Sunday, April 15, 2012

What Christians Should Know about Communism, Socialism, and Capitalism



With the direction the current administration has been taking our country and the direction the inevitable Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, is promising to take it, the age old debate of communism and socialism vs. capitalism is slowly but surely reclaiming its place in American political discussion. 
               Historically, capitalism has won decisively, but to see that the gap is closing quickly, one must simply look at the success of Michael Moore’s propaganda films Sicko and Capitalism: A Love Story.  The way liberals as a whole have embraced Moore’s blatant exploitation of them is reminiscent of the Russian’s religious adoration of Sergei B. Eisenstein’s equally heavy-handed endorsements of communism The Battleship Potemkin and Alexander Nevsky, or the Cuban’s (and Russian’s) love for Mikhail Kalatozov’s  I Am Cuba.  The fact that those movies are all incredibly innovative, ingeniously shot and are landmarks in the history of cinema while Moore’s films are complete rubbish is a tell-tale sign in and of itself.  Another telling sign is in regards to the biggest box office sensation of the year so far, The Hunger Games. 
As blatantly obvious as it is in its portrayal of a futuristic U.S.A. oppressed by a cruel communist regime resembling Stalinism (which, incidentally, gives the title its true meaning), many liberal fans have proclaimed the story anti-capitalist.  I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if they had the same reaction to a movie version of George Orwell’s Animal Farm.  Add to that the fact that President Obama is the most socialistically minded president in our country’s history (FDR notwithstanding) and he stands a very good chance of being reelected this year. 
               So now the question must be asked – what brought on this radical leftward swing?  Complacency on the part of conservatives?  Sarah Palin and the Tea Party would say so.  A drastic drop in moral values?  Westboro Baptist Church, Windsor Hills Baptist Church and other evangelical fundamentalists would say so.  I would disagree on both counts. 
               In the first place, running faster doesn’t help if you don’t know where you’re going, and the same goes for working harder without knowing what you’re doing.  Now I do believe a failure on the part of conservatives is a big part of the problem, as is the case with every proletarian revolution.  The problem isn’t a failure to be conservative enough, however, but a failure to understand what to be conservative about and what not to. 

               In the second place, religious zealots who believe a moral decline has hurt our country are pointing back to a time when oppressive religious and political intolerance had a gripping influence on our society and government.  Now if your moral code is based on the Quran or the Torah, then you have a point (just don’t claim that you’re influenced by our founding fathers).  Ironically, though, the radicals in question claim to be Christian, and I can think of nothing less Christian than clinging to those oppressive rules and (more importantly) enforcing them on others. 
               I honestly feel that a big part of the problem is a failure on both sides of the issue to completely understand socialism or communism and how they relate to capitalism.  Christians, in general, I find have a very skewed idea of these philosophies and most cannot talk about them without resorting to emotional tirades that don’t make logical sense and usually contradict their other stated beliefs. 
               For this reason, I’d like to present a few points for Christians to remember when considering or discussing socialism and communism.  I will first simply list my points and sub-points to give you an idea of where this is going, then explain in detail what I mean. 
So here are the main things Christians need to know about socialism and communism but don’t seem to understand:
1. Christianity is a horrible form of government.
               a. Christianity was never intended to be a basis for government.
               b. When Christianity has been implemented as government in the past, it has always been abusive and oppressive of its subjects. 
2.  Communism and socialism are both closer to Christianity than Capitalism is. 
- More accurately, the ideas of communism and socialism and the principles upon which they are based are closer to Christianity (implementing them as a government is not).
3.  Capitalism is not a form of government and cannot possibly be used as a government. 
               - Socialism and communism must of necessity be enforced and strictly regulated.  Capitalism requires no enforcement or regulations.    
4.  Socialism relies on capitalism and cannot exist without it. 
               - You can’t take from the rich and give to the poor if nobody’s rich, and nobody gets rich outside of capital earning ventures, including the chairmen of “communist” politburos.    


