Rethinking Christian Economics, Part 4: Socialism
The following piece is republished from In Praise of Folly. It is part of a short series on Christian economics. Socialism is incompatible with Christianity for two reasons: 1) its founders were Satanists/atheists and 2) it destroys the Christian conception of charity.Marx, Bakunin, and Proudhon, all founders of Marxism and anarchism were self-styled Satanists. In his younger years, Marx wrote a series of poems expressing his hatred of God, his desire to destroy because he could not create, and the selling of his soul to Satan. Below are excerpts from his poetic works:On Hating God
“Heaven I would comprehendI would draw the world to me;Living, hating, I intendThat my star shine brilliantly …”[27]
On Destruction
“… Worlds I would destroy forever,Since I can create no world;Since my call they notice never …”[28]“Then I will be able to walk triumphantly,Like a god, through the ruins of their kingdom.Every word of mine is fire and action.My breast is equal to that of the Creator.”[29]“I shall build my throne high overheadCold, tremendous shall its summit be.For its bulwark — superstitious dreadFor its marshal — blackest agony.” [30]
Satanism
“See this sword?the prince of darknessSold it to me.”[31]“With Satan I have struck my deal,He chalks the signs, beats time for meI play the death march fast and free.”[32]
We see in Marx’s Oulanem, A Tragedy in the words of Oulanem his full hatred of God, creation, and humanity:
“… I shall howl gigantic curses on mankind:Ha! Eternity! She is an eternal grief …Ourselves being clockwork, blindly mechanical,Made to be the foul-calendars of Time and Space,Having no purpose save to happen, to be ruined,So that there shall be something to ruin …If there is a something which devours,I’ll leap within it, though I bring the world to ruins-The world which bulks between me and the AbyssI will smash to pieces with my enduring curses.I’ll throw my arms around its harsh reality:Embracing me, the world will dumbly pass away,And then sink down to utter nothingness,Perished, with no existence — that would be really living!”“… the leaden world holds us fast,And we are chained, shattered, empty, frightened,Eternally chained to this marble block of Being …and we —We are the apes of a cold God.”
Further reading should be directed to Wumbrand’s Marx and Satan. Such ungodly hostility seems to be the product of a demon, and not a man.On Proudhon
“On the other hand, Proudhon understood and felt liberty much better than he. Proudhon, when not obsessed with metaphysical doctrine, was a revolutionary by instinct; he adored Satan and proclaimed Anarchy.”[33]“The spirit of analysis, that untiring Satan who continually questions and denies, must sooner or later look for proof of religious dogmas. Now, whether the philosopher determine the idea of God, or declare it indeterminable; whether he approach it with his reason, or retreat from it, — I say that this idea receives a blow; and, as it is impossible for speculation to halt, the idea of God must at last disappear. Then the atheistic movement is the second act of the theologic drama; and this second act follows from the first, as effect from cause. “The heavens declare the glory of God,” says the Psalmist. Let us add, And their testimony dethrones him.”[34]
On Bakunin:
“But here steps in Satan, the eternal rebel, the first freethinker and the emancipator of worlds. He makes man ashamed of his bestial ignorance and obedience; he emancipates him, stamps upon his brow the seal of liberty and humanity, in urging him to disobey and eat of the fruit of knowledge.”[35]“God admitted that Satan was right; he recognized that the devil did not deceive Adam and Eve in promising them knowledge and liberty as a reward for the act of disobedience which he had induced them to commit; for, immediately they had eaten of the forbidden fruit, God himself said (see Bible): 'Behold, man is become as of the Gods, knowing both good and evil; prevent him, therefore, from eating of the fruit of eternal life, lest he become immortal like Ourselves.'”[36]
We see that the Russian anarchist Nikolai Ishutin named the inner circle of his anarchist organization “Hell”[37]. Such blasphemes are not uncommon for the Socialists. Their atheism or Satanism is manifested in their hatred of God and man. Because they cannot create with their own hands, they seek to destroy that which has been made by the hands of others. That any Christian should be so stupid to believe the words of such animals (for I will not call them men), to believe that this monstrous ideology is compatible with the Gospel of Jesus Christ just shows us the depths of human ignorance and depravity.Ivan Illich in his “We the People Interview” summed the problem of socialism thus:
