Economic #2

To answer the question, “why does socialism not work” we must first look at what socialism believes in for Economics. Socialism, mainly Marxism, believes that wealth should be redistributed into the hands of everyone so that each person has equal amounts of money. In essence they believe in a form of communism, in which the government owns everything and hands out money equally to everyone. They are looking to create a utopia in which there is no poor or rich and everyone is equal. Sarah and Mark along with Michel Moore believe that socialism and redistribution could work, but they don’t look at what could possibly go wrong in the equations.

There are many factors that go into why Socialism could, and never will work. The first one is the fact that all humans are innately sinful. We are born with a sinful heart. The issue is not everyone agrees with this first problem, which becomes a problem in and of itself. With the sinful nature how is anything ever going to be equal? Even if you could get all the rich to give their hard earned cash to the government, what is keeping the government from keeping a huge portion of this money without telling anyone? We are all greedy; we all have wants and needs.

The next and probably the greatest issue I see with Socialism is competition. If everything is equal, and everyone is getting the same amount of money, where is the competition in that? People’s drive to succeed will diminish. We will have a society in which no one cares. Lazy people will get just as much as the people who work super hard. That doesn’t seem quite fair. We ran into this exact topic at NYLF-MED when we had a caucus on Universal Health Care. If each doctor is paid the same amount, what is driving those doctors to do better? What is providing them the motivation to come up with new ways to make surgery safer? There will be no motivation to any job. We will become lazy, and maybe even fall into another dark age.

The last and final problem is pride. If you take someone’s things and give them to another, how do you think that person will feel? How do you feel when you get something new that belongs to YOU? Positions are just one way to keep people happy. Having ownership over something gives a man/woman pride. If pride goes away, and there is no spiritual after life, then what is their to live for?

Mr. Moore Interview

In the beginning of this interview, Mr. Moore opens with is first statement that Socialism is Democracy. This is interesting that he would say this because while looking through the idea, it interested me that he would compare socialism to democracy. Socialism is not only just a view of economics, but it also deals with the difference in ownership. Democracy has some ideas that socialism could hold on to be the key difference is in ownership. Under a Democratic society like the US, people are allowed to own property and goods. Under Socialism, the government owns everything and there is no property.

The next thing that Mr. Moore tries to compare actually scared me. He said that all religions are basically Socialism. Then he went on even farther to say the Socialism is Christianity. This scared me even more, especially when he tried to use Jesus as an example. The example he was referring to was how Christ asked people to give money. The thing he left out was the fact that this was not a forced act, but a gift from the people, which does not agree with Socialism what so ever. Another fact is that if Christianity is Socialism, then God would denounce private things. The fact of the matter is that God does not denounce ownership, but asks the exact opposite. The key is, we are called to be stewards of Earth. We are to use the gifts that God has given us to help others. The key is that this again is not a forced act by the government but should be out of want to please God and do what he asks of us. I will grant Mr. Moore the fact that some parts of Christianity may fit to Socialism, but the core belief of Christianity does not.

He also says that Islam is the same as Socialism. Again, Islam has some of the core beliefs as Christianity in stewardship. The key of Islam is that they reject both Capitalism and Socialism. “Islamic economics rejects socialism’s negation of private property, but also rejects capitalism’s alleged absolute view of private property” (Noebel 364). Can three worldviews be the same when they all have different beliefs? It doesn’t make any sense to me.

To wrap this up I have a few questions to Mr. Moore. What is your view of how in the Old Testament, land was to go back to the original owner after 50 years? If the bible and Christianity are socialistic, wouldn’t that land be owned by the state and not on single person? If there is no ownership in the bible, then why did God say that the Israelites were allowed to harvest part of their land for themselves and then give just of portion to the poor, orphans, and widows, why does God allow them to even have part of the crop for themselves?