Sep 25, 2012

The Pope and Citizen-ownership Democracy

This is what Pope Benedict XVI  says about justice and social doctrine (in Encyclical Letter. Caritas in Veritate):

Justice "prompts us to give the other what is “his”, what is due to him by reason of his being or his acting."

Here is the bigger section:
"First of all, justice. Ubi societas, ibi ius: every society draws up its own system of justice. Charity goes beyond justice, because to love is to give, to offer what is “mine” to the other; but it never lacks justice, which prompts us to give the other what is “his”, what is due to him by reason of his being or his acting. I cannot “give” what is mine to the other, without first giving him what pertains to him in justice. If we love others with charity, then first of all we are just towards them. Not only is justice not extraneous to charity, not only is it not an alternative or parallel path to charity: justice is inseparable from charity, and intrinsic to it. Justice is the primary way of charity or, in Paul VI's words, “the minimum measure” of it, an integral part of the love “in deed and in truth” (1 Jn 3:18), to which Saint John exhorts us."

Current democracies do not do justice to its citizens. Citizens get money for their acting; they must work to get paid. That is half the justice defined by the Pope. The other half of justice is to get paid "by reason of his being." But citizens do not get money for their being, for their being co-owners of their countries' common wealth. This is where a citizen-ownership democracy can help to institute more justice for people. Alaska has partial citizen-ownership democracy. Alaska's residents get paid for their being, for being co-owners of the oil fields in Alaska.

Citizen-ownership income is a step in righting an injustice that is found in current democracies. Governments in current democracies have (mis)appropriated income from common wealth into their treasuries. That is, they have imposed a 100% tax on the citizen-ownership income that citizens should be getting rightfully.

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