Universal meaning paid by the government? The (US) government seems unable to regulate costs, IDK, maybe unwilling. I don't see how we can accomplish this without the government taking over these systems entirely.
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Socialism vs Communism
- Thread starter Nakosis
- Start date
Universal meaning paid by the government? The (US) government seems unable to regulate costs, IDK, maybe unwilling. I don't see how we can accomplish this without the government taking over these systems entirely.
Nope. Nor do I mind, as Americans pay trivially little into taxes compared to other nations and the rich barely pay anything at all compared to their earnings.
I don't agree with that at all. Neverminding that adding companies(crony capitalism) to government is the biggest greed factor we have, left and right. Separating lobbyist companies from political campaigning would cut the greed nicely. And wed be less likely to have people like Trump and DeVoss, who actively use their government positions to personally enrich themselves.
The less corporate the white house is, the better.
Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
They are. It's imo mainly used for payoffs to the people , mainly lobbyists who backed their elections.
Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
Yep. Getting off the govt teat means no more dependency on them , which means no votes in their favor and consequently, less entrenched they will become.
The Socialist Democrats desperately want to create a class of dependents whom in turn will do anything to keep them in power by offering programs that keeps them dependent indefinitely.
A lot like a heroin or crack dealer that maintains an iron grip on their 'clients' , of whom will do anything to keep their 'services' going as long as they can.
I like an audience.
[Edit: This turned in to something more advanced than I was anticipating but I am trying to show how Marxism's materialism makes it both anti-religious and totalitarian when implemented in practice.]
The major distinction between Christian Socialism and Marxism-Leninism is the philosophical aspects as the latter is based on "dialectical materialism" (a philosophy which identifies motion are originating solely from matter and hence doesn't require "first causes" in the form of god or the supernatural).
The Divini Redemptoris (March 19 1937) by Pope Pius XI was actually a very fair and accurate depiction of Marxist philosophy. There are large volumes trying to spell out dialectical and historical materialism, but the Pope summed it up pretty well:
"The doctrine of modern Communism, which is often concealed under the most seductive trappings, is in substance based on the principles of dialectical and historical materialism previously advocated by Marx, of which the theoricians of bolshevism claim to possess the only genuine interpretation. According to this doctrine there is in the world only one reality, matter, the blind forces of which evolve into plant, animal and man. Even human society is nothing but a phenomenon and form of matter, evolving in the same way. By a law of inexorable necessity and through a perpetual conflict of forces, matter moves towards the final synthesis of a classless society. In such a doctrine, as is evident, there is no room for the idea of God; there is no difference between matter and spirit, between soul and body; there is neither survival of the soul after death nor any hope in a future life. Insisting on the dialectical aspect of their materialism, the Communists claim that the conflict which carries the world towards its final synthesis can be accelerated by man. Hence they endeavor to sharpen the antagonisms which arise between the various classes of society. Thus the class struggle with its consequent violent hate and destruction takes on the aspects of a crusade for the progress of humanity. On the other hand, all other forces whatever, as long as they resist such systematic violence, must be annihilated as hostile to the human race."
Whilst I was initially attracted to Communism because I believed it was an extension of humanistic and even liberal ideas of the Enlightenment, it has become clear that this is not the case. In fact, it would be more accurate to treat Marxism-Leninism (soviet style communism) as an explicit rejection of the enlightenment's values of reason, individual liberty and limited constitutional government.
The most popular presentation of Marxism is as a debate over economic systems in the 19th century as socialism versus capitalism. Because of the philosophical underpinning of Marxist philosophy in dialectical materialism however, when you get in to the "small print", it is actually much closer to a rejection of liberal philosophical ideas from the 16th century when Marxists might date the beginning of capitalist class consciousness. Marxism argues that there is an opposition between "materialism" and "idealism" and this is taken to the extreme of arguing against any form of agnosticism or scepticism and doubt about the nature of knowledge. This is how Marxists claimed their views were "scientific" and basically over-turned centuries of "capitalist" scientific thought on the nature of knowledge and truth to do so. In other words, when a Marxist talks about being "scientific" in their materialism and atheism they mean something very different from what the rest of us mean.
