Socialism as Anti-God: The Religious Right’s Bogeyman of Choice

I have previously discussed the fact that the abortion issue is by far the most important if not the only political issue that matters for a large portion of Christian America. The Religious Right as well as the American Catholic Bishops have used that issue to drag their respective flocks as far to the political right as possible even though on many issues the teachings of Jesus could not even be remotely considered right wing teachings. Quite the opposite in many cases. How have Church leaders been able to imprison their flocks so effectively? Surely the abortion issue, while incredibly strong, can’t mold the political views of all Christians alone, and that’s why some Church leaders use scary sounding terms like Socialism to keep everybody on the same page.

Here is an example of a viral video being forwarded ad nauseum among young Catholics all over the country. The goal is twofold: 1.) to connect Obama to socialism and 2) to convince young Catholics whose only exposure to politics has been at anti-abortion demonstrations that Socialism is inherently anti-God. To anyone with the most rudimentary understanding of Socialism, it is obvious that President Obama is not a Socialist. A Socialist would not work so hard to prop up investment banks that in turn have the American economy by the throat, a Socialist would not abandon true universal health care so readily, and finally a Socialist wouldn’t be SUCH A CAPITALIST!

I don’t say this as a criticism of Obama. I personally feel that the answer does not lie squarely in either camp but in a combination of the two (okay, a little bit more Socialism). But the point here is that the Socialist label is being used as a blunt tool to frighten the Be-Jesus out of any Christian who thinks he or she hears a good idea come out of Obama’s mouth. So the President is not a Socialist, but what if he were? Why is the specter of Socialism such a terrifying thing? Is it really anti-God like the video says? And how is the misunderstanding of it exploited so effectively by certain factions of religious America? Let us dissect:

While Socialism is wildly complicated and varied in its application, the basic definition is relatively simple: Socialism deals with government (and by extension in a democracy the people as a whole) control of the means of production of a commodity. For example “socialized” medicine would be the government running hospitals, medical supply companies, etc. Our current free market socializes in some form education, mail delivery, law enforcement, the military, the highway system, and much more.  To argue that this type of economy places “man as God” as the viral video does is to argue that God’s main function is to be the means of production for His people. Maybe that would explain that whole “invisible hand of the market” theory, but if that were true, then it would be immoral for us to build or create anything or advance technology in any way because that would mean we were trying to be God. Socialism is an economic theory and therefore is not connected to religion at all regardless of the feelings of its author. Karl Marx’s opinions on why Socialism had become necessary in the world and how religion played into that did not at all affect the applications of the economic theory’s tenets. While Lenin and others established Socialist/Communist governments that involved religious oppression, it is important to note that Socialism as an economic model is not at all dependent upon the other beliefs in government that its architects had. The idea that Socialism must include atheism because Marx and Lenin were anti – religion is no more valid than the idea that Adam Smith’s three mistresses mean that capitalism must include marital infidelity. In fact, did you know that the Pledge of Allegiance was written by a Christian Socialist (yes, they totally exist)? It’s true! So if the economics of Socialism are not anti-God and the Right Wing Church leaders can’t attack their followers with the facts, then another approach must be used.

That’s why another way in which that viral video tries to assert that Socialism is anti-God is to say that every Pope has roundly condemned Socialism ever since its inception, from Leo XIII through John Paul II. It’s curious that this 2009 video omits our current Pope from the role call, but more on that in a second. It’s true that many Popes have criticized Socialism (most notably Leo XIII and John Paul II), and one can agree or disagree with those assessments in the same way that many Catholics quibbled with the Pope about the war in Iraq. These criticisms of Socialism should, however, be viewed in an altogether unbiased light. Sticking to modern history, John Paul II was at least as critical of Capitalism as he was of Socialism. In his encyclical “Sollicitudo Rei Socialis” (On Social Concern), he describes the “all-consuming desire for profit, and… the thirst for power, with the intention of imposing one’s will upon others” and says that “not only individuals fall victim to this double attitude of sin; nations and blocs can do so too.” That’s a criticism that some on the right may find hard to swallow. John Paul II seems to have strived to curb the excesses of both economic theories rather than “roundly condemning” either one.

