Socialism Explained

So many Millennials are embracing socialism today. They have grown up being educated in school systems that are promoting the evils of America and capitalism and the superiority of socialism. What does socialism really entail? Is it the best system in the world today? Should it be the system the United States adopts in place of capitalism?  Let us examine what socialism really means for all of us.

What do socialists think of capitalism? They see capitalism as a system of greed and selfishness. People are ripping off their neighbors in the pursuit of money. Meanwhile socialists see socialism as a system where everyone is selfless and will labor for the common good. Thus, all motivation of people is to help someone else. That is really looking at things through rose-colored glasses. This is where we are being fed the philosophy from the great debate throughout our history that man is ultimately good. If man is so good, why do we lock our doors when we leave our homes, and why does something so evil as capitalism exist then?

If we examine the socialist societies that have existed like the most classic of them all the Soviet Union, what has been the result? Well, we can go through a checklist(1) and let us start with security. One can say socialism is superior to capitalism in providing security. It is somewhat like one taking out a very expensive insurance policy to prevent one from falling into the consequences of the worst possible thing happening. One would sacrifice a huge amount of their wealth to maintain a minimal lifestyle, meaning they have to sacrifice any luxuries they wish to have in their life.

So, for a working person this is a bad deal while for those who are lazy or incompetent, this is a good deal. They do not have to really work to get a minimal lifestyle. What is basically happening is the government forces the many to suffer to make it easier for the few who leech off those who are working hard.

Second on our checklist is entrepreneurship. Socialism believes in equal outcomes. How does one create equal outcomes? There is only one way that can possibly happen; through totalitarian means. We are seeing the seeds of this in America, today. We have an ever expanding government trying to inflict social justice upon its citizenry; not allowing businesses to function without following its politically correct dictates. We have watched the courts cut back some of these efforts to dictate to businesses what they can do or what service they must provide even though they object to provide such services for conscious sake. Socialism tries to spread out a doctrine through totalitarian dictates to create a society that follows one single political belief.

Third on our checklist is innovation. To create a new product takes a lot of money and time. It usually entails a lot of misses before one gets a hit so to speak. One may try nine ideas that fail before they get one that takes off. For that reason in capitalism, the bigger the risk, the more the reward. This risk-reward relationship encourages people to try to innovate. They will decide to take the risk to reap a big reward. Socialism does not allow one to reap a big reward, so innovation is stifled. Look at all the technology in the United States we have, today. Where would we be without innovation? I dare say things like cell phones, the Internet and fast travel around the globe would not exist if not for innovation.

Fourth on our checklist is economic growth. No country matches the United States in economic growth today nor over the period of the last 220 years. Socialist countries like the Soviet Union were an economic basket case. Venezuela, North Korea and Cuba are economic basket cases in today’s world. The West who has been the home of capitalism has had far more economic growth than most any other place in the world. That of course would be argued against by those who say the West exploited the rest of the world. Well, assume that is so. Then, why was the West in position to exploit the rest of the world in the first place? Maybe, because its economic system was superior to those other countries enabling them to do it. Why were those other countries not advanced enough with their systems to rise up first to exploit the West? You have to think about things and ask the appropriate questions without assuming things are true someone else tells you is a truth.

What has been happening over the last century and more is something the leftist media and educators will not tell you today? The poorest of the poor in this world have been elevated to superior conditions to what their fathers experienced in the past. True, there are people who have nothing. That will always be the case, but the percentage of people who were in poverty at the beginning of the 20th century has been dropping as a result of capitalism. Today, the poor in the United States have things like cell phones. As John Kennedy said, “A rising tide lifts all boats.” Economic growth in the world has been beneficial to the poor as a whole through capitalism.

Fifth on our checklist is the adaptability of socialism. Capitalism is good at distributing capital to where it is most valued. If it was not, then people who want to pay for something will go somewhere else to attain the good. If one wants to stay in business, they need to provide what their customer wants. That is strong incentive.

On the other hand, socialism is where the government is spending someone else’s money. There is no incentive for a bureaucrat to necessarily put capital where it is most valued. After all, the bureaucrat will still be in business so to speak even if he or she spends money on the wrong thing or uses it in a non-productive way. Thus the bureaucrat is not concerned about losing money. In addition, we have politicians who write out regulations for a company to follow certain rules when these politicians have no experience or knowledge in how to run a business. That is a catastrophe waiting to happen. What we get is a system run by people who cannot adapt in a prompt way to meet the public’s needs.

Number six on our checklist is wasteful spending. Milton Friedman once said, “Nobody spends somebody else’s money as carefully as he spends his own. Nobody uses somebody else’s resources as carefully as he uses his own.” This leads us to the realization that the more capital a government tries to distribute, the more it will be wasted. The market will pay a severe penalty if it does not allocate resources properly. Failure means the companies that do this will go under.

So, a socialist government can never compete with the private sector when it comes to allocating resources. Such a government does not worry about the penalties of failure in allocating resources. After all, the government knows it will continue to have a steady stream of tax revenue to throw away on any whim it has. Thus, wasteful spending is a norm for socialist governments and really any government. The fact of the matter is that while a business will go bankrupt for inefficiency, a government program that is wasteful will probably have its budget increased the next year.

The last thing on our checklist is human nature and its connection to socialism. Adam Smith said, “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.” A man will work much harder to take care of himself first and his family before he will work to make money for the state. Socialism argues against this implying that man must work for the state. How can one imagine himself working for the state and ignore those around him, the very ones he interacts with daily?

