Is Socialism Really So Bad

  📍 Welcome to the CFS Review. I'm John Warren. It's good to be with you again. Today, we're going to be talking about a subject that requires us to jump right into the deep end. I hope you've been introduced to our podcast. This is our second episode, and today we're going to be talking about socialism. Socialism is really not a topic that I want to speak about, but in this podcast about the economy, news events, current events, worldview-type issues, I wanna be sure that we lay the groundwork and talk about,, current events that, , and that we're not fearful of talking about socialism, frankly. There's much talk about socialism, and sometimes, I find that the speakers who use that word, uh, sometimes they know what it means, and other times they don't. There are some who go out of their way not to use that word when they espouse, I'll call them socialistic policies in any case. I hope you'll go to our website. It's cfsfinancial.net, cfsfinancial.net. The name of our company is Christian Financial Solutions. We are not personal financial advisors. We work with nonprofit organizations to resolve debt issues, to fund new projects, to focus on strategic planning, to focus on,, board governance and all of the things that,, relate to running an organization to achieve long-term financial sustainability. I also have a podcast you might be familiar with called Relentless Truth. You can find this podcast at relentlesstruthministries.com. You can find both podcasts wherever you go to get your podcasts. We should be on all of the platforms Relentless Truth is about theology, about a Christian worldview, about biblical topics. So we've, started this CFS Review, the CFS Review podcast so that we, don't confuse you with an episode one week on theology and then another on the news, and the economy Well, it's important to begin today as we discuss socialism with, some definitions. And we're not going to, try to right the world, and correct all of the things that are, are said about,, socialism, in error, but I wanna be sure that we understand what that, what it is. And, and it, it starts, this starts to sound like a, an SAT test question or a GRE test question or maybe an ACT test question., All Marxists are socialists, but socialism came along before Marxism, and we're not gonna study the history of socialism, but you need to know a couple of names, Marx, and Engels. You need to know those names. Socialism, however, existed before Marx. And here's what socialism basically, if you wanna sum this up and impress your friends with your knowledge, socialism really takes the bulk of the means of production, and, that is, the stuff that makes goods and services, produces goods primarily for the economy. The machinery, the factories, the equipment, all of it. The buildings, the distribution network, all of it. In socialism, the government controls, the ownership of the means of production. They control all the, business stuff, the, factories, and so on. And in capitalism, which is what our country is built on in the United States, the means of production is owned by private individuals. We sometimes call them capitalists. They're just people. So this is the important distinction. Now, socialism encompasses many schools of thought. Marxism is one very influential school of thought, if I can call it that. But it's not, or it shouldn't be, a synonym for, uh, just a synonym for socialism Now, socialism came from some people, in the 19th century, that would be the 1800s, guys like,, Robert Owen. Uh, there, there, are others. Marx and Engels I already mentioned, but it did exist before Marx. They were trying to actually solve a problem. You're probably, you've probably studied the Industrial Revolution. Industrialization produced enormous wealth. There are some documentaries available that are so good about the, the Rockerfel- Rockefellers and the, Ford family and, and others. The industrialists were risk-takers, and they were... They believed in capitalism. And then the socialist thinkers came along and argued that private ownership of, of this capital,, of producing capital, concentrated power, economic power, and allowed owners to benefit disproportionately from workers' labor. And, and that's important because it's important to understand the argument for socialism before we, we evaluate it. I even often say to my students that even Marx had, I think, good, some good intentions. He was a weird guy., He lived in a basement,,, of a museum, for part of his life. And, he was funded by a friend, and, never really, as far as I could tell, had much of a, job, not even an academic job. But there were... According to Marx,, Marx sort of changed socialism. He,, enhanced it, if, you believe that he improved it., He, he altered it, we'll say it that way. , And , he, he critiqued capitalism rather, rather harshly. And, he wanted it to be replaced. He wrote a book called "The Communist Manifesto," and, it was written by others as well. There were other contributors. But this, this book,, makes capitalist private property central to, to its argument. And so Marx believed that the proletariat, that is the working class, needed to rise up and overthrow the bourgeoisie, the bourgeoisie