Which brings us to our current Pope, Benedict XVI. It’s interesting that the viral video chose to leave him out of the list of Pope’s that “condemned” Socialism, especially in the light of his latest encyclical “Caritas in Veritate.” (Charity in Truth) While this writing cannot be considered any sort of Socialist/Catholic manifesto, the Pope does advocate a rather leftist economic attitude. In one section he seems to advocate some form of political welfare state:

The more we strive to secure a common good corresponding to the real needs of our neighbours, the more effectively we love them. Every Christian is called to practise this charity, in a manner corresponding to his vocation and according to the degree of influence he wields in the pólis. This is the institutional path — we might also call it the political path — of charity, no less excellent and effective than the kind of charity which encounters the neighbour directly, outside the institutional mediation of the pólis.

In Section 25 he chastizes unfair free trade agreements before taking a second to defend the working man against the state:

...budgetary policies, with cuts in social spending often made under pressure from international financial institutions, can leave citizens powerless in the face of old and new risks; such powerlessness is increased by the lack of effective protection on the part of workers’ associations. Through the combination of social and economic change, trade union organizations experience greater difficulty in carrying out their task of representing the interests of workers, partly because Governments, for reasons of economic utility, often limit the freedom or the negotiating capacity of labour unions

Play “Who Said It?” with your right wing Catholic friend with that quote! This encyclical certainly promotes many neo-Socialist, power-to-the-people ideas, and although it stops short of advocacy, it seriously challenges the notion that Socialism is in any way anti – God. But not all religious people look to the Pope for their marching orders, so other more traditional scare tactics must be used to ensure that everyone stays in line.

That brings us to the next case for the evils of Socialism: the conflation of Marxist Socialism with Fascism in the form of the Nazi Party. It is absolutely true that Hitler’s Nazi party was a short way of saying National Socialist party, but the similarities between it and Marxism stop there. In fact, in Nazi dogma, “Marxism, international finance, and Freemasonry were all said to be Jewish devices created to dominate the world.” This would help to explain why the Communists were on our side during World War II. So while few in modern times would argue against the claim that Hitler’s National Socialism is evil, this fact bears no relevance to Marxist Socialism at all.

And as long as we’re talking about conflating Socialism, how about those comparisons to the good old religion – oppressing USSR! This is the easiest kind of fear mongering since it relies on over sixty years of overblown anti-Communist American terror. Yes, that second ‘S’ in USSR stands for Socialist, but there is so much more to that story. Communism is indeed a type of Socialism and therefore the USSR was indeed Socialist, but while all Communism is Socialism, not all Socialism is Communism. As previously discussed Socialism involves popular control over the means of production of a commodity. Communism sees that control and raises it an extra step. The Communist Manifesto contains this very helpful sentence: “In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.” To understand this concept fully, you must read the text, but the important distinction here is that referring to modern Socialism as akin to authoritarian Communist Russia is a huge leap. While dictators such as Stalin in the USSR and Pol Pot in Cambodia used Communism to seize more power and oppress the people, that does not mean that all forms of Socialism are tyrannical in nature. Keep in mind that dictators like Pinochet in Chile and Suharto in Indonesia have used Capitalism quite as effectively in the same way. The truth is that it is possible to be a fully or at least heavily Socialist government and still be a real honest to goodness democracy. Examples include modern day Venezuela (Surprise! Tell me if this seems like a dictatorship to you) as well as most of Scandinavia.

So there you have it, Catholics and Christians, your freedom of religion is safe as it should be. Now if you wouldn’t mind halting your imposition of it on the rest of the populace, that would be just swell. These are just a few of the areas in which Christians are misled down the path of Right wing hatred, having been wrongly told that President Obama is a Socialist and then being further misinformed as to what Socialism itself really is. Many Christians, no doubt, would agree with the entire Conservative doctrine wholeheartedly anyway, but the fact that so many are lied to and frightened in order to keep them that way suggests that many of them actually belong on the other side of the aisle. There is no reason why a Catholic or other Christian can’t be staunchly anti-abortion while still being anti-war and pro-welfare. The question that must be asked, then, is why are some religious leaders being so dishonest in an attempt to force a single ideology upon their entire flock. It’s time to end the Right’s reliance on scary, misleading buzz words that cloud the debate about the real issues that effect us and our society.

