How Should Christians Think About Socialism?

Ask Pastor John
Episode: 710

[SuperJgiu]

I think he doesn't understand the difference of personal and private property. Neither does he understand who holds the power in socialism. It's the people, not the government.

[mortenmodler]

Dear John,
You have my deepest respect on theology, keep telling the truth to people. However, I would ask you to be carefull when talking about the Danish way of living. Danmark is not America, we don't think as you do when it comes to building a society. As christians in Denmark we try not mix politics and our faith in the Lord, so please don't force me to do that. We vote for the people who gets closest to the will of God in their politics and sometimes its "democrats" and sometimes its not. Most of the time neither of them is good.
This is not about beeing a democrat, socialists or something else, this is about culture and Yes we choose to have free healthcare and education but not because we all are socialists! We do it because we believe that every single child should have a good starting point in life, even if the parents can't afford it. For me thats not a political view, its love thy neighbor.
As a christian living en Denmark I get sad when people from USA, and especially christians, starts useing Denmark as an example on there political views because, we are not Americans, we don't think Republicans or Democrats in the same way you do.
I know you went into your answer with humility, and I just had to get this out of my system because its disturbs my listening to everything else you say.

Dear John, keep teaching me the word of God, and please do come to Denmark one day it is really a lovely place.

[MolloyDaddaLuke]

To me the bible reveals that there are inadequacies in both socialistic & capitalistic systems. The bible reveals that each & everyone of us has a personal duty, whether we like it or not, to aid those around us, but that responsibility is not to be dependent on the state.

[leonscott]

As expected, Piper has an Americanized cold war propaganda understanding of socialism. To his credit he doesn't overly strawman the topic and seems to try his best to fairly represent it. So I appreciate that first and foremost.

Socialism is very simple. It's direct democracy within legislative and labor markets, and direct meritocracy in income distribution.... The democratic part is like the biggest part.... Which is why automatically us socialist loose it when you bring up communist totalitarian dictatorships as an example of "socialism not working". We also agree that repacious dictatorships where a few people own the means of all production is immoral.... That's ironically the same reason why we have a Marxist critque of capitalism because we hypothesize that free markets (where contracts between individuals sit above all else) will eventually lead to oligarchic societies.... Where money controls all policy .... And then that will eventually lead us all the way back to some form of singular centralized abusive control whether it's fascism, monarchy, fuedalism, totalitarianism ect.... Our arguement is that capitalism is the breeding ground for everything we hate in abusive empires.

Our solution is quite simple. Direct and infused democracy and strong universal social services. The direct and infused democracy would mean that for example employees vote for their CEO, they collectively bargain for their wages and their co-ownership of their labor. Currently, for example, Walmart makes billions of dollars a year.... The CEO and their family is worth almost a trillion combined. But their employees, who are responsible for generating 99.999% of that value are paid $11/he and can't afford to raise a family or own a home or buy a car.... In fact Walmart actually hands employees tutorials on how to qualify for gov assistance.... So not only are they being essentially robbed of lionshare of their product of their labor, but then Walmart gets all of the taxpayers to further subsidies the living expenses for the employees. This isn't a failure of capitalism. This is a massive success story. Walmart beat the competition. They figured out a way to manufacture things at dirt cheap prices overseas (ironically because there's less gov regulation aka social) and then they can resell them at marked up prices in the US but comparibiely cheap for citizens. They make a crazy profit, but they smash local establishments in every category.... They set up shop across the country and what happens
1. Local businesses crash
2. Employees of local businesses loose their jobs
3. Walmart pays those employees dirt
4. Wealth in the community is exported out at exponential rates and funneled into a few people's hands around the world whom happen to own fortune 500s
5. People must apply for loans for basic life necessities .... And get robbed even further by mega banks
7. They stress and go into depression and then get exploited by the free market pharma industry selling antidepressants and pain meds

Again, this the success story of capitalism. This is the dream of a capitalist. To absolutely smash the competition. Nowhere in this is any care for commonwealth sustainability. It's an afterthought so you can sleep at night at best.

