Jesus drove the money-changers out of the temple and encouraged people to be good to the needy. Does this suggest support of socialism? If I give somebody a dollar, he can buy a packet of nuts. the somebody becomes a beggar and relies on a daily supply of dollars. If I show him how to do some task, he can work for the dollar and many more dollars. If I give him an apple, the apple gets eaten. But if I show how the apple has seeds that can be planted, he gets plentiful apples, eats some, and sells some.
Many now see Capitalism unfavourably and jump to the conclusion that Socialism is the solution as if it were the only alternative. Socialism is not the answer. Socialism may sound compassionate, but it doesn’t align with Christian teachings.
To Socialists and Communists there is a great problem with unequal distribution of wealth. Their solution is to ensure equal distribution of wealth by their decided procedures. Socialists want to distribute wealth to individuals according to their need, regardless of virtue. Regardless of their input into society. Regardless of their willingness to travail. Communism always had a problem with motivation to work. Why lift the shovel when you can lean on the shovel? Socialism rewards those that are not industrius by giving them the fruits of another man’s labor. Whenever welfare is provided, industrious effort is diminished. Rewards are of no consequence. Karl Marx put it in these words:
“From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”
Marx himself lived off the efforts of others his entire life. He even failed to provide for his wife and children.
Thessalonians dictates:
“The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.”
2 Thessalonians 3:10
The church rewards virtue whilst discouraging vice. Socialism does the opposite. We have the general concept under Christianity that we have the right to the fruits of our labour. It has the proviso that one should not be greedy and that the gain was not through the creation of disadvantage to others. The eighth commandment demands that we should not steal. This implies the concept of private property. We must own that which might be stolen. We may own provided it does not impinge on others. You might give your neigbourly farmer him some of your seed stock if pestilence struck his farm but not yours. But you need not give him seed if he stayed home getting drunk during seeding season. I think we could reason that for an economic system to be Christian, it must protect private ownership and facilitate our freedom to allocate our resources according to our best thinking.
Marxism is effectively a formula for overthrowing an economic system rather than a set of rules to operate a society.
Our biblical paperwork warns the rich and powerful not to oppress the poor. The main problem with current Capitalism is that the rich and powerful have corrupted the system. They have biased the tax system to their advantage. They have taken over the money creation and eliminated government role of money sovereignty. They have generously funded the politicians into a parliament stacked with paid lobbyists. The fault is the corruption of Capitalism rather than Capitalism itself. The problem with Socialism is the structure of Socialism and its failure to provide incentive. And worst than Socialism, is corrupted Socialism. I would take corrupted Capitalism over corrupted Socialism any day.
The advocates of Socialism condemn an entire class of people simply for possessing wealth. The megaphone is held by an elite who are typically referred to by euphemisms such as the 1% or the globalists to avoid using the real terminology. The megaphone held by the ‘globalist 1%’ deems the ‘Whites” to be the privileged oppressors denying prosperity to the Black population and other impoverished minorities. Conveniently they ignore the wealthiest minority group that does phenomenally well with usury and financial skullduggery that even the ‘Whiteys’ suffer from. They encourage those who deemed to be poor to overthrow those deemed to be ‘privileged’ whilst ignoring the privilege of the 1%. Logic is thrown out of the window provided the microphone is switched onto loud, which allows the rich and powerful to maintain a system of real privileges that perpetuates biased taxation, financial dominance, and money dominance in politics. Just look at the election extravaganza designed to polarize people into left versus right. It effectively tell people to vote for one of two parties both of which support the debt banking system and every war advertised by Reuters and other news outlets.
I remember traveling through Yugoslavia on my motorcycle on an epic tour of Europe in about 1970. It was the first time that I had seen shops with empty shelves and long queues outside. Socialism has a habit of creating empty shelves, poor and insufficient product, drab work and social conditions, and a populous that forgets how to smile and laugh.
Our bible teaches us that “we should not covet”. (Exodus 20:17) The entrepreneurs will always reach a higher material wealth than the less inventive. Christianity requires that they not be greedy and not take advantage of others.
