Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - REPLAY: Socialism

Episode Date: January 8, 2020

What is socialism really?

Hey guys, what's up? Welcome to Relatable. I am so excited about today's episode. I have gotten lots of emails, messages, comments over the past year asking me to talk about socialism. We have talked about socialism in the past. And a lot of you who already listen to other political podcasts or you read political books or you've been involved in politics for any amount of time, you probably already

know a lot about socialism and probably know a lot of the things that. that I'm going to cover today. I certainly am not a socialist expert. And then I, you know, I haven't been studying the history of Soviet Russia for the past 13 years of my life or anything like that. But I have been studying this, of course, especially since Bernie Sanders came on the scene.

And it seemed like socialism was going to be the big new thing, especially among our generations. And the fact of the matter is there is, there are a lot of people who follow me and follow this podcast that don't know about socialism and don't know about socialist policies. What's the difference in socialism and welfare? Is there any biblical aspect to socialism that we should be okay with, that we as Christians should get on board with?

These are perfectly wonderful and appropriate questions. It's okay if you don't know everything about socialism. It's okay if you don't know anything about socialism. But at least you've realized if you've messaged me or reached out to me, this is probably something that we need to discuss and that we need to know that. at least in some kind of basic way. And that's what we are going to do today. So you already know how I feel about socialism.

Like I'm not coming at this from an approach of like, I don't really know how I feel about this kind of stuff. You know that I'm anti-socialism. You know that I don't think that socialism is good. Nevertheless, I am going to do my very best to give you only factual information, of course, coupled with my analysis as this podcast always is. And I'm not just going to give you this kind of one-sided story. and not just what I want you to hear.

I'm going to give you the facts. Now, like I said, I already have an opinion about it. You are going to get my analysis throughout this. So don't expect this kind of like middle of the road on maybe socialism is not that bad after all. That's not what this podcast is. So I don't want any reviews from y'all saying, oh, you didn't give socialism a chance. Well, Venezuela gave socialism a chance. And we saw how that turned out.

Okay, first of all, what is socialism? According to Encyclopedia Britannica, socialism is a social and economic doctrine that calls for public rather than private ownership or control of property and natural resources. According to the socialist view, individuals do not live or work in isolation, but live in cooperation with one another. Furthermore, everything that people produce is in some sense a social product and everyone who contributes to the production of good is entitled to a sharing. and society as a whole, therefore, should own or at least control property for the benefit of all of its members. So that's, that's according to Encyclopedia Britannica. So let us break that down. In America, whether you are on the right or the left, we are all more familiar with capitalism because it is the economy that we currently have and that we have had. So I think socialism

is probably easier understood from our perspective through the lens of capitalism. Capitalism believes in private property. In private earnings, you make a profit. You use that profit for the most part to feed yourself, feed your family, a gift of charity. You do with it what you see fit. Of course, you do pay taxes in the capitalist society. But the profit that you earn is for you and you have your own property that you are entitled to. Socialism believes, for the most part, in shared property or collective ownership,

a socialist would say that all work is done for the good of the whole, not just of the individual, not just for the good of your family, not just for the good of a corporation or a business, but for the good of everyone. That's what a socialist would say that they stand for. Now, you might be thinking, well, what is wrong with that? It sounds very generous to me. It sounds really good. Maybe even sounds like the early church a little bit.

Everyone working together in cooperation for the common good. That sounds awesome. Sounds like the opposite of greed. And isn't that what we want, especially as Christians? Don't we want the opposite of greed? Don't we want some kind of generosity among our, communities, but hang on just a second. So here is what the definitions of socialism. If you noticed in the Encyclopedia Britannica, if you noticed in the generous definition of

socialism that I gave you, here is what is missing in the pitches for a socialist economy or a socialist country, the how. How do we go from private ownership, which is what we have now, to public ownership? Or as they say, democratic ownership or collective ownership. Socialists will say that in a socialist society, the people are in charge. There is no real hierarchy. There are no oppressive power systems. The people control. The people are leading. The people are cooperating together to meet the needs of those around them. No one is getting exploited by profit-driven corporations, they would say. But how? Who puts the means of production in the hands of the people?

making sure that they're in the hands of the people rather than what they would say in the hands of these corporations. Who makes sure that this is all democratically owned and collectively owned? What if someone wants to keep her private property? What if I want to keep my private property? What if I want to keep my profits to provide for myself and to provide for my family? Who makes sure that my profits and my property are collectively owned rather than individually owned?

