Leo XIII: “Taxing the Rich Does Not Help the Poor”

Crisis Magazine ^ | 12/10/12 | Anthony Esolen

[marshmallow]

In Quod Apostolici Muneris (1878), Pope Leo XIII deplores those who “under the motley and all but barbarous terms and titles of Socialists, Communists, and Nihilists, are spread abroad throughout the world,” striving in alliance for “the purpose long resolved upon, of uprooting the foundations of civil society at large.” It may sound odd to our ears, that socialists, whose prescriptions for society are many and comprehensive, should be united with nihilists, who by definition believe in nothing. But Pope Leo, beginning as always from a rich view of human nature grounded in reason and elevated by relevation, sees the alliance we miss—and by implication he includes as well the fellow traveler, secular liberalism, friendlier to the free market but ultimately also an enemy to man.

How so? In this essay I will focus on two of the evils Leo discusses in his letter. The first is the denial of the body; the second, the severance of human law from divine law, effacing in citizens the sense of moral obligation. We obey such human laws because it is to our advantage, narrowly and materially conceived, to do so, not because it is right and just.

Human beings do not have bodies, as a plumber has a wrench or a doctor has a probe. Nor are they bodies, simply, reducible to their constituent parts; even a dog is more than the sum of his parts. Human beings are embodied rational souls, and everything they touch they mark with the fire of their spirit, the gift of God. That is the ground of their right to property. But they are not solitary atoms either, rebounding against one another in a chaotic war of all against all. For the human soul is made for love, and can only attain its end by communion....

[bunkerhill7]

ex taxedra

[mjp]

, they substitute for it an artificial equality in goods, violating the rights, Pope Leo says, of private property, claiming “that all may with impunity seize upon the possessions and usurp the rights of the wealthy.

Commie libtards justify using force to violate the rights of the rich by seizing their property with confiscatory taxation because of the mistaken assumption that the rich take their wealth form the poor. Thus, the commies believe that justice requires returning to the poor what was wrongfully stolen from them.

This belief is wrong for two reasons:

1) The Bible makes it clear that poverty does not always result from exploitation by the rich. It can result from misfortunes that nave nothing to do with exploitation, and it can also result from indigence and sloth.(Prov 6:6-11; 13:4; 24:30-34; 28:19)
2) In a free society with a market economy, the wealthy ordinarily create wealth and use the free market to multiply the goods and services available. This in turn creates more opportunity for rich and poor alike.

[freedomfiter2]

2) In a free society with a market economy, the wealthy ordinarily create wealth and use the free market to multiply the goods and services available.

True, but we don’t have a market economy. We have a third world, pay to play economy where the rich use their wealth and influence to limit competition. It’s not the poor who are pushing for ever more regulation.