Socialism's Inherent Contradiction

Forerunner, "WorldWatch," July-August 2010

Ever since March 23, 2010, when President Barack Obama penned his signature on "The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act"—known by its opponents as "Obamacare"—the political landscape in the United States has been in turmoil. The Tea Party, a grassroots conservative movement determined to see Constitutional government restored to America, has fielded candidates across the nation in hopes of sweeping spendthrift, elitist members of Congress out of office in order to overturn the mountain of socialist legislation that has conferred crushing debt on Americans for generations to come. As of this writing, polls project that it will succeed in returning control of the U.S. House to Republicans, and a majority in the Senate is not out of reach.

Socialist policy—like that seen in universal healthcare, welfare, the many bailouts of banks and corporations, and the stunningly ineffective stimulus packages—appears to be so good and helpful that no one should want to oppose it. It provides money and other assistance to the old, poor, infirm, and disadvantaged, giving them a helping hand in their time of need. If that were all that it did—and sadly, this is all that a majority of the public think that it does—it would be admirable. Scripture is full of injunctions to aid the helpless (see, for instance, Deuteronomy 15:11; Proverbs 31:9; Galatians 2:10; etc.).

However, behind the mask of good intentions, socialism is a blood-sucking, whip-wielding monster, a fiend that wants nothing more than to pillage, enslave, and exercise increasing power over whole nations. Behind its claims to advocate for the "little guy" and its lofty rhetoric about "social justice," socialism is all about social, economic, and governmental control. Rather than give the individual liberty to make choices based on what is best for himself, his family, and his nation, socialists demand that an elite group of knowledgeable "experts"—usually members of the government, often faceless bureaucrats—should make those decisions for the people.

Noted libertarian economist Walter E. Williams, the John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University and the author of many books, writes in a recent opinion piece:

The primary goal of communism and socialism is government ownership or control over the means of production. In the U.S., only a few people call for outright government ownership of the means of production. They might have learned that government ownership would mess things up. Instead, they've increasingly called for quasi-ownership through various forms of government regulation, oversight, taxation and subsidies. After all, if someone has the power to tell you how you may use your property, it's tantamount to his owing it.¹

In America, then, a "pure" form of socialism is not in play, but the progressive policies of the political Left are achieving the same ends by covert means. Some have called it "stealth socialism." It has been sold to the American people as a more compassionate and even "Christian" alternative to the rugged individualism of traditional American capitalism. In this way, it is easy to see that it promises to replace "selfish" and "unequal" self-reliance with reliance on the state under the guise of sharing and equality.

Due to this incremental advance, which has shifted into high gear under the Obama administration, Americans have a fading opportunity to recognize where full-blown socialism has led in other places where it has been tried (and been found wanting). While U.S. socialism is nowhere near this point, the following examples of twentieth-century socialism show that the accumulation of power and control by the state inevitably leads to its use and abuse, as Lord Acton's well-known dictum—"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely"—warns.

Despite progressives' denials of a link, Nazism was a form of socialism—just note that its real name was the National Socialist German Workers' Party. It promoted a dictatorship that started and prosecuted a devastating World War and a holocaust that took the lives of nearly 21 million people. The former Soviet Union was officially named the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics—shortened to the acronym U.S.S.R. During its 70-year reign of terror, it was responsible for killing just under 62 million of its own citizens! Communist China, however, committed the worst atrocities, causing the deaths of an estimated 76 million people between 1949 and 1987.²

Thus, the inherent contradiction in socialism is exposed. While promising a better life to the less fortunate through the redistribution of wealth and the opening of opportunities, it takes a death-grip on the lives of its citizens. Control tightens and liberty disappears. The promised wealth and opportunity never materialize except to those few selected to join the ruling oligarchy. Want and misery spread, producing hopelessness, shortening life spans, and stirring revolt, which is put down with devastating force. What begins with soothing words and wonderful promises ends on the point of a bayonet.