What happens then that's what socialist. don't want to say. That's what they don't want to talk about is the how, how we go from personal private property to collective ownership of the means of production. All of that, the truth is that all of that is impossible without government coercion. If I don't want to give up 95% of my profits or however much it is, if I don't want to give up a private property or private ownership, there has to be an authority to come along and to make me do it. Someone has to take the money that I make and the property that I have away from me, away from my family and force me to give it to the community. But here's the other thing. My money, even if it's given up,

say I want that. Say I want my money to go to the socialist class. I don't get to, I don't get to give my money directly to the people that I want to give it to. I don't get to give my money directly to the causes that I care about. I give it to the government. And so in a socialist society, we're talking to anywhere from 60 to 90% of the paycheck. It just kind of depends, it depends on how much you make. It depends on how much you live and what the policies are. A large majority of my profit, my paycheck is given to the government to redistribute to the country and to the community how the government sees fit. So not how I see fit. So when we hear about socialism meaning generosity, well, you don't see really where that money goes. You don't get to decide where the

money goes. The government decides where the money goes. Socialists, a lot of times you'll hear them decry the evils of corporations, how corporations exploit their employees and corporations are greedy and they're immoral, which we can talk about that as a problem. I do think that that's a problem. We can talk about that. We can work to solve that problem. But the solution to that problem, to the greed of corporations or the exploitation of some corporations, is not shifting power from a corporation, which is an organization that takes your time, your money, and your energy. on a voluntary basis, shifting the power away from them to the government who takes your time, money, and energy away from you on a coercive basis. So at least corporations who you could argue

have too much power, you could argue exploit their employees, you could argue you have too much greed. Well, we can decide whether or not we want to buy from those corporations. We can decide whether or not we want to work for those corporations. We cannot decide in a socialist society whether or not we give our money to the government and whether or not we are under the rule of the government. We just are or else we're considered lawless. And that is exactly why in order to accomplish a socialist society, it takes a strong government to make you hand over your money, your property, your time, your energy, whatever it is in order to cooperate. It all sounds well and good until you ask the how. How does socialism come about?

So I just want to be clear up front that this is not some happy go lucky time where we're all linking arms and saying, yeah, government, take everything that I have and distribute it for the good of those around me without really my saying it. Now, Democratic socialists will say, well, you do have a say in it. But, of course, they also believe in a pure democracy where you have the tyranny of the majority and you have mob rule. And so if someone like me doesn't believe in socialism or giving up my private property, well, the government's going to be. make you do that anyway because the majority ruled against you. Now, of course, this already happens in the sense that I might pay taxes to something that I don't want to pay taxes to. There are plenty of things that my federal tax dollars go to that I don't agree with. But it's a little bit different than a socialist society to where you don't get to keep hardly any of your profits and you don't

keep any of your private property. So like I said, you cannot have socialism without big government. not let them lie to you about that. So when you hear the terms socially controlled or democratically controlled, understand that this means government controlled because you have to ask how things go from privately owned to collectively owned. And authority has to force people to give up their money and their property so that authority can redistribute those resources, how they see fit. If everyone were already giving their money and their property on a voluntary basis, socialism wouldn't be necessary. We wouldn't even be having this conversation. But because human beings have this crazy desire to own property, which we will talk about is a natural

desire, a desire to earn their keep and to keep what they earn, big government is necessary for seizing the means of production and ensuring in theory that everyone is cared for because a lot of people aren't going to voluntarily get on board with this. They don't want to say this because they realize that people don't really like the sound, especially people in the West and in the United States, they don't like the sound of their freedom being trampled on. But socialists, and I think this is an honest way to describe them, socialists see individual freedom as a worthy thing to give up or a worthy exchange for the meeting of the needs of the poor, how they would describe it. That's the transaction that they see happening, that if people simply give up their right

to private ownership or their right to earn a profit and hand these things over to our oh so benevolent bureaucrats that reign above us, these bureaucrats will ensure that everyone is taking care of, that no one is marginalized, that no one is oppressed, no one is trampled on. Socialists see themselves as the enemy to what they call the elite. They typically depict the elite as these rich CEOs who are wielding their wealth to push those to the bottom further down. They don't believe there is any reality, at least any more to the American dream. The idea that someone can go, anyone can go from nothing to something can pull themselves up by the bootstraps, make something of themselves. They believe that for the most part, that the poor are inescapably oppressed by big business,

which of course is silly considering the economic mobility that exists in this country, even for the most poor. But regardless, they don't believe that the free market is truly free, but rather is being manipulated by those with the most money. So they see capitalism as a tool to hurt the poor, not to give, poor people, the ability to lift themselves up. This is why you hear people like Bernie Sanders talking about the 1%, how the 1% is hoarding all of the wealth in this country. You will also hear the term fair share. This is something that we have heard from all the Democratic presidential

candidates so far that the rich need to pay their fair share. Well, what they won't tell you is that the top 50% of earners in this country already account for almost 100% of the tax revenue. The people at the bottom hardly pay anything in taxes, if at all. Some of them make money from the government, which begs the question. What is fair share? They can't really, what is rich? What is fair share? Well, they can't really say. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who of course calls herself a socialist or a democratic socialist, which there's really not much of a difference there. It's just socialism that you choose, has said that 70% would probably be what she picks for the very rich. I think she kind have just said that arbitrarily in her 60 Minutes interview with Anderson Cooper. But who are the very

rich? Well, AOC said in a tweet, only the really rich. She's talking about the really rich. She said like Betsy DeVos rich. That only includes, she said, like, 10 people. No, it doesn't. You realize that the majority of your comrades in Hollywood probably fall into this category, right? So they can't really say what a fair share is, and they can't really say who the really rich are. They don't want to put an exact number on it because they know what's going to change if they actually ever got the power to do this. Because fair and fairness is a very arbitrary term in this sense, unless you mean a truly fair tax, which would mean that everyone gets tax to the same rate, a flat tax rate. In a truly fair system, the wealthy pay still a good deal more.

