In Parts I and II we have examined capitalism and socialism’s definitions and the battle of words and worldviews surrounding the adversaries. In Part III we shall look at the heart of the conflict that ultimately revolves around the status of private property and personal income.

The imposition of income equality inevitably leads to loss of property rights and loss of freedom. Therefore, to understand the demands for income equality in light of these losses, we first must contrast the status of private property in socialistic and capitalistic societies. In Part I we learned that communists consider private property as theft. Specifically, Marx and Engels’ Communist Manifesto written in 1848 states: “The theory of Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: The abolition of private property.” [Schmidt, p. 203.] The opposing views of property and private income are well illustrated by the words of several Founders.

The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as scared as the laws of God, and there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. Property must be secured or liberty cannot exist. [John Adams quoted by Skousen, p. 174.]

Government is instituted to protect property of every sort…[It] is not a just government where the property which a man has in his personal safety and personal liberty is violated by arbitrary seizures of one class of citizens for the service of the rest. [James Madison quoted by Skousen, p. 175.]

The man who truly understands the political economy best…will be least likely to resort to oppressive expedients, or to sacrifice any particular class of citizens to the procurement of revenue. It might be demonstrated that the most productive system of finance will always be the least burdensome. [Alexander Hamilton in the Federalist Papers regarding taxation, Rossiter, pp. 212-213.]

Three-quarters of a century later, President Abraham Lincoln confirmed the beliefs of the Founders when he spoke to the New York Workingmen’s Democratic Republican Association regarding property, wealth, and the wealthy.

Property is the fruit of labor. Property is desirable, is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence…I take it that it is best for all to leave each man free to acquire property as fast as he can. Some will get wealthy. I don’t believe in a law to prevent a man from getting rich; it would do more harm than good. [Skousen, p. 173.]

How is it that the socialistic quest for income equality has risen to new heights of power and respectability in American society given the opposing beliefs of the Founders and most Americans to the mid-twentieth century? The answer has its roots in a new interpretation of the general welfare provision of the Constitution’s Article I, Section 8, which states that, “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imports and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States…” Some at the time of its writing interpreted this clause as granting to Congress broad powers that exceeded those powers specifically enumerated in the Constitution. But James Madison, one of the Constitution’s drafters and regarded as the father of the Constitution, did not agree with the more liberal interpretation and claimed that such a reading was inconsistent with the concept of limited government. Additionally, imputing broad powers to the general welfare provision renders the enumerated powers redundant. [Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. History.] However, the Supreme Court in 1936 dramatically distorted the interpretation of the clause that was held for 150 years. Unleashed by the new meaning, Congress was permitted to distribute “…federal bounties as a demonstration of ‘concern’ for the poor and needy.” [Skousen, p. 175.]

It was relatively easy for liberals in and out of government to portray their “concern” for the poor and needy as a matter of justice. The pursuit of the humanistic definition of justice began in the 1970s with American academics that broke with previous political philosophers from the ancient Greeks to the American Founding fathers with regard to the purpose of the state. The academics now argue that the fundamental task of the state is to end inequality which rests on the core belief that inequality is intrinsically bad and even intolerable and that government should do something about it. [Ryan, p. 76.]

This Enlightenment concept of human equality flows from the humanistic assumption of the perfectibility of man. Under this concept, what men are comes from experience. Therefore, men are equal at birth, and differences and inequalities arise due to environment. The goal of humanists was to achieve an egalitarian society (and thus eliminate inequalities due to environment) through political means in which man, achieving perfect equality in their political rights, would at the same time be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions, and their passions. When humanists failed to achieve equality of outcome through political equality, the levelers demanded economic democracy, a new and expanded humanist definition of equality. However, economic democracy still means an equality of condition as opposed to equality of opportunity and is to be achieved through recognition of invented or synthetic rights coupled with broad but non-specific egalitarian ideals. However, as society is leveled with guarantees of certain outcomes to its citizens, political equality suffers. [Johnson, p. 395.]