For this world, on the other hand, the Kingdom of God will begin with Christ returning with power and a rod of iron to put down the perverse rule of ungodly men (Revelation 19:11-21), and as God's way is taught and implemented, will bring to pass all the wonderful promises of true peace, freedom, and prosperity found in Scripture (see Isaiah 2:1-4; 9:6-7; 65:17-25). While some would see divine monarchy as the ultimate in dictatorship and control, the exact opposite is true. God's government is based, not on power, but on love and service (Luke 22:25-27), and its citizens freely submit themselves to its rule and reap the blessings (James 4:10).

The prophet Jeremiah writes: "O Lord, I know the way of man is not in himself; it is not in man who walks to direct his own steps" (Jeremiah 10:23). Human forms of government are not the answer. Only those that incorporate godly principles have any hope of success in a world governed by satanic human nature, and even these eventually fall into corruption. Man's only true hope is God's Kingdom, which we pray comes quickly.

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Endnotes

1 Williams, Walter E., "Leftists, Progressives and Socialists," Townhall.com, October 20, 2010 (http://townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2010/10/20/leftists,_progressives_and_socialists).

2 Rummel, Rudolph J., "20th Century Democide," Death by Government (revised online), New Brunswick, N.J., Transaction Publishers, 1994 (http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM).

A Threat in Central Asia

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When foreigners come to this country and comment on American news coverage, it is usually to opine that our reporting is, frankly, self-interested. The talking heads tell their audiences about American politics, American tragedies, American foreign policy, American military activity, and American human-interest stories. If something happens in which U.S. interests are not involved, well, it gets a momentary mention or none at all. The American public, it seems, only needs to know about events that hit close to home.

This is probably why only a handful of Americans—and most of them are foreign policy watchers and news junkies—have any idea what the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is or that it even exists. To enlighten the rest of us, the SCO was organized in June 2001 as an intergovernmental security group composed of six nations: Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Before that, since 1996, the first five of these six nations had been similarly organized as the Shanghai Five under the "Treaty on Deepening Military Trust in Border Regions," which was signed in Shanghai, thus the memorable name.

Since 2001, four additional countries—Mongolia, Iran, Pakistan, and India—have all been officially accepted as observer nations in the group, and all of these desire to become full members. Significantly, the United States applied for observer status in 2005 and was summarily rejected as not having a stake in the region. Several other Central Asian nations, such as Turkmenistan and Afghanistan, have shown interest in joining the group.

Ostensibly, the purpose of the SCO is security in the Central Asian region, with the focus on separatism, extremism, and terrorism. Although SCO officials have said that it is not the Organization's purpose to form a military bloc, they have held several joint military exercises—in fact, they met in summit and held joint exercises just this week in the southern Ural Mountains. Member nations' foreign affairs and defense ministers hold regular meetings, and they encourage contact and cooperation among their various law enforcement agencies. Its interests have also expanded into economics, trade, investments, energy, transportation, legal cooperation, illegal drug interdiction, humanitarian assistance, and environmental concerns.

In an August 17, 2007, release, the Associated Press reports:

The summit concluded with a communiqué that sounded like a thinly veiled warning to the United States to stay away from the strategically placed, resource-rich region.

"Stability and security in Central Asia are best ensured primarily through efforts taken by the nations of the region on the basis of the existing regional associations," the statement said.

India-born Dilip Hiro, writing in The Guardian on June 16, 2006, comments: "The rising importance and coherence of the SCO worries Washington—as well as its closest Asian ally, Japan. 'The SCO is becoming a rival block to the U.S. alliance,' said a senior Japanese official recently. 'It does not share our values. We are watching it very closely.'" The concern is that the SCO is becoming a challenger to NATO.

The nation that has the most to gain by using the SCO for its purposes abroad is Russia. Under Vladimir Putin, the Russian bear is reviving internationally, once again making "great power" statements on foreign affairs and flexing military muscles that were even recently thought to be atrophied (for instance, Russian TU-95 bombers buzzed U.S. Navy assets near Guam on August 9). Due to its huge energy resources, particularly oil and natural gas, the Russian economy is stable, and the fossil fuel demands of nearby nations, specifically European nations, give Moscow a stout cudgel to use to persuade them to see things its way. Thus, it is thought that Russia, as well as the other oil-rich Central Asian nations, may try to use the SCO as a club to expand its energy dominance. In this guise, the SCO would be a new OPEC with teeth.