So if everyone pays, for example, a 10% income tax, the millionaire is obviously going to be paying a lot more amount-wise than the person who makes $25,000 a year. Right now, we have an unfair progressive tax system in which the more you make, the larger percentage you pay in taxes. I don't really understand how that equals the rich paying their fair share. They're already paying not just a more in an amount, which would make sense, but a more percentage. wage-wise than poor people do or than middle-class people do or anyone who is below them. That is inherently unfair. And yet those on the left insist that the rich need to be paying even more. That to them, that would be fair.

I don't know how you decide what is more fair in a progressive tax system. But that is how socialists believe that they will fund socialism by taxing the rich almost in totality. So that will go to pay for everyone's health care, everyone's education, the large government that is necessary to maintain and enforce socialism. Now, what happens, the question is, what happens when there are no more rich people because you've taxed them all into oblivion? They don't have an answer for that. Socialism both demonizes and depends on billionaires. So if you demonize to the rich into non-existence, where do you go for the money that you need to maintain socialism?

That's what Margaret Thatcher said is the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money. That's just common sense. That's just true. You don't create more money. I know a lot of people on the socialist left believe that you just create more money, but that's not how it works. A heavy taxation of the rich to accomplish wealth redistribution to take power out of the hands of the people at the top of the economic food chain is central to socialism. That's what socialism really runs on. And to understand why we, to understand why this is we have to understand something. You cannot separate socialism and social justice.

Social justice today, as we have discussed many times on this podcast, is based on the desire for equal outcomes, not equal opportunity, equal outcomes. So that is what socialists see as true equality. And now this is very different from the equality recognized in, say, the Declaration of Independence, which says all men are created equal and were endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights among them being life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This equal means equal, the one in the declaration means equal in value, equal and worth, equal in

the eyes of the law, equally made in the image of God. Now, it is important to know, it's important to know that this equality of worth recognized in the founding documents has, of course, been demonstrated completely imperfectly throughout America's history when you look at slavery, when you look at Chinese railroads, when you look at Japanese internment camps, Jim Crow, but it's an idea that is correct. It is an idea that will properly recognize legally leads to human flourishing as it recognizes the worth and the potential of the human being. But the equality that socialists believe in is not just equality of worth, though they would probably agree on that. They'd probably say that all people are created equal, but they

believe in equality of outcome. Socialists see any gap in success or any gap in earnings as inherently unjust in a product of an oppressive system. So for example, and this is a lot of people on the left, not just socialists, but they would see the gender wage gap, which has far more to do with choices and what women choose to do with their lives than it does any kind of system whatsoever. They would say, well, that is indicative of some kind of oppression when that's not actually true, but they see any and all gaps as indicative of some kind of oppressive system. Rarely, rarely will you hear a socialist account for individual choices or chance. If one group is on average poorer than another group, it is not because, according to a socialist

of irresponsibility, but because of an unjust system that is keeping them down. So that is always their thought. That's always their go-to. This is why a socialist want to eliminate hierarchy as much as possible, which is why they say they want power in the hands of the people and the hands of democracy and the hands of who they call workers, which is a Marxist term. They believe that heavy taxation, wealth redistribution, the elimination of profit and private property will accomplish that because in order to have equality of outcome, which they believe is perfect social justice accomplished, you have to

take away from the haves and give it to the have not so that everyone has the same amount. Equal mediocrity. They would rather have equal mediocrity than have. these large disparities between some people doing really well and some people not doing well at all. But as we've already discussed, that idea is inherently unjust, the idea of taking almost all of what someone has earned and giving it to those who have not earned it is theft. And the reality is, again, equality of outcome can only be accomplished through severe government regulation to ensure that all those who work harder than those who do and all those who work harder than those who don't work very hard at all, have their profits taken away from them and used to take care

of the people who are not working as effectively and as efficiently as they are. This is one of the ways, this is one of the many ways that socialism does not account for human nature. Humans are naturally competitive. We have this natural bent towards reaping what we sow. This is not a Western social construct. This has been true in every society. throughout all of history, we feel entitled to the fruit of our labor, and we do not take well to people stealing the fruit of our labor, all of it, almost, and giving it to those who did not work for it. Humans and Christians especially have shown a great capacity for voluntary generosity towards those who need it. But whenever our profits and property are confiscated in the

name of forced compassion, which by definition is not compassion at all, we don't react well, which is precisely why, as we'll get to, socialism, has been such a horrific failure every time it has been tried. And yet, this idea of equal outcomes by repressing those who have in favor of those who don't have is the keystone of socialism. And here's why. So socialism, most of you probably know, is the brainchild of Karl Marx. He was a German philosopher in the 19th century. He wrote a book called the Communist Manifesto, which outlined the problems with the bourgeoisie. which is the elite and the evils of capitalism.