In order for government to accomplish its newly defined purpose of eliminating all inequality, it is necessary to impose a socialistic system. Therefore, capitalism had to go, and the typical means to trash capitalism is to portray capitalism as unjust, unfair, lacking concern for the poor, greedy, and dishonest. Think of the Occupy Wall Street protests of recent times. The essence of their protests and arguments is that justice is not possible under a capitalistic system…and the state must do something about it. Under assault from government, academia, and other spheres of American life, many in America consider “capitalism” to be a dirty word. But the majority of those that hold this view have little memory of the negative effects of alternative approaches used to organize society. And the vast majority of American universities are filled with professors who embrace the humanistic worldview (and its inherent socialism) and have little interest in presenting historical truth. Rather, for humanists and others of the Enlightenment crowd, their Nirvana will ultimately be achieved as humanity moves ever upward and onward in its continual quest for perfection through the disappearance of the individual soul into universal equality.

The humanistic meaning of this pervasive equality is clearly stated in Humanist Manifesto II’s eleventh common principal, “The principle of moral equality must be furthered…This means equality of opportunity…” But, the meaning of “equal opportunity” is immediately and drastically corrupted to mean an equality of outcome by humanist requirements. To further clarify the intent of the signors of the Manifesto, the document states that, “If unable, society should provide means to satisfy their basic economic, health, and cultural needs, including whatever resources make possible, a minimum guaranteed annual income.” [Kurtz, p. 20.]

Through its citizenry’s ignorance of the nation’s founding principles, decades of deconstruction of Constitutional safeguards by liberal judges, and the domination of the institutions and leadership of American life by those holding a humanistic worldview, income inequality is the bogey-man used by the liberals to advance the socialist agenda and destroy capitalism. Emotions are aroused by appeals to class consciousness, envy, and hatred that damages cultural unity and push the nation along the road to disintegration.

The founding Americans relied on order that rested upon a respect for prescriptive rights and customs as opposed to the egalitarian notions of French philosophers which fed the bonfires of the French Revolution. This difference was made clear by John Adams’ definition of equality which strikes at the heart of what it really means—a moral and political equality only—by which is meant equality before God and before the law. This definition does not teach that all men are born to equal powers, mental abilities, influence in society, property, and other advantages. Rather, all men are born to equal rights before God and the law and by implication equal opportunity. [Kirk, p. 83.]

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

Alvin J. Schmidt, How Christianity Changed the World,” (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2004), p. 203.

W. Cleon Skousen, The 5000 Year Leap – The 28 Great Ideas That Changed the World, (www.nccs.net: National Center for Constitutional Studies, 2006), pp. 173-175.

Clinton Rossiter, ed., The Federalist Papers, (New York: Signet Classic, 1961), pp. 212-213.

Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. History, “General Welfare Clause,” Answers.com. http://www.answers.com/topic/general-welfare-clause (accessed February 10, 2014).

Ryan T. Anderson, “The Morality of Democratic Capitalism-How to Help the Poor,” The City, Houston Baptist University, Spring 2012, p. 76. (Book review of Wealth and Justice: The morality of Democratic Capitalism, Peter Wehner and Arthur Brooks, AEI Press, 2010.)

Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), p. 395.

Paul Kurtz, ed., Humanist Manifestos I and II, (Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books, 1973), p. 20.

Russell Kirk, The Conservative Mind, (bnpublishing.com: BN Publishing, 2008), p. 83.

Capitalism is synonymous with free enterprise and free markets while socialism is associated with planned economies and state control. As noted in Part I, the out-workings of these concepts revolve around the definition of freedom to which both claim allegiance. However, socialism cannot be separated from its parent and patron—humanism. Humanism requires socialism as socialism is the chain-mail glove into which the hand of humanism fits and uses to enforce its vision of societal order.

The humanist definition of freedom presumes to loose man from the bondage of mores, norms, tradition, and distant voices of the past. However, the humanists’ definition of freedom, which co-joins the maximization of individual autonomy with the humanist-created primacy of the greatest good for the greatest number, is a false freedom. A society organized around the tenets of humanism cannot remain free as it will be pushed to one end or the other of the anarchy-totalitarian continuum of government. In reality, such humanistic concepts of freedom coerce the individual through the requirement of a general commonality of thought and action which is forced downward from the state to the individual. However, the central cultural vision of any society must command unity for it to exist and prosper in ordered harmony. Such unity must filter up from individuals, not be coerced or forced down on society. Without such unity filtering up from individuals, there can be no order of the soul or society, and without such order society deteriorates over time and eventually disintegrates. [Johnson, p. 393.]

