Choice: Friend or Foe?
About four months ago, I watched a documentary by famed or infamous documentarian Michael Moore. It was on capitalism. It was called “Capitalism: A Love Story” . I watched it, and I also invited friends over to watch it at my home. I think I am not afraid to say that I was a socialist for about 4 minutes after watching that film. The problem is: socialism is not the answer either. What the film critiqued was not so much capitalism, but corporatism. Socialism has its shortcomings, like forced or involuntary charity and enabling the culture of dependency or entitlement. But, capitalism surely has its shortcomings as well, like greed, jealousy, the exploitation of the working class to deepen the pockets of the rich and privileged. The gap between the haves and the have not’s continues to widen. This was what Leo XIII described in his encyclical on labor, Rerum Novarum . Leo XIII wrote, “To this must be added that the hiring of labor and the conduct of trade are concentrated in the hands ...