It is not human nature to work for the good of some entity that one cannot sense in any physical way. One will first want to work for himself or herself and then to all those of which he or she has the closest of relationships. Socialism thus is trying to appeal to a spirit of nationalism to get people to sacrifice to the state, and is this not what leftists preach against today in America, that we should not condone nationalism? Whether you like it or not, if you are a socialist, you will have to embrace nationalism in one form or another. It is in socialism though, that a totalitarian regime and its heads is what you end up idolizing which is why we have the Stalins, and the Castros, and the Maos.

Socialism is where a small group of people control all property. They determine what the common good will be and force everyone else to comply. We see the seeds of this in America today. Conservative speech on campus is protested (often violently) and those in charge along with the media try to suppress all non-politically correct speech.

Socialism removes your freedoms. It does not give you more freedom. It does not create wealth since governments do not create wealth. It spends other people’s money until there is none left to spend. Wealth is only created by the private sector, and to embrace socialism will mean everyone will end up with an equal outcome; extreme poverty except for those few who are in charge who will only service themselves.

(1) TFPP Writer. (2016, February 26). Capitalism vs. Socialism Brilliantly Explained For Dummies. Retrieved April 16, 2019, from https://thefederalistpapers.org/us/capitalism-vs-socialism-brilliantly-explained-for-dummies

Beware the Prophets

Do you think if a prophet gets something right that we should believe them when they prophesy? We need to explore that because it has great implications today in what we are hearing from prophets today regarding Donald Trump. We must learn to beware, for not all words are from God.

Deuteronomy 13:1-3 says:

If there arises among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes to pass of which he spoke to you saying, “Let us go after other gods (which you have not known) and let us serve them; you shall not hearken to the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the LORD your God is proving you to know whether you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

What this passage is telling us is that if a prophet gets a word right, but there is an error in the message, then we must not heed that prophet’s word. I have heard of many prophecies regarding Donald Trump. Some said he would win in 2016. Some said it before he ever decided to run. However, there are other words mixed in with such prophecies that deliver a false message. We are being tested to know whether we love the Lord God with all our heart.

One such prophet I will not name was interviewed by CBN in 2016. He said that in 2011 God told him Trump would be president which was before Trump had made a decision to run. God told this prophet that the Trump administration would be a time of prosperity for the country and that the economy would rebound. He said Trump would win again in 2020 because of this prosperity. He added that the false media would turn around and actually support him.

Even though he said this has not come to pass yet that it would come to pass. So, he prophesied that this is a time of financial recovery, and that it is not God’s time for His children to come into persecution on the level it was headed to when Obama was president.

These are all good sounding words for this country, but can we actually believe them? After all, Trump did become president, and the economy has come back from some of its problems dating back to the end of the Bush years. I say that there is a problem with this message.

James 3: 8-18 says:

But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.Therewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceeds blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be this way.

Does a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries? or a vine, figs? So can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh. Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? Let him show out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom.

But if you have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descends not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.

But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.

 

What do we see coming out of the press today? We see what is described above: envying, strife, confusion and every evil work plus extreme hypocrisy. What that prophet describes is the press will become people that they are not. They are sensual, earthly, devilish and lie against the truth. Why? Because they are full of sin and do not want Donald Trump to expose that sin. That is why they hate him so. That is why people react to him as they do, because God is causing them to react to their sin being exposed.

    One person commented on my blog saying to me that no rational person would support Trump. This was from someone who identified themselves as a Christian. They said Trump lies about everything. I then asked him to name what he has lied about. He said he would have to do a search on that. He was making statements of which he was sure was true without any proof. Why? Because there was a sin in his life God was exposing by Trump just being president. When it comes to Trump, God is using him to expose sin in others. People across this country with hidden sin are filled with hate for him, because Trump causes them to react, exposing their sin and allowing the public to observe what kind of person they really are.

    The press will not ever support Trump is my belief. They practice every evil work and are the children of Satan. You cannot have salt water and fresh come out of the same spout. The press would have to repent and be converted to ever do that, and that cannot happen without the church repenting first.

    I feel that prophet’s word is misleading. It is like a Kim Clement word or a word one would see on the Elijah List. It leads us to say, everything is going to be alright and thus does not lead us down the road to repentance. To change things in this country requires us to get uncomfortable and remove those idols out of our life. I do not see the church willing to do that in this country. One pastor when giving a prophecy about Trump winning in 2020 had one thing right for certain; and that was the church in the United States is not seeking justice. While injustice in our society grows, the church does nothing and waits on our government (the agent of injustice) to create justice in our society. How naive?

    Trump is here to expose the fallacy of political correctness (social justice). He, however cannot effect a change without the church doing its job, and alas the church has abdicated all its responsibilities to the government. Who takes care of those in need in this country? The government has taken over that job from the church to a large degree. The government should not be doing it at all; the church (we) should be doing it all. The government only takes away our freedoms and our money to increase its power over us when the church abdicates its responsibilities.

Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. But if while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin? God forbid. For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.

For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live for God.  I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain. (Galatians 3: 16-21)

  The church is not operating in faith regarding justice in this country. Because of that, we have been operating by the works of the law. We say, “The law is what it is, and we cannot change it.” Yet, lawlessness is allowed to abound, injustice and the like, and we think we cannot change it. Where is our faith? Faith requires action and thus with no action, there is no faith.

We should be protesting to all government officials about the injustice in our society. We should be out there demanding change. We don’t do it because we have not looked internally yet at our own sin. We do not want to remove the idols in our own heart. If righteousness comes by the law, then Christ is dead in vain. We are living under the law and not accepting the grace that God has given us to change things in this country. So, that prophet is in error I feel in my spirit.