Definitions of socialism and communism

Sorry to have been absent so long. I can't say this year is off to a good start. The broken artesian well was capped successfully, but there is a break in the pipe that Trenching Guy #1 broke, and right now, with windchills that are reaching -50C (yep, you read that right) it isn't possible to fix it. And my horses broke out of their pasture. Since I am not sure how - all I have seen is rabbit tracks over the fence line, they are in the barn. Of course, with weather like this, they'd be in the barn anyway but I have to carry water several times a day from the house as I have no water in the barn due to the break in the pipe.

Have I ever mentioned that I hate winter??? Can I repeat that just for the satisfaction of it: I HATE winter.

First of all, I have never heard socialism or communism defined in quite the way you do. Some of it may be a matter of choice of words. So in order that we both know what the other is talking about this is my definition and understanding of both socialism and communism.

One of the main mistakes you make, is the idea that there is no private income or jobs or businesses under socialism. Not true as the link should make clear. Socialism is the next evolution up from capitalism. Capitalism is necessary as a step up from feudalism but for a society to stop at capitalism is to refuse to evolve any further. Socialism has nothing at all to do with individuals not working because everything is just given to them.

We have seen the failure of communism Soviet-style, and this market crash thing which was based on a free capitalist market, was caused precisely because the US government did not have proper controls in place on financial institutions. What is the government turning to now in order to prevent a depression? Socialism. Which does not mean that the government will take away all private business but simply that the government will regulate certain businesses which can have a national impact.

We are now paying the price for US style capitalism. Bail-outs for the big financial institutions are not about helping the rich, except insofar as those who are against the bail-outs seem to ignore the fact that it is the working stiff who suffers in the long run.

Capitalism as it has been practised in the US traditionally is in its death throes. People cannot be counted on to do the right thing, they cannot be counted on to regulate their own greed. It is a conflict of interest. Greenspan stated before the Senate, that he didn't regulate banks and whatnot because he thought their own capitalist sense of self-preservation would stop them from going as far as they did.

Canada and other nations, are not in the same predicament as the US because we never had that silly idea that banks can regulate themselves. There is a fall-out and loss of jobs world-wide because markets are interlinked

When you talk about how in socialism people are "forced" to give part of their hard-earned goods to "the government," you say that as thought that is a bad thing. In an ideal world, a communist world, people would do good things because they are good. That is not the case with this current, fallen world. Obviously this is a large subject and I don't have the time to address every point, the the heart of your argument for capitalism as Biblically justified, seems undermined by Cain's comment to God, "Am I my brother's keeper?"

That seems to be the gist of the whole capitalism/socialism/communism argument. Capitalism is based on profit and on the interests of the individual, on whatever the market can bear. Capitalism doesn't care if someone dies of hunger if the going price for bread is such-and-such an amount. It is the price that determines how one acts, not morality - except as one chooses to have a conscience.

I certainly agree that one cannot force someone to actually care but you can, in some instances, by law, make sure that people do what is morally right, which is something that every society that is not in outright chaos attempts to do. Anarchy is good for no one. If God created the world, then there is a morality that permeates the world and what some Christians like to call that `God-shaped' hole inside of all of us. That is what socialism is about - you can't always wait for people to do the right thing. You have to educate them as to how to do the right thing and you have to sometimes shame them into doing the right thing.

That is why we have laws against homicide, speeding, stealing, etc. Because we don't count on all people to do good. We don't allow people to do just whatever the hell they like. that would be anarchy and anarchy was certainly not the model God puts out for us in either the NT or the OT.

The laws against homicide, speeding and stealing etc, are in place for the greater good. Making sure that there is more equality, for example, in health care, that whether you live or die is not so based on whether you can afford to live is based on the idea that we are all equal under God but the playing field is not equal. Opportunities are not equal. And sometimes bad things happen to perfectly good people through no fault of their own as the story of Job shows us.

In Ecclesiastes, we are told: There is a sore evil which I have seen under the sun, namely, riches kept for the owners thereof to their hurt.

It was not a free-for-all capitalist society that the OT or Judaism advocated. With wealth came responsibility and it was not all voluntary. The laws of tithing in the OT were not voluntary, neither was the observance of the Sabbath day as a day of rest.

As far as your quote about "whoever doesn't work, neither shall he eat," I can't think of an actual example of that being followed in the OT. Farmers were instructed to leave gleanings for the poor. Lenders were instructed to return the blankets of their debtors for the nighttime, regardless of the amount owed. Slaves had to be freed after a certain amount of years, and debts forgiven. In Leviticus 25, the idea of the rich and the poor was dealt with like this:

And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen for ever: but over your brethren the children of Israel, ye shall not rule one over another with rigour. And if a sojourner or stranger wax rich by thee, and thy brother that dwelleth by him wax poor, and sell himself unto the stranger or sojourner by thee, or to the stock of the stranger's family: After that he is sold he may be redeemed again; one of his brethren may redeem him.

A family can be a family-family and it can be a nation family, as in Americans all are a nation family. There is no suggestion that everyone will ever be equal economically but there is a definite idea that families help each other, which Jesus took a step further in the story of the Good Samaritan.

These were Laws, not suggestions. Jesus also said famously that, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

He did not say this, in my understanding, because riches in and of themselves are sinful but rather because it seems to be a peculiar fact that the more people have, the less inclined they are to share. To take Paul's metaphor about Christians being part of one body and that no part ought to exalt itself above another, wealth exists to be used for the good of all humanity, not to be stored up by one individual for his or her own use.

And we are given an example - several in fact of the opposite situation, that of the capitalist rich man, Abigail's husband, who saw no reason to feed or share what he had with David's ragtag bag of outlaws. Or the rich man whom Jesus told to if he loved God, to give all that he had to the poor.

In Revelations 18 a whole society, a clearly capitalist society is warned about the consequences and the judgment that will befall it for its unabashed glorification of wealth: How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her.

As far as Anabaptists are concerned, they are more socialist than communist, in ideals as opposed to practice. I know of only one group that is communist and that would be the Hutterites. We do not live communally, we do not share resources or own things in common or any of that stuff. Mennonites live on privately own land, with private income from jobs that can range from farmer to politician. You could not pick your average Mennonite out of a crowd of anyone else. Most of us do not have buggies and the ones that do the horse-and-buggy thing don't own their horses in common, their barns in common or their houses in common, so there is nothing communist about them either. And I don't know of anyone who has had free labour in terms of barn-raisings.

Hutterites on the other hand, do not own anything as individuals and live in small colonies within the definition of communism. Each person contributes his or her labour and there are no individual bank accounts, only a community 'purse.' Each person gets what he needs to live in terms of a roof over his head (they don't live under one roof) and each person is expected to work at something on the colony.

Sorry if this is a little disjointed. It's such a big subject, and with everything else going on here, it's not that big on my mind.