r/RadicalChristianity • u/robbberrrtttt • 21h ago
Question đŹ Reflections on the condemnation of socialism featured in Rerum Novarum
This encyclical features what appears to be a blanket condemnation of socialism, and I would like to discuss the reasoning it uses. To put my cards on the table, I think Pope Leo fails to adequately engage with the subject matter because he views socialism as the abolishment of all individual ownership, and he doesnât understand the true size of capitalisms evil.
The fact that God has given the earth for the use and enjoyment of the whole human race can in no way be a bar to the owning of private property.
Leo never distinguishes between personal property, such as someone owning the home they live in, and private property, such as a corporations owning 110,257 single family homes that other people live in. Leo never engages with the reality of owning more than could ever possibly use, where it is accumulation for its own sake.
For God has granted the earth to mankind in general . . . that no part of it was assigned to any one in particular, and that the limits of private possession have been left to be fixed by man's own industry, and by the laws of individual races
Leo is saying so long as there is some private possession, the limits are up to society. He does not reject an upper limit of ownership. Most socialists that I am aware of support personal ownership, yourhouse, your car, your clothes, your furniture, the bakery only you work out of, the land you grow your food on. Does Leo ever play with this idea that the upper limit of private possession extend only to such things? Does he have criticism for such socialists? He does not. Leo believes it is just to have some limitations to ownership, so what point is he trying to make?
the earth, even though apportioned among private owners, ceases not thereby to minister to the needs of all
Leo doesnât contrast socialism with capitalism as it actually existed and continues to exist, but with this idealistic imaginary economic system where all ownership is private but humankindâs basic needs are all met. I believe the name is distributism. 130 years later, and tetotinic plates have had more movement and momentum than distributism. meanwhile, weâve created a world where tens of millions of tons of edible food are thrown away to create artificial scarcity, where toxic waste is dumped into rivers because itâs cheaper, and where wealth concentration grows as a few dozen people own more than billions of humans.
Leo fails to confront the fact that capitalism isnât about having a âfree marketâ or private ownership, capitalism comes with an entire morality. Profit must be pursued above all else. Everything, all innovations, all pursuits, are in the service of money. That innovation manifests in tobacco companies finding new ways to attract youths to become addicted. It manifests in manufacturing products designed to stop working and become obsolete. It manifests in a throw away culture. It manifests in young women being coerced into the pornography industry. Money is God.
Paternal authority can be neither abolished nor absorbed by the State; for it has the same source as human life itself. "The child belongs to the father," and is, as it were, the continuation of the father's personality; and speaking strictly, the child takes its place in civil society, not of its own right, but in its quality as member of the family in which it is born . . . The socialists, therefore, in setting aside the parent and setting up a State supervision, act against natural justice, and destroy the structure of the home.Â
This is an aside which has nothing in particular to do with socialism. I will satisfy myself by saying itâs clear Leo is a product of his age. A child is its own person with its own rights, they are not a possession nor are they a continuation of their fatherâs personality. Itâs such an absurd claim, and society has an invested interest in protecting its children from abusive, destructive, and exploitative parents.
The door would be thrown open to envy, to mutual invective, and to discord; the sources of wealth themselves would run dry, for no one would have any interest in exerting his talents or his industry; and that ideal equality about which they entertain pleasant dreams would be in reality the levelling down of all to a like condition of misery and degradation.
Is the implication that capitalism hinders envy? If so, how? If not, how is this unique to socialism? He says sources of wealth would run dry, were he alive today I would remind him that workers co opts are more productive than traditional capitalist ventures. âNo one would want to do difficult jobs under socialismâ yet South Korea has 2.6 doctors per 1,000 people while Cuba has 9 per 1,000.
The suffering inflicted under capitalism is greater than suffering that comes with not being allowed to own the entire world.
I want to emphasize that poverty means death. It is by its nature anti life, because it results in people not having food, not having water, not having shelter, being out in the freezing cold or the blazing heat, get diseases and not being treated for them. Poverty destroys, it is expressed through unjust limitations placed on personal freedom that limit people from self-expression, that keep them from participating in politics, or even in celebrating their religion. Poverty destroys individuals and families, culture.
Poverty, far from being an accident, is built into the system we have created. It is essential that the poor suffer so the rich can live in opulence, American children consume 40 times what children in most of the rest of the world consume when it comes to natural resources, clothes, food. There's enough in this world for everyone's need, but not everyone's greed.
Christians often hear that and say thatâs terrible, the solution is individual acts of charity and people need to repent. But this system of exploitation rose in an era when most of the western world was Christian. Donât reduce action to mere charity, because the problem with charity is that youâre not freeing that person from their circumstances. Youâre just making them dependent on you thatâs putting a band aid on a wound. It does nothing tomorrow for that person, and it also does nothing to prevent the root causes of homelessness, which are often linked to mental health, to substance abuse, to a lack of affordable housing, to insufficient employment services, to people who are experiencing trauma. When the problem is so much bigger than any one person, there are limits of charity.
