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May 4, 2009
Socialism – New Word, Old Idea
by Jack Benning
Socialism is a new word covering an old idea.
As far back as Plato and forward there have been different versions of the same concept that have thrived. The new word socialism, as we know it today, became established in eastern Europe by Karl Marx. It was then incorporated into the name of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Russia. It was then defined by The Soviet Socialist Republic of Russia when it was an atheistic country denying Christ and eliminating any who stood for Christ Jesus.
The international communists who would rule the world with law that make it illegal to pray to God want to own all that you have and dictate its use by the government, giving your property to whosoever the government decides, at their will, not by your will.
On my book shelf is a volume set of the 1952 Encyclopaedia Britannica. I keep the set around because most modern encyclopedias have changed many facts to fit into the politically correct opinions of the modern day Socialist elite.
In vol 20, page 877 it says
"The words Socialist and Socialism came into use in Great Britain and France soon after 1825, and were first applied to the writings of certain writers who were seeking a complete transformation of the economic and moral basis of society by the substitution of social for individual control and of social for individualistic forces in the organization of life and work."
"In Great Britain the followers of Owen officially adopted the name Socialists in 1841. The word Socialism was popularized as the antithesis to individualism by P. Leroux and J. Reynaud in their Encyclopedia novella and in their other writings, and had come by 1840 to be freely used on the continent to describe the schools of Saint-Simon, Francois Fourier, Owen and others who attacked the existing system of commercial competition and put forward proposals for a new way of life based on collective control. Later these earlier schools of Socialism were categorized by Karl Marx and Friedrick Engels as "Utopian Socialism," in contrast with the "Scientific Socialism," based on the materialistic conception of history, of which they were the pioneers."
Then if I go to Page 882 it says,
“Marx brought the seat of the International (communism) to the United States in 1872. Mark had a theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which the Bolsheviks put into force in the Soviet Union after 1917. The American Socialist part polled nearly 1,000,000 votes in the presidential election of 1912..”
On page 887 it says,
"Socialism: principles and outlook. Socialism, reduced to its simplest legal and practical expression, means the complete discarding of the institution of private property by transforming it into public property."
Now, Christianity allows for private ownership and private reward for work and private punishment and private choice for charity or not to give charity, according to each man's good conscience and faith towards God through Jesus Christ. Socialism dictates that the governments will have dictatorial control over the crops I grow on my own land. As a Christian I am granted wisdom in my giving of charity, in mercy, and in helping my neighbor, but not being forced by the government as a matter of rule enforced by the bayonet.
To the extent that many socialists shout about helping other people, they are only saying what the Bible says. To the extent those same socialists want to enforce the help by the point of a bayonet (rule of law), that is government dictatorship over free will. Remember a phrase, ...by the consent of the governed...! The word Socialist as a label the way I see it used, means to enforce by government army the governmental distribution of wealth. Socialists have for years attempted to use a pure democratic idea of voting, regardless of law and the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, to gain their idea of a socialist democracy to replace the republic under God established by the founders of America.
No where in the Scriptures do I read anything that even remotely resembles Socialism.
Posted by Post Scripts at May 4, 2009 8:36 AM
Comments
I could not have said any better then if I had wrote that myself.
Good work Mr Benning, and welcome to Post script. It's good to see your work where it belongs, on the Front Page as a headline.
Posted by: OneVike | May 4, 2009 9:01 AM
As far back as Plato and forward there have been different versions of the same concept that have thrived
Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes 1:9
That which has been is what will be, That which is done is what will be done, And there is nothing new under the sun.
Man has fallen from grace and will inevitably be doomed to repeat the very mistakes our ancestors did and sell ourselves into slavery in our desire to have it all.
Posted by: Tom | May 4, 2009 10:24 AM
Good point, Tom.
"Man has fallen from grace and will inevitably be doomed to repeat the very mistakes our ancestors did and sell ourselves into slavery in our desire to have it all."
The founders might have had this in mind when they determined to construct a government with checks and balances. Though not perfect at keeping the good citizens from indulging in excesses, whether they be quests for money, power, power over others or all three of these, our system of government does give us some redress.
The real problems arise when we lose our spiritual and moral underpinnings as individual citizens. On this critical front we are well on our way to complete moral decay. This is the driving force behind people of faith becoming more involved in the political process.
Posted by: Tina | May 4, 2009 10:45 AM
I heard it said Marx and the Communists observed the average proletariat owned only his labor... which he sold for usually meeger wages. The cruel irony is Marxism in practice stole even that!
Posted by: Wes | May 4, 2009 11:13 AM
"On my book shelf is a volume set of the 1952 Encyclopaedia Britannica. I keep the set around because most modern encyclopedias have changed many facts to fit into the politically correct opinions of the modern day Socialist elite."
You don't suppose that an encyclopedia article written in 1952 had a political slant of its own?
Posted by: Libby | May 4, 2009 11:19 AM
Only a leftist like Libby would think there is a political slant to the truth.
Posted by: Fred Jake | May 4, 2009 11:42 AM
Envy, and thus jealousy, covetousness and hate, lies at the heart of socialism. Cain may have been the first socialist.
Posted by: Keith | May 4, 2009 11:42 AM
Keith
You nailed it dude.
In an article written by a Mark Perry on June 1995, he wrote the following on why Socialism has failed wherever it has been tried,
Socialism is the Big Lie of the twentieth century. While it promised prosperity, equality, and security, it delivered poverty, misery, and tyranny. Equality was achieved only in the sense that everyone was equal in his or her misery.
In the same way that a Ponzi scheme or chain letter initially succeeds but eventually collapses, socialism may show early signs of success. But any accomplishments quickly fade as the fundamental deficiencies of central planning emerge. It is the initial illusion of success that gives government intervention its pernicious, seductive appeal. In the long run, socialism has always proven to be a formula for tyranny and misery.
A pyramid scheme is ultimately unsustainable because it is based on faulty principles. Likewise, collectivism is unsustainable in the long run because it is a flawed theory. Socialism does not work because it is not consistent with fundamental principles of human behavior. The failure of socialism in countries around the world can be traced to one critical defect: it is a system that ignores incentives.
You can read his whole article here....
http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/why-socialism-failed/
Posted by: Bill | May 4, 2009 1:36 PM
Most Westerners believe that fascism is extreme-right and socialism is far-left. Perhaps a more realistic model would be a circle at the top of which stands a free market economy, private enterprise, and a limited constitutional government with a bill of rights for the individual as a cornerstone of freedom.
At the bottom of the circle rests a dictatorship, individual or oligarchic, sham rights revocable at any time by the state, and where the rule of law means everything is state controlled.
In reality, the only practical difference between fascism and socialism is that in a communist society government owns all property and directs all enterprise, whereas in a fascist society private property ownership continues, but entrepreneurs must submit to government's ideologies and goals - chief of which is the task of funding government programs with the proceeds of private enterprise. Today's socialism is striving to straddle both models.
I have said it before, and I will continue saying it until Americans start listening.
Obama is a Fascist and he is doing to America what Hitler did to Germany!
Posted by: Freepmanchew | May 4, 2009 1:48 PM
One of the biggest and best kept secrets of Socialism is that it is controlled by and for the elitists of society. That is why so many in the world of academia and media are mesmerized by it.
Genuine Socialists are, above all, elitist. Socialists see themselves as a type of bright shining Quixote tilting with windmills, saving humanity from itself, the planet from humanity, the economy from capitalism, and from everything else except big government, which socialists love.
On the other hand, they view the putrid pile of pusillanimous pus we call society as the unwashed ignorant who must be saved from themselves. In this capacity, the opinions of the unwashed are to be ignored.
We must make a distinction between the hard-core Socialists of academia, media, the politicians (ideologues) and the socialazzis (Lenin's "useful idiots"). We know these lower class Socialazzis as the average Joes and Janes, who think government social programs are great, but never investigate to see if socialism delivers its promises, which it never does.
To the credit of Joe Socialazzi, he truly is bothered that the rich seem to be getting richer and he seems to be getting poorer but he just can't figure it out. After all, Joe Socialazzi genuinely cares about people, but he doesn't understand that there's no such thing as a free lunch.
What the Joe and Jane Socialazzis fail to realize is that the hard-core ideologues, know it is all about the power, money, and control they get by fooling the very Socialazzis they educated to be clueless.
Posted by: Jack Benning | May 4, 2009 6:57 PM