The arguments against John Locke's theory of human understanding can be found in Maurice Cornforth's "Science Versus Idealism" in which he argues against the "agnostic" aspects of Locke's theory of human understanding. (I'm including it for reference as it deals with Marxist views on the theory of knowledge). Personally, I believe these arguments are ultimately against any form of tolerance or pluralism in a communist society. There is therefore a direct relationship between Marxist theory of knowledge and Soviet policies of State Atheism and the persecution of religious belief and believers in the USSR.
I'm going to use John Locke's Letter on Toleration to illustrate. Locke's Argument for Religious tolerance went along these lines (from wikipedia):
For Locke, the only way a church can gain genuine converts is through persuasion and not through violence. This relates to his central conclusion, namely, that the government should not involve itself in care of souls. In support of this argument he presents three main reasons:
(1) individuals, according to Locke, cannot divest control over their souls to secular forces, as God does not appoint the magistrate;
(2) force cannot create the change necessary for salvation, because while it can coerce obedience, it cannot change one's beliefs;
and (3) even if coercion could persuade someone of a notion, it would not help with ensuring salvation, because there is no reason to believe that magistrates are reliable judges of religious truth.
Whilst I haven't found any explicit argument on this amongst Marxist texts, dialectical materialism would argue against all three positions to a greater or lesser extent. It would go something like this:
1) Mind and body are not separate, the content of individual consciousness is not independent of the material world. Consequently, it's activities are governed by objective material laws which determine it's content. This establishes the possibility that individual consciousness can be controlled by the state. If it's predictable, it can be controlled.
2) There may be a few qualifications to this argument here depending on which author you're reading, but overall the consciousness of the individual is only a superstructure of society, built on the socio-economic basis of the production relations of society. There is no "individual" in a truly unique sense separate from society. The individual is either working for the progressive development of society or against it. So using "force" can create the change necessary for "salvation" in terms of building a communist society. Hence "sincerity" is largely assumed as part of the "progressive" development of society.
3) Marxism-Leninism claims to be "scientific" and to therefore establish that dialectical materialism is a "reliable juddge of religious truth" to use Locke's words. I'm unclear, but western belief in the separation of church and state relies on the "Two Kingdoms doctrine" that spiritual and material world's exist separately. Marxism rejects that and so the economic and political control of society forms the basis for the control of the ideological content of society.
As a result Marxism-Leninism therefore rejects the traditions of free thought, free will and individual sovereignty necessary for a pluralistic, tolerant society with competing ideologies. In this respect it resembles the restoration of the belief in a "theocratic" society in which the party acts as a church charged with the stewardship of protecting the "souls" of everyone in communist society from the moral and political "corruption" of capitalist ideology as the "false god".
Much of what I have said up to here I think can be inferred from ideas already within Marxism. However, there is very little evidence of a "Marxist" conception of ethics that would spell out these implications. My suspicion is that the concept of "natural rights" is regarded as a branch of christian doctrine rather than of secular liberalism and is therefore attacked as a form of "idealism" (or attributing social development to supernatural and non-material causes). For this reason Marxist historical materialism has a family resemblance of Social Darwinism with a "might is right" morality in which the "might" of one class (determined by socio-economic factors) establishes it's "right" to rule and to perpetuate itself. Hence, Marxism ended up creating one of the most powerful "totalitarian" states in human history rather than a democratic, "humane" society.
I've lost my train of thought here, so I will leave it at that.
Right-wing thinkers tend to argue that democracy and socialism are inherently opposed. This isn't the whole story and it oversimplifies the relationship considerably. They certainly have a point when it comes to Soviet-style communism, but I'd say the case is much more open regarding "democratic socialism" which was so successful in western Europe and Scandinavia after world war II. In many respects, modern debates over whether Socialism is democratic or totalitarian echos much older controversies over whether the man has the knowledge to control society and to make it in accordance with his interests and whether this entails the control of other men.
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PureX
Veteran Member
Universal meaning available to everyone regardless of their ability to pay.
The rest of the world has already worked this out. And few nations have opted for a total governmental control. What they have ALL realized, however, is that health care is NOT a "free market" and cannot be allowed to operate as if it were. So they ALL have devised ways of controlling prices, to stop the inevitable price-gouging that goes on when health care is treated like a "free market". And it is these price control that the plutocrats that own and control the U.S. government will absolutely never allow to happen. They won't even allow it to be discussed. Which is why we are being price-gouged for everything involved in health care, and why we are paying twice what the people in every other modern nation on Earth pays for their health care.