               Before moving on, I would also like to explain here the key differences between communism and socialism.  The two are very similar both in motive and structure, but to simplify a very complicated matter as best I can, I find communism to be the better defined and more ambitious of the two.  It has often been said that socialism is a step towards communism, and while many socialists will disagree with that statement, most (if not all) communists will not.  The reason for this is that socialists wish to distance themselves from communists because they know communism has a very low success rate (0% to be exact) in governments.  Communists, on the other hand, have come to understand (through successive failures) that their ultimate goal must be reached through gradual change – first overthrow the capitalist government, then implement socialism and gradually move towards communism (I’m skipping Marx’s original first step of replacing feudalism with capitalism because feudalism is outdated now).  As far as the ambitions of the two are concerned, both seek equality for all men and to provide a better life for the lower class.  The way they seek to achieve this makes all the difference.  Socialism generally implements redistribution of wealth in one form or another- usually heavy taxes on the wealthy to fund government programs that will distribute financial aid to the poor.  In simple terms (which socialists in particular seem to hate for some reason) – take from the rich and give to the poor.  This would make things a little more equal than they were before – narrow the gap between the rich and poor.  Communism, on the other hand, implements a society where all land, possessions and industry are commonly shared.  In simple terms – take from everyone and give to everyone.  This is total equality and completely eliminates the gap between the rich and the poor, which is why I call communism the more ambitious of the two.   Moving on.
1. Christianity is a horrible form of government.
               a. In the first place, Christianity was never intended to be a government either by Christ Himself or His disciples.  Christianity in its purest sense is simply a belief that Jesus is the son of God (the Christ).  In an applicable sense it is a lifestyle in which people try to emulate Christ’s practices and follow His teachings.  That being the case, knowledgeable Christians realize Christianity is not about making laws and enforcing them on a community of people, for Christ did not come to set up a government or reaffirm the Judaic laws of the Old Testament.  Christ came to fulfill the law, and by that He meant to take the excessive punishment that came with such oppressive statutes and thus, by paying the penalty (or fulfilling the price of justice), be done with it once and for all.  Once this was done (with Christ’s crucifixion), God rent the veil of the temple and thus made His point that the burden of the cruel and oppressive Old Testament law had been lifted.  From that point on, God taught His disciples to no longer follow the old law, even commanding Peter to break it in Acts 10. 
               Now that is not to say that Jesus was an anarchist, as others would have you believe.  Far from it.  You see, Jesus lived in a time when Israel was under Roman rule and most of the Jews at the time were constantly looking for reasons to rebel against it, but He never advocated such revolution, and would not even decry paying taxes to Caesar when questioned to that end by the Pharisees.  Indeed, while Jesus constantly undermined the Torah (without actually breaking it) and cleverly influenced Jews not to follow the old law, He never did so in respect to Roman law, and it was only when the Romans attempted to appease the Jews by allowing them to practice their religious laws that they shared in his murder.  Now I’m not suggesting that Jesus advocated Fascism, which would be ludicrous.  I’m simply pointing out that to set up and run a government based on His actions would be equally ludicrous, and to set up and run a government based on His teachings would require you to ignore what he taught (which is an oxymoron), for He never taught government.  What He did teach was love.  When asked what the greatest commandment was, He replied “love God and love your neighbor”.  This leads me to my second sub point under my first point.
               b. When Christianity has been implemented as government in the past, it has always been abusive and oppressive of its subjects. 
               In all reality, Christianity cannot be enforced any more than love or faith.  You can force someone to act like they love you or believe the way you do, and you can punish them if they don’t, but it won’t be real love or real faith, and it’s always a very tragic and ugly situation when someone tries to force those feelings or actions from someone else. 
               This is why whenever a country adopts Christianity as the basis of their government, persecution and oppression always ensue.  I feel obligated now to list a few examples rather than just leaving that statement completely unverified, but the instances where Catholics, Anglicans, Puritans, and Protestants have used torture and various terror tactics to control countries are too many to list here.  The Spanish Inquisition, the Crusades, the Spanish conquest of South and Central America, the exploitation of many third world peoples by Jesuit missionaries, and the holocaust are some famous examples, but there are many more. 
               Suffice it to say – Christianity is a lifestyle based on the ideals taught and demonstrated by Jesus Christ.  It’s a very good lifestyle and I highly recommend it to everyone, but it should never be enforced upon anyone. 
