Does the Catholic Church think capitalism is unfair to poor people?

[imacatholic2]

Yes.

Do you remember in Dickens' "The Christmas Carol" when Ebenezer Scrooge was being asked for a donation to the poor?

"Are there no prisons?" asked Scrooge.

"Plenty of prisons," said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.

"And the Union workhouses?" demanded Scrooge. "Are they still in operation?"

"They are. Still," returned the gentleman, "I wish I could say they were not."

"The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?" said Scrooge. ...

"Many can't go there; and many would rather die."

"If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.

Pure Capitalism is survival of the economic fittest. The economic unfit have no place in a pure Capitalistic economy. This philosophy goes entirely against the Christian ethic of human dignity and love of neighbor.

The Catholic 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 (Communism) perverts the basis of social bonds; regulating it solely by the law of the marketplace (Capitalism) 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.

A theory that makes profit the exclusive norm and ultimate end of economic activity is morally unacceptable. The disordered desire for money cannot but produce perverse effects. It is one of the causes of the many conflicts which disturb the social order.

A 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."

For more information, see Catechism of the Catholic Church, sections 2419 and following: http://www.nccbuscc.org/catechism/text/p...shtml#2419

With love in Christ