PureX
Veteran Member
And like a well trained monkey, you immediately jumped right past the real issue, and onto the blame-game, which makes sure that you keep voting for your criminals, as opposed to their criminals, and nothing can ever actually change.
The assumption that only those who are in dire need should get any assistance is the real issue, here, that's causing the real poverty trap. Because it ensures that the moment someone finds any kind of job, and earns any amount of income, they will be denied any meaningful form of assistance. And that's not the "socialist democrats" who are pushing for this. That's good old American greed, ignorance, and bigotry that's fueling that bit of mean-spirited idiocy. You are also ignoring, of course, the unequal and nearly completely unattainable access to higher education for the poor, which, once again, is not the platform of those "socialist democrats" that you so want to blame for all the world's ills. That's your republican pals that want every aspect of human and social life to be "for-profit", and thereby denied to all but the well off. Same goes for health care, and retirement. And when you add it all together, it creates a nearly insurmountable wall against anyone in poverty ever getting out of it, all while the wealthy pompously blame "socialists" for wanting to keep the poor and dependent poor and dependent. When really they just don't want to share their excessive wealth and opportunity with anyone else.
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Twilight Hue
Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
Boy. I got a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn.
The Socialist Democrats wouldn't be where they are now if it wasn't for that massive voting base entirely dependent on their schemes disguised as 'social help' programs and union 'perks'.
It's exactly why they have been entrenched for so long already.
Another splendid and cogently argued post/thesis. Your very knowledgeable about not only Marxian and religious Socialism but also Catholic encyclicals.
I have a book recommendation which, if you haven't already read it, should be right up your street - it was published earlier this year by Gary Dorrien, Reinhold Niebuhr Professor of Social Ethics and its entitled: Social Democracy In The Making Political And Religious Roots Of European Socialism (2019).
Here's the blurb:
An expansive and ambitious intellectual history of democratic socialism from one of the world's leading intellectual historians and social ethicists. The fallout from twenty years of neoliberal economic globalism has sparked a surge of interest in the old idea of democratic socialism—a democracy in which the people control the economy and government, no group dominates any other, and every citizen is free, equal, and included.
With a focus on the intertwined legacies of Christian socialism and Social Democratic politics in Britain and Germany, this book traces the story of democratic socialism from its birth in the nineteenth century through the mid-1960s. Examining the tenets on which the movement was founded and how it adapted to different cultural, religious, and economic contexts from its beginnings through the social and political traumas of the twentieth century, Gary Dorrien reminds us that Christian socialism paved the way for all liberation theologies that make the struggles of oppressed peoples the subject of redemption. He argues for a decentralized economic democracy and anti-imperial internationalism.
With a focus on the intertwined legacies of Christian socialism and Social Democratic politics in Britain and Germany, this book traces the story of democratic socialism from its birth in the nineteenth century through the mid-1960s. Examining the tenets on which the movement was founded and how it adapted to different cultural, religious, and economic contexts from its beginnings through the social and political traumas of the twentieth century, Gary Dorrien reminds us that Christian socialism paved the way for all liberation theologies that make the struggles of oppressed peoples the subject of redemption. He argues for a decentralized economic democracy and anti-imperial internationalism.
In the introduction he notes the following:
"England had rich traditions of cooperative ethical socialism and Christian socialism long before it produced a Marxist group of any kind and very long before it had a significant Marxist thinker or tradition...In England Christian socialism began in 1848 with a fabled trio of Anglicans led by Frederick Denison Maurice....
The first Christian socialists were Broad Church Anglicans with Anglo-Catholic leanings...
Keir Hardie was the key founder of the three parties that became the Labour Party. A Scottish Christian socialist and union leader...
Christian socialists did not believe the progressive logic of history trumped the ethical struggle for social justice. Therefore they did not defend imperialism, racism, and eugenics, unlike certain leading Fabians, and some did not believe that state socialism was the best option. At best, state socialism was a fallback. The idea of socialism as ethically based, decentralized, economic democracy has deep roots in Britain...."
The first Christian socialists were Broad Church Anglicans with Anglo-Catholic leanings...
Keir Hardie was the key founder of the three parties that became the Labour Party. A Scottish Christian socialist and union leader...
Christian socialists did not believe the progressive logic of history trumped the ethical struggle for social justice. Therefore they did not defend imperialism, racism, and eugenics, unlike certain leading Fabians, and some did not believe that state socialism was the best option. At best, state socialism was a fallback. The idea of socialism as ethically based, decentralized, economic democracy has deep roots in Britain...."