This is by far the most praised piece of literature among socialists. So whenever they mock you or scoff at you for comparing socialism to communism or observing that socialism leads to communism, remind them that their favorite political book is literally called the communist manifesto. Okay. So there's really not much of a separation between socialism and communism. socialism is always supposed to lead to communism. If you read any part of the Communist manifesto,

even if you just read some of the quotes online, you will see that this is exactly where the socialists of today, where the Bernie Sanders and the AOCs and even the Elizabeth Warrens of today, are getting their ideas and inspiration. So here's how Karl Marx saw history in his modern world. He says, The history of all hitherto existing society

is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, Lord and Serf, Guildmaster, journeyman and a word oppressor and oppressed stood in constant opposition to one another carried on an uninterrupted now hidden now open fight that each time ended either in the revolutionary reconstitution of society at large or in the common ruin of the contending classes everything in marx's mind was about the oppressor versus the oppressed that's how he saw society organized and he believed that communism would bring it into that he hated capitalism he hated capitalism he hated

trade. He hated private property. He saw all of this as evil as turning men into greedy scrooges who stomped on his fellow man. You can also see if you listen to my, I think it's episode 99, if you listen to that episode about Black Liberation theology, you can see where they get a lot of their ideas. It's from Karl Marx and these collectivist ideologies. Everything in Marx's mind was about this dichotomy. Everything was viewed through the lens of oppression. And this is where, again, we have to note that socialism and today's version of social justice cannot be separated. They go hand in hand. It is all about the elimination of differences between groups by pushing down those whom the left sees as the oppressor

and lifting up the ones the left sees as the oppressed, primarily through an economic system that taxes the wealthy into obscurity, but also through social constructs like, intersectionality that invade our public discourse and the messages that we see in the media, etc. We have discussed this many times, this idea of intersectionality that people are defined by their various intersection points, which are skin color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, etc. And how those points correspond to a particular level of oppression, according to the left.

The more intersection points you have, they say, the more credibility and value that you have. So any opinion that you have or view that you hold is weight against how intersectional you are, too many people on the left. Straight white men, of course, are the least intersectional. Thus, they are the least oppressed. So if a white man is a conservative, for example, it is because he is a straight white man, not because he has those ideas. If a white woman is conservative, it's because she is white, not because she really has

those ideas. Oh, and also because she's a woman who is a conservative, it's probably also because she is oppressed and brainwashed by the patriarchy. Same goes for black conservatives, for immigrant conservatives, for Muslim conservatives. It's because they say you have been oppressed and so you have been brainwashed by white people,

not because you think your own thoughts or have your own values, because if you really thought for yourself, they would say you would be a socialist and a communist. Because these people believe that it is not conservative versus liberal, just like Carl Mark, they believe that it is the oppressed versus the oppressor. They see anyone who disagrees with them as as on the side of the oppressor. So it doesn't make sense to them when someone who is black or someone who is gay or someone who is an immigrant or someone who is Muslim would be on the conservative side would be

against them. They see those people as on the side of the oppressor and the only reason an oppressed person in their mind would be on the side of the oppressor is if they are brainwashed. And so that's why they just can't deal with people who are minority. who don't agree with them. People like me are, you know, a white person, a white woman, a white man, they can just brush off as just being racist of just being as a part of the, of oppressive white supremacy. That's why they disagree with them. So they don't actually have to contend with any ideas. And you see that a lot in our debates and our discussions today. Just like Karl Marx, they believe that the only way for the oppressed to be free is through

socialism and or communism. So if you're against socialism, then again, you are on the side of those who want to oppress people. So how do they decide, you ask, who is being oppressed? Typically, in a very superficial way, who has been the most poor and or who has been the most discriminated against? And I say and or because this is complicated. On the intersectionality scale, if you haven't noticed, everything is extremely subjective because it's not just who has been the most discriminated against.

For example, the Jewish people have been discriminated against and marginalized and brutalized throughout history, and the left does not have a high view of Jews. You'll notice they really only care about violence against Jews when it's done at the hands of a white supremacist. If it's a Palestinian terror group like Kamas, they don't really have anything to say about it. And in fact, they're going to stand up for Palestine. That's because, to the left, Jews rank lower the non-Jewish white people.

even though Jews rank lower than non-Jewish white people on the intersectionality scale, they still rank higher than Muslims in Palestine. Why? Because traditionally, the Jewish people have been successful. They have pulled themselves up by their bootstraps. They have in general been well-educated. They have been financially successful. They have refused to bow down to victimhood. So even though they have been traditionally oppressed throughout history, to the intersectional and even socialist left, they are not given as much credit. They are not given as much compassion and as much sympathy as Muslims because Jewish people, probably to a lot of people on the left, are just too white.

They are just too successful to have a lot of compassion for, which is why they always will go against Jews if it's Jews versus Muslims, but not a Jew versus Christian white person. It's just crazy. It's really hard to grapple with, but once you realize that this is how they think, a lot of the things that they say and do make a lot of sense, or they don't make a lot of sense, but at least you know where they're coming from. So American leftists who buy into this oppressed versus oppressor dynamic claim to be woke, but the reality is they actually see things through a very narrow Western lens. They look exclusively really on how groups have fared in the United States. States, not on a global scale. So, for example, they count Christians as privileged in America as

mostly whites, when the reality is Christians are persecuted far more than any other religious group in the world, and most Christians are not whites. And Christianity did not start in the West. It most certainly did not start in the United States. But this, again, reflects the ideology of Karl Marx. He hated Christianity. He called Jews hucksters. He really actually loathed most religions, but primarily loathed any group that he saw as an oppressor. When you realize that this is how that a lot of these leftists, not all, but a lot of these leftists see the world stemming from Carl Marx and his collaborator, Friedrich Engels, a lot of what they do, like I said, it doesn't make sense, but it does.

