It’s back. Socialism, declared dead and buried in the ash heap of history, is back. Thoroughly discredited by the end of the 20th century, it has returned with fervor. In reality, socialism never died, because it was never merely an economic theory—it was a dogmatic creed. It never went away, and its devotees were just awaiting their opportunity.
“Socialism was the faith in which I was raised,” wrote scholar and professor Joshua Muravchik. “It was my father’s faith, and his father’s before him.” Of course, it is a false faith. Its roots are in Marxism, and Karl Marx hated Christianity even more than he opposed capitalism. Religion, he said, is the “opiate of the people.”
Socialism would prove to be one of the deadliest and most destructive ideologies ever to afflict humanity. It produced poverty, not wealth. It undermined human dignity and destroyed economies. Promising utopia, it delivered disaster. And yet, it is back.
Socialism never produces wealth; it destroys value. True socialism requires state ownership of the means of production, the means of distribution and the assignment of labor. As Iain Murray notes in “The Socialist Temptation,” “There is one single, unifying feature shared by every version of socialism: subjugation of the individual to the collective.” Socialism sacrifices liberty as it promises equality. But that equality never comes. The only winners in a socialist system are the bureaucrats in the vast, all-powerful government that socialism requires.
The Bible reveals several important economic principles. Scripture affirms the dignity of work (Ephesians 4:28) and the fact that those who refuse to work should not eat (2 Thessalonians 3:10). The Bible clearly affirms private property (Exodus 22:7) and condemns theft (Exodus 20:15) and covetousness (Exodus 20:17). Saving (Proverbs 13:22), thrift (Proverbs 21:20), land ownership (Acts 4:34-37) and investment (Matthew 25:27) are all honored in Scripture, and the Bible teaches that the laborer is worthy of his wages (Luke 10:7). Socialism contradicts or subverts every one of these principles.
The father of socialism is Karl Marx, who, along with Friedrich Engels, gave birth to one of the most heinous ideas ever to afflict humanity. Marx and Engels promised a communist revolution that would lead to utopia, with abundance and eternal peace. Instead, where the communists ruled, land was barren, wealth was destroyed, freedom evaporated and death ensued. The total victims of the communist death cult number in the untold millions, stretching from Russia and China to Eastern Europe and Cuba. Murder on a massive scale came in places like the killing fields of Cambodia and the gulags of the Soviet Union. Ideologues like Vladimir Lenin predicted that socialism was just a step on the road to communism.
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