Fr. Barron comments on "Capitalism: A Love Story"

Another part of a video series from Wordonfire.org. Father Barron will be commenting on subjects from modern day culture. For more visit http://www.wordonfire.org/

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• Fr. Robert Barron
• Word On Fire
• Catholicism
• Faith
• Michael Moore
• Sean Hannity
• Capitalism
• Socialism
• faith
• spirituality
• God
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• church
• Christianity
• bible

[runr100]

@1melianthus Thank you for being a voice of economic reason here. In other YouTube clips, Father mentions that scientists should stay out of theological debates because they aren't well schooled. Economics is by far the most important issue affecting our lives, and the Catholic Church has decided to voice its opinion without educating itself. Father, let's start very basic: What creates wealth? Hundreds of years ago, everyone was poor. Now some countries lag behind while others are very we

[wordonfirevideo]

@runr100 Appreciate the condescension. My take is formed by the Catholic Church's densely textured social teaching. The Church enthusiastically embraces the market economy and its method of wealth-generation. It is, at the same time, concerned about ways that capitalism falls into corruption.

[riseaslarks]

(Continued from above) Fr. Barron, I write this not in a spirit of antagonism, but in a genuine desire to dialogue about an area fraught with difficulty for all of us who want to take Christ, his kingdom, and the church seriously. Again, I very much admire your teaching. You have strengthened my faith, and I look forward to learning more from you!

[wordonfirevideo]

@riseaslarks Thanks for your engagement of this issue. Take a look at the closing sections of John Paul II's Centesimus Annus and you'll find the foundation for my argument. For the church, the market economy (the term it prefers to "capitalism") is the economic system that best corresponds to democracy in the measure that it is predicated upon the freedom and dignity of the individual.  The church has no quarrel with "socialistic" elements within an overall market framework.

[miulum]

I loved his Gold watch....LOL

[wordonfirevideo]

@miulum Friend, I'd be willing to bet I spent less on that watch than you spent on yours.

[CalJennings]

Acts 4:32-37 through Acts 5:1-11 seems to go against the opinion in this video as does James 2:1-7.

[roxykattx]

@riseaslarks

I think your series of posts here makes a lot of sense -- especially about the different assumptions capitalism and Christianity make about human nature. Capitalism is at heart social darwinism, human beings as inherently and unavoidably in competition. I believe somewhere in his corpus C.S. Lewis says something to the effect that the centre of the devil's philosophy is that all things are in competition, that the universe is a kind of zero sum game.

[roxykattx]

@wordonfirevideo

Fr. Barron, capitalism is inherently corrupt. The relationship of capitalist to worker is one of exploitation in that capitalist enterprise is compelled to pay labour less than the value of that labour or that business will die. Thus, profit in the sense of gain for oneself, and which is not a sin, should not be confused with profit under capitalism, which is always exploitative. The capitalist gets more than he gives. That is his profit, and it comes from the worker.

[roxykattx]

A lot of Fr. Barron's videos make sense. But he is totally uninformed here. For one thing, he mistakes the USSR and other so-called socialist states for socialism. He is fooled by the propaganda of fake socialists. See Noam Chomksy's "The Soviet Union Versus Socialism."

Also, Fr. Barron mistakes capitalism's theories about itself for actually existing capitalism. For example, capitalism preserves free enterprise for the few, and destroys it for the many, contrary to its claims.

[JWForce1059]

It is not so much the idea of "profit as measurement" that I'm taking issue with, but how "profit" can be expanded to measure all wealth while still serving as a useful measure of economic growth.

[JWForce1059]

Father, I've listened to the talk you have posted on the website on this issue, and I like it very much, but I have one concern/disagreement with it. You mentioned that profit is the only legitimate measurement of the growth of an economy. My concern is that profit, if defined strictly in terms of monetary gain, fails to take into account the unpaid housework/ other unpaid work that people, mostly women, do. Is there some church-approved way to redefine growth which takes this into account?

[Canadianloyalist123]

@Youdamana i agree fellow canadian

[Youdamana]

Thanks father for another excellent video. I love Michael Moore and thank God for the spirit of concern for his fellow man an catholic witness. I'm a Canadian, and he rather likes quite a bit about our modified market system. You have encouraged me to look up this encyclical and I must say that pope JPII's "Laborem Exercens" "On Human Work" is one of the very best things I have ever read on the whole domain of work and economies. A person couild get pretty well educated on your videos alone.

[CoryTheRaven]

@1wordmanymystycs You forgot to mention that the military, police and government itself is socialist. Until these rabid "free market" types argue to privatize the military and start tendering contracts for "government services providers", they are plain and simple hypocrites. Of course they won't, because they (rightly) understand that the protection of lives cannot be left to private corporations. But what's the difference between protecting them from violence and protecting them from illness?

[phil8888]

I believe as Milton Friedman said no system has yet been discovered that has destroyed poverty like capitalism has. When we see "bad" capitalism, it's usually because of government intervention which props up some companies and chooses winners. This is a distortion of capitalism. In its real form, capitalism favors the poor. Tom Woods, who wrote "How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization" and has appeared in the likewise named EWTN series, is a strong proponent of libertarianism.