We must also be aware of some of the other philosophies that get dragged in with Socialism.
In practice, the proponents of socialism advocate the end of the traditional family. Socialism 2019, a conference of radical socialists had an anti-family panel: “Transgenderism, gender nonconformity, and abolishing traditional family structures were huge issues at Socialism 2019. Destroying the family “is the active social policy of liberals”, says the author Ann Coulter. They seek to replace an individual relationship with a parent and child with one based on collectivist ideology. As H.G.Wells wrote in 1906:
Socialism, in fact, is the State family. The old family of the private individual must vanish before it…
The family of the middle-class man which fights for itself alone, is lost. Socialism comes into the middle-class family offering education, offering assurances for the future, and only very distantly intimating the price to be paid in weakened individual control. But far profounder disintegrations are at work.
Mr. H. G. Wells. As read to the Fabian Society in October, 1906, under the title of “Socialism and the Middle Classes.”
The cleverly-spoken Bernie Sanders calls for a “revolution” in childcare and for the government to provide early childhood education for children as young as six-weeks-old. He is a strong supporter of gay marriage — ‘communism’s Trojan Horse’ to secure the final takedown of traditional marriage.
Bernie sells a Socialist utopia. Wary Christians recognize it as a dystopia. There is nothing Christian about Socialism. This is not something that Jesus would support.
Gloria Alvarez, from Guatemala states:
As a child, I was taught to mock socialism, but democratic socialism sounded OK. It made sense that government should take care of the economy. Then I watched democratic socialism fail in Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Chile, Nicaragua, and Uruguay. I learned that every time a country started down the socialist path, it fails.”
Source: https://reason.com/2018/10/10/socialism-destroys/
But every time a country tries a little of it, the people that applaud are applauded by the media funded by the same mob that is pushing us towards the edge of the cliff.
When Castro came to power, people cheered because he was claimed to use Socialist policies to help the poor and make everyone equal. In reality, everybody is equal in poverty. My visit to Cuba was fascinating. I learned about a dual currency where tourist get inflated notes. There was not enough product to fill the empty space in shops. The cars were fifty years out of date. I had to sit in the drizzle in the town square to get my business emails. But I had a good time, as horse transport was strong and meals were hearty. But one could detect the economic stagnation in Cuba and the loss of individual freedom.
Cuban refugees now living in Miami’s “Little Havana” neighborhood can warn us about the false promises of the socialists. But their words are stiffled by a media under the thumb of ‘the mob’ that would happily see us under the yoke of Socialism.
Michel Ibarra told Alvarez:
“You don’t see any future. Everything is stagnated. Health care, education—nowadays they’re in ruins.”
Venezuela didn’t learn from Cuba’s problems. They voted in Hugo Chavez when he said that “capitalism is the realm of injustice” and promised wealth would be shared equally. But when he could extract no more money from rich people, he simply printed more — which is fine if it matches increased production, but is other wise disasterous. He caused inflation approaching one million percent.
But Socialist propaganda is still pushed in our direction so well that is has appeal to a whole band of hopeful lefists.
Comedian John Oliver shouts:
“Plenty of (socialist) countries are nothing like Venezuela,”
Sen. Bernie Sanders argues:
“When I talk about democratic socialism, I am not looking at Venezuela, … not looking at Cuba. I’m looking at countries like Denmark, like Sweden.”
Denmark is so often cited as a socialist paradise that Denmark’s prime minister rebuked the popular propaganda by talking on TV:
“Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy.”
Under full Socialism, government owns or controls businesses.
In Scandinavia, business is largely left alone. Governments do not even set a minimum wage. Economic freedom rankings give Scandinavian countries high scores on property rights and business freedom. These countries do have big welfare programs, but they are funded by thriving free enterprise — not by taxing inefficient businesses. Many of these supposed Socialist countries have cut back on their welfare programs, having discovered that they were unsustainable or discouraged work.
And a sentence that should have been at the start of the article:
Central planning always fails.
