BEFORE THE DILEMMA BETWEEN SOCIALISM AND CAPITALISM:

CENTRALITY OF THE HUMAN PERSON

One of the most interesting things I heard Obama say, being by taking their first period or
immediately after taking the oath, is that you had to push education reform to prevent the crisis of
the financial bubble repeat 2008. The rationing was simple: the citizens had invested their money
relying on the system, but without understanding what the banks were doing with it. I say that
was interesting because it was to provide the citizens of analysis tools on the economic behavior
of a society, simple but practical, how to know what was happening, and so distinguish a reliable
investment other than with higher risk margins or that that supusiese almost financial suicide. The
citizen control of his money. This would avoid additional regulations that would always be on the
lookout for a new playfulness, and, therefore, restrict the possibilities of the state intervening. So
the free market remained, meaning this entrepreneurial capacity and exchange with the fewest
possible restrictions and without prejudice to society.

To be honest, I do not know what was the initiative. I know that the American president has raised
educational reforms related to new technologies and modern economy. His goal has been to
relaunch the United States as a country of opportunity and lead the world. But I do not know how
much has been carried out and less if it has been able to provide the ordinary citizen with the
necessary training to avoid falling into the trap of investments they could make their savings
vanish, as in 2008. As always such thing had walked a counter to how come those in power,
whether political or economic.

Those from neoliberal capitalist models or make decisions, subject consumerist interests of people
not understand or can exercise their freedom responsibly. In large part, the atomization of the
individual in simple disjointed individuals (monads), without reference to the family and captive of
pleasure, makes it vulnerable and manipulable, with wills at the mercy of the consumer society
and advertising.

Critics of Western liberal societies from the left with socialism coquettish rancid data, as the Soviet
ultimately cancel the individuals and people to promote, not concrete abstract collective. The
curious but explicable part because Marx is a Hegelian left, is the role of the state. That is,
collectivism is assumed by the omnipresent state owns everything. Not by the specific group
formed by the sum of individuals. Not by factory workers or members of cooperatives. But by a
higher court, an abstract and anonymous being, we call state. Even momentarily that the
dictatorship of the proletariat. So intangible that State as a god and in the place of God, since God
disappears as materialistic denial or, in the pantheistic version of Hegelian idealism, but
submission remains faith in the collectivist creed and historical materialism. Therein lies the trick:
the State, which are referred to as if it were a living being with the capacity to impose their will on
the citizens, just a hint of realism if it is assumed by individuals, those we call presidents, ministers
and officials. It takes a gifted subject of collective recognition powers. There's a gear that transmits
the movement almost mechanistic way: an order of a judge reaches the police that highlights
some troops to requisition a house or stop so and so. If the belt breaks, everything is paralyzed.
There may be order, but no seizure or detention. Or arrests occur without order and without
penalty to the arbitrariness of the officials, or the like. Such a state will or failed or outlaw.

More on the model of the omnipresent state, as in socialism the Soviet bloc (not social
democracy), anyone with enough power can invoke an abstract to impose their interests and their
will: if no State shall be the law (made measurement) or the party.

In the wild capitalism and the stale and primitive socialism, the individual at the end does not
count: one mind regarding your purchase (your wallet) or utility capacity and another for their
loyalty and submission, if part of it is not the plutocracy. In both cases it will be discussed
democracy, more genuine within the Western world as long as you are not naively invoked. While
under socialism longstanding, democracy was pouring concrete sense to refer to party decisions
with an ethical disquisition of the benefits of the decision by the proletariat, in contrast to the
elitist decision concept of the bourgeoisie (which ultimately served as a preamble to accept as
universally valid what the president or the only party decide to).

This contrast between the two models allows me to enter the value that the Church gives to the
human person. His social doctrine wants to serve as a reference for Catholics involved in the world
of politics, economics or culture. Not to compete with the ideologies that defend the different
parties or strategies and techniques to follow, but focus endpoints, correction and limitations that
affect critical vision and decision-making. It aims to enunciate principles based on the reality of
human beings, which are not, therefore, faith. Hence language. Theologically he wants to lean in
the direction of Creation, an issue that is simply not biblical, as well as being consistent with the
Gospel, without such fidelity reduce the scope of their proposals. So there is an internal rationality
that gives certain dialogical universality has capacity to enter into dialogue with different cultures
and ways of thinking.

But the "human person" is a theological originality of the twentieth century. It is true that there
are definitions of both Boethius and Thomas Aquinas. "Person", if not replace, at least it adds
many aspects to the designation of man as "soul": the latter evokes the intimacy of the person
with ability to meet God. While it is true that this expression is almost irreplaceable to talk about
life after death, in its intermediate phase before the Resurrection, also runs the risk of
misunderstandings. For example, consider as hindrance to salvation everything related to the
physical, sensory, biological, including the world of science, culture, research, society, politics,
economics, because ultimately it matters is the soul. Of course this interpretation is far even from
the appreciation of Thomas Aquinas, the thirteenth century, but we realize all of a sudden, he
speaks very different from our mental structure categories.

the divine Persons: With "human person" rich reflection of philosophical personalism, which
theological reflection of the Church Fathers and early councils evoked added. There is already an
interesting theological parallel: as we are created in God's image, human beings are human-
person, person-reflection of the divine. But the philosophical tradition rescues the unity of the
human person is unique and is an end in itself. Not a means to anything. It is an all or, if I may, a
micro-all (microcosm say Max Scheller). Hence both their interiority (how is experienced),
relationality (relationship with God, other human beings, nature) and projectibility (a being in
realization over time, which creates its history with its decisions values , which is endowed with
intelligence and consciousness, which is responsible):

Being in the image of God, the human being has the dignity of person; It is not just something, but
someone. It is capable of knowing, of possession and of freely giving himself and entering into
communion with others; and is called, by grace, to a covenant with his Creator, to offer him a
response of faith and love that no other creature can give in his place (Catechism of the Catholic
Church, n. 354).