Flat Health Care

A couple of weeks ago I came across an op-ed piece from Charles Krauthammer in the Washington Post entitled “Health Care Reform – A Better Plan.” The article began with this amazing paragraph:

In 1986, Ronald Reagan and Bill Bradley created a legislative miracle. They fashioned a tax reform that stripped loopholes, political favors, payoffs, patronage and other corruptions out of the tax system. With the resulting savings, they lowered tax rates across the board. Those reductions, combined with the elimination of the enormous inefficiencies and perverse incentives that go into tax sheltering, helped propel a 20-year economic boom.

While this super-hyperbolic statement is of course only part of the story, the Tax Reform Act of 1986 was a bipartisan bill that did a couple of important things.

First, it completed the gigantic slashing of the top marginal tax rate on individual income that Reagan began in 1981. In less than ten years, the richest of Americans saved an extra 37 – 42% of the most excessive of their wealth.

Second, it simplified the tax code, reducing the number of tax brackets and eliminating loopholes.

Third, it reduced the top marginal corporate tax rate while applying the Alternative Minimum Tax to corporations in general.

It did a lot more than that, but those are the most important. Making the tax code more fair and simple is great, but it did more than that. It attempted to make up for the huge reduction in taxes for the wealthy by grabbing a buck here and a buck there across the board. It also brought the tax rates of the rich and everyone else closer together. Needless to say, Krauthammer’s observation omits the huge deficit explosion that followed the passage of this bill. (Remember when Conservatives were okay with deficit explosions?) In fact, rather than crediting the reform for a huge economic boom, the Reagan administration itself claimed that the bill was designed to be revenue neutral and rushed for excuses when they later projected a 90 billion dollar loss over the first five years (that’s in late 80’s dollars).

In fact, the deficit explosion eventually caused Bush the first, in an act of desperation, to break a major campaign promise and hike that top marginal tax rate up again. Clinton had to hike it up once again to balance the budget. So it’s quite a stretch to credit an act for helping to bring about 20 years of economic Utopia when one of its major provisions barely lasted five years and the “savings” he referred to actually vanished into the pockets of the rich, but what is the real point of Krauthammer bringing this Act up?  And how does this relate to health care reform?

Reagan’s 1986 Act brought us one step closer to the Holy Grail for some conservatives: a flat tax. We have taken several steps back from that since, but for some conservatives the dream is still alive. The philosophy that taxes should be exactly the same for every single person is one of the causes of the vast chasm that currently exists between the left and the right in America. Conservatives cannot even consider the argument that the wealthy have benefitted most from the “American way of life” and therefore should contribute more (not just in dollars but in a higher percentage of their dollars) to the betterment of society as a whole. They don’t believe that society as a whole benefits when the least of us are pulled up. That also explains the deep cuts in social programs that many fiscal conservatives support.

I think many conservatives want to take the flat tax philosophy and apply it to all aspects of life. Treat everyone exactly equally starting with today as day 1 and forgetting everything that has happened in the past that may have brought us to where we are now. Forget the intrinsic advantages society affords to some based on class, wealth, or race. Forget the extra opportunities some have had to become wealthy. Forget the tough breaks and injustices that caused some to become not so wealthy. Forget the past, look to the future. It’s a commonly heard political rallying cry employed by both Democrats and Republicans. But it ignores history which a wise man once said destines us to repeat it. Well, the dirty little secret is that that’s not treating everyone equally at all. Money buys rights in this society, and if you have more money, in many cases you have more rights. You can get a better lawyer, you can make friends with powerful people, you can even get your own first class health care.

So Krauthammer can talk about Tort Reform and Employer Based System Reform all day, he might even save the health care system some money (not from insurance company profits, mind you, but from victims of malpractice) and give everyone with a job (the really poor are just too lazy to deserve health care, right?) an exactly equal opportunity to buy private, individual insurance. But history tells us that private insurance, unregulated and unchallenged, doesn’t treat everyone exactly equally. It drops or refuses to cover risky investments (sorry, I meant human beings), it denies some procedures for questionable reasons, it worships profit margins and stock options rather than the needs of people. Often the odd ones out in this equation are the ones who can’t afford a loud enough voice to do anything about it.

A properly formulated non profit system of providing health care (or in this case health care insurance) can accomplish everything Krauthammer aspires to in his two part plan while also doing something that the Tax Reform of 1986 didn’t: it can level the playing field.