The second thing Christians need to understand about communism is…
2.  Communism and socialism are both closer to Christianity than Capitalism is. 
               More accurately, the ideas of communism and socialism and the principles upon which they are based are closer to Christianity (implementing them as a government is not).  The idea of communism is simply a community where all members are equal and work for the good of the community rather than for personal profit.  In this community, all members would share all of their land and possessions and there would be no personal ownership of anything.  The principles upon which communism is based are equality, unity, unselfishness, generosity and “good will towards all” – all wonderful principles which line up very well with the Christian lifestyle. 
               The idea of socialism is a community where the privileged pay tribute to state bureaus so that they can care for the under-privileged.  Similar to communisms, the main principle upon which socialism is based is charity (albeit forced charity).
               Capitalism, on the other hand, is all about freedom and independence.  “Every man for himself” is a phrase that jumps to mind when considering capitalism. 
               So which of the three seems more like something Christ would endorse?  To start with, let’s look at the two “commandments” Christ gave when asked by a Pharisee.  First, love God.  Doesn’t apply to any of the three.  The fact that Karl Marx, who invented communism, was an atheist and didn’t approve of any kind of religion is irrelevant because religion had nothing to with his theory of government.  The second commandment was “love your neighbor”.  Communism is all about neighbors sharing everything they have, so the shoe fits.  Socialism is about loving your government and your government taking care of your neighbor.  Close, but not as close as communism.  Capitalism is all about individual freedom.  Point communism.
               Now let’s look at specific situations where Jesus may have endorsed communism, socialism or capitalism.  Again, it’s hard to make an exhaustive list here, but there are a handful of passages that have been used to effectively support one side or the other, and I’ll look at the most relevant of these, starting with the one most often used.
               Matthew 19:21
               This is a strong case for socialism since Jesus is clearly advocating redistribution of wealth – the money from the rich man would go to the poor.  This case is stronger because the story is repeated with only slight variations in Luke and Mark. 
Now before I present a capitalist rebuttal to this, I must first point out that communism doesn’t really have a horse in this race except for the fact that communists claim socialism as an essential step towards communism.  Since this is a situation where Jesus was giving advice to a single man in the presence of many others (who were not included in the admonition), communism doesn’t really make the cut. 
As to the rebuttal, I must allow myself to delve into my third main point before officially getting to it in order to point out that the redistribution of wealth Jesus was advocating here must of necessity be a personal choice completely free of government (or any other) influence.  You see, Jesus gave this advice in response to a rich man who was asking what good thing he could do to have eternal life; and he gave it only after first rebuking him for asking the question and then telling him to follow the ten commandments in a scene reminiscent of His Matthew 3 sermon on the Mount (those who have ears to hear let them hear).   This really takes the bite off of the socialist argument and will damage it irreparably for some (particularly those who already have their mind set on finding a pro-capitalist message).  I will say it’s debatable at best, but given that I’m looking mainly at the themes and ideas behind the three contesting institutions, I’m going to make a Tony Realiesque (heads up, Wikipedia) decision on this one and say the presence of redistribution of wealth is enough to put this in the socialist column.  This brings the current tally to communism 1, socialism 1, capitalism 0. 
               Matthew 6:24
This one looks socialist by way of being anti-capitalist, but you have to understand that capitalism isn’t about “serving wealth”.  It’s about having the freedom to make your own living and conduct your own business. 
               In a capitalist society, no one is forced to buy, trade or sell anything.  If you want to grow crops and raise cattle without selling any of it, you have that option.  If you want to trade one of your cows for some oranges, you can.  If you want to give the oranges away to a complete stranger, you can do that too.  And if you want to sell some of your cattle and invest in General Motors or British Petroleum, that’s your business.  As a matter of fact, if you want to sell every last item you own, give all the profit to some church and live in a big commune with a bunch of other people who did the same thing, you won’t be the first.  You see, capitalism does not restrict communism or socialism – it’s the other way around.  So serving wealth is not part of capitalism.  If anything, who or what you serve is always more restricted in communist and socialist communities than in capitalist ones, and often serving God is completely frowned on to the extent that the saying in Matthew 6:24 would more appropriately read “You cannot serve God; mammon provided first come first serve”.  This, however, is not a mandate of either socialism or communism (not all communists are Stalinists as Jim Jones and other Trotskyists have proven).  
