Monday, May 20, 2013

Pope Speaks Out Against Capitalism

Now, I had been wondering about this for a very long time. Wondering why the Church tends to not only remain silent about what seems to be a very disturbing trend that seems to me the exact opposite of spirituality. In fact, it eats spirituality up, as well as all positive values.

I am talking about the triumph of a way of life that is spreading from what was once mostly just the West, and has begun, surely to take over the world. A way of life, and an outlook on things that, almost without exception, divides rather than unites. It is a fixation in our societies with money, with status symbols, with artificial goals and ambitions and superficial values.

If religions truly value values, than how can they not speak out?

Some do. I know that the Dalai Lama has spoken out against it, although focusing more on the need for individual salvation, and  more or less steering clear of the evil, the rot, that it creates within the society. How it tends to blind not just individuals, but whole societies (and apparently, increasingly, the whole world), by making literally everything in the world fair game for exploitation, for personal profits. How this mentality has already devoured far too many of our precious resources, and threatens to literally devour anything and everything else, until we destroy ourselves. How the longing for short term profits and enrichment, an unbridled greed that actively resists literally any limitations, is the very antithesis of a civilized and cultivated mindset, is given credibility with college educated words and vocabulary which seems to lend it intellectual and moral credibility within the framework of our society.

This mentality, which went hardly unquestioned as it really picked up momentum, seemed to win out at every turn for decades now. It grew more and more extreme, until finally, it began not only to devour all possible resources within the society, but began to devour itself.

The idea behind capitalism was, at least in theory, healthy competition. Let the best man win, if you will.

That more or less worked well enough, for a long enough period of time, for people to believe in it.

But as corporations grew in power and influence, they began to cheat. They began to stifle competition, to become monopolies. To work with one another behind the scenes, surely, so that if they could agree on nothing else, they could agree on price gauging.

Like with everything else, as society grew, the system began to go haywire. There were more and more people, competing for fewer and fewer things. Technology improved, and so there were fewer jobs. Where once people were needed for things, people were increasingly expendable, and that meant less jobs. We can see it on a daily basis. The toll booths on the parkways and turnpikes, where you throw in exact change or go through EZ Pass. In the supermarkets, where self-check out is increasingly not only an option, but pretty much already standard. When you call an agency or business or bank or credit card or almost anything these days, and you get not a real person, but a prerecorded voice listing your options by number.

The list goes on and on. If you think that modern technology has not, in fact, contributed towards the decline of American manufacturing jobs, or the shift in the American workforce from what once had been a majority manufacturing economy, to the present day service sector economy, then you are blind, or fooling yourself. Technology can be great, and has some undeniably beneficial aspects. But when it goes unchecked to serve an economic system gone awry, itself unchecked, then it can, and has, become detrimental. It has perhaps improved our lives and our comforts, but it also has actively worked against our collective, and individual, interests in many ways as well. Megastores like Walmart and Home Depot have choked the life out of Main Street, and ordering that book or album or other item on Amazon or Ebay has largely killed off what little remains of the little stores, that simply cannot compete. It throws more people out of work, and competing with more and more people for those increasingly few, coveted jobs. On top of it, many of the jobs are being outsourced.

Corporations know this, and they have played their hand well. Across the board, we are seeing companies beginning to limit benefits, and salaries are not increasing at a rate that is keeping up with the cost of living. Many companies, particularly retail and fast food, have and continue to partake in a policy of hiring part-time employees, so as not to have to pay full-time workers, or the benefits that they are entitled to, at least in theory. Other corporations, mostly outside of the restaurants and retail, have increasingly turned to temps, who again, are workers hired to benefit the company, but who are not actually entitled to full pay or benefits. All this has been done completely legally.

Is this the spirit behind capitalism that most people assumed would always be so beneficial to us? Something that we can get behind and believe in? Something that we feel will get us to a desirable place in our society?

Or, is it something that has gone awry, and become, in effect, a sickness, a cancer?

The signs have been there for a while. People only really seemed to pay attention once it got blatantly obvious that something was terribly, and undeniably, wrong. That would be in 2008, when we were told that the economy itself seemed ready to collapse, and when we were told that some of these corporations and banks that were reeling from their own bad decisions and unnecessary risks, needed to be bailed out by the taxpayer (that would be you and me, my friend) because, we were told, they were "too big to fail".

In fact, things had been going in this direction for some time. It only went on the public radar when things had gotten so bad that they became obvious and undeniable. The fact that it had been allowed to go that far in the first place was telling.

What is perhaps more revealing, and more tragic, is that we have not collectively learned our lesson, which likely means that the worst is yet to come. Those huge banking institutions and monster corporations that clearly were bad news back then? They did not change their practices and policies. Some of them were so blatant that they used the very funds from the taxpayer backed bailouts to hand over huge bonuses to their CEO's and board members.

The rich get richer.

The rest of us? Well, you know the answer to that, don't you?

We have been told this for a long, long time. There were warnings, and we did not listen.

If there used to be a time when our system worked, it feels increasingly like a long, long time ago, doesn't it?

