Chesterton Remarked…

Last updated on: December 30, 2014 at 11:01 am by Mark Shea

Chesterton Remarked… 2014-12-30T11:01:38-07:00 Mark Shea

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…that the problem with capitalism is that there are too few capitalists. He’s right, of course. The Church teaches that ownership of property is a good thing and that as many people as possible should be able to do it and make a living wage for their work. Crony Capitalism, like communism, tends to try to concentrate more and more wealth and power in fewer and fewer hands. What Chesterton (and the Church he listened to) wanted was property in the hands of every person. So when I read stories like this, I gotta cheer for the monks and boo and hiss the monopolists.

Says reader Drew Bowling:

Stand with the monks. Capitalism has collapsed into a nihilistic monopolized private sector that thrives off rent seeking and cartel behavior. Corporate welfare and regulations that benefit big business at the expense of market entry, widespread ownership, innovation, choice and competition — this is what platitudes about the free market, trickle down ideologies and plutocratic endeavor have wrought. Conservatives who seize this reality and transform markets to work for all, in particular markets oriented toward supporting family life, will be way ahead of the political game.

Speaking of monopolies and giving everybody a fair shot at owning property, here is Paul VI:

If certain landed estates impede the general prosperity because they are extensive, unused or poorly used, or because they bring hardship to peoples or are detrimental to the interests of the country, the common good sometimes demands their expropriation.

Vatican II affirms this emphatically. (24) At the same time it clearly teaches that income thus derived is not for man’s capricious use, and that the exclusive pursuit of personal gain is prohibited. Consequently, it is not permissible for citizens who have garnered sizeable income from the resources and activities of their own nation to deposit a large portion of their income in foreign countries for the sake of their own private gain alone, taking no account of their country’s interests; in doing this, they clearly wrong their country. (25) –From Populorum Progressio

HT: Daniel Nichols

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