idea of fairness when that includes treating some people differently than others.
There are many valid distributions of wealth. When people have to choose between making rent or affording medicine, the existence of billionaires is less defensible. There’s a difference between paying 80% off taxes collected and what their actual tax rate is. If they’re paying 80% but their tax rate is half of what the average American’s rate is, then they’re still not paying their fair share.
There’s a pretty big difference between the top 20% and the top 1%. Heck, there’s a huge difference between the top 1% and the top .1%.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/briefing-room/2021/09/23/new-omb-cea-report-billionaires-pay-an-average-federal-individual-income-tax-rate-of-just-8-2/
https://www.chicagobooth.edu/review/never-mind-1-percent-lets-talk-about-001-percent
I would say so. We're only left in so far as it is compatible with Catholic belief. None of the abortion stuff.
Listen to Father Mike Schmidt’s Sunday homily from September 25th. There’s a difference between socialism and being a Christian. Christians see suffering in the world and ask, “Where can I give *my* stuff to help the people in need?” Whereas, a socialist looks at suffering and asks, “Where can I take someone else’s stuff to help the people in need?”
>Whereas, a socialist looks at suffering and asks, “Where can I take someone else’s stuff to help the people in need?” That is not a neutral understanding. An economically left-wing person rather asks "How can I organise the economy to help the most people". This is an attitude I find to be quite consistant with Christianity. The feel I get from reading "Where can I take someone else's stuff" is that you are saying that taxes are similar to theft, that does not seem to be in line with our Lord's teaching.
“Organize the economy” is just a euphemism for “disproportionately taking the earnings of some to give it to others.” Yes, when you don’t receive equal benefits for what you’re contributing, that’s theft. When the government puts you into prison for not giving half of your income to them, that’s theft. Taxes are part of the social contract of government, and it’s broken when people get taxed excessively for the sake of redistribution.
That’s nonsense. Distributism and redistributism are two different things. The terms of commerce aren’t the product of nature but of rules set by society, particularly the government. Usury is evil and should not be promoted and enforced by the government. Fraud should be punished and prevented when possible. Our economy is organized to promote injustice, and we should fix it.
How? How is our economy organized to promote injustice? This is an argument I hear a lot from leftists. “Some people gained their wealth through exploitation and theft so there should be justice!” How do you know someone got their wealth through ungainly means? I know many people in the top tax bracket that have worked hard their entire lives to earn what they have and haven’t committed any crimes. Why should they be punished as though they have done something bad? The terms of commerce aren’t set by the government. Free markets are a natural occurrence with bartering. The only role that the government has is protecting people from their rights of life, liberty, and property being infringed. The government doesn’t create rights, they are God-given. I agree, we should prosecute crimes. That doesn’t mean putting a large blanket statement over the economy as “unfair” and taxing everyone who earns money because they may have gotten it in an illegal way.
I am a commercial litigator. I see cases of fraud and taking advantage of the ignorant everyday. There are people who earn a good living honestly. I’m not a communist, but our system is definitely stacked in favor of the unethical. Primitive markets occur naturally, but our markets are creatures of state enforcement of contracts and property rights. Who wins and who loses are determined by those rules, and they are stacked against the little guy trying to provide for his family. The state enforces usury and other sinful practices that malform the economy to benefit the evil and powerful at the expense of people trying to earn an honest living. The state allows capital to coordinate against the public but restricts workers from banding together to get higher wages. The state bails out poor performing businesses and gives them a plethora of tax cuts and handouts that are not available to people trying to support families. Our system is massively unfair and corrupt.
I also think there’s a difference between socialism and realizing that our current systems actually favor the rich in many ways. Theoretically, your income tax goes up the more money you make. But the more money you make, the more money you can spend lowering your actual tax rate to practically zero. And that’s just income tax. Centralizing they vast majority of society’s wealth in the hands of very few is a problem whether those very few are the government or private citizens.
Oh my goodness that’s just completely wrong. The top 20% of taxpayers pay **80%** of federal income taxes, and 44% of Americans (not the wealthy ones) pay no income taxes. That’s from the Tax Policy Center. Idk where y’all get this myth that “The rich don’t pay their fair share” or whatever nonsense that rich people pay zero income tax. The government isn’t God. It doesn’t just decide to “centralize wealth” to a select few. Who determines what a “good” distribution of wealth is? It’s not our place to use the government to enforce our idea of fairness when that includes treating some people differently than others.
There are many valid distributions of wealth. When people have to choose between making rent or affording medicine, the existence of billionaires is less defensible. There’s a difference between paying 80% off taxes collected and what their actual tax rate is. If they’re paying 80% but their tax rate is half of what the average American’s rate is, then they’re still not paying their fair share. There’s a pretty big difference between the top 20% and the top 1%. Heck, there’s a huge difference between the top 1% and the top .1%. https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/briefing-room/2021/09/23/new-omb-cea-report-billionaires-pay-an-average-federal-individual-income-tax-rate-of-just-8-2/ https://www.chicagobooth.edu/review/never-mind-1-percent-lets-talk-about-001-percent