This post is part of a planned series on how Christians should respond to governmental initiatives that can be called socialist, and how Christians should respond to defences of socialism when they encounter them.

 

First thoughts:

 

Socialism is often misunderstood to mean "sharing" or some kind of distribution of wealth in the interests of helping those less fortunate. What's wrong with that? Christians ask. After all, the Gospel enjoins us to help othes, clothe the naked and feed the hungry. Socialism is not really about being charitable. It is actually about government (for want of a better word) owning social utilities and other assets, and people in government (or their appointees) making decisions about the allocation of those assets. In other words, "socialism" means "social" ownership, or the practical use of assets.

 

One does not have to be an atheist in order to be a socialist. Many early socialists were Christians, and there are suggestions that the early church practiced a form of socialism by holding property in common. Some religious settlements in North America were characterised by a kind of socialism -- the early Puritan settlements, for example. And, there might be times when combining property and sharing property would help a group survive. See the film Flight of the Phoenix for examples of how sharing labour and water resources helps a group survive in the desert.

 

However, sharing property temporarily, and doing so when it is your property, is one thing. Making people share their property after they have bought it (believing that they would have full rights to it) is another. Where, one asks, is it written that the Christian is obliged to share, beyond each Christian's moral obligation to help those in need? The answer is, nowhere.

 

One group that might have benefited from socialism is the Israelites when on the march from Egypt. Sharing property -- goats, cattle, tents, bags and cooking utensils -- would have meant efficiency; for example, why would each person carry a cooking pot when they could share pots between them and thus cut down on the number of pots they had to carry, etc. But, we notice from Exodus, Deuteronomy, Leviticus and Numbers, no injunction towards common ownership. Notice that the commandment says "Thou shalt not covet they neighbour's .... wife, donkey, cow.. etc. It does not say "Thou shalt own thy neighbour's cow". The commandment seems to be reminding us that there is such a thing as private property, that it may not be fairly distributed, but that one must not envy and thus desire to own what belongs to someone else. In other words, property is a fact and must be respected. Common ownership, or ownership by the tribe or group of tribes is not an injunction.

 

The only items that were commonly owned were things that no individual could own, such as the ark of the covenant, its tent and container. However, it is not stated that these belong to everyone; probably because nobody in his right mind would have assumed that they could belong to anyone. The Levites are the custodians of these things, but not the owners. They are not "property" in the sense that we understand it, because they are too valuable, sacred and important to be considered among what we would normally think of as "property".

 

Flash forward to the present day: we have governments around the world that own goods and their production, and services. For example, in Canada, medical services are "owned" by the government. Is this anti-Christian? Not necessarily. However, it might be considered that in owning these services, provincial governments are preventing individuals from owning them. Not that this is in itself a problem, from a Christian perspective. However, what is disturbing is that by owning these services, the government may be denying individuals the opportunity to buy such services -- by rationing them or limiting their availability. In addition, by owning these services the government has to resort to taxation to pay for them, and is responsible (or at the mercy of) political interest groups concerning the amount that is taxed and the allocation of these resources. Would it be more "Christian" for the governments of Canada's provinces to get out of the medical services business or to allow private medical care?

 

The Old and New Testaments are silent on the subject, probably because it is not really a moral concern. Nor were medical services available and developed to their modern extent when the Old and New Testaments were written. However, we might consider the following:

 

1.   When governments own services, they eliminate the opportunity for individuals to perform works of charity by paying for such services

2.   Government ownership creates the false assumption that these services are "rights"

3.   Government ownership reduces or eliminates the need for individual responsibility and initiative

4.   Government ownership creates an unfair tax burden on some, and gives others a free ride, hardly fair

5.   Government ownership creates a situation in which a valuable, not to say essential service is in the hands of people responsible to interest groups and political concerns, not customers

 

What does this have to do with Christian teaching? I will develop this idea in the next post.