This high conception of human beings implies and requires certain social organization. Not
anyone. Entails a hierarchy of values: the center of society is the human person. It includes
freedom to make decisions and take responsibility for its consequences. It has to do with the
possibility to be done (to make real their projects), which can be at his level, to form a family, to
have decent work, participate as a citizen (which includes considering both rights and duties). It is
a "you" and "us" and not just an "I". In short, to be the same, with moral conscience (not just
allude to doing things "because I feel like it" but because they correspond to what I think is good
and benefit everyone). Stepping, Christian key, to discover that life is meaningless if we live in a
social context that allows us to give ourselves (serving others) for love (not coercion). But there
are things that, although there are adequate educational proposal and a family that transmit
values, everyone should take on their own.

Again, this consideration of the human-person makes both neoliberal capitalism in its most savage
version as the Marxist-Leninist socialism when it was not wild, it was primitive and primary
defenestren. As to the first, because the ideal is not individualism and less consumerist
individualism. Of course the ideal of liberalism has been the respect for the individual and his
private world, without interference of kings, for example. Everyone had to do with the
government, which was considered a Re-public (Res = thing = all published). Liberalism sought to
defend the ideological and religious tolerance, so some things reserved for private life. This was
not understood by Marx, who sought and proposed a philosophy encompassing all of life and
existence. Marx believed, for example, that society should get rid of the ballast of religion, so
could not justify practice privately. So some political philosophy, which stopped at the threshold of
privacy, was not accepted by him. In defense of a proper interpretation of liberalism that sought
the Enlightenment, regardless of excess rationalism and his phobia for the supernatural, such an
approach defended the freedom of the individual, who was not either a pact with lies or a waiver
of reality. Equivalent to the political emancipation of the bourgeoisie, tied to the nobility (nobility
was always linked to weapons, to the military, not the world of work and entrepreneurship). It had
to do with the ability to investigate, not to prohibit thinking or questioning. With this I do not deny
excesses that might result in so-called industrial revolutions in exploitation or oppression of the
people, of the working class. But you can not deny their ability to adapt, even for survival, which
warned Lenin himself. Freedom of thought and conscience had to do with the debate, not the
pact, although sometimes violently die down dissidence. The same Prussian education system was
intended to form the working classes in a very industrial way: as if they could draw workers in
series. So far from this being a liberal advocacy.

But this vision of human-person either block with Marxist collectivism least in its Leninist key. For
Marxism, as the son of Hegel, he is interested in the mass movements in history. Individuals
disappear sacrificed by the collective. Utopia is to be achieved justifies the sacrifice of every-every-
which one. Of course Marx could not speak to the personalist philosophy: such a presumption
would be anachronistic. Marx is a man of the nineteenth century as personalism corresponds to its
appearance in the early decades of the twentieth century. But conversely also it falls into an
anachronism: Can not think of categories of the nineteenth century as if time had stopped. So
Marxism will always be a provocation for reflection, questioning about social organization from
the economic, the abettor character of ideologies, ask about justice and will pretend to seek a
dynamic balance between social justice and freedom. But a memorized repetition. Economic and
social model not only was a failure, but the duration was because a police state was established.
Not that the model does not work, for reasons for us more understandable but, if not corrected
or, at least, would not verify its feasibility and then discard (not rule out justice, but this
materialistic vision and dialectical historical reality and material), was by the repressive apparatus
of the State (which did not produce what the workers, silenced, should produce).

This sacredness of life and the dignity of human beings sense, this confidence in him and in his
moral capacity to do good (to be supportive, for example), is what makes Marxist socialism
catechism is an absurdity. Does not respect the person is an end and not a means. Humanize life
that has nothing to do with the imposition of martial rules and laws. The state can not
hypertrophied. That everyone should have the freedom to do their best to build a new society
which is not exclusive or epic task of any political organization. To be recovered rationality of
political discourse, objections to shuffle not as attacks, but as corrections and reprimands. Even
the right of private property and free enterprise has to do with both personal fulfillment as the
social contribution. It is not a totem to be defended under any premise. Also here it cares about
the critical and analytical vision.
Of course I'm sure, by profession, of the seriousness of sin. Of course I know (and I know) that the
human being is capable of the worst. But no state can be redemptive. A State, if any, will the sick
reflection of a sick society. The health of society depends on its citizens. Sin perverts any form of
power, the more absolute power. By sin not understand a religious category confessional, but a
theological category that the transcendence of evil human action, its ability to perversion and
corruption complaint.

But my point of view as a believer, in addition to the foregoing, is that God did not seek to redeem
sending a Mosaic law more "fui'o" judicial system. That in Jesus we are challenged by God to
decide, since our freedom, go for love in the manner of God. That Jesus was highly proactive and
not was juggling all the ways we could be condemned in this life and in which comes. That when
the Church has wanted to be associated with political power to impose the Gospel, the result has
been sadly embarrassing. The "love and do what you want" Augustinian, Franciscan and mystical
with its practical translation of John of the Cross reminds that man is called to obey rather than to
grow by love. A love that is referenced in the Nazarene. That freedom brings out the worst man
himself, but also his best.

I do not intend to point out a particular model of social coexistence. Nor do I intend to propose
romancist spiritualism. My intention is to remember the sacred centrality of the human person,
which must respect both liberalism and socialism moderate. Any system, regardless of how it is
organized, must respect this basic principle.