Yet, we are told that this is still the best system out there, that these were just a few bad apples, and that once we get rid of them (by the way, while I'm on the subject, how many of those CEO's and board members were actually arrested again?), things would be right as rain again.

Yeah. Acid rain, maybe.

The rot has been there for all to see for some time. So one might be excused for wondering where the voices of condemnation were? Oh, there were always some out there, but they were quickly labeled extremists and, thus, largely ignored and forgotten. After all, what is labeling but another term for dismissing?

But if things were so bad, truly, then where are the major critics? They could hardly be found in the major political parties, because they were so tied into our system, that they needed it. They were the ones telling us to hold on, not to stop believing. Just have patience, until those magic words "economy" and "improving" finally come together on the evening news. When we could finally bask in the glow of economic recovery.

Well, guess what. We are being told that the economy has recovered. Record numbers in Wall Street. Record profits for some corporations.

Most of the American people? Well, not so good.

So, what's wrong? I think, personally, everything is wrong with that. Increasingly, more and more people are beginning to see this as an obvious fact, as well.

Well now, the new pope has finally spoken out on the subject, just months after the old, soon to be outgoing pope spoke out about it.

Finally, the voices that were supposed to be talking about morality all along have recognized that the entire system that most of the world is living in does not promote, much less produce, happiness, joy, fulfillment, and contentment. That, it is fact produces the opposite.

That this system, far from being a blessing, has become an inescapable, and apparently irreversible, curse.

I am not the most religious man. In fact, my approach to religion tends to be skeptical, more than anything. This is not the place to list the reasons why, because that is not the conversation I wish to engage in here.

What I will say is this: it's about time. Finally, those leaders that are supposed to guide the morality of a great many among us are actively warning us of the evil of our ways, not just in our personal lives (using condoms, what we do in the bedroom, etc.), but within the very economic system that we live in. That it produces misery, and that this is toxic. Instead of healthy economic growth, and growth in our personal lives, salaries, and benefits, the growth that our economic system now produces most steadily is misery.

This is not just happening in the United States, but everywhere in the West, where crisis after crisis is faced. The hurdles just keep coming, and so do the crises. Governments are on the verge of crashing and burning, and private citizens are taking a beating, and paying the burden from their own wallets. And still, through all of the manufactured crises, the rich get richer.

It does not work. And finally, the pope in Rome is chiming in. Finally!

Will it make a difference? Well, not likely.

But I will tell you what: it certainly does not hurt. And frankly, this is what I would have expected from them all along, rather than playing their part, their assigned roles, in keeping quiet and perhaps even cashing in themselves. As spiritual leaders, they are supposed to look out for the well being of their community, and to speak out against all the evils threatening them. This was a threat for a very long time, one that the Church remained silent on for far too long.

It's nice to see them focusing on and speaking out about something that they should have focused on much, much earlier.

Here are the stories:





Pope blames tyranny of capitalism for making people miserable

May 18, 2013

Nick Squires

Rome: Pope Francis has attacked the ''dictatorship'' of the global financial system and warned that the ''cult of money'' is making life a misery for millions.

He said free market capitalism had created a ''tyranny'' and that people were being judged purely by their ability to consume goods.

Money should be made to ''serve'' people, not to ''rule'' them, he said on Thursday, calling for a more ethical banking system and curbs on financial speculation. Countries should impose more control over their economies and not allow ''absolute autonomy'', in order to provide ''for the common good''.

The gap between rich and poor was growing and the ''joy of life'' was diminishing in many developed countries, the Pope said. ''While the income of a minority is increasing exponentially, that of the majority is crumbling,'' said the pontiff who, as archbishop of Buenos Aires, visited slums, opted to lived in a modest flat rather than an opulent church residence and went to work by bus. In poorer countries, people's lives were becoming ''undignified'' and marked by violence and desperation, he said.

The Pope, who was elected two months ago, made the remarks in his first substantial speech on finance and the economy, during an address to foreign ambassadors in the Vatican. It underlined his reputation for showing deep concern for the plight of the poor and vulnerable.

''The worship of the golden calf of old has found a new and heartless image in the cult of money and the dictatorship of an economy which is faceless and lacking any truly human goal,'' he told the ambassadors.

As the Catholic leader in Argentina, he often spoke out about the plight of the poor during the country's economic crisis. Unchecked capitalism had created ''a new, invisible, and at times virtual, tyranny'', he said.

''The Pope loves everyone, rich and poor alike, but the Pope has the duty, in Christ's name, to remind the rich to help the poor, to respect them, to promote them,'' he said.

Pope Francis will make the first foreign trip of his papacy to Brazil in July. He will visit a Rio de Janeiro slum, meet young prison inmates and attend World Youth Day, a week-long event expected to attract more than 2 million people.


http://www.smh.com.au/world/pope-blames-tyranny-of-capitalism-for-making-people-miserable-20130517-2jru9.html


Here's an earlier story from the previous pope, who also condemned our economic system earlier this year:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/01/pope-slams-capitalism-ine_n_2392653.html

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