Everything is viewed and not through the lens of what is true and what is not, but what group is this person a part of and how oppressed have they been? and that's how I'm going to figure out who is to blame or how much sympathy or credit to give. That is why anyone, when anyone criticizes, for example, Ilhan Omar for saying that Israel has hypnotized to the world or that Republicans only support for Israel is because of the Benjamins or that APEC is controlling Republican politicians or for sympathizing with and defending men from Minnesota who tried to join ISIS or defending Hamas or trivializing 9-11, if we criticize her, for any of this stuff, it's because we are Islamophobic.

So if we criticize a Muslim person for saying something derogatory towards Jewish people, it is because we are Islamophobic, not because they are anti-Semitic. Why? Because of this crazy intersectionality scale and who they see is more oppressed and more privileged. So if you criticize Rashida Talib for saying that she feels a calming feeling when she thinks about the Holocaust because of her erroneous belief that Palestinians were the savior of the Jewish people rather than aiding and abetting Nazis, it's because you're an Islamophop, not because her comments were ridiculous and anti-Semitic.

If you criticize AOC for the mini, many, uneducated comments that she has made, it's because you are a racist, sexist, and you hate women of color. That's why. It's not because she has anything wrong to say. This is also why personal responsibility is really not something that's ever going to be emphasized by the socialist left because every group who has not succeeded is seen as systemically oppressed, not irresponsible, as we've already covered. So now we see how this social aspect of socialism really goes hand in hand with the economic

aspect of socialism. Socialism sees poverty as never, never the fault of people who are poor, but a consequence of oppression from the people at the top, which is why they think it necessary to take the power and the wealth and the property of the haves and handed to the have-nots. So they do not see someone, for example, like my parents, who, uh, were raised poor, who were very poor when they got married, had to work themselves through college, had to really pull themselves up and to make it work, and who couldn't even afford a new pair of shoes when they first got married for my dad to wear to work. They don't see a story like that. And then my dad, you know, both of them becoming successful entrepreneurs and being able to make a

good life for my brothers and me, they don't see that as a story of personal responsibility. They see that as a story of privilege. They see that as a story of benefiting from certain systems. that are kinder to white people than to people who are in other groups. They don't see that as the consequence of choices. They see that as the consequence of a system. And the same thing goes with poverty. Now we do know, just from a logical experiential perspective, like we do understand that bad luck happens or maybe not luck from a theological term,

but bad things happen, bad circumstances happen that are outside of people's control. Not everyone who is poor, it hasn't always been a product of bad choices, sometimes you are born into extremely unfortunate circumstances in which you could not crawl out of because you were 14 years old and you were left without parents, whatever it is, not everyone who is poor is a product of bad choices, or is a product of your own bad choices anyway, and not everyone who is rich has had to go for nothing to something. We know that that's true. There is chance.

There are circumstances that people are born into that are inherently more privileged than the circumstances that other people are born into. that of course is true. But the socialist doesn't take that kind of nuanced look. They see every kind of discrepancy, not as a consequence of choices, but as a consequence of some kind of systemic oppression, which is why they justify saying, well, the government's got to step in and do something about this to make sure that all outcomes are equal because anyone at the top has exploited people at the bottom to get there. When, of course, that is not always true. So let us talk about a little bit more about the background of socialism.

There are two main branches of thought within the socialist ideology. First is the belief that everything except personal items, such as clothing, should be public property. So an example of this would be that of Sir Thomas Moore writing in 1516 Utopia. Other socialists would believe that the only way that society is supposed to control the economy is through property and other resources. So maybe not quite as extreme. In this case, centralists in socialism would say,

that the state should be a central authority, but it should be in control of the resources of that specific society. This was the case in the Soviet Union. And then you have people in the more decentralized camp of socialism that believe that these decisions should be made at the lowest possible level of government. So state or local, ultimately these decisions would be made by a populist decision. So that's what one side of this of the socialist spectrum believes. but it's important to note that this kind of revolution or transition would still take a powerful central government to force it to make it happen, even if it were to be more of a populist socialist movement, which is part of why socialism has never really worked long term.

Marxism, Leninism tried in the Soviet Union but failed. People were starving, were persecuted, were oppressed by the tyranny of the Soviet government. India tried state socialism as well as Sweden with democratic socialism. and in Germany we all know how national socialism went with the Nazi movement. Of course, you probably know Nazi stands for national socialist. The Chinese have employed communism and still employs communism today. North Korea is a socialist regime, and I think we can deduce how that's working out for people who have died from parasites after being forced to use human manure to fertilize their crops. Venezuela has been under socialist rule, and people are, of course, as you probably know,

dying of hunger and are still fighting to officially get out from under Maduro's tyrannical rule. Socialism has had loud dissidents over the years who have pushed back against the tyranny of socialism. So you've got Hungary, Hungary, you've got Czechoslovakia, you've got Poland, you have China, you have Cuba. That is why many countries who tried socialism realized that they had to adopt at least characteristics of capitalism in order to survive or characteristics. of the free market to survive as socialism in Sweden failed. So now they have a welfare state that A has a fair flat tax rate of 60% and B is funded by the free market. So everyone is taxed at a high flat rate. They get free health care.

