The False Hope of Socialism

Once upon a time, decades ago, I fancied myself a democratic socialist. I had recently become aware of those passages in the Bible commanding the Israelites to care for the poor and to defend them from those who would oppress them. I read in Leviticus (chapter 25) about the year of jubilee, a kind of primitive bankruptcy protection law that would prevent debts from accumulating endlessly and returned land to its original owners periodically. I was impressed by the law reserving the edges of cultivated property for the poor (Leviticus 19:9-10), and that prohibiting imposing interest on money lent to the poor (25:35-38). I marvelled at how these commands to defend the poor were reiterated in the Psalms (e.g., 72, 82) and the Prophets (e.g., Isaiah 1:16-17, 10:1-2; Amos 5:24; Micah 6:8). Based on these and other passages, I came to the conclusion that the Bible favours democratic socialism, and I happily wore this label. For about six months, that is.

I thought of my own youthful pilgrimage when I read this short piece from the Sojourners website: The Biblical Values of Ocasio-Cortez’s Democratic Socialism, written by Oberty M. Hendricks, Jr. As Hendricks sees it,

Virtually from the day she assumed office, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and her avowed democratic socialism have been under attack. Much of the condemnation is from the same crowd that so vigorously insists that America is and always has been a “Christian nation.” This is quite ironic, because democratic socialism and the Bible share a strikingly similar vision of what constitutes a fair and just society. Capitalism, however, does not share that vision.

The Bible and democratic socialism preach that governments should enact policies that address the needs of the poor, provide equal access to opportunity, and legislate policies that curb inequity. Both believe that any government that ignores the interests of the poor is an unjust government in need of correction. As [Martin Luther] King put it, “The curse of poverty has no justification in our age. It is socially as cruel and blind as the practice of cannibalism …”

After citing Psalm 72:1-2, 4, Hendricks proceeds to list policies championed alike by democratic socialists and the Bible: universal healthcare, a fair wage, universal minimum income and fair treatment of workers.

Don’t get me wrong. I do believe that governments should be pursuing policies that help to smooth the rough edges of the marketplace. I applaud those whose concerns for the downtrodden move them to act politically. Government legitimately plays a modest redistributive role within a political community. But Hendricks’ argument is unpersuasive for three reasons.

First, virtually anyone can make the same move with respect to any ideological vision. The Bible appears to defend private property, instructing the people of God not to steal what is not theirs. Ezekiel 18 seems to suggest individual rather than corporate responsibility for sins committed. Paul the Apostle affirms freedom in Christ in his letters, and Jesus himself promises that “the truth will make you free” (John 8:32). The Bible is a book about freedom. Liberalism is all about freedom as well. Therefore, we should all embrace liberalism, right? And what about nationalism? And anarchism? As long as people are seeking justice, however distorted the lens through which they see, there will be something positive to be found in every ideological vision.

But that’s a superficial way of assessing these visions. If we look only at their discrete policy proposals, which may or may not be worthy of support, we will miss their deeper spiritual roots and risk inadvertently embracing something detrimental to the common weal as well as to our own faith. Furthermore, it will leave Christians with what James W. Skillen has memorably described as a scattered voice in the public square.

Second, Hendricks sees socialism as a political and economic system on par with capitalism. These are apparently the two alternatives between which we must choose. But this is seriously to misread what socialism is all about. As an ideology, socialism is rooted in a specific story of salvation parallel to the biblical redemptive narrative. According to this story, we are saved by consolidating the various forms of property ownership into a single communal form, which generally implies state control. Socialists generally fail to recognize that, in an ordinary society characterized by what I like to call the pluriformity of authorities, the subjects of ownership properly range from individuals to a huge variety of corporate entities, including families, businesses, schools, universities, labour unions, museums and church congregations, in addition to the state. In other words, we already enjoy communal ownership of property, which might be said to make all of us socialists in some sense. But the true socialist is generally offended by this variety, viewing it as an obstacle to achieving a more egalitarian society or, in the case of Marx and his followers, the eschatological classless society.

Along with the argument for socialism comes a wholesale rejection of capitalism, which once more is seen to be a political and economic system to be pragmatically assessed by how well it performs economically. There is much to be said about capitalism, but here we need only point out that in some circles it has come to take on the character of a “cuss word” while others (e.g., Michael Novak) identify it with an entire society in all its complexity. I myself have tended to use the term to describe the economic side of liberalism in which adherents attempt to reduce the complexity of society, including basic institutions such as marriage, family, institutional church and state, to voluntary exchanges in the marketplace. Yet for the most part, I tend to avoid the word, because it has taken on the character of a scapegoat on which we can heap blame for myriad social ills. Hendricks conforms to this pattern.

Third, Hendricks draws too easy a connection between the Bible and socialism, ignoring the historical reality that much of what has gone by the socialist label has been hostile to the Christian faith. Certainly, there have been the likes of James Kier Hardie (1856-1915), a founder of Britain’s Labour Party, and Tommy Douglas (1904-1986), the Baptist minister who was the first national leader of Canada’s New Democratic Party. More typical has been the influence of Marxists and freethinkers who trust that their proposed reforms will usher in a golden age of equality. Much worse, of course, were the purveyors of the vision who willingly sacrificed scores of millions of lives in an horrific attempt to construct what they thought would be a better society.

It is true, of course, that the mild forms of socialism found in the Nordic and Low Countries cannot be made to shoulder the blame for the crimes of Josef Stalin or Mao Zedong. Swedish socialists will not be committing genocide any time soon. Nevertheless, it is no secret that these very countries have been thoroughly secularized over the past century, with socialists at the forefront of this process. Last year Sweden’s Social Democrats promised to ban most religious schools in an effort to end gender segregation in, especially Muslim schools. Those seeking equality as an overriding policy goal do not easily tolerate communities whose traditions may be less egalitarian than they would like. Even in the United States, the recent spike in support for socialism among millennials has been accompanied by increasing public doubts about religious freedom, often enclosed in scare quotes in the popular media. Clearly, professed socialists are willing to tolerate the traditional faiths only as long as adherents do not advance principles in conflict with socialist goals.

But this is true of the ideologies in general. Christians may naturally find much to support in the proposals of liberals, socialists, nationalists, and others. We may find co-belligerents among the followers of more than one such vision. But to call oneself a liberal, a socialist or a nationalist in an unqualified way can only be done by bypassing the deep-level spiritual discernment to which the Scriptures call us (1 John 4:1-6) and by pretending that we can serve two masters. I applaud Hendricks for championing the cause of the poor, but even the pursuit of legitimate goals ought not to blind us to the redemptive story underpinning a particular ideological vision.