It also must be said that there is such a thing as pure avarice and it thrives in a capitalist society while it would be squelched in a true communist one (which the world has yet to see on a state level).       Let’s face it, any greedy “bloodsucker” (in the words of Malcolm X) caught in a communist or purely socialist society would defect ASAP to a capitalist one (unless he could figure out a way to get into the politburo where he could have both wealth and power).  For this reason, if any points are to be given out here (and I’m not completely sure any are warranted), they’d have to go to either socialism or communism. 
That said, in a true communist society, everyone would be working for the good of the community, so there would be no serving of mammon.  In a socialist society, the government is looking out for the needs of the people (if they stay true to the purpose of socialism), but there is some reliance on accumulating wealth since you can’t tax the rich and give to the poor if there aren’t any rich.  Point communism. 
This is very simple – the temple is not the place to do business, and God hates more than anything for power-hungry people to exploit others in His name. 
This is clearly a matter of location.  There’s a place to do business, there’s a place to worship and there’s a place to relieve one’s self.  Some things are fine to do in certain places but wrong to do in others.  In this case, if Jesus hated all selling of goods for profit and He wanted to lay a real beat down on everyone who was doing it, He would have gone to the market.  That wasn’t the case.  He simply didn’t want any of that done in the temple.  No points to anyone for this. 
And that leads us to Matthew25:31-46. 
This is a home run for the socialists.  Two points – one for redistribution of wealth and one because this passage is explicitly talking about nations. 
These are good verses to show anyone who claims to be Christian but are disapproving of the welfare system or any kind of foreign aid.  Now for the sake of rationality, I feel I should clarify this statement.  A big problem with our country’s two party system is the extreme polarity of the two parties which is often complicated by members of each side searching tirelessly for the smallest reasons to be different from the other.  As a general rule, democrats and republicans have no desire to work together for the better of the country.  They desire instead to achieve a monopoly over the three branches of our government and thus implement whatever policies they desire regardless of how anyone else feels about it.  The funny thing is, they’d actually have a better chance of achieving this goal if they looked for ways to relate to the other party or at least acted like they were trying to.  That wouldn’t be as hard as you think either. 
Take welfare and foreign aid for example.  In the case of welfare, democrats are all about it ‘bout it.  For this reason, you will nary if ever hear republicans speak favorably about welfare, and even if they do, it’s only as a preface to a statement on how it needs to be drastically reformed in order to make it harder for people to take advantage of it (because too many people are getting money from the government without even trying to get a jarb).  This makes it easy for the democrats to call the republicans cruel and selfish, but the truth of the matter is, you will also find it hard to find a republican who is honestly so heartless as to be against welfare altogether.  But on the other hand, liberals don’t want lazy people who could work a good job to take advantage of the welfare system any more than republicans.  Communists certainly don’t feel this way, otherwise the symbol for the Soviet Union would have been a couch and a pillow rather than a hammer and sickle.  The famous Kennedy adage “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country” actually lines up better with communism than capitalism.  The truth of the matter is, both sides see welfare as a way to provide primarily for single mothers, but both sides also understand that there are extreme circumstances in which others need it as well. 
The last two passages I will take a serious look at are parables, or metaphorical stories Jesus told.  Now most of the Bible is open to interpretation, but these passages especially due to their allegorical nature – they were meant to be subject to the listener’s interpretation. 
The Parable of the Talents – Matt. 25:14-30, Lk. 19:12-27
This parable is quite complicated due to the significant differences of the two stories.  There are a couple of questions that must be answered before making any kind of application here.  Is the “lord” in question a businessman as Matthew’s version seems to indicate or a king as Luke’s version explicitly states?  And was Jesus associating the lord with Himself and giving some insight about the kingdom of Heaven as Matthew describes, or is the lord here representative of Herod Archelaus as Luke’s version is almost certainly suggesting? 
I see three ways to address this problem – combine the two passages using the most specific terms from either to determine a singular interpretation, determine which of the two is most likely the accurate one and use the accurate one for interpretation, or assume that these are two different stories and thus interpret them separately.  For the fundamentalist who believes the entire Bible is the work of one author (God – at least through direct inspiration), the first method is the only acceptable one, so I’ll explore that first. 