They get free education. But there is a low corporate tax rate so that businesses and individuals are still able to make a significant profit. In fact, the leaders of the Scandinavian countries have publicly corrected. Bernie Sanders, who claimed that they are socialist countries. They've said, no, we're actually not socialist country. So the means of production in these Scandinavian countries are mostly in the hands of the citizens and the businesses that they work for. Denmark, for example, doesn't even have a minimum wage law.

They are consistently ranked as one of the top free market economies in the world. So these Scandinavian countries are not socialist. And even in using the free market, but having a welfare state, lot of these countries are still under significant pressure. A lot of people say that even where they are using the free market, but taxing people so high and providing for so many people who are dependent on the state, millions of people who are dependent on the federal government, that it's not going to last very long, that it's eventually going to crash and burn. So even that, they're not a socialist state, but their welfare state, even that probably won't last forever. China also realized that

they weren't going to become an economic superpower without capitalism. That's why they have special economic zones. These are zones where foreign and domestic trade and investments are done without interference from the central government. They offer tax and business incentives to attract foreign investment in technology. There was even an attempt kind of at socialism in the 19th century. There was an English philanthropist named Robert Owen who launched a new harmony on the banks of the Wobosch River in Indiana not too long after the experiment. Harmony collapsed. And Owen went home. So it doesn't have a great track record. Socialism, bottom line, it just doesn't work. Now, if you talk to a socialist, they'll say it's never truly been tried. Or they will say that while it's

happening in the Scandinavian countries, well, one, socialism has been tried many times and it has failed. And socialism does not characterize the Scandinavian countries. Like I said, they are welfare seat. So let's discuss the difference in welfare and socialism. So the idea of welfare existed long before the idea of socialism. In 1601, the Parliament of England enacted something called the Elizabethan poor law of 1601. It authorized government provision for the poor, residing in local parishes, established a system of obligatory financing outside the church. Early America instilled this kind of principle as well. There was a form of welfare set up only for those who were young and vulnerable or old and vulnerable or who were disabled, no able-bodied person qualified for public

assistance during this time. There was a big shift in welfare during the Great Depression. FDR implemented his new deal, which were, of course, a set of economic programs meant to provide relief for families who were hit hard by the Depression. In 1935, the Social Security Act established a national system of old age insurance for retired workers, benefits for victims of industrial accidents, unemployment insurance, aid for dependent mothers and children, the blind, the physically handicapped. And then you probably know about the 1960s when LBJ launched the Great Society. This had an aim to eliminate poverty and also racial injustice. And during this period, new spinning programs were launched that also addressed education,

medical care, urban problems, rural poverty and transportation, Medicare and Medicaid were products of this time. The Great Society really looked to expand FDFDFDF. our new deal, but the new deal was in response to a severe economic crisis. And so the great society was something different. The great society occurred when the American economy was actually booming. Everything was growing and flourishing due to what, by the way, due to Kennedy's tax cuts, which slashed the top marginal tax rate by 20%. This resulted in the G&P rising, the unemployment rate falling dramatically and the average income increasing. So that was from the tax cuts. Just want to make that

clear. This was an effort to end poverty, to end injustice. But even if the intentions were good, the results were not very good. So since then, we have spent over $20 trillion dollars on these entitlement programs. So even if you spend a million dollars a day for 2,000 years, you still wouldn't be out of $20 trillion. That is how much money that is. We have spent more than $20 trillion on welfare programs that were originally meant to create a level playing field and ensure people had opportunity, but it didn't really solve anything. It didn't actually change the poverty rate. It didn't stop disparity.

And many of these programs just kept growing. In 2016 alone, we spent $2.7 trillion on various welfare systems. These specifically include Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, unemployment compensation, and veterans benefits. according to Pugh, more than two-thirds of our yearly spending goes to welfare or entitlement programs. That's in comparison to 15.3% of total spending for national defense, net spending to government debts, 6.1% and education aid at 3%. That means that around 6% goes towards things like infrastructure, national parks, foreign aid, and various other items. So that's a large portion

of our tax money. Now, all of this, welfare, like I said, different than socialism, but certainly over the past half century a little bit more than that has primed the pump for socialism. Economically, people have come to expect to be taking care of. From the Great Depression to now, welfare has gone from relief to people who absolutely need it, who are getting back on their feet, to entitlement, whether or not you're going to work ever. people feel entitled to their social security, to their Medicare, to their Medicaid, to their unemployment benefits. And in many cases, it's more lucrative not to work than to work because of just how much the government will take care of you. So Bernie Sanders being able to run and

almost win the Democratic nomination in 2016 tells you just how far we have come and just how far we have shifted, really just within the past 10 years even. Welfare wasn't thought. of as socialism originally because in the case of the New Deal, it was a desperate measure called for by a desperate time. And it was meant to help people who were trying to work in the case of the Great Society welfare was fueled by American wealth by that hard work. But socialism and how we view welfare today negates the need for individualism. It negates the need for entrepreneurship for hard work because everyone is going to be taking care of no matter what. That was never the intention of the American Welfare Program. But it has been the unintended consequence