being the elite class, the upper class, the,, we'll call it labor for the proletariat, management for the bourgeoisie And so Marx wanted to see capitalism replaced. He wanted the workers to rise up. He felt that the workers got the bad end of the deal. Why do the capitalists get rich, and, and the workers don't? Why do the workers work for minimal wages and the capitalists hit big home runs? He didn't take into account various aspects of reality like capitalists risk lots of capital and sometimes lose fortunes Nonetheless, on the surface, he thought that capitalism was unfair, socialism sounded fair. In socialism, we just divide all the wealth. Everybody shares in the economy, and everyone shares equally. The challenge is there's no incentive, really. You just kind of phone it in. I don't need to tell you many of you are thinking right now about, uh, some of the more socialistic aspects of the US economy. I often think of Amtrak or the post office, and that is not to disparage Amtrak workers or post office workers. It's to, critique the system. In fact, there's a disincentive for ingenuity. There's a, disincentive for productivity that goes be- above and beyond. There's a disincentive for, thinking outside of the box and trying to implement or at least suggest new ideas. And we could go on and on. There are other socialistic aspects of our economy here in the US. But I can see, we can see the appeal, can't we? Young people, for a couple of generations now are increasingly embracing socialism. It just sounds fair. It seems unfair that the haves have as much as they do, and the have-nots don't. The have-nots struggle, and oftentimes the way you'll hear it framed is that, there's an economic struggle for a limited amount of resources. And in fact, that's one of the things that, old economics books... I say old because some of the newer ones understand this, but some don't. Older economics theory said that economics is the management of scarce resources. And, and some take that to mean limited resources, resources that are strictly limited, so that if one person becomes wealthy, they did so at the expense of the proletariat, of the laborers, of the working class. And that's just not true. You can look at examples of this, you can look at examples that, uh, disprove this. You can, look at the, the things like the, iPhone,, the HP calculator, the, all of the innovation at IBM, for years during the XT and AT small computers, personal computers at the advent of the, the Apple II,, computer, during, during that period You can look at lots of products that have been developed, lots of not just technology, but products that have been developed over the years that actually generated wealth. We're not just exchanging wealth. We can, in a free capitalist society, generate wealth, and you can think of some ways that happening even today. We're not gonna talk about AI today, but you can see that it is generating and reallocating wealth., Look at some of the innovations that have occurred, the medical innovations, the discoveries, the, exploration of space has been advanced. The... Even the electric vehicle and the autonomous,, vehicles and all the rest. Wealth is generated through innovation and productivity. It isn't a zero-sum game. You don't have to go take from a, from your neighbor, your proverbial neighbor, to m- to make more money. You can do so by working hard, and that, that's where Marx got it wrong. He loathed capitalism and felt that it was unfair. Well, there's, a progression that goes on between socialism, and communism. It's important to understand the difference. Marxist tenets, of Marxism, generally go well beyond what we think of as traditional socialism, as I explained it earlier. This means of production being owned by a central authority figure, usually government. In communism, other aspects of life are governed, are controlled by the government Now, socialism isn't just simply government doing things. Social Security, Medicare, public schools, highways, police departments, et cetera,, don't turn a capitalist economy into socialism. I sometimes had students who would say, "Well, I, I don't believe in any government at all. I want to abolish the IRS, and I don't believe in government." And I would quickly ask, "Well, did you drive here on public roads, and how'd it go? Well, it went pretty well, didn't it?" Or they'd say taxation is theft, and I'd say, "Well, it can be, but basic taxation for essential goods and services as, contemplated in the US Constitution is not theft. It can go too far But there's an economic question that all of this really gets to, and that is who gets to decide? Who decides? Under a capitalist arrangement, private owners and markets make much of the allocation decision. Now, we have government involved in all of this. There are regulations. If you run your own company, you know this. It is essential to comply with those reservat, those,, requirements, those stipulations. Even scripture talks about obeying the governing authorities. So in a capitalist system, really, it's a, a collaboration usually., Usually there's not just one renegade out there doing what he or she wants. But in socialism, there, there's considerably more control, I guess, passed