               If we’re going to weave the two stories into one, we’ll have to assume that the “lord” in Matthew was a king as Luke explicitly stated, and that the story is a metaphor of the kingdom of Heaven as Matthew explicitly stated.  We could then assume that Jesus was using Herod (who was so cruel to his subjects that they begged Caesar Augustus to remove him) as a metaphor for Himself.  Perhaps then Caesar is a metaphor for God the Father and this is why Jesus was going to a “far country” to receive His kingdom?  Even if you want to assume that the similarities between Luke’s version and the story of Herod are completely incidental, I’m not a fan of this method of interpretation.  I’m going to assume that most of you are, though, and I’ll humor you.  If the lord is a king, then I don’t see this parable as an endorsement of any of our three contestants.  On the contrary, this is an example of an incredibly cruel and oppressive dictatorship, and one in which the only benefit the dictator’s subjects can hope to attain is the approval of their king, with the alternative being execution (Luke 19:27).  This would not be the first time Jesus painted a picture of Himself as a cruel tyrant (Matthew 5:17-48), with the intention of teaching free will (He’s a tyrant to those who choose Him to be but a savior and liberator to those who choose thus), and is not entirely unlikely considering that this was a common theme in most of His parables.  However, with this understanding, there’s just no way to see this as an endorsement of capitalism, socialism or communism.  I guess communism would be the closest given that countries that try to implement it always end up as bureaucratic dictatorships and the dictators are often extremely cruel (Stalin, Mao Tse-tung, and Castro for example).  Since dictatorship is never the goal of communism, however, and we’re only looking at the ideas behind the systems, we can dismiss that fact for now.
I actually like the second way best (call me a heretic if you want to), and will use it for my personal score-card.  I think these stories are too similar to be separate occasions.  They are the same in basic composition and plot, and they are both presented by Jesus just before the Passover preceding His crucifixion.  That said, I’m gonna do what I always do when Luke disagrees with one of the other gospel authors and assume that he was wrong (further heresy, I know).  He wasn’t there, after all, and got his information second hand at best and more likely from other documents (including the gospel of Mark).  It’s possible that Luke or Luke’s source of information for this story made the association between this parable and the story of Herod on their own and it wasn’t really the way Jesus presented it.  Regardless, I’m going to cite the Matthew passage as accurate, in which case the “lord” is apparently a private property owner and businessman.  This would place the story in a distinctly capitalist realm, with a private enterprise having the freedom to make personal profit.  It would also mean that this story is a metaphor for the Kingdom of Heaven and the lord is symbolic of Jesus or God.  That said, is this really an endorsement of capitalism?  Since the owner of all the money is God, we don’t have a case where earthly men own their own wealth.  However, the freedom they have to invest the lord’s wealth and make a profit with it would only be possible in a capitalist economy, so yes, this is an endorsement for capitalism.  Isn’t it strange how our first endorsement for capitalism (Matt. 25:14-30) comes right before the biggest endorsement for socialism (25:31-46)?  Coincidence?  We’ll explore that question later.  But for now, my score card reads: Socialism – 3, Communism – 2, Capitalism – 1. 
I’m only going to touch on the third method of interpretation for this parable briefly since we’ve already established the outcome from the two main interpretations.  If you want to assume that the two passages are describing two separate stories, then you’d have to give Capitalism a point for the Matthew version and no points to anyone for the Luke version.  Again, I don’t think this is the case, but it’s not impossible. 
And last but not least, we have The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard – Matt. 20:1-16
Another case of a private business owner with unfettered power to run his business without any interference from the government (or unions, for that matter).  It’s an example of capitalism in action, and the fact that Jesus clearly designated this as an allegory for the Kingdom of Heaven makes this look like a glowing victory for the capitalists. 
               Even so, I have to say this seems like a weak case for capitalism.  This isn’t a case where Jesus is promoting an economic or political system (or anything else, for that matter).  He’s teaching a heavenly lesson using an earthly example.  Nonetheless, I’ll give the point to capitalism since the reference is there and it’s not shown in a clearly negative light any way. 
By my scorecard, that leaves us with a final score of Socialism – 3, Communism – 2, and Capitalism -2.  Not a blowout, by any means, but capitalism is clearly the loser here and more-so when you consider that socialism and communism are on the same team. 
As I said earlier, this is not an exhaustive list of verses that people will try to use to promote one of our three competing systems, but the others I’ve heard are all pinned to pretty lame arguments and not worth even the brief amount of time it would take to rebut them. 