“Then, in 300 and something, finally the Church got recognition. The bishops were made into something like magistrates. The first things those guys do, these new bishops, is creating houses of hospitality, institutionalizing what can be only what was given to us as a vocation by Jesus, as a personal vocation, institutionalizing it, creating xenodocaea, roofs, refuges, for foreigners. Immediately, very interesting, quite a few of the great Christian thinkers of that time, the year 300, 1600 years ago, John Chrysostom is one, shout, if you do that, if you institutionalize charity, if you make charity or hospitality into an act of a non person, a community, Christians will cease to remain famous for what we are now famous for, for having always an extra mattress, a crust of old bread and a candle, for him who might knock at their door. But, for political reasons, the Church became, from the year 400, 500 on, the main device for a thousand years roughly of proving that the State can be Christian by paying the Church to take care institutionally of small fractions of those who had needs, relieving the ordinary Christian household of the most uncomfortable duty of having a door, having a threshold, but being open for him who might knock and whom I might choose. This is what I speak about as institutionalization of charity. Historical root of the idea of services, of the service economy. Now, I cannot imagine such a system being reformable even though it might be your task and the task of courageous people whom I greatly admire for the impossible task they take on to work at its reform, at making the evils the service system carries with it as small as possible. What I would have chosen and as Mitchum and other friends have chosen together as our task is to awaken in us the sense of what this Palestinian, I say always instead of saying Samaritan, example meant. I can choose. I have to choose. I have to make my mind up whom I will take into my arms, to whom I will lose myself, whom I will treat as that vis-a-vis that face into which I look which I lovingly touch with my fingering gaze, from whom I accept being who I am as a gift.”[38]
Welfarism, reaching back to Christendom, reduces the poor man to a social problem. The poor man ceases to be a fellow human being made in the image of God to be saved and fed, but a social problem to be solved, a statistic and a manifestation of a socio-historical class. Such terms are dehumanizing and render man a cog in a machine rather than the Jew or the Samaritan.The failure of collectivism is seen in the words of Robert Dale, the son of Robert Owen of New Harmony:
“All cooperative schemes which provide equal remuneration to the skilled and industrious and the ignorant and idle, must work their own downfall, for by this unjust plan of remuneration they must of necessity eliminate the valuable members –who find their services reaped by the indigent – and retain only the improvident, unskilled and vicious members.”[39]
Allow me to outline for the reader the Christian view of work and remuneration and then compare it with Socialism.We see in Exodus 20:9-10 that people should labor six days and rest on the seventh because God worked for six days and rested on the seventh. For a Christian his work is an imitation of God’s work of Creation. We are co-creators with God. We see in Proverbs 6:6 and Proverbs 26:14 that God hates a sluggard and wants man to work. In Ephesians 4:28, Paul tells us that the new man in Christ does not steal any longer and in Ephesians 6:6 and Colossians 3:22-23 that we work not for ourselves or to please men, but to please God. Work is part of our worship to God. Our work must be of the highest caliber and we must engage in work as a duty toward God. In 1st Timothy 5:8 we see that a man who does not provide for his family is an apostate worse than a pagan. We see also in Ephesians 4:28 that a man should stop stealing so he can earn his own living in order that he might have something to give to a needy brother. In taking care of the elderly, specifically widows, we see in 1st Timothy 5:1-16 that if one is found to be a widow having grandchildren, we are to first take care of her; only if she has no living relatives is the Church to step in and care for her.We see that work is holy and pleasing to God and that charity is based on subsidiarity. Subsidiarity is the principle that solutions to problems are to be first sought within the social level that they arise in. Only after an inability to solve the problem is a solution sought at the next level of social organization. For example, if a family has some issues, then a solution should first be sought within the family; if that fails, then friends and community; and if that fails, lastly the Church. However, we are not to take our grievances toward our brothers and sisters to courts of the state, per 1st Corinthians 6:1-6.Socialism is by nature satanic. Socialism seeks to make a god out of the state. It destroys the family by removing the necessity for children. As Paul says, “first learn to show piety at home and to repay their parents.” The state promises to take care of the children's parents, obviating them of the need to fulfill the familial duty. In usurping the role of familial piety, the state is preventing Christians from developing this Christian virtue. By usurping the provision of one’s parents the state is rendering those who take its services as worse than infidels since children delegate the wellbeing of their parents to the state. The state subsidizes sin as anyone can see with the government’s liberal provision of condoms and subsidies for single mothers and homosexuals. A basic rule of economics is: You get what you subsidize. If the state really wanted to eliminate poverty and single-motherhood then it would stop paying for such behaviors.The virtue of charity is undermined when the government taxes you to such a degree that you have no money to give for the provision of the needy; honest labor, which is the Apostle Paul’s