Libertarians and capitalists write as if there were some natural or divine force known as “the market”. There is no such thing. There is no MARKET, only markets, and a market is a place where people exchange goods and services, sometimes but not always for money. Think of the Athenian Agora or a local farmers’ market. Another way to look at markets is to describe them as playing fields for exchanges. A market as place or playing field may become institutionalized, as a person or group of persons or a community or government claims ownership and the right to regulate it, just as the city or a business group may own a baseball stadium and a league of team owners agree to a set of rules.
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For this discussion, perhaps it is enough to say that liberal individualism, with its opposition to community, authority and tradition and its emphasis on universal rational principles, although it includes many morally wholesome principles, is false to human nature and inconsistent with Christianity. So-called Democratic Capitalism, which puts economic and political liberty as the highest good or, worse still, relies on the principle of subjective value, cannot be reconciled with the morality of Christ and the Apostles or of the Church’s teachings. We can speak more about this later, but there is no point in discussing anything, unless we agree on terms.
These brief and unpolished paragraphs are not intended as the final word on anything but only brief introductions to clarify the terms of discourse.If I have misstated or overstated something, I am happy to be corrected. But I do ask you all not to distract the discussion with allusions to this or that classical liberal or libertarian, even if, like Acton, they thought they could reconcile Christianity and Capitalism. As Acton once observed of himself, as a Catholic he was a bad liberal (or was it vice versa?).
This blog is no longer active as of October 31, 2011