Now, before I state my third main point, I must reiterate that the little competition we just had was basically about the ideals of socialism, communism and capitalism.  You see, when you try to implement any of these as a government, the picture changes dramatically.  To start with…
3.  Capitalism is not a form of government and cannot possibly be used as a government. 
- Socialism and communism must of necessity be enforced and strictly regulated.  Not so with Capitalism. 
This is the point that changes everything, because, as we’ve already discussed, Jesus often taught his disciples and other listeners to practice those principles upon which socialism and communism are based.  He taught the wealthy to share their riches with the poor and he taught people to work together and live in harmony.  He did not, however, advocate these things as laws to be enforced on anyone.  On the contrary, He constantly admonished people to not judge each other.  “Practice good morals in your own life, but don’t judge others by them” would be a good summary of his teachings. 
This is where both liberals and conservatives come across as hypocrites to me, for liberals are generally repulsed by the idea of imposing morals on others while conservatives seem intensely aroused by the idea.  Understand that by “imposing morals” I’m not talking about laws that protect the people – that’s the purpose of government anyway.  I’m talking about laws that go beyond protecting the people to the point where they restrict people to a particular moral code.  For example, a law restricting someone from driving a vehicle while under the influence of alcohol is keeping streets safe for everyone else.  A law prohibiting alcohol altogether, on the other hand, can be nothing more than an enforcement of a moral code (usually based on the Biblical quote “wine is a mocker”).  The same argument is often made by liberals for things like prostitution and marijuana use – while there should be regulations on them, making them altogether illegal is a moral restriction that is not protecting the people.
In the case of socialism and communism, the principles upon which they are based (charity, brotherly love, unselfishness, etc.) are moral values that, when enforced, become restrictions and I would argue the values are then eliminated altogether – forced charity is not charity and forced love is not love. 
For some reason, liberals and conservatives switch roles when it comes to enforcing these values – liberals suddenly demand that these values be the moral responsibility of the government and conservatives suddenly find such a notion oppressive. 
All that said, if we take a step back from the politics of the situation and try to look at it from a Christian perspective, we must understand that Jesus advocated free will, and while he would teach good morals, he would never teach people to judge others by those morals.  With this new development, I think a quick re-comparison of our three systems is in order. 
This time, I’m going to ask three questions about the systems and compare them based on the answers.
Question 1:  Are the subjects of the country required to participate?
Communism – Completely.  A system in which everyone shares all of their resources isn’t really a system in which everyone shares all of their resources if everyone doesn’t share all of their resources.  (On a side note, this is why countries that profess to be communist are never truly communist.) 
Socialism – Only the wealthy.  If you don’t have any resources to share, that’s cool, you can have some of the rich guy’s.  If you do have resources, you’re damn well gonna share (as you should, according to Jesus). 
Capitalism – Not at all.  If you wanna work hard and make a lot of money, you can, but no one’s forcing you.  If you want to live in the wilderness without any of the luxuries of a comfortable lifestyle, then you have no need of capital and that’s your prerogative. 
Question 2: What if you don’t want to participate?
               Communism – Imprisonment or death.  If you don’t want to participate in the withdrawing of resources from the central store, then you’ll starve to death, because if you get food from anywhere else and don’t put it in the central store you’re breaking the law (by practicing private capitalism) and will be imprisoned.  This is the idea of true communism, which I’ve reiterated enough times never truly exists on a state level. 
               Socialism – If you’re wealthy and don’t want to participate, your wealth will be forfeited to the government, in which case you won’t need to participate any more anyway because the government will just give you stuff from the wealthy guys who are participating. 
               Capitalism – Nothing.  Participation is not required. 
Question 3:   How can the system be abused? 
Communism – People don’t work hard because there’s no incentive to do so, save for patriotism and avoiding government punishment for not participating.  There’s no reward for working harder. 
               In a purely communist community with no one guarding the resources and monitoring how much people put in or take out, someone could take way more than they need, smuggle it out of the community (which would be easy if no one was strictly monitoring imports and exports) and make an easy profit in a capitalist community.  Basically, the capitalist community would grow richer and stronger while the communist community would grow poorer and weaker.  So you see, a communist community is just as susceptible to greedy, selfish people as a capitalist one.  Even worse, in the communist community, unless the government is strictly enforcing who and where everyone works, the guy who takes all the resources could do so without contributing anything at all. 
