What is Wrong with Socialism?

In academia and in elite circles in late-modern Western culture there is a widespread perception that socialism is humane and loving and that only rich capitalists, selfish apologists for big business, and stupid people, who are duped into defending a system that is not in their own best interests, oppose socialism.

Left-wing Christians in the liberal Protestant denominations, the Roman Catholic Church and the small but noisy Evangelical Left believe that socialism is simply the implementation on a society-wide basis of the OT prophets' call to be concerned about the poor and Jesus' command to love our neighbor. They see it is as self-evident that Christians would naturally be socialists and that any Christian who is not is somehow lacking either morally or intellectually or both.

This is such a widespread prejudice that it is seldom questioned or examined. It simply defines the parameters of who is "in" and who is "out." To accept the desirability of socialism is not so much a conviction as it is a membership card in the club of late-modern, cultural elites. Socialism is a matter of blind faith, not a working hypothesis to be questioned, tested and either implemented or abandoned on the basis of the results.

The attitude that presumes the goodness of socialism also functions as the basis for general attitudes of contempt for business and commercial activity. Businesspeople are seen as the enemy, except when they are enlightened enough to fund the promotion of socialism. Even business owners feel the pull of social approval and are drawn into supporting socialist political action as an extension of the charity that many of them are moved to engage in. There is something supposedly unseemly and slimy about business, whereas public service is seen as noble and enlightened, which accounts for how corrupt unions are excused and honest corporations regarded with suspicion.

So why do I think socialism is a bad thing? And how can I be so categorical? When pressed about the crimes of Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot, many socialists will denounce those regimes as "corruptions of socialism" and will argue that there is a great deal of difference between Communism and Social Democracy or Democratic Socialism. So why do I condemn the whole lot? There are two basic reasons.

The Critique of Capitalism: First, all forms of socialism from the most democratic ones that resemble basically Capitalism joined to a welfare state, at one extreme, to Stalinism at the other extreme, all tend to agree with and utilize the Marxian critique of capitalism, which I think is a failure. Marx's theory is wrong from the presuppositions all the way down to the practical conclusions. He wanted to abolish the market, which is the engine of Western economic progress and the only human invention that has ever really been able to lift people out of poverty in the history of the human race. I have never encountered a form of socialism that does not see the market as immoral and evil, so I therefore think that all forms of socialism that I know about are evil and wrong.

The Trajectory of Collectivism: Second, it seems to me that where actual Communism has not been able to seize power it is not for lack of desire by hard-core Marxist agitators, but rather because Christian, democratic, liberal and natural law traditions have been too firmly entrenched. Social democracy is what socialists preach when the possibility of a Communist revolution is remote or impossible. It softens up the opposition for a more complete implementation of the socialist ideal later on and is therefore an uneasy compromise. Why do I say "compromise"? Because it is clear to me that socialism is impossible without a centralized command economy and a gigantic, administrative state bureaucracy, both of which are incompatible with freedom and democracy. The more centralized the economic decision-making process becomes and the larger the government becomes, the less democratic the socialism is.

So if we imagine a continuum between chaos at one end and total centralized control at the other, liberal democracy comes in the middle and the various forms of socialism - Communism fall along the line moving closer and closer to total centralized control. Capitalism is not chaos, it is government upholding law with economic decisions dispersed widely among the various actors in society. It is the center of the political spectrum. The West emerged out of highly centralized Eastern civilizations such as Babylon, Egypt and Persia by developing the legacy of Israel and Republican Rome. Imperial Rome reverted to dictatorship and then fell like all dictatorship always do (eg. the USSR). And out of the chaos of the end of the Western Empire came ordered liberty with neither Church or State becoming an exclusive central power in society, but with both contributing to the culture in different, complementary ways.

Socialism is a heresy of Christianity which leads us down a dead end road back to the East and the highly-centralized political economies that predated the market. It is no coincidence that Marxism took root in Russia where Lenin and Stalin continued the legacy of the Tsars and in China where the Imperial legacy continued in the Chinese Communist Party. Marxism is in a struggle to the death with Christianity in the West and, one fears, it has won that struggle in Europe. Marxism is a modern configuration of a tendency that has ruled civilization for all of human history wherever large empires have been carved out by revolutionary leaders (eg. Alexander the Great) who then imposed their will on conquered peoples. In terms of St. Augustine's The City of God, socialism is the archetypal "city of man," a civilization built on a rejection of God and the worship of idols.

What is wrong with socialism? Let me merely list the major problems for I cannot defend each one extensively in a blog post.

1. Socialism keeps the masses in poverty and provides no hope of a rising standard of living. Any gains for ordinary people as a result of socialist revolution are short-lived and basically a one-off. The poor suffer under socialism because the means of creating new wealth are stifled under the heavy hand of central planning.

2. The appeal of socialism is not justice in the classic sense of "each receiving what is due him" but rather envy. The labor theory of value is essentially a metaphysical justification for envy and is bunk. Socialism encourages people to feel entitled to be as rich as their neighbor simply because their neighbor is richer than they are. This violates the 10th commandment.

3. Redistribution of wealth is a hallmark of all forms of socialism including "democratic" socialism. But if there are many less well off people and a few better off people and they have a vote to transfer wealth from one group to the other, that is not really democracy. It is actually stealing, a violation of the 8th commandment, upon which the right to private property is based.

4. Socialism is inherently revolutionary, which means that it is essentially anti-traditional. This makes it clash with Biblical teaching in both Testaments. Both the Old and New Testaments urge the people of God to remember the past revelation of God to them and to strive constantly to look backward to that revelation as the ultimate standard by which all activities and aspirations are to be evaluated morally. This is a violation of the 5th commandment.

Everywhere in the world you will find all socialist parties in favor of the sexual revolution, the abolition of gender and the undermining of the family. The USSR tried to abolish the family overnight and failed; the Marxists who infect our educational, health and other institutions in the West are trying to abolish marriage and the family gradually. They will fail too.

5. Socialism empowers bureaucracies and dis-empowers ordinary people. It attacks corporations as oppressive and corrupt and then replaces them with corrupt, oppressive, government bureaucrats who are not held in check by the rule of law.

6. Socialism despises natural law and exalts the power and ability of human reason to design, change and operate society according to a Utopian dream born in the mind of philosophers. It does not recognize limits to human wisdom to alter nature including human nature and it dismisses original sin as a myth designed to keep the masses in their place. It thus leads to bloodshed, disaster and social upheaval followed by a reversion to past patterns of oppression.

Summary: Socialism hurts poor people, promotes vices such as envy and theft, violates numerous Biblical commandments, disdains tradition, twists Biblical calls for charity and love of neighbor into centralized government power, attacks marriage and family, creates totalitarian governments and fails to recognize the reality of both natural law and sin.

My question is "How could any Christian be in favor of such an ideology?"