The difference between socialism and Catholic Social Teaching

Four items crossed my desk in the last 36 hours, that brought into sharp relief some ideas about Catholic Social Teaching.

The first, was my stimulus check- a form of UBI ( more on that in the second) in that it was granted free to everybody with no means testing.  If you haven't gotten yours yet, it is clear why:  You didn't have direct deposit set up with the IRS.  I'm sad for you if that is the case- 28% of American citizens are in that boat and it will take a while to print 84,000,000 paper checks.

The second comes from a video series I watch daily, Anthony Stein's Return To Tradition on reports of Pope Francis supporting UBI.  I had truly never heard of the Stanford definition of UBI before, and I was utterly unaware how far back the idea goes in American history (BTW, as a distributist, I'm with Thomas Paine's idea of a grant given to 18 year olds to start them out in life, I just think that grant should be an acre of land managed by the Bureau of Land Management, one with some mineral rights value with the mineral rights dividend checks going to the new "owner" and the right to build or park an RV on the acre of land so that nobody is ever truly homeless),  But this also contains the basic difference between entitlement socialism and Catholic Social teaching.



The third is also a video from the Knights of Columbus.  The Feast of Divine Mercy is Sunday- and there is no better version of Catholic Socialism than the divine graces granted to this week to build your treasure in heaven!



So yes, for now, the stimulus check that came this week is indeed an example of Universal Basic Income. It might not be ongoing, we may never get it again   But it is remarkable how in a time of emergency, for the first time in the last 5 years, both political parties got together and passed this emergency spending bill unanimously.

As Pope Francis said in that statement that, rightfully, needed criticism:  Perhaps hidden in this time of contemplation, this time of great sadness, is an opportunity to rethink economic justice.  I have said before in other forums that in 2015 we had the Jubilee Year of Mercy- and that we needed a Jubilee Year of Justice.  The first was proclaimed by man- perhaps this second, which started New Year's Eve with the first case reported in China (though clearly, there had been other cases earlier), God is proclaiming a Jubilee Year of Justice.

And part of that, rightfully should be economic- as first world countries are now hitting 30% unemployment and many small businesses face an uncertain future.  As I was typing this, an e-mail came in from CNN:  the small business loans to guarantee payroll for April and May have all been approved, and there is no more money in the guarantee fund to hand out more.  If you are a small business owner, you are too late- and Congress has returned to normal partisan wrangling, so it could be a few weeks before more money is available.

So what do I suggest we do about it?  I say we should return to Thomas Paine's idea, with the modification that I put forth above.  Let us make sure every person, regardless of income, has a place that in an emergency they could at least build a lean to.  Let the federal government- who owns billions of acres of land east of the Mississipi and who has been earning money off the mineral rights of that land for over a hundred years now- specifically grant 1 acre parcels to everybody from the portion of that land that has working mines or oil wells- with the mineral rights dividends going to the person the acre of land is assigned to and the right to hitch up a 2nd hand $200 trailer to your car and go park on that land if you have no place else to go.  Or even pitch a $20 pup tent on that land if you have no place else to go.

Let no CITIZEN of the United States go homeless.

On our borders, set up apartments for the massive influx of immigrants that such lagress will cause.  Use the apartments as a buffer, a sort of refugee camp, to house and feed people who are awaiting permission to come further into the country.  Reduce immigration checkpoints to the area between the apartments and the border, thus freeing up ICE agents to interview and take applications for citizenship, and keeping immigrants where we can find them if for some reason it would be dangerous to let the immigrants further into the country.

This pandemic has given us a chance to rethink the wisdom of how we have previously run globalist capitalism.  Do we really need this massive movement of people and goods across borders?  Do we really need traditional workplaces, or can the majority of people now work from home over the internet?  Do we really need massive corporate campuses, or can we get by with just in time factories that manufacture items according to plans sent across the internet locally to consumers?

But it also gives us a chance to examine the idea of Nationalistic Isolationism.  In a time when we have the internet, do we really need a military or embassy presence in every nation?  In fact, can't all diplomacy be done across the internet today, without need for in-person meetings or dangerous travel that spreads pandemics?  And if all international travel is banned not by armies but by the wisdom of the experience of this time of contemplation, wouldn't that result in war being limited to internal civil wars?  And better yet, without international trade in weapons, wouldn't that limit even civil war down to when all the weapons manufacturing plants are destroyed, the war ends?

These are the questions we should be using this time to answer.  I thank President Trump for his generosity of UBI- I used it to make my family safer by paying off my home equity line of credit, making it available in case of emergencies.  I thank our politicians- much as you are wrestling with these same topics,