By contrast, although there is an affinity between capitalism and Christianity, Christianity does not require capitalism nor does capitalism require Christianity. The affinity lies in freedom defined as lack of coercion. A free market (capitalism) “…is not ‘Christian in and by itself; it is merely to say that capitalism is a material by-product of the Mosaic law.’ In other words, capitalism is a by-product of Christianity’s value of freedom applied to economic life and activities.” [emphasis added] [Schmidt, p. 207.]

That Christianity values freedom should be no surprise. God valued freedom so much that he gave freewill to man, the pinnacle of His creation. God wishes to share his love and eternity with His creation, but He does not coerce or compel man in the spiritual realm nor does he wish man to be coerced in the economic realm on this earth as does fascism, socialism, and communism. [Schmidt, p. 205.]

Capitalism is the most successful when it is the most moral. It is not coincidence that the greatest freedom and economic prosperity occur in countries where Christianity is and continues to be the dominant worldview. Capitalism that arose during the period of industrialization was often wild and reckless as a new-born colt that thrashes about until it steadies itself. It was the moral suasion of Christianity that helped steady capitalism and correct its excesses. [Schmidt, p. 207.]

How is it then that socialism has a growing following around the world and even in wildly successful capitalistic countries such as the United States? Writing seventy years ago amidst humanity caught up in a conflagration of death and destruction during World War II, F. A. Hayek gave insight into the answer.

The most effective way of making people accept the validity of the values they are to serve is to persuade them that they are really the same as those which they, or at least the best among them, have always held, but which were not properly understood or recognized before…And the most efficient technique to this end is to use the old words but change their meaning…Few traits of totalitarian regimes…are characteristic of the whole intellectual climate as the complete perversion of language, the change of meaning of the words by which the ideals of the new regimes are expressed. The worst sufferer in this respect is, of course, the word “liberty” (freedom). [Hayek, p. 174.]

The trashing of capitalism began in earnest by the mid-nineteenth century when Karl Marx, atheist and communist, wrote Das Kapital (Capital) in which he saw labor as both distinct from and an antithesis to capitalism. Thus began collectivist’s propaganda efforts at replacing capitalism’s definition as being free markets and free enterprise to that of a merciless evil preying on the proletariat. [Schmidt, p. 206.]

In answer to capitalism’s critics, the late Pope John Paul II framed the issue well in 1996 when he asked whether the failed communist states in Eastern Europe should opt for capitalism. In reply to his own rhetorical question he stated,

If by ‘capitalism’ is meant an economic system which recognizes the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property and the resulting responsibility for the means of production, as well as free human creativity in the economic sector, then the answer is certainly in the affirmative. [Schmidt, pp. 206-107.]

However, less than two decades later, Pope Francis would attempt to dignify leftist denigration of capitalism in his 224 page Evangelii Gadium (Joy of the Gospel) that attacked capitalism as a form of tyranny and called on church and political leaders to address the needs of the poor. [Gettys]

53. …Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless. As a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape. [emphasis added]

54. In this context, some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system… [emphasis added]

56. While the earnings of a minority are growing exponentially, so too is the gap separating the majority from the prosperity enjoyed by those happy few. This imbalance is the result of ideologies which defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation. Consequently, they reject the right of states, charged with vigilance for the common good, to exercise any form of control… [emphasis added] [Evangelii Gadium]

One must ask which man has experienced socialistic totalitarianism and therefore has a better insight into its horrors as compared to the worthiness of capitalism. Certainly it is the Polish Pope John Paul II whose leadership along with that of Ronald Reagan resulted in the downfall of communism and the liberation of millions.