solution to stealing[40], is also penalized since, one is squeezed so hard that in order to make ends meet he is tempted to steal; this in turn removes the disincentive to steal. Stealing is in fact encouraged since the government itself is engaged in legalized theft.If people see the government stealing they are 1) discouraged from working since they will lose the produce of their labor and 2) inclined to view theft as an ever-lesser offense. A Paul declares in 1st Corinthians 6:10, thieves shall have no inheritance in the kingdom of God. In short, the socialist state seeks to be God in that it demands more than 10% of our income, renders it impossible for one to practice familial piety and charity, and removes the disincentive to steal.In conclusion I have shown that Christian economics is neither capitalist nor communist. Both systems are based on ungodly humanist assumptions. The distributists are a disappointing alternative, due to their crypto-socialism. A true Christian economics is the only truly radical solution to both capitalism and communism and the only one able to truly meet the needs of individuals. Notes[1] “Usury”, last date modified January 30, 2014, http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/14615-usury[2] “Selfishness,” last date modified January 30, 2014, http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/selfishness.html[3] “Altruism,” last date modified January 30, 2014, http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/altruism.html[4] “Charity,” last date modified January 30, 2014, http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/charity.html[5] “A Future of Peace and Capitalism,” last date modified January 30, 2014, http://mises.org/daily/1559[6] “Ten Ethical Objections to the Market Economy,” last date modified January 30, 2014, http://mises.org/daily/1469[7] Walter Block, Defending the Undefendable, ( Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2012), 129-130.[8] G. J. Graves. “The Placer Country Railroad War,” Last modified January 1, 2003.http://cprr.org/Museum/Ephemera/RIC_Rail_1864.html[9] ” The Colorado Railroad War.” Last modified 2014.http://www.explore-old-west-colorado.com/Colorado-Railroad-War.html[10] “Taxes Fair or Foul,” last date modified January 30, 2014, http://Distributistreview.com/mag/2010/10/taxes-fair-or-foul/#comments[11] “Justice fairness and taxation part four,” last date modified January 30, 2014,http://Distributistreview.com/mag/2011/04/justice-fairness-and-taxation-part-four/[12] “The differential tax,” last date modified January 30, 2014, http://Distributistreview.com/mag/2011/07/the-differential-tax/[13] “A short primer for protesters,” last date modified January 30, 2014,http://Distributistreview.com/mag/2011/10/a-short-primer-for-protestors/[14] “Do We Agree?,” last date modified January 30, 2014,http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/debate.txt[15] “The Common Good,” last date modified January 30, 2014, http://Distributistreview.com/mag/2012/08/the-common-good/[16] “A Distributist Education,” last date modified January 30, 2014,http://Distributistreview.com/mag/2012/07/a-Distributist-education/[17] “The Guild System,” last date modified January 30, 2014, http://Distributistreview.com/mag/2011/11/the-guild-system/[18] “Jobs and the minimum wage,” last date modified January 30, 2014,http://Distributistreview.com/mag/2011/09/jobs-and-the-minimum-wage/[19] “Errors of Libertarian Economics,” last date modified January 30, 2014,http://Distributistreview.com/mag/2012/07/errors-of-libertarian-economics/[20] “Guilds,” last date modified January 30, 2014, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07066c.htm[21] ibid[22] ibid[23] ibid[24] ibid[25] Address at the “Asahi Symposium Science and Man – The computer-managed Society,” Tokyo, Japan (21 March 21 1982); as published in The CoEvolution Quarterly (Winter 1983)[26] “Willing Slaves of the Welfare State”, last modified Janurary 30, 2014,http://cslewisjrrtolkien.classicalautographs.com/cslewis/bookexcerpts/willingslaveswelfarestate.html[27] “Young Marx,” last modified Janurary 30, 2014, http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/Marx_Young_Marx.pdf[28] ibid[29] Richard Wumbrand, “Marx and Satan,” Living Sacrifice Book Co (December 1986), 13.[30] “Marx’s Path to Communism”, last modified January 30, 2014, http://mises.org/daily/6179/Marxs-Path-to-Communism[31] “The Player”[32] “The Fiddler,” last modified Janurary 30, 2014, http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1837-pre/marx/1837-wil.htm[33] “Recollections on Marx and Engels,” last modified Janurary 30, 2014,http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/various/mebio.htm[34] “The Philosophy of Poverty:VOLUME FIRST.INTRODUCTION.,” last modified Janurary 30, 2014,http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/proudhon/philosophy/intro.htm[35] “ God and the State,” last modified Janurary 30, 2014, http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/godstate/ch01.htm[36] ibid[37] Paul Avrich, Anarchist Portraits, Princeton University Press (February 1, 1990), 41[38] “We the People, KPFA ,” last modified Janurary 30, 2014, http://www.wtp.org/archive/transcripts/ivan_illich_jerry.html[39] George Browning Lockwood and Charles Allen Prosser, The New Harmony Movement, Augustus M Kelley Pubs; New issue of 1905 ed edition (June 1905), 185[40] Ephesians 4:28