on to workers, at least in theory, or society, or government. You'll hear lots of talk today about stakeholders, and some have even said, and then the, the chairman of BlackRock being one of them, that it's important for companies to recognize that they have a duty to stakeholders. Now,,, you probably cringe if you hear that and you think, "Well, wait a minute. What about the shareholders? If I'm a shareholder and I invested in the company, I want the company to be responsible for me." And really,, the ESG score sort of came out of all this., It's really, , companies ought to be responsible and accountable to the community, communities they serve,,, the people writ large and, that's... Now we're starting down the path there, of socialism Though, so there, are these issues of incentives and prices and entrepreneurship, capital formation,, economic,, risk calculations, and concentrations of power that Marx talks about, that he, that he loathed. But history tells us that there are, a number of experiments that employed socialist tenets that failed or are failing or have failed. The Soviet Union would be one. China tends to struggle even though they go out of their way to appear that they don't. There's even Scandinavian social democracy. Like you've seen the examples used often of Venezuela, and Cuba But the real question that we have to address as we think about socialism and Marxism, is really all about human nature. Is man, mankind that is, inherently good or evil? If you believe that man is inherently good, it might make sense for you to embrace Marxism, and I'm not suggesting that there's nothing good in man. We're made in God's image, and there's plenty of good in us But we're not inherently good. Man is inherently evil. Scripture teaches that. But Marxism is this, this particular intellectual and political tradition, we'll call it, that, is kind of part of this broader family of socialism, and it leads ultimately to communism. And in communism, this authority that owns the means of production controls every aspect of our lives Now, it's possible to have welfare, to have certain programs , that are taxed, that are paid for by taxes,, that benefit people who, are in need, and, not be socialist. So please don't go away from this episode thinking that I said that all, all of these programs, these human welfare programs, and even the progressive taxation system, uh, that we employ in the United States or take, take Medicare or public schools, tho- those things I believe in our society are necessary. I'd like to see them managed well, but I don't think that makes us a socialistic society. And I'm afraid these couple of generations of young people who, some of whom, th- thank God not all of whom, but some of whom are embracing socialism really don't know what they're embracing This lack of incentives, this, this society, this economy that is devoid of incentives, and innovation and capital will starve a people and will result in decline or will even reflect the decline that ensues on even morality. And I've got an example of this that I hesitate, to bring up today. It's an example from the early 1900s, the early 20th century And many of you probably think, y- you're probably wringing your hands,, and you think, "Oh, my goodness. Mamdani and AOC and the Squad and plenty of others, Bernie Sanders and others like them, are going to plunge our country into ruin because of socialism." And I will admit there are some who, espouse these more radical ideas, I think in an effort to become popular and get elected,, who are embracing socialism. In fact, I would suggest it's more rampant than ever today. And does it concern me? Yes. It concerns me that traditional Democrats are now seen as too conservative by a wing, of their party. Not liberal enough, even though to me, they might be very liberal. It concerns me with some of the radical ideas that, some even want to abolish the Supreme Court. They want to completely defund ICE. They want our borders open. And you've heard some of the outrageous, uh, tenets of some of the political campaigns , even in this season. Well, I wanna just make the argument that there's nothing new here. The, moral state of our country, of the world at large is,.. Has certainly declined, but we were a mess years ago. The story I wanna quickly close with is about a young lady named Carrie Buck. If you've li- listened to Relentless Truth from the beginning, early on, over five years ago, almost five and a half years ago, I talked briefly about Carrie Buck, and I got more feedback about some of those comments than I typically do. Her story's a sad one, and you wouldn't think... I could have framed this in a clever way, and had you guessed the country this occurred in, and y- you wouldn't have guessed the United States of America. Carrie was born to a mother who was said to have been feeble-minded, and that's, that's really, a word they used back then for mentally challenged. She was born in the early 1900s to, a lady who, , was institutionalized because, uh, she was thought to be both promiscuous , and feeble-minded So she was promiscuous, they argued, because she was feeble-minded. And there were some things that happened legislatively prior to this. It had