It was for this reason that the 20th century Catholic church endorsed only one European socialist party as worthy of support by Catholics, namely the British Labour Party, and Pope Benedict XVI could reflect historiographically in 2006 that "socialism became the party of the Catholics in England" because it had much in common with Catholic Social Doctrine.
In America, where faith has since the 1960s generally aligned along a "religious right" axis over cultural issues (displacing the earlier Social Gospel political tradition) and with the notable exception of the left-wing Catholic activism of Dorothy Day and Bobby Kennedy, many American Catholics are incapable of understanding the strong synergy between the British brand of non-Marxian socialism (As Harold Wilson said, it "owed more to Methodism than to Marx") and orthodox Christianity.
Indeed, and the Marxists I must note weren't entirely wrong in their suspicion either: John Locke's source for such concepts - certainly in terms of individual liberty and limited constitutional government - was the medieval Catholic and early modern Protestant natural rights tradition. As Wilken, R. L. (2014) argues convincingly in The Christian Roots of Religious Freedom (a study that grew out of his 2014 Père Marquette Lecture): "Though the idiom of Locke’s thought is different from that of William Penn (Quaker) and Roger Williams (Puritan), his work is saturated with Christian assumptions drawn from the Scriptures and Christian tradition" (pp. 38-39).
The sixteenth-century Anglican ecclesiastic Richard Hooker, whom Locke copiously references in the footnotes of his Second Treatise, drew himself extensively on medieval Thomistic interpretations of natural law. Hooker concurs substantially with Aquinas and Giles that, in his own words, “natural bindeth universally, that which is positive not so”, arguing in lieu of the medieval tradition before him that positive law need not be obeyed where it is seen to conflict with natural law. In his Second Treatise Locke frames his argument on behalf of limited government in this same language of natural law, stating:
“For so truly are a great part of the municipal laws of countries, which are only so far right, as they are founded on the law of nature.” (Reid, CJ. ‘Medieval Origins of the Western Natural Rights Tradition: The Achievement of Brian Tierney,’ in Cornell Law Review, Vol. 83, Issue 2 (1998) p. 444)
He proceeds to reference with approval a maxim from the “judicious Hooker” (as he calls him) that “the Laws of Nature, do bind Men”, elsewhere citing Hooker once more in defence of the idea that there is no binding conscientious obligation to obey unjust positive legislation should it diverge from divine law: “Laws […] we must obey, unless there be reason shewed which may necessarily enforce that the law of reason, or of God, doth enjoin the contrary, Hook.Eccl.Pol.l.i.sect.16”. The pre-eminent authority of ‘law’ over ‘legislation’, derived originally from the medieval Christian distinction between the pre-ordained natural law discoverable by reason and the socially constructed positive law of monarchs, is still a staple feature in the epistemologies of modern liberal constitutionalists as Thomas explains:
“Liberal constitutionalis[m]… ground law in some normative, non-purposive basis. Law is viewed as necessarily prior to both government and legislation and as a means of preventing government from overstepping its proper limits” (Thomas, R. Legitimate Expectations and Proportionality in Administrative Law (Oxford, 2000) p. 10).
In fact, the majority of contemporary scholars trace the origin of ‘modern’ individual rights to the medieval Christian Church, arguing that between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, canonists and decretalists “worked out a series of definitions of ius naturale as subjective right" (Reid, CJ. ‘Medieval Origins of the Western Natural Rights Tradition: The Achievement of Brian Tierney,’ in Cornell Law Review, Vol. 83, Issue 2 (1998) p. 444) that were subsequently embellished by theorists as diverse as the Franciscan nominalist Ockham and Bartolome de las Casas, an early advocate for the rights of indigenous people, to serve as fuel for subsequent generations.
As the intellectual historian Professor Quentin Skinner, of Cambridge University, explains in his book The Foundations of Modern Political Thought:
"It was from the perfect law of liberty of the Gospels that Ockham developed his notions of the natural rights of individuals and his subsequent understanding of the origin and limits of all institutions with jurisdiction over men's lives"
(continued....)
