Comments on: Some things that are happening http://mhjb.co.nz/blog/archives/1599 bright green Jesus politics Tue, 04 Oct 2011 06:40:39 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Matthew Bartlett http://mhjb.co.nz/blog/archives/1599/comment-page-1#comment-838924 Matthew Bartlett Wed, 21 Jan 2009 20:25:57 +0000 http://mhjb.co.nz/blog/?p=1599#comment-838924 Didn't get the contract, but a bunch of better but less straightforward projects have turned up instead. Baby due last Friday, but I hear they are usually >1 week 'late'. Fairly excited. Re. xn socialism: in a fight between labour and capital I'd back labour. Cooperatives. Subsidiarity. Widely distributed ownership. No more absentee landlords. This sort of thing. Not so coherent sorry, but I'm in a rush... Didn’t get the contract, but a bunch of better but less straightforward projects have turned up instead. Baby due last Friday, but I hear they are usually >1 week ‘late’. Fairly excited.

Re. xn socialism: in a fight between labour and capital I’d back labour. Cooperatives. Subsidiarity. Widely distributed ownership. No more absentee landlords. This sort of thing. Not so coherent sorry, but I’m in a rush…

]]> By: Ben Hoyt http://mhjb.co.nz/blog/archives/1599/comment-page-1#comment-838923 Ben Hoyt Wed, 21 Jan 2009 18:45:56 +0000 http://mhjb.co.nz/blog/?p=1599#comment-838923 How'd you go getting the baby-friendly contract? When's the baby due? Hope all goes well! Could you explain what you mean by "Christian socialism"? To me the State owning and distributing wealth doesn't sound terribly Christian -- it sounds like we'd be slaves, not just to Christ, but to the State. I'm not advocating "Christian capitalism" either, but it seems that with a (somewhat) capitalist government we're still free to be generous, because we can actually own wealth. We're also free to be greedy, of course (well, I guess there's *always* room to be greedy). But if the State was The Generous One, are we free? To me, socialism also implies the government takes control of a whole scad of other stuff that should be the realm of church and family -- like it did in many of the failed attempts at hard-core socialism in recent history, and like it's (arguably) starting to do here in NZ. How’d you go getting the baby-friendly contract? When’s the baby due? Hope all goes well!

Could you explain what you mean by “Christian socialism”? To me the State owning and distributing wealth doesn’t sound terribly Christian — it sounds like we’d be slaves, not just to Christ, but to the State.

I’m not advocating “Christian capitalism” either, but it seems that with a (somewhat) capitalist government we’re still free to be generous, because we can actually own wealth. We’re also free to be greedy, of course (well, I guess there’s *always* room to be greedy). But if the State was The Generous One, are we free?

To me, socialism also implies the government takes control of a whole scad of other stuff that should be the realm of church and family — like it did in many of the failed attempts at hard-core socialism in recent history, and like it’s (arguably) starting to do here in NZ.

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