As you can see, government regulation and monitoring of labor, housing, distribution of food and other amenities must be extremely strict.  This is why state bureaus must be established to oversee and supervise each function of the government, in which case you no longer have communism, but instead a bureaucracy in which the heads of the bureaus determine who benefits the most and least.  Of course it is necessary to have one head bureau to oversee all the other bureaus, i.e. the politburo in the Soviet Union, the Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party in China,  the Council of State in Cuba, etc. (again, none of these countries claim(ed) to be communist, but rather are/were working towards communism).  If the chairman or head of this top bureau has no restraint (as is the case with the three listed examples), then your country is no more than a dictatorship. 
               Under such dictatorships, large scale crimes against humanity have often occurred under the pretext of quelling anti-communist/socialist movements for the greater good.  Examples of this are Stalin’s genocide by way of starving five to eight million Russians who had been deported to Ukraine as punishment for their anti-communism, Mao Tse-tung’s similar starving of twenty to sixty million Chinese during his “Great Leap Forward” campaign (along with murdering countless political opponents), and Fidel Castro’s execution of thousands of his political opponents with or without trial (which pales in comparison to the former two examples for the simple reason that in land mass and population, Cuba pales in comparison to China and the former Soviet Union). 
Socialism – As with communism, strict regulations are necessary to oversee the redistribution of resources and heavy taxing of the upper class and big businesses.  The system also often gives way to the bureau system with the top dog having dictatorial powers and crimes like the ones listed for countries trying to achieve communism occur.  Let’s face it, the three dictatorships I listed under communism aren’t really communist no matter how much they’re trying and they know they’re not – they’re actually socialist.  Adding to those, some countries in the past have combined socialism with nationalism to produce a system called national socialism – ever heard of it? 
Capitalism – Greedy men can build empires of wealth at the expense of the poor and buy out the allegiances of other immoral men in positions of political and judicial power.  Monopolies can choke out small businesses and tycoons can basically reign supreme over entire regions, determining who gets good jobs and good living arrangements and who doesn’t (of course anyone is free to leave these regions whenever they want if they don’t like it, but that doesn’t make everything all right).  People who are most in need of a job can be left without one as they are passed over by others with far less needs but far better qualifications.  On the other hand, people who are in great need of a job and have great qualifications can be passed over by others with less needs and less qualifications but better social connections (of course this one happens just as frequently if not more so under socialism and communism).  Basically, all manner of cruel and immoral actions can occur in a capitalist society, but as we’ve seen, they can occur under socialism and communism as well.  The big difference is that within socialism and communism, they are far more likely to come from the government and on a much wider scale. 
4.  Socialism relies on capitalism and cannot exist without it. 
- You can’t take from the rich and give to the poor if nobody’s rich, and nobody gets rich outside of capital earning ventures, including the chairmen of “communist” politburos.    
               All government programs are funded by one of three methods – taxpayer’s money, revenue generated by government owned and operated enterprises (which is another form of capitalism – bureaucratic capitalism, if you will), or money borrowed from other countries (generally “communist” China these days) or independent corporations (like the Federal Reserve – and yes this is yet another function of capitalism). 
               As you can see, all three of these forms of revenue rely on capitalism.  Let’s face it, you can’t tax people who don’t have money, and you can’t make money with government owned enterprises if nobody has money to spend on them. 
               Capitalism, on the other hand, doesn’t require socialism or communism (obviously).  It requires no form of government or economic regulations at all.  In a community where capital is used (which is every country in the world), capitalism happens naturally unless it is suppressed. 
               As for communism, it does not need either capitalism or socialism either.  In fact, the perfect scenario for communists would be a world without money at all – only the resources necessary for a comfortable and fulfilled life (which is also “capital” by the old definition), owned and shared collectively by the whole community (or whole world, for Trotskyists). 