Pope John Paul II’s intransigence against socialism was evident from the beginning of his papal reign when he disciplined Latin American liberationist priests within the church who had incorporated a Marxist orientation as one of the pillars of liberation theology. In the late 1960s this rebellious sociology had developed rapidly in Latin America which regarded the underdevelopment of the continent as a consequence of the capitalist market system. As a result, undeveloped countries were exhorted to reject the capitalist market system in favor of a socialist economy. As this new sociology was absorbed by the church, liberation theology emerged from its wake. But John Paul’s message to the Latin American Catholic church was that Marxism cannot be regarded as an instrument of sociological analysis, being a wrong vision of the human person and the product of a biased scientific methodology. Rather, liberation theology must be centered on Christ the Redeemer. [Inside the Vatican] Although Pope Francis did not and does not adhere to nor promote the Marxist variant of liberation theology, nevertheless, his beliefs have been heavily influenced by and are a product of the highly socialistic orientation of most liberation theologies prevalent in South America. The extent of Pope Francis’s socialistic orientation becomes abundantly evident when reading Evangelii Gadium quoted above.

In Parts I and II we have examined capitalism and socialism’s definitions and the battle of words and worldviews surrounding the adversaries. In Part III we shall look at the battle as it focuses on income equality and property.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

Larry G. Johnson, Ye shall be as gods – Humanism and Christianity – The Battle for Supremacy in the American Cultural Vision, (Owasso, Oklahoma: Anvil House Publishers, 2011), p. 393.

Alvin J. Schmidt, How Christianity Changed the World, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2004), pp. 205-207.

F. A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, Ed. Bruce Caldwell, 1944, 2007), p. 174.

Travis Gettys, “Pope Francis rips capitalism and trickle-down economics to shreds in new policy statement,” The Raw Story, November 26, 2013. http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/11/26/pope-francis-rips-capitalism-and-trickle-down-economics-to-shreds-in-new-policy-statement/ (accessed 2-5-2014).

Pope Francis, Evangelii Gadium (Joy of the Gospel), November 24, 2013. http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/francesco/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium_en.html#Some_cultural_challenges (accessed February 5, 2014).

“Liberation Theology Interview with Professor Rocco Buttiglione,” Inside the Vatican, June/July 2013. https://insidethevatican.com/back-issues/june-july-2013/liberation-theology-interview-professor-rocco-buttiglione (accessed February 5, 2014).

That capitalism has once again been resurrected as the bad boy that creates a broken society and robs the poor should be no surprise to any student of the history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Its nemesis is socialism. The opposing concepts have found different homes in the two dominant worldviews in Western civilization—Christianity and humanism. Both capitalism and socialism claim the badge of freedom, but their definitions of freedom are substantially different. Generally, socialism speaks of a “freedom from…” while capitalism espouses a “freedom to…” Does this simple distinction really make a difference in our lives? Yes. Whichever worldview prevails will dominate and organize society and determine how we, our children, and our grandchildren will live our lives. This battle lies at the heart of the culture wars and currently revolves around cries for income equality.

The genesis of the conflict between capitalism and socialism arose from the large-scale industrialization in the Western world near the beginning of the nineteenth century. J. M. Roberts in his definitive The New History of the World stated that the magnitude of societal change produced by industrialization was the “most striking in European history since the barbarian invasions”…and perhaps the “…biggest change in human history since the coming of agriculture, iron, or the wheel.” [Roberts, pp. 708-709.]

Capitalism, unlike socialism, was not invented and therefore is not a philosophy. Rather, capitalism is a long-term outgrowth of the natural workings of human motives and endeavors as they coalesced around the events of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. These events included great strides in agricultural production, increasing population, technological advances, replacement of human and animal labor with machines, increasing specialization, production in larger units, and centralization of the means of production. The engine that powered all of these aspects of human life and activity was capital which had been built up over centuries in places where a measure of societal stability led to investor confidence, and this confidence was found primarily in Western civilization. [Roberts, pp. 704-705, 708-709, 711.] Growth in agriculture and industrialization would have been impossible without capital investment. The relationship between commerce and capital was symbiotic. Capital grew when investments were successful, and successful investments unleashed demand for more capital.