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Allow me to also quote the argument of Professor Larry Siedentop, a renowned historian of liberalism, from his 2014 book Inventing the Individual: The Origins of Western Liberalism:
Decretal X.1.2.6, a famous canonistic text by Pope Innocent III, is a case in point. The pope ruled in this text that the minority faction in an ecclesiastical corporation were not liable to be deprived of their individual rights as a result of a majority vote. A gloss interpreted this as implying that a majority vote could trump individual rights only in specific situations and otherwise unanimity of consent was required. Ockham utilized this as substantive proof for his argument that imperial power should be limited and could not aspire to plena potestas (plenitude of power), interpreting it as a proof-text for limited government:
“the people cannot confer absolute power on an emperor…because the people itself does not possess such a power over its own individual members”. (Ockham quoted in Tierney, B. The Idea of Natural Rights: Studies on Natural Rights, Natural Law, and Church Law, 1150-1625 (Atlanta, 1997) p. 184).
This same decretal was seized upon by Bartolome de las Casas to buttress his defence of the native Indians then enslaved by the Spanish Empire, whereupon he contended that “the consent of a whole people or city could not prejudice the right of a single person withholding consent” such that were a majority to freely subject themselves to a foreign monarch’s imperium, their decision had no power to prejudice a dissident minority. This impelled him towards the conclusion that:
“all, both great and small, the whole people and individual persons, are to be summoned and their consent sought and obtained”.
Las Casas argued that the consent omnes et singuli (by each individual person) was a requisite for Spanish sovereignty over the Indians to be legitimate, since otherwise “it would detract from the right of each one if they all lost sweet liberty”. The fact that such an individualized idea of consent was advanced by a pre-Lockean Catholic philosopher wholly indebted to medieval theology, whom Reid opines delivered a stronger argument on behalf of natural human rights than the “pen of John Locke”, is clearly significant because it illustrates where Locke and other enlightenment intellectuals got these ideas from in the first place: medieval Christianity.
However "Catholic individualism," Francis Canavan wrote in a 1991 article entitled The Popes and the Economy, "differs from libertarian individualism precisely in that it looks to our common human nature...[viewing] social cooperation as being more in accord with human nature and its true needs."
This is what makes it particularly suitable for a religious form of 'socialism', as opposed to right-wing libertarianism. As Pope Francis, in his 2015 encyclical Laudato Si, warned:
Inventing the Individual
By the 12th and 13th centuries the Papacy sponsored the creation of a legal system for the Church, founded on the assumption of moral equality. Canon lawyers assumed that the basic organising unit of the legal system was the individual (or “soul”).
Working from that assumption, canonists transformed the ancient doctrine of natural law (“everything in its place”) into a theory of natural rights – the forerunner of modern liberal rights theory.
By the 12th and 13th centuries the Papacy sponsored the creation of a legal system for the Church, founded on the assumption of moral equality. Canon lawyers assumed that the basic organising unit of the legal system was the individual (or “soul”).
Working from that assumption, canonists transformed the ancient doctrine of natural law (“everything in its place”) into a theory of natural rights – the forerunner of modern liberal rights theory.
Decretal X.1.2.6, a famous canonistic text by Pope Innocent III, is a case in point. The pope ruled in this text that the minority faction in an ecclesiastical corporation were not liable to be deprived of their individual rights as a result of a majority vote. A gloss interpreted this as implying that a majority vote could trump individual rights only in specific situations and otherwise unanimity of consent was required. Ockham utilized this as substantive proof for his argument that imperial power should be limited and could not aspire to plena potestas (plenitude of power), interpreting it as a proof-text for limited government:
“the people cannot confer absolute power on an emperor…because the people itself does not possess such a power over its own individual members”. (Ockham quoted in Tierney, B. The Idea of Natural Rights: Studies on Natural Rights, Natural Law, and Church Law, 1150-1625 (Atlanta, 1997) p. 184).
This same decretal was seized upon by Bartolome de las Casas to buttress his defence of the native Indians then enslaved by the Spanish Empire, whereupon he contended that “the consent of a whole people or city could not prejudice the right of a single person withholding consent” such that were a majority to freely subject themselves to a foreign monarch’s imperium, their decision had no power to prejudice a dissident minority. This impelled him towards the conclusion that:
“all, both great and small, the whole people and individual persons, are to be summoned and their consent sought and obtained”.
Las Casas argued that the consent omnes et singuli (by each individual person) was a requisite for Spanish sovereignty over the Indians to be legitimate, since otherwise “it would detract from the right of each one if they all lost sweet liberty”. The fact that such an individualized idea of consent was advanced by a pre-Lockean Catholic philosopher wholly indebted to medieval theology, whom Reid opines delivered a stronger argument on behalf of natural human rights than the “pen of John Locke”, is clearly significant because it illustrates where Locke and other enlightenment intellectuals got these ideas from in the first place: medieval Christianity.