first happened in Indiana. There were even laws that allowed the state, through these mental institutions, to sterilize women. And I, don't wanna freak you out if you hadn't heard about this, but it was common in the, in the 1930s all the way through the, the early '70s in some states, but, but prominent in the, '30s and '40s and '50s, 1930s, '40s and '50s. So Carrie Buck was adopted as her mother was institutionalized, and she she too was found to be feeble-minded and promiscuous. She was-- She became pregnant at age 17, was not married and became pregnant, and was institutionalized in the same place that her mother had been, the same mental institution. And one of the things that the board of this mental institution decided to do, the managing board decided that they would sterilize her under these laws that allowed the state to do so. And they, they made all kinds of disparaging comments about her, and we'll talk about one of those in a moment. She had her baby, and her baby lived for a few years and then died of a disease, and Carrie Buck went on to live a relatively normal life. She was not feeble-minded at all. But when she was institutionalized after she had her baby, she was forcibly sterilized. She had a forced tubal ligation against her will, and she was Desiring to protect her interests, and so she sued prior to this happening and, and, uh, lost in court. And then she appealed against this mental institution that wanted to forcibly sterilize her, and she lost the appeal, and she ended up at the Supreme Court. And the famous court case is called Buck v. Bell. Look it up. It's real, sadly. And she lost her appeal. There was one dissenting vote in this at the Supreme Court, but she lost her appeal in a, I believe it was an eight to one vote. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, who is well-known from this period, you've heard his name,, said famously in the majority decision, he said, "Three generations of imbeciles is enough." In other words, the state felt that they could control Carrie Buck's reproductive organs, her right to reproduce. That doesn't sound like life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to me Well, and I mentioned the fact that she went on to live a normal life. I believe she died in the 1980s after having lived a full, normal, unnotable life. She wasn't feeble-minded at all, historians tell us. In fact, she was impregnated by a relative of her adoptive family when she was raped. That's the truth about Carrie Buck, and you're probably gasping, and you think, "Well, why is he talking about this, this story? This sounds like the nightly news, and, it sounds controversial and, and maybe even not, appropriate for a broad audience to even, hear these things." Well, there's a reason I'm talking about it, and that is there were, as many as 100,000, at least 65,000 people who were forcibly sterilized by our government, by a government in the United States during this period. Isn't that jolting? You see, that is , a eugenics-like practice that we employed in the mid-20th, early to mid-20th century. All this socialism talk today is not new. It's actually reflective of bad morals, in my humble opinion. This notion that, you can take something from somebody else just because you think it's wrong that they have it, in her case, in Carrie Buck's case, the right to reproduce, is in and of itself wrong, isn't it? It's morally wrong And yet we do that today with respect to, and you'll hear this talk all the time in the news from some of those folks I named earlier, it's just not right for that person to have that much wealth. If they only gave, and they don't do math very well, but if they, if they gave half their wealth to the government, we could, we could balance the budget I, always wanna say, "Well, well why don't, you lead off with half of yours whatever it is?" But, there's this imposition, there's this, "I've got a right, to be the judiciary for, the world, and I see right from wrong a certain way. I'm rather subjective about it, but I want you to comply." You see, this, this whole socialistic tendency that we have in our country today is a moral issue. It's emblematic of moral bankruptcy, isn't it? So I hope you'll look at this topic perhaps a little differently. It's important for us to see how they got there. Even with Marx, he did have some good intentions. He just didn't think it through very well. He wasn't very logical And, and don't listen to all the arguments that, well, for it to work, it's gotta be tried, you know, globally and so- no, it, it doesn't work anywhere. Socialism is morally evil. When you think about it, and you think about taking wealth from another person, taking means, taking income, taking things, assets, whatever, and then distributing them against the person's will 📍 Then think about Carrie Buck Next time we'll talk further about how the economy actually works. We'll have a little bit of a pleasant conversation next week. So please go to our website, cfsfinancial.net. I hope you'll listen next week. Share these episodes with your friends as we're launching. This is just our second episode. I'm John Warren. It has been a delight to be with you, and I look forward to being with you again next time  ​