r/ChristianSocialism

I have only recently learned about how western countries under capitalism exploit third world countries so they have to pay them less and I honestly found it horrible. I‘m not really educated on socialist theory or anything, and I disagree with many things Marx and Engels said (“religion being an opium of people”, being the most obvious one, because I am a follower of Christ) and don’t think strict communism would be good for society either, but I obviously dislike the thought of people being exploited because of capitalism. I mean if anyone could explain this to me or has any articles or books to recommend me it would be appreciated.

One of the reasons why I have remained catholic is the same reason as to why the woman I mention up above remains Catholic despite having politics that lean to the left of the economic spectrum. I was drawn to keep to my catholic roots when I first learned about catholic social teaching senior year of high school at a catholic known as cathedral catholic in San Diego. One specific teaching of catholic social teaching was the dignity of workers. I respected the Catholic Church that they understood that the best way to allow and encourage conservative lifestyles of no contraceptives, abortion, and the celebration of traditional familiar dynamics comes from economic security. Along with my love and reverence for catholic traditions such as receiving sacraments and going to confession, that day in learning about Pope Leo XIII and rerum novarum forever ensured I would remain a catholic.

I mention all this to you because I have been wondering if there are any catholic commentators or apologists who had the same political viewpoints as me and matching their relation to catholicism as well. My specific views are as follows: I self identify as a new deal democrat but leaning towards being a democratic socialist (I have made a vow not to be one until I have experience as a wage laborer since I have yet to have a real job due to being at university or managing capital) yet when it comes to social issues I view abortion as evil and that one should encourage family life yet I also believe the best way of achieving a culture where family dynamics are promoted and abortion discouraged is not purely through legislation discouraging Reproductive rights but rather though economic liberation so that families can be allowed to be better prepared for unexpected pregancies.

As you well know though, most catholic commentators today don’t fit these beliefs of mixing socialism with Catholicism especially due to Benedict xvi (at the time known as cardinal Ratzinger) strong condemnation of Liberation theology which tried to mix Marxist and socialist elements with catholic social teaching itself. It left me feeling like the odd man out. That is until I found Elisabeth Bruenig, a prominent mainstream opinion writer for the dying legacy media newspapers of the new york times, the Atlantic, and the Washington post. Self described as a ”Catholic Socialist,” she has articulated a perspective that combines socialist economic views with her catholic faith after conversion from her Methodist faith. She is pro welfare state, anti capitalist, but also views abortion as intrinsically evil.

So my final question to this subreddit is two fold: Does anyone know who elisabeth Bruenig is and what are your thoughts about her, and second fold am I a heretic for trying to believe in Christian socialism with a variation mixing my catholic faith? Let me know in the comments down below.

I’m finally getting around to reading writers like Lenin and Mao. While this may not seem faith-related, I think there's a theory of change embedded within our society which is inherently liberal and doesn't have much interest in exploring larger, systemic power relations. But these relations impact our internal states, our relationships, and so on. If a landlord can evict you just because, this causes anxiety and maybe even PTSD in the long run. If you and a small group try your best to change power relations and fail, and fail again, you build a sense of hopelessness - now we have some symptoms of depression. And so on.

Ff Marx is correct to say that there is a dictatorship of capital within liberal democracies such as ours, this must have a trickle down effect on our collective mental health. Ultimately, I think that means within dictatorships of capital, our identities are shaped into being dependent upon 'what we do' as wage laborers as secondary to our more core, authentic, genuine selves which relate to creativity and our relationships to nature and our communities; we collectively have a more external locus of control when it comes to things like employment and housing -- and so on.

In theory, a dictatorship of the proletariat, which isn't literally a dictatorship I think it's more a metaphor, would hopefully create a network of democratic, collaborative, more equal relationships within neighborhoods and workplaces, and presumably improve mental health over all. Precisely what this looks like and how to get there is really the debate between, say, anarchists and communists, with regard to the more bottom-up lots and lots of unions and cooperatives idea (?) and the vanguardist 'take over the state by force' idea. I think that's the difference between anarchists and communists, somewhat, although overly simplified.

It's also difficult to conceptualize this grand idea because the examples we typically look at, such as the USSR and China, were up against global capital launching assaults on them for decades. Cuba was sanctioned and the CIA sent people in to assassinate people; Vietnam had napalm thrown all over its people living in jungles and on farms; the Korean war was heavily reliant on chemical weapons. So in every attempt where people, mostly third world people of color, tried to move toward this 'stateless, classless' ideal of communism, US/imperialist forces used extreme, extreme militaristic or economic violence to stop them.

The story was always that we must stop communism because it's so violent, but this was coming from, and is still coming from, the largest most brutal militaristic force in history, and on the planet. Like, it's perfectly fine for the US to send Marines in to shoot and kill and spray chemicals that burns off your skin, because communists are trying some revolutionary experiments to set up a more democratically run economic system that works for the vast majority.

Lenin talked about how imperialism is the most advanced form of capitalism in that it finds a way to use a global mechanism of suppression against any anti-capitalist project, and he didn't even live to see how eerily this played out over the 20th century. He also wrote about the need for an internationalist approach to achieve statelessness and classlessness, meaning if you "achieved communism" in only one or two or three countries, the dictatorship of capital would use its money/military/hegemonic powers to crush those smaller efforts. This also turned out to be completely true. I'm not familiar enough with Mao yet to see what he had to say about all this but at this point I'm beginning to assume he probably was really smart, his writings were probably at least somewhat on point, and there's a good reason we never learned what he and other Marxist thinkers wrote about in public school.

What I'm trying to say is that it's very difficult to know if communism is better for mental health and wellbeing, because the only examples we have, have been short lived and were brutally crushed by capitalism (mainly the US and its allies). On a systemic level it's pretty obvious to me at this point that capitalism - a dictatorship of profit- over- people - is built to be against good mental health. Mental health is centrally about connectivity; you are on good terms with and trust and can mutually rely on your family, neighbors, friends. There are basic, common interests among you and the rest of the people, and you all work to some degree toward common goals.

Under capitalism, since individuals are reduced as much as possible to units of capital accumulation -- how much value can you move upward into the pockets of owners and shareholders? -- there's inevitable competition \*\*\*against\*\*\* everyone else. You may become a "collective" as a couple, or a family, or you can even incorporate as a nonprofit and get a handful of people who wish to "do good" though that. But each of these units are still having to compete in the system of capital accumulation. Everyone is careful under this dictatorship as to not get fired or evicted, to not give ammunition to neighbors or coworkers, to let anyone know how you're trying or planning to climb the ladder above them, or against them, because they can't know your methods, and not everyone can win. It's an antisocial game and the more others lose, the more you may be able to win.

This, in every imaginable way, is bad for mental health. And so I wish we could conceptualize the optimal scenario of connectivity, freedom, cooperation, unity among the people. I'm starting to think that the communist thinkers and revolutionaries over the last century likely had these concepts pretty well thought out, but because they challenged capitalism with such seriousness to the point of actually threatening the capitalist order, almost none of us have ever read or even thought of reading their works. And so most of us just associate the word communism with genocide, murder, prisons, famines, propaganda/deceipt, power-over, control-over, miitaryism, violence. And we therefore completely forget, very conveniently that the capitalist US state has been actively engaging in every single one of these terrible practices against its own people, and billions of others on a global scale, for our entire lifetimes.

Without warning or cause the Administration shot their plane down.