We are clearly forgetting, viz. capitalism, ‘That would be an ecumenical matter’…
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I’m sorry, I’m not sure that small business always equal capitalism… People had businesses long before capitalism was a thing.
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pope smoochy?
You can’t seriously be expecting realism from religious iconography?
No, I got the point just fine, thanks. But I see it differently. You say capitalism has gone nuts in the absence of the Soviet Bloc, but I see that what had been the radically capitalist opponent has now become a curious melange of both. 1%-ers Gone wild, PLUS Obamacare. Not only what capitalism does with large opposition, but what a nanny state does in its absence.
I simply don’t perceive the present as being entirely hinged on Cold War effrontery. It’s older than that - it’s what the wealthy and privileged have always done to (and ‘for’) the peasantry t get or keep theirs, with all their usual little populist concessions. Magna Carta? English Reformation and Elizibethan Settlement? New Deal? It’s a continuum, not a boxed set.
‘God Bless the Child…’
Except if you actually think the affordable health care act counts as what happens in the absence of capitalism, then the idea about how the cold war ended is wrong, because all the other first world countries would have been much more anti-capitalist the whole time.
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I disagree with the Pope on many things. I think the institution he leads has pretty harmful views of sexuality and gender. But Poverty is at the root of so many of the harmful views in the world, that I can unite with him on this, and once people are starving less and less afraid to take a chance, I think we can work on the rest of it.
I’m in.
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.And if you think this ‘Affordable Health Care Act’ which mandates participation, but is both not-affordable to many and denies coverage at all to over 8 million is an example of capitalism and democratic ideals in action…I might not even disagree, just in practical terms. But in philosophical terms, not even remotely close.
And if you think anybody ‘won’ the Cold War, then I’d love to visit wherever you live. Certain common denominators you seem to think no longer exist, do. Companies like Lockheed profited in billions selling the Hardware of Democracy. Now, they make billions producing the Software of Democracy. You see a win, there?
For the record, I think Obamacare, Romneycare, and similar plans are what happens when generally democratic ideals - which in the rest of the world tend to include public health care - are compromised for special interests that capitalism has empowered. Not admirable, to be sure, but certainly not its absence.
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“what firm, assuming that it cannot rely on a bailout (a real free market characteristic), stands to exist (i.e., turn a profit) for very long if it squanders its environmental resources or poisons its clientele?”
How about the tobacco industry? It poisons its clientele.
the truth is as long as we consume something, it will be produced, and if it can’t be legally produced, it will be illegally produced.
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There is nothing new in anything the Pope has written. He has followed the Social Gospel, which prescribes a sort of paternalistic Welfare state. The fact that rightists in the U.S. are frothingly agog simply shows how ignorant they are of the history and contents of their own and other people’s ideologies and philosophies.
There is talk of Marx. The Roman Catholic Church and Marx and his followers are certainly distinct, but they come from the same source of moral and political philosophy, so it is hardly surprising that there is considerable similarity and intersection as well. The virulent hostility is only to be expected between two branches of a faith which consider each other to be heretics.
He hasn’t shut down the Vatican bank because it does a lot of excellent work. What he has done is replaced all of the corrupt bank overseers and cut off all investments with a morally questionable basis. He’s actually being very thorough, and most of what he has done is internal to the Vatican and the church with the goal of cleaning out the corruption and planting the seeds for a renewed service to the poor.
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Yes, Francis is strongly supportive of the social justice movement, just like Father Bob. Francis is a Jesuit, and though much maligned within the church for their intellectual power and influence, they are the largest order in the church and are fierce social justice supporters. The Jesuits have been on the front lines (literally) fighting for the poor in Central America for many decades, and they are also on the front lines in the US, running educational institutions that serve the poorest and most vulnerable of our citizens. This is just one school the Jesuits run in Brooklyn that is doing amazing work: http://brooklynjesuit.org/about-us.html.
But Obamacare is really just prolonging the power and rentier profits of a parasitical private “health” insurance industry at the expense of the American people, masquerading as a welfare state program. Nothing that Obama has done since becoming president has been for the people. Nothing. In many ways he’s worse than Bush – at least during Bush’s two terms the top 1% didn’t grab 93% of the income gains, and at least Enron’s management faced criminal charges for their acts, while Obama has protected the criminal bankers from any and all repercussions for their massive frauds, and made sure they received trillions in taxpayer dollars to continue their looting. My point is that this is absolutely capitalism run amock, with the occasional rearguard action to make it look like the government cares about the people.
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so? (?)
Not from traditional religious iconography, but from parodies of religious iconography, yes.
Hmmm, need to check the Google logs to see how many searches for “how to poison the Pope” have been made from the Vatican IP pool.
Any recent Po-210 deliveries around Rome?
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I’m just waiting for the second picture where Jesus unbalances and falls forward. He’s looking pretty top heavy and there’s not much to stand on.
And that makes what point, exactly?
We should probably separate the terms ‘capitalism’ and ‘free market’ for these purposes, since they are different things. I don’t equate the two. One is private ownership of business for personal profit. The other is a theory regarding managing capitalism politically for collective benefit.
It’s dicey to try to lump most of those first world countries into either pile. Insurance is a great example of that. It doesn’t have to be Obamacare - it could be…car insurance The insurance industry -loves it when they can convince government to mandate that you buy coverage. (A pretty socialist concept.) But, it’s still called capitalism because private businesses get to profit. The ‘free market’ theory would claim that government should step back and leave them and us to it, and may the best company win. But that’s not likely to happen, because along with mandating coverage, the type and amount is also mandated, along with a ‘pool’ for the assigned risk people nobody really wants to insure. But in the end, the regulation is designed to still allow for private profit.
So - do we call that capitalism? We can. Is it free of socialist domination? No - because, mandate and regulation. Is it ‘free market’? No. Because neither the businesses nor the consumer public are free to do business when and as they choose at an agreed-upon price. It’s not an…anything, from the standpoint of purist speech or thought. It’s a mish-mosh. And, one that came into being in the US right around the time the Soviet Union was going , but hadn’t quite gone all the way, under.
So. Tell me - what do call that, in terms of this discussion?