In conclusion…
               If there’s one thing I think American Christians need to understand outside of the socialism/communism/capitalism discussion, it’s that there is no Christian party in American politics and rightly so.  Growing up in an Independent Fundamental Baptist church, the terms “Republican” and “Christian” were almost interchangeable to me as a child, and I was shocked when I grew up to meet some Christians who professed to be democrats.  As it turns out, my skewed opinions were simply a reflection of how disconnected my independent Baptist community was from the rest of the world.  The truth is, the percentage of professed Christians in the U.S. (estimated between 60 and 80 percent of the total population) who vote republican is almost even with the percentage of those that vote democrat.  In fact, according to the Pew Research Center (pewresearch.org), 45% of Protestants and 53% of Catholics voted for democrats in 2008 as opposed to 44% and 37% respectively who voted for republicans.  Republican popularity has increased across the board since 2008 and the current numbers reflect a slight lead for Republicans in both categories, but certainly nothing substantial. 
               That said, I think more Christians in American than ever before understand that they must decide for themselves what party lines up most with what they believe, not let the party determine what they believe.  And with that in mind, I would urge you all to try to approach each issue without bias and, when possible, without passion. 
If some of you balk at the latter part of that statement, then you are the ones I intend it for the most.  For some reason, many Americans treat passion like Frank’s red hot sauce – they put it on everything.  They perceive passion to be a virtue on par with compassion, wisdom or love; but the truth is, passion is more like faith.  To quote Albert Einstein – “Faith must be based on fact.  Faith in fiction is a damnable false hope”.  Passion can be applied to anything, but should be reserved for the things in life that matter most, and one of those things is life itself.  To put it as concisely as I can, there should be a precious few things in your life that you are willing to give it up for.          
When it comes to political issues, and particularly to the ones I’ve put under scrutiny with this article, conservatives and liberals both seem to take extremely prejudiced approaches and they let their prejudice direct their policies and courses of action.   Conservatives understand that socialism restricts freedom and usually leads to oppressive dictatorships, so they view liberals with socialist ideas (like President Obama) as evil.  This is simply not true and to continue to believe so is a travesty and will be harmful to our country in the long run.  Socialism and socialists are not evil.  Yes, horrendous crimes have happened under the rule of socialist dictators, but crimes against humanity have also occurred in democratic republics like the U.S.A. as well, i.e. the trail of tears, slavery, the conquest of Hawaii and the Mormon extermination order in Missouri.  Incidentally, although no one would ever suggest that the U.S. is a socialist country, in all of these cases except for slavery you had government agencies enforcing oppressive rules passed down from the President and Congress (or governor in Missouri) with the goal of making the country better so they were essentially socialist crimes.   
So, you see, just as capitalism is necessary in every socialist country, socialism occurs on some level in every country in the world including the U.S.  I can’t stand the tactics Michael Moore employs while making his documentaries – stating facts from one side without showing facts from the other side is propaganda – but the omission of important facts does not make the facts given false, and all of Moore’s films do include some truths, just as did Joseph Goebbels’s Triumph of the Will.  One fact from Sicko that American conservatives would be wise to remember when discussing socialism is that we have many socialized institutions in our country i.e. public schools, the postal service, police and fire departments, the military, etc.  These institutions are all necessary and our country is stronger, safer and an all-around better place to live because of them. 
Liberals, on the other hand, must realize the point I’ve made over and over during this article – that capitalism is a necessary component of socialism and is not evil.  Yes, selfishness and greed can thrive in a country with a free market capitalist economy, but they can and do in socialist ones as well.  However, only when people have the freedom to do what they want with their own money and property do true charity and graciousness occur. 
So if you want to promote socialism, do so without hateful rants against capitalism.  Instead, promote equality and the well-being of all.  If, on the other hand, you want to promote capitalism – don’t.  There’s no point.  Capitalism doesn’t need promotion, it happens without anyone’s help.  So promote instead freedom (not just a free market but also a free country) and with it equality. 
Remember also, it’s not impossible for all of the good elements that the three systems are based on to co-exist in society.  Free people certainly can be charitable and unselfish.  There is also such a thing as a mixed economy in which people are free to buy and sell but with certain minor restrictions. 

There is no such thing, however, as a political or economic system that can make you a good person or provide for you that human value that is eternally out of the reach of any political or economic system and beyond scientific comprehension.  If you can remember that you will understand that any political system is dependent upon the people behind it and therefore the old Kennedy adage is true regardless of political affiliation.  What kind of country the United States is depends on what the American people choose it to be.
So, finally, I leave you with a choice.  One verse – two translations.  Apply them as you will – or not. 
I Corinthians 13:3
King James Version - And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.
American Standardized Version - And if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing.