PART 1
Untangling the Meaning of Socialism
Problems with untangling socialism come from the language itself and the meaning attributed by different people to the same word or words.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as a theory or policy of social organization which aims at or advocates the ownership and control of the means of production, (in the 21st century better understood as technology) , capital, land, property, etc., (in the 19th century after the Industrial Revolution, including money) by the community as a whole, and their administration or distribution in the interests of all.
Community operates in the field of spirituality. Commerce or the means of technology, capital, land, property etc. operates in the field of science and is described and identified by its monitory equivalent. Though trite, the adage comparing apples to oranges applies to Community and Commerce.
Ideally Community as a whole encompasses individuals-in-awareness-of-community. Human empathy, a spiritual attribute, contributes to this. Women in particular live their lives in innate awareness of community.
Social Organization is a term that operates in the fields of spirituality and science both. The glue for societies is spiritual originating in families and communities or culture. Organizing, however, involves humans’ actions beyond themselves and is in the field of science, where the material interests are operating. It is the goal of all good governments to strive for an administration which acts for the material interests of all. However the ideal is to ensure that each individual has basic needs or even rights, met. These are spiritual needs as enough food, water, adequate housing, access to education to the extent of each person’s ability and access to sufficient health care to keep each individual healthy, as well as the community’s spiritual contentment.
As a whole referring scientifically to production (technology), land, property etc. (now including money) appears to encompass in toto, material quantitative things but does not address the human spirit that yearns for individual identification with a divinity and individual aspiration in whatever area of human endeavor that arises innately from within each and every human being.
However, material wealth beginning with money and expanding into what money can acquire, came into prominence after the Industrial Revolution. It attached itself to astute individuals, and reduced the capacity of Socialism as previously defined, to be viable without the cooperation of wealthy individuals participating in its basic requirements by diverting some wealth to Community Enhancement, this latter being understood through the natural Law of Proportionality.
PART 2
Seeking Responsible Capitalism
We have been studying Government for 2000 years but Capitalism for a mere 200 years. Good Government even within our lifetimes would rarely allow homelessness but IRRESPONSIBLE CAPITALISM is cluttering the streets with blankets, tarps, makeshift tents and PEOPLE.
The word ‘Capitalism’ enters the English Language in the 19th century. From the Oxford English Dictionary.. The condition of possessing capital; the position of a capitalist; a system which favours the existence of capitalists. “Capitalist’.. Moneyed men, or capitalists. (Disraeli 1845) Capitalist flourishes, he amasses immense wealth; we sink, lower and lower; lower than the beasts of burden.
Capitalism in the field of science speaks primarily to the acquisition of money, not the distribution of it. In the past, as the definitions show, those who have acquired money have kept it to themselves, falsely believing that they were entitled to all of it.
Money is amoral. It is just concerned with completing the transaction regardless of who the giver is and who the receiver is. But givers and receivers are human beings. When it comes to the distribution and use of this amoral money, the law of proportionality has to be applied by human beings. Money is not a definer of human worth but simply a describer of it.
The real danger here is in the acquired belief system that the pursuit of profit represented by money is more important or has a higher priority in terms of choice of actions or in terms of the conscience-in-action than developing the content of a person’s character.
Ideally people become capitalists when they have an idea or an individual aspiration and want to develop it, when they see a need and want to fill it while at the same time understanding that when they reach that original goal there might be some very considerable monetary reward for it - in that order.
The belief system, the morality of a country as a whole has to support that understanding and meaning of capitalism.
When the meaning of capitalism is distorted into a belief system that allows all of the proceeds of the original goal to go to the single mind that conceived the original goal, there is a problem because always the execution of that goal calls upon other people to actualize it and they too deserve compensation as well as Mother Earth if her resources have been utilized.
The Need for Philosophy
Capitalism is a comparative new-comer to our civilization. The study of Philosophy has been neglected in the last two centuries or since the Industrial Revolution at which time money escaped from its traditional function of guarantor of equivalency in any transaction. Now the natural Law of Proportionality must bring the distribution of money into harmony with organic nature.
When people begin to understand philosophically this particular truth about money they will desire to implement its compensation directives as a community. It begins with the Community Enhancement Fund as the first redistribution of excess wealth from the individual to the community. The first priority of the Community Enhancement Fund is to eliminate homelessness. This act on the part of the Community may be enthusiastically accepted as RESPONSIBLE CAPITALISM.
Mary Anneeta Mann from There Are No Enemies
#interfaith