Socialism essentially is the attempt to give workers collective bargaining power. I didn't mention this earlier but the reason why things get out of whack when we start with basic peer to peer contracts is that at some point the "owner" of the firm ends up with way stronger bargaining power than the other peer.

For example. I think peer to peer contracts are GREAT and should be honored... Honestly I do. And that's because we're on equal footing. We both have wants and needs, and we have to argue them to determine a fair contract. However, if I'm an individual trying to work at Walmart, things change. I want and needs a stable income. Walmart wants work.... The the difference now is that Walmart doesn't NEED to even sit with me. Even if I've worked for them for 50 years.... There's no financial inscentive for them to even listen to me because they're now a mega economy and I'm still just an individual. There's no leverage on my end, and so out of share DESPERATION I must accept anything they offer me. And here in lies the main issue with peer to peer. It doesn't account for how one peer may have an insane amount of leverage over the other where they can take advantage of hundreds of thousands of desperate people....

The solution to this is democracy. If when I want to negotiate my wages or ownership with a mega structure I also have a structure on my end to negotiate, now we can actually talk.... In this case, for example, if I want a raise at Walmart to $50/hour because I calculated my labor to company profit ratio (which is real), they don't have to listen to me, they'll just laugh. However, if I'm represented by all cashier's at Walmart, well they'll sit real quick. Because if they laugh in my face, the cashier's can say "we are not coming to work until you sit down with us on behalf of Leon and find an agreement".
And you may say "oh that's insanity, tyrrany, jungle rule!". Well actually this exactly what happens when CEOs sit down to discuss a buyout.... Or when you sit down with a home owner to close on a deal. Peer to peer contracts naturally work this way when the two parties are in the same leverage ballpark. Socialist are not anti contract. We are actually more pro contract than capitalists because we beleive that contracts should be had on every level of society and should be decided on equal footing to prevent an over aggregation of power in society. I'm sure you could imagine that in such a world ad I discribed that wealth and worship would be much more linear and less ruthlessly exponential. You could imagine the wealthiest person having 50million in net worth while the lowest wages being $35/hr and the medium income being $75k. Why? Because naturally the laborers will as a whole successfully bargain for higher wages than what they are presently. And what would you rather have? 10 people half the countryz wealth that we look to to create new low wage jobs for everybody? Or 10 million people whom all of a sudden have the financial freedom to start local small businesses and create communal and generational prosperity?

[drewtronics]

Thank you! Very wise, a God glorifying answer! Not popular perhaps, but the truth is the truth.

[eeervin]

Wish Americans would be a bit more open-minded: many things work better outside the US. In Europe healthcare and tuition incl university is free in almost every EU country, it's been like this for +50 years and it works just fine. It is also a good thing; those who need care/have the merits to study get is as opposed to those who can afford it. It is overall even cheaper because it is non-profit. Piper should really just stay with theology, that's the only DG vid I though lacked sense.

[jesusislordsavior]

He has many valid points, but his perspective seems guided as much by 'Americanism' as by Christianity. This is predictable. Economic voluntarism, or 'rugged individualism', seems bound up with American culture as with few others. Also he seems to think of 'socialism' as a monolith, which it definitely is not, any more than 'capitalism' is a monolith, or Christianity for that matter.

If he thinks that the State must refrain from involvement in economic affairs, how does he expect basic public services to be coordinated and paid for? Does he not understand the role of the State in subsidizing private businesses, creating infrastructure for their benefit? Who is going to maintain courts of justice, the police, the military? Or should public defense be abandoned to guerrillas and warlords? What about disaster relief?
(To say nothing of relief for those poor, for whom churches and ordinary citizens cannot or will not take responsibility.)

