CAPITALISM

From Philosopedia

CAPITALISM Capitalism is an economic system which involves a free market. Philosophers and non-believers are free to be capitalists, socialists, communists, libertarians, or supporters of other economic systems. Of concern to freethinkers is that the combined wealth of the world’s richest 225 people at the end of the century was $1 trillion, whereas the combined annual income of the world’s poorest 2.5 billion people was also $1 trillion. However, Roman Catholics, according to their catechism, are advised that “any system that subordinates the basic rights of individuals and of groups to the collective organization of production is contrary to human dignity. Every practice that reduces persons to nothing more than a means of profit enslaves man, leads to idolizing money, and contributes to the spread of atheism. ‘You cannot serve God and mammon.’ The Church has rejected the totalitarian and atheistic ideologies associated in modern times with ‘communism’ or ‘socialism.’ She has likewise refused to accept, in the practice of ‘capitalism,’ individualism and the absolute primacy of the law of the marketplace over human labor. Regulating the economy solely by centralized planning perverts the basis of social bonds; regulating it solely by the law of the marketplace fails social justice, for there are many human needs which cannot be satisfied by the market. Reasonable regulation of the marketplace and economic initiatives, in keeping with a just hierarchy of values and a view to the common good, is to be commended.” According to one wag:

• Capitalism = exploitation of man by man. • Socialism = the reverse.