of thinking people can be freed from oppression and freed from poverty by just giving them more money without really any expectations. But it wasn't just economic. They weren't just economic policies like the welfare programs that made the way for the popularity of socialism. Because remember, a major part of socialism is its social aspect, is social justice. And this idea of justice, this desire for equal outcomes across socioeconomic classes, races, genders, was championed by none other than Barack Obama. We saw this in his domestic dealings as he pitted all white cops against all black kids as he belittled business owners by insisting that they didn't build what they had when he demonized the wealthy by saying that at some point you just got enough money

by targeting Christian conservatives using the IRS. We saw this in his foreign dealings, his well, known apology tour for how American strength he purported has negatively manifested itself throughout the world. Barack Obama's worldview is that of the oppressed versus the oppressor. And those who have in the leftist mindset been the subject of oppression need to be lifted up. Those who have traditionally been oppressed need to be brought low. And we know that some of his mentors were affected by, well, I don't really want to go throughout this whole linear edge because it's the long story. So if you listen to episode 99, you will also see how Barack Obama was affected by Marxism as well. He demonstrated this through the vehicle of identity politics, which says

that if you are this race, you have to vote this way or believe this. If you are that gender, you have to vote that way or believe that. This creates tribalism, which stokes resentment, all of which is fueled by intersectionality, which all come part and parcel with socialism, as we see in the work of Karl Marx. It is all about putting the perceived oppressed versus the perceived oppressor. During Barack Obama's presidency, we see in a 2017 Pew Research Study called polarization in politics that Republicans and Democrats became more divided than they've ever been, with Democrats moving to the left on almost every issue for racism to immigration,

to welfare, and Republicans' views changing much less. As of 2017, there were fewer people. in the middle than had ever been a dramatic shift away from the middle and especially to the far left came while Barack Obama was in office. This study was in 2017. You could not blame this on Donald Trump. I'm not saying Donald Trump is the great reconciler, but you cannot blame the level of division that we have and that we have had for the past few years on Donald Trump. This started happening for the most part under Barack Obama. Yes, there was always division. We always had division in our country. I mean, we fought a war, North versus the South. There was a lot of division in the 1960s, but the modern division, the

division that we now have began cultivating and really festering under Barack Obama. Leftist economic policies that have lingered for at least the past half century coupled with the social shift to the left over the last at least two decades has created the climate for the embracing of socialism in the United States, especially among young people, who just don't know better and quite frankly, are fed this postmodern garbage from their professors. More millennials and Generation Z identify as socialist or at least view socialism positively than any other generation. More millennials voted for Bernie Sanders in the 2016 primaries than voted for Trump

or Clinton combined. Most millennials, quite frankly, I think I just said quite frankly. I just said it again. Don't know what socialism is. what they usually mean is that they want more welfare. They think they want to be more like the Scandinavian countries, but they have no idea what the difference is between the free market and the free market economy

with a high tax rate and a free healthcare system and that and socialism. So if we tried to make our economy function the way Scandinavian countries do, most of those on the socialist left would freak out. Like if we implemented a flat tax rate, if we eliminated the minimum wage laws the way that they have in Denmark, they would say that's absolutely heartless. They wouldn't let us do that. Also, if we cracked down on immigration the way

that these Scandinavian countries do, if we encouraged a sense of nationalist pride the way that they do, they would be against it. So I don't think that they really want to be like Scandinavia, these people who say the Scandinavian countries are these beacons of socialism. So really, I think that a lot of millennials who say that they want socialism don't really know what they want. They think that these offers by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren for free health care, for free college. Of course, that affects the younger generations more than millennials. They say, yes, that sounds fair. That sounds good. Let's get that 1%. Let's stick it to the man and get his stuff. What they don't realize is that Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are both part of the 1%.

They spent so much time demonizing the 1%. They are a part of the 1%. You would think that Bernie Sanders would be able to give up at least two of his three houses or one of his three houses and give a little bit more to the government than what he does right now or give a little bit more to charity than he does right now if he really thought the 1% was so evil. No one's forcing him to be in the 1%. He can give away enough money so that he's no longer in it. But of course, they want socialism for thee, but not for me or socialism for the, but not for them. same goes for AOC, of course, who, though she in many ways embodies the American dream going from being a bartender to a congresswoman in the matter of a couple years, she doesn't think the other people can make it like she does. She doesn't think that other people can make the same choices that she has.