However "Catholic individualism," Francis Canavan wrote in a 1991 article entitled The Popes and the Economy, "differs from libertarian individualism precisely in that it looks to our common human nature...[viewing] social cooperation as being more in accord with human nature and its true needs."
This is what makes it particularly suitable for a religious form of 'socialism', as opposed to right-wing libertarianism. As Pope Francis, in his 2015 encyclical Laudato Si, warned:
Nevertheless, self-improvement on the part of individuals will not by itself remedy the extremely complex situation facing our world today. Isolated individuals can lose their ability and freedom to escape the utilitarian mindset, and end up prey to an unethical consumerism bereft of social or ecological awareness. Social problems must be addressed by community networks and not simply by the sum of individual good deeds. This task “will make such tremendous demands of man that he could never achieve it by individual initiative or even by the united effort of men bred in an individualistic way. The work of dominating the world calls for a union of skills and a unity of achievement that can only grow from quite a different attitude”.
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@Laika
However, while the Religious Right have been dominant in American political theology since the 1960s, I see a change in the making with the rise of young politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - Catholic and Democratic Socialist:
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on her Catholic faith and the urgency of criminal justice reform
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the good Christian, fights for her faith
https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/decolonizing-faith-and-society/laborem-exercens-aoc-why-im-catholic-democratic
However, while the Religious Right have been dominant in American political theology since the 1960s, I see a change in the making with the rise of young politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez - Catholic and Democratic Socialist:
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on her Catholic faith and the urgency of criminal justice reform
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the good Christian, fights for her faith
https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/decolonizing-faith-and-society/laborem-exercens-aoc-why-im-catholic-democratic
The assumption of the GOP's "our" rhetoric goes to heart of Catholic social teaching and why I became a member of Democratic Socialists of America in 1988 under the inspiration of the Catholic Democratic Socialist John Cort, when I was a graduate student at Weston Jesuit School of Theology.
Cort was a Catholic Worker with Dorothy Day during the Great Depression, helped found the Association of Catholic Trade Unionists in 1937 and worked with Michael Harrington to initiate Democratic Socialists of America. Cort has been described as "one of the great figures of twentieth century American Catholicism" by the historian of American Catholicism James Fisher.
In the epigraph to his Christian Socialism (1988), Cort quotes St. Gregory's enduring admonishment that the goods of the Earth are "common to all and brings forth nurture for all alike. Idly then do men hold themselves innocent when they monopolize for themselves the common gift of God. In not giving what they have received they work their neighbors' death; every day they destroy all the starving poor whose means of relief they store at home."
Three patristic Cappadocian bishops, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory of Nazianzus, all underscored the primary biblical obligation to share the goods of God's creation with all, especially those who are in any way destitute.
St. John Paul II repeatedly taught this point. It is not "our" option of charity. It's a spiritual and moral obligation to God and neighbor.
For example, in Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, on the social concerns of the church, John Paul II wrote that one of the greatest injustices in the contemporary world is "the poor distribution of the goods and services originally intended for all."
"Having," as possession of goods, the pope continued, does not contribute to human perfection or the common good unless it contributes to the maturing and enriching of human "being."
Put in other terms of the social tradition, capital is obligated to be at the service of labor, the economy at the service of people, not labor at the service of capital or the economy (see Laborem Exercens, on human work).
Pope Francis extends this primary understanding of God's gratuitous love and Catholic social teaching in "Laudato Si', on Care for Our Common Home," in how he develops an "integral ecology" where "society as a whole, and the state in particular, are obliged to defend and promote the common good."
So, when AOC tells Colbert that she is a democratic socialist because "in a modern, moral and wealthy society, no person in America should be too poor to live," and as human beings we possess rights to health care, food, education and jobs to "lead a dignified life," she is articulating a democratic socialist vision that is deeply rooted in Jewish and Christian Scripture and Catholic social teaching.
Cort was a Catholic Worker with Dorothy Day during the Great Depression, helped found the Association of Catholic Trade Unionists in 1937 and worked with Michael Harrington to initiate Democratic Socialists of America. Cort has been described as "one of the great figures of twentieth century American Catholicism" by the historian of American Catholicism James Fisher.
In the epigraph to his Christian Socialism (1988), Cort quotes St. Gregory's enduring admonishment that the goods of the Earth are "common to all and brings forth nurture for all alike. Idly then do men hold themselves innocent when they monopolize for themselves the common gift of God. In not giving what they have received they work their neighbors' death; every day they destroy all the starving poor whose means of relief they store at home."
Three patristic Cappadocian bishops, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory of Nazianzus, all underscored the primary biblical obligation to share the goods of God's creation with all, especially those who are in any way destitute.
St. John Paul II repeatedly taught this point. It is not "our" option of charity. It's a spiritual and moral obligation to God and neighbor.
For example, in Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, on the social concerns of the church, John Paul II wrote that one of the greatest injustices in the contemporary world is "the poor distribution of the goods and services originally intended for all."
"Having," as possession of goods, the pope continued, does not contribute to human perfection or the common good unless it contributes to the maturing and enriching of human "being."
Put in other terms of the social tradition, capital is obligated to be at the service of labor, the economy at the service of people, not labor at the service of capital or the economy (see Laborem Exercens, on human work).
Pope Francis extends this primary understanding of God's gratuitous love and Catholic social teaching in "Laudato Si', on Care for Our Common Home," in how he develops an "integral ecology" where "society as a whole, and the state in particular, are obliged to defend and promote the common good."
So, when AOC tells Colbert that she is a democratic socialist because "in a modern, moral and wealthy society, no person in America should be too poor to live," and as human beings we possess rights to health care, food, education and jobs to "lead a dignified life," she is articulating a democratic socialist vision that is deeply rooted in Jewish and Christian Scripture and Catholic social teaching.
Another excellent point.
John Calvin, the 16th century Protestant reformer, perhaps put the 'Two Kingdoms' doctrine best: “Man is under a two-fold government, one that is spiritual and has to do with the worship of God, the other with safety, food, housing, the law and other things of the present life.”
I, too, have tended to view Marxist-Leninism as a kind of "secular religion" with a theocratic model of society as opposed to a pluralistic one within a liberal democracy.
In Homo Deus, his 2017 sequel to the world bestseller Sapiens, the Israeli historian and professor Yuval Noah Harari describes Communism and revolutionary socialism as a species of "humanist religion" that has also lost much of its creative spark (he argues the same for theistic religions like Christianity and Islam).
While describing liberalism as another variant of "humanist religion", he argues that it is still a vital force and the only viable game in town - although one that may undergo serious threat from technological advancement in the future and the rise of "Dataism". (His prediction is rather alarmist in this regard, writing: "When genetic engineering and artificial intelligence reveal their full potential, liberalism, democracy and free markets might become as obsolete as flint knives, tape cassettes, Islam and communism." (278)).
While "evolutionary humanism" - in his analysis, the third denomination of the humanist religion that arose in the 19th century - has largely, and rightly, been discredited by its extreme articulation in mid-20th century Nazi ideology, he likewise contends that it contains a certain vitalism that could re-emerge to challenge liberal ideas again in the future and that elements of it could become attractive again given the importance of Darwinian, evolutionary thinking to the modern world and the advent of transhumanism (courtesy of artificial 'upgrading' of the human body or DNA modification).
A quote:
"Islam, Christianity and other traditional religions are still important players in the world. Yet their role is now largely reactive. In the past, they were a creative force...
Christianity spread the hitherto heretical idea that all humans are equal before God, thereby changing human political structures, social hierarchies and even gender relations. In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus went further, insisting that the meek and oppressed are God’s favourite people, thus turning the pyramid of power on its head, and providing ammunition for generations of revolutionaries...
Religions differ of course in the details of their stories, their concrete commandments, and the rewards and punishments they promise. Thus in medieval Europe the Catholic Church argued that God doesn’t like rich people. Jesus said that it is harder for a rich man to pass through the gates of heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, and the Church encouraged the rich to give lots of alms, threatening that misers will burn in hell...
The communist laws of history are similar to the commandments of the Christian God, inasmuch as they are superhuman forces that humans cannot change at will. People can decide tomorrow morning to cancel the offside rule in football, because we invented that law, and we are free to change it. However, at least according to Marx, we cannot change the laws of history....
Whereas the Agricultural Revolution gave rise to theist religions, the Scientific Revolution gave birth to humanist religions, in which humans replaced gods. While theists worship theos (Greek for ‘god’), humanists worship humans. The founding idea of humanist religions such as liberalism, communism and Nazism is that Homo sapiens has some unique and sacred essence that is the source of all meaning and authority in the universe. Everything that happens in the cosmos is judged to be good or bad according to its impact on Homo sapiens.
Whereas theism justified traditional agriculture in the name of God, humanism has justified modern industrial farming in the name of Man." [Homo Deus, p. 149 & p.277]
Christianity spread the hitherto heretical idea that all humans are equal before God, thereby changing human political structures, social hierarchies and even gender relations. In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus went further, insisting that the meek and oppressed are God’s favourite people, thus turning the pyramid of power on its head, and providing ammunition for generations of revolutionaries...
Religions differ of course in the details of their stories, their concrete commandments, and the rewards and punishments they promise. Thus in medieval Europe the Catholic Church argued that God doesn’t like rich people. Jesus said that it is harder for a rich man to pass through the gates of heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, and the Church encouraged the rich to give lots of alms, threatening that misers will burn in hell...
The communist laws of history are similar to the commandments of the Christian God, inasmuch as they are superhuman forces that humans cannot change at will. People can decide tomorrow morning to cancel the offside rule in football, because we invented that law, and we are free to change it. However, at least according to Marx, we cannot change the laws of history....
Whereas the Agricultural Revolution gave rise to theist religions, the Scientific Revolution gave birth to humanist religions, in which humans replaced gods. While theists worship theos (Greek for ‘god’), humanists worship humans. The founding idea of humanist religions such as liberalism, communism and Nazism is that Homo sapiens has some unique and sacred essence that is the source of all meaning and authority in the universe. Everything that happens in the cosmos is judged to be good or bad according to its impact on Homo sapiens.
Whereas theism justified traditional agriculture in the name of God, humanism has justified modern industrial farming in the name of Man." [Homo Deus, p. 149 & p.277]
The Communist assertion (to take one example) that history should be interpreted in light of a material determinism centred around a theory of class, is an untestable a faith standpoint as any. It is a secularised grand meta-narrative - infused with its own collective group identity, rituals, eschatology (i.e. in the Marxist-Leninist case, dictatorship of proletariat - then classless, moneyless, stateless utopia) - and propositions that, like religious myths, cannot actually empirically proven but which are supposedly above, and beyond, our control yet legitimate our norms and values because they contextualize them as part of a larger story.
In the Nazi case, the 'meta-law' was the biologically-based but in fact demonstrably pseudo-scientific principle of competition and struggle for 'living space', within the framework of which Hitler argued all of human history and life on earth was to be understood. This law of nature supposedly transcended human values of evil and good, providing instead an evolutionary imperative for the biologically superior to struggle against, subdue and eventually annihilate the inferior, so as to create a world of perfection and purity - a paradise inhabited by people free of imperfections.
This was classic utopian eschatology, of the religious kind, disguised as science - taking the 'is' of Darwinian theory and making it into an 'ought' that directed human conduct, societies and our future, when the real science - which also contained no mythical 'races' - didn't imply this at all.
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I'm going to be honest, you've posted so much that I have no hope of reply to it all. I agree with most of it and it is very helpful.
But to address this one issue, the criticism that Communism is a "religion" is a common one as it asserts that Marxism is based on the authority of various thinkers and the power of the state (i.e. Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, etc), asserting that we either that Marxism is false or that we cannot know if Marxism is true.
Marxists have of course disputed this because they have claimed that the power of Marxism comes not from it's attachment to authority, but that it is a "scientific worldview" that is objectively true. The debate focuses on the nature of science, knowledge and truth and whether we can have "real" objective knowledge of society for history to constitute a "science" as in historical materialism.
With some variation, the dispute over whether Marxism is a religion or a science is central to evaluating it's future. Those who hold it is merely a faith, say it is "dead" and "communism failed". Those who argue it is a science insist it continues to have something to teach us and can continue to empower the working class to build socialism and communism in our time and beyond.
Although my interest in communism has led me this far, the lack of any education in philosophy is now making it hard to keep up with the demands of continuing it further. Nor am I really in a position to make a solid commitment to any one particular point of view when it is so abstract. But I do my best to keep up.
p.s. I don't know Catholic Encyclicals and my knowledge of catholic theology is practically zero, but I knew that one thanks to Wikipedia and google search.