What did Joseph do during the long Egyptian famine? He CONTROLLED the economy so that people would not starve. (Genesis 47:20) 'So Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh, for every Egyptian sold his field, becasue the famine was severe upon them. Thus the land became Pharaoh's.' Sounds like nationalization, eh? But Joseph DID NOT STEAL. He PAID for what he took. There is a WORLD of difference between that and 'totalitarian socialism.' Joseph was a great manager, not a proto-socialist.

(Romans 13:1) 'Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are ordained by God.'
(Romans 13:6) 'For because of this you pay taxes, for
rulers are servants of God, devoting themselves to this very thing.'

[JohnKobaRuddy]

I’m a socialist and view Christianity as being very compatible with each other. Some of the new age new wave stuff if transgenderism and pronouns and people not being able to take criticism is some weird stuff that’s been attached to our ideology. And some of us and our views on homosexuality is do as you want don’t hurt anyone don’t push it on anyone don’t involve kids. And when it comes to gay marriage is it would be more a civil partnership thing that only acts as way for the law to know you act as a couple etc and get similar (not the same) rights as a married couple and if they want to get married in a church then it’s a case of it being up to the church to say so. But gay people should really think long and hard on if they truly are Christians and are wanting to get married in a church. We seem to be better Christians than many American Christians and what’s wrong with wanting the best for everyone in society as opposed to rampant greed and destitution?!

[Abc-cpcb]

thou shalt not steal can be applied to any normal taxes. By this logic we shouldn't be paying any taxes.

[marcelniles]

Thank God John Piper for trying to answer the question ask to you by one of your listener...you answered to the best of your know-how with both feet in the Holy scriptures and I appreciate that...love and pray for you brother....❣❣❣

[pakhyeoncheol]

“You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love.”

[Believer]

If you don't know much about socialism maybe don't share your thoughts on it. This is a misunderstanding of socialism.

[kath]

I don't know much about socialism but I'm going to tell you about it anyway. -John Piper

[juozapasjurksa]

Well, Denmark is not a socialist country...

[vikingdrengenspiders]

I live in Danmark and well IT’s not horrible but we are forced to pay pretty high taxes and not to talk about the power our government has

[xavierowino]

Coerced and compelled giving is also seen in the bible. Jesus said that if your enemy forcefully takes away away your shirt, give him an additional shirt. In another it says, if your enemy forces you to go one mile, go one extra mile. Its the way to show love even for your worst enemies. We now use this as an an expression of utmost love. So you can't use the objection that forced giving has no place. Christians can actually used forced giving (best exemplified in govt) as an opportunity to witness.

Also taxes are a form of coerced contribution and yet Jesus didn't oppose it, In fact he commanded Christians to pay taxes because Caeser was God's servant, appointed to do good. In Jesus' day, the economic and political model was probably as bad or worse than socialism yet Jesus (and the apostles) didn't call for christians to condemn it.

Other equally evil systems have come and gone such as the oppressive feudalism which reigned in Europe for centuries. Modern capitalism (and communism) are recent arrivals (18th by Adam Smith and Karl Marx). Perhaps scores of others will come next.

[bobbyadkins]

When you say that Christians should do something like support all the needs, even healthcare, of other believers, but are clearly not doing so, but are coming up way short, how does this line up with what you believe about God ordaining everything that comes to pass?

[ericlestick]

Socialism has the power to make Christians resent helping the poor.

[rsarahi]

Democratic socialism is still socialism. Socialism is the idea that because someone has more money than I do, I deserve to get your money because you have too much. Capitalism is the best system in the world! What happened in acts, was within believers. Denmark is a capitalist society, with certain socialist programs.... how long that will last? 🤷🏻‍♀️ 20% from the rich is significantly greater than 20% from the lower or middle class. Our youth is being brainwashed to not work hard because someone will always be there to solve their problems 🤦🏻‍♀️

[elkellenhabla]

The US isn't purely capitalistic. It has some socialistic policies.