But societal change of the magnitude and rapidity as described by Roberts was massively unsettling. The social fabric was stretched or torn as populations shifted from agrarian life to crowded cities, new schools developed and educational requirements changed, and new social classes emerged as property and wealth were reshuffled to reflect new economic realities. Dislocation and human suffering were enormous during the initial stages of industrialization and devastating to whole generations as evidenced by bleak industrial cities, exploitation of labor (particularly that of children and women), and loss of centuries of order more specifically defined as a loss of place and purpose as the Church reeled under attacks by the humanistic philosophies of the Enlightenment. However, the poverty of urban life of the times was perhaps no greater than that of the agrarian hovel except in the loss to the soul.

Efforts to recapture of the soul would take much of a century and never really be successful as deceptive definitions of man and his purpose would poison his consciousness and relegate him to animal status with no soul and therefore no need of God.

But the Church would not quietly cede Western civilization to the flood waters of industrialization and Enlightenment philosophies. Compassion was the Christian innovation in all of history and was evident in Christ’s concern for the hurting and sick. From the earliest days of the industrial revolution, Christianity invaded the cities to not only save the soul but provide services and address societal ills for the hurting masses. Christian men of compassion fought to outlaw child labor in England, men such as William Wilberforce and Lord Shaftesbury. But Shaftesbury was the most determined and worked tirelessly for decades in Parliament to pass many bills that improved the lot of English children. The renowned preacher Charles Spurgeon said of Shaftesbury, “A man so firm in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, so intensely active in the cause of God and man, I have never known.“ [Schmidt, pp. 142-143.] From such men and women came the likes of George Muller, a German who became a missionary to England in 1829. He established his first orphanage for girls in 1836, and by the time of his death in 1898, eight thousand children in numerous orphanages under his direction were being educated and cared for. [Schmidt, pp. 132-133.] Other organizations were birthed such as the Salvation Army (founded in London in 1865 by William and Catherine Booth) that ultimately provided worldwide relief for millions of the poor and destitute. Although General Booth died in 1912, his and his wife’s work would continue and expand into over one hundred countries by the end of the twentieth century. (Hosier, pp. 3, 192, 201.] These are just few of the thousands that immersed themselves in the grit and poverty of the nineteenth century to address vast societal changes and deprivations caused by industrialization.

But taking its cue from enlightenment rationalism, there was another offering its voice. Unlike Christianity, it was not interested in saving the soul but redefining man and society. The rise of socialists and socialism generally corresponded with the emergence of the industrial age near the beginning of the nineteenth century.

Both words (socialists and socialism) were first commonly used in France around 1830 to describe theories and men opposed to society run on market principles and to an economy operated on laissez-faire lines, of which the main beneficiaries (they though) were the wealthy. Economic and social egalitarianism is fundamental to the socialist idea…All socialists, too, could agree that there was nothing sacred about property, whose rights buttressed injustice; some sought its complete abolition and were called communists. “Property is theft” was one very successful slogan. [Roberts, pp. 758-759.]

At this point we must more specifically describe capitalism and socialism. Capitalism is an “…economic system characterized by private or corporation ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision rather than by state control, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly in a free market. Socialism is “…any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods…” [Webster’s Dictionary, 1963, pp. 124, 828.] Interestingly, the first American dictionary published by Noah Webster in 1828 did not have a definition for either socialism or capitalism as these were rather new concepts in the emerging industrial age. [Webster’s Dictionary, 1828]

In Part II we shall examine the conflict and consequences of each of these forces that arose in the era of industrialization.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

J. M. Roberts, The New History of the World, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 704-705, 708-709, 711, 758-759.

Alvin J. Schmidt, How Christianity Changed the World, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2004), pp. 132-133, 142-143.

Helen K. Hosier, William and Catherin Booth, (Uhrichsville, Ohio: Barbour Publishing, Inc., 1999), pp. 3, 192, 201.

Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, (Springfield, Massachusetts: G. & C. Merriam Company, Publishers, 1963), pp. 124, 828.

Noah Webster, American Dictionary of the English Language, (New York: S. Converse, 1828), Republished in Facsimile Edition (San Francisco, California: Foundation for American Christian Education, 1995).