And in fact, if you look at AOC's Green New Deal, it's clear that she doesn't think anyone should have to take responsibility. Her deal promises economic security for those who are unable or unwilling to work. And that's another key part of socialism, one that is unfortunately really attractive to a lot of young people, the belief that there is no inherent morality or value in you working. You should not be forced to work if you don't want to. That is why many on the side of the left are pushing this universal basic income and are pushing for programs that would totally take care of all of your needs. You should be provided for whether you work or not. That, of course, is the goal of socialism to force people into equal mediocrity and allow the government to take care of you. Remember that the government does not give you provision without taking freedom in return. So the more provision the government gives, the bigger it gets and the less free all of us are, which explains the revolutions that happen consistently against socialism, unlike the one going on right now in Venezuela. So I know this is a long podcast. We're almost done. As Christians, how should we think of this?

there are a lot of people who say, I've seen a lot of people say this on Twitter, that the early church embraced socialism. No, the early church did not embrace socialism. The early church is described in Acts 2, engaged in voluntary distribution of their goods, to meet the needs of their community. Their giving was out of a willing, cheerful heart, which the Bible says is the only kind of giving that God loves. This was not forced redistribution. This was charity. And it was given to meet the needs of their own community, emphasis on needs and their own community. So they weren't helping those who just didn't want to work. They weren't helping those who were unwilling to work. They were helping those who needed it in their local church out of the love of Christ,

which compelled them to such kindness. This kind of love must be uncoerced, especially. It shouldn't be coerced by bureaucrats who don't have the needs of the church in mind at all, usually by bureaucrats who don't even see the need to protect the vulnerable like unborn babies. They are not to be the stewards of all of our money. This does not mean, of course, that we don't pay taxes. We do. The Bible says, render to Caesar, what is Caesar? But what follows that? We render to God, what is God? So render to Caesar, what is? So render to Caesar? What is? Caesar's and render to gods, what is gods? To God belongs our full generosity. To God belongs our profit and our property. Also, rendering to Caesar what is Caesar's is not approval of tyranny.

We should ask the question, what is Caesar's? What should be Caesar's? And in a Democratic Republic in which we now live, we have a say in what should be Caesar's and what should not be Caesar's and we should, uh, we should not say we would be stupid to say that the majority of our profits and our property belongs to Caesar. Why? Because Caesar is not a good steward of our money and Caesar is not a good caretaker of our people. Uh, look no further than the VA for that. I'm just going to say when I was saying that little monologue just then, I reminded myself of Gretchen Wieners from Mean Girls when she goes off about Caesar. I won't get into that. Some of you maybe not even, you might not even get that reference. Anyway, so the Bible speaks to the legitimacy of private property as early as

the Ten Commandments through thou shall not steal and thou shall not covet. You shall not steal because what someone else has is not yours. And you should not covet because what someone else has isn't supposed to be yours and even wanting it to be yours according to God is a sin. So the Bible legitimizes private property early on. The Bible also makes clear in the creation account that work is expected of and necessary for the flourishing of the individual. Work existed before the fall, before sin entered the world. It was not a consequence of the fall. I think a lot of people think that work was a consequence of the fall. It was not in a sinless world before the fruit was tasted, the forbidden fruit, before Adam and Eve hid themselves from God, Adam was given

a job. He was given responsibility. Work is inherently good. It is inherently moral. That is precisely why when people do not work, they become purposeless, they become despondent, often depressed, and suicidal. Their mind and their character atrophies. This is part of why unlimited welfare is immoral and unbiblical. That is part of why socialism is immoral and unbiblical. So here's a really good quote from John Piper on socialism that I think sums this all up. Socialism borrows the compassionate aims of Christianity and meeting people's needs while rejecting the Christian expectation that this compassion not be forced or coerced. Socialism, therefore, gets his attractiveness at certain points in history where people are drawn to the entitlements that socialism brings and where people are ignorant or

forgetful of the coercion and the force required to implement it, and whether or not that coercion might in fact backfire and result in greater poverty or drab uniformity or worse. The abuse of the coercion, as we saw in the murderous states like USSR and Cambodia. So I think that he summarizes the problems with socialism from a Christian perspective, from a biblical perspective really well. So to conclude all of this, a socialism is at best a well-intention ideology aimed at economic and social equality. And at worst, which is the only end of the spectrum that we've actually seen manifested throughout history. And in the modern day is a coercive,

unjust and unbiblical system that disincentivizes work, eliminates generosity, and controls every aspect of the populace. And it is the exact opposite of what needs to happen in the United States. Every aspect of your life will be controlled. If you think free speech, if you think freedom of religious expression, if you think the sanctity of life, if you think any of the rights that are recognized in the Bill of Rights, in the Constitution, if you think any of those are protected in a socialist society, you are crazy. When we give the government the full power to take care of us, we also give the government full authority to take over our lives.

And that's exactly what happens in a socialist society. Do you think Christians, do you think the church is going to fare well in a socialist society, while, of course, the gospel is going to thrive no matter what. The true church thrives on the margins. It's going to be okay when we are persecuted. But do you actually think that that's better for the least of these? Do you actually think that it's better for your community to be completely controlled and coerced by a central government through socialism in the name of forced compassion, which, as I've already said in this podcast, by definition, is not compassion at all? Remember, we are the last hope. And as we are the last hope, and as

Ronald Reagan said, we are always one generation away from eliminating liberty. That's a paraphrase. We are always one generation away from giving up our freedom. Socialism might be attracted to a bunch of lazy people. And I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, maybe some empathetic people too, but it doesn't work. It leads to suffering. It leads to mediocrity.

And it is not the future I want or you should want for your children. So like I said, this is not going to be an unbiased podcast episode. I have quite a few thoughts about socialism, but I hope you learn something. If you have any thoughts you would like to send me, please feel free to email me. Leave me a five-star review. If you like my podcast, subscribe on YouTube and on social media, if you so desire. And I will see you soon.