From a biblical point of view, the formation of this relatively new group may have interesting ramifications. Ezekiel 38 contains the famous and somewhat controversial "Gog and Magog" prophecy. The controversy revolves primarily around the prophecy's timing. Some—and a majority of Protestant prophecy watchers would fit in this camp—believe that this great army will come out of the East to destroy the State of Israel during the lead-up to the return of Christ. The other side figures that the placement of Ezekiel 38 and many of its internal details argue for it being a parallel prophecy to the attack of Gog and Magog in Revelation 20:7-9, that is, late in the Millennial period.

However, the intriguing aspect of the SCO concerns the peoples, the nations, that are involved. To a great extent, they line up well with those mentioned in Ezekiel 38:2-6. Gog, Magog, Rosh, Meshech, and Tubal all have links with Russia. Persia is modern Iran. Ethiopia and Libya are "Cush" and "Put" in the Hebrew, both of which had Eastern branches that settled in the areas of the "Stans" (Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, etc.) and India. Gomer probably refers to the Chinese, and Togarmah most likely indicates Mongolia and some of the Siberian tribes. These identifications are admittedly speculative, though they are based on sound biblical, historical, and linguistic evidence.

Nevertheless, an Eastern bloc led by a resurgent Russia, comprised of nations that contain half the world's population in aggregate, having four nuclear club members and huge, modern, well-equipped armies, and with black gold to back it, is a force to be reckoned with. We would be wise to keep an eye on the Shanghai Cooperation Organization over the next few years.

Is China's Threat a Mirage?

The People's Republic of China has been in the news quite a lot lately, but not in the way it might wish to be discussed. While China's economy continues to churn out ten percent increases, as it expands its influence in areas as far away as Africa and South America, and as it persists in striking a belligerent—even bellicose—pose against its rivals in Asia and in the Pacific, many Americans seem to perceive China as little more than a producer and exporter of dangerous pet-food additives and lead-painted toys.

Because the War on Terror and the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars dominate the horizon, few people recall that before 9-11, the China threat was front and center. Chinese pilots were playing tag with American assets in the region, even forcing a U.S. Navy EP-3 Aries spy plane to land on Chinese soil. Pundits seriously discussed how soon it would take China to leap from major power to superpower status—especially the more liberal talking heads, who worried a great deal about perceived instability (read "American dominance") in a unipolar world. That kind of talk abruptly ceased with the collapse of the World Trade Center towers.

Most of such talk has stopped, but not all of it. In the nearly six years since then, China has continued to expand economically, continued to arm, continued to flex its diplomatic muscles, and continued to plan and work toward some grandiose aims (such as floating a bona fide carrier group and putting a man on the moon). It possesses certain strengths that make American leaders nervous, such as its ability to damage the U.S. economy in terms of both trade and monetary policy. China also has North Korea on a leash, for now, and uses threats concerning Taiwan to its advantage. Without a doubt, the Chinese dragon still has teeth and claws.

But is it really a threat to U.S. power?

If she is to be believed, Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi does not think so. While touring some poverty-stricken areas of China with U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson recently, she flatly stated that, because of her nation's many internal problems, it is no threat to anyone, not economically, not politically, and not militarily—and certainly not to America. Evidently, she wanted the U.S. government to believe that, though it has the world's largest population (1.2 billion people), the third-largest economy, the world's third-ranked military, plenty of nuclear weapons, and a seat on the U.N Security Council, China should not be regarded as a rival, by any means.

Could there be something to her nationally self-disparaging comment? Perhaps. Strategic Forecasting's "Morning Intelligence Brief" of August 2, 2007, reports that, despite China's present booming condition, cracks in the foundation are already evident. China is aging, and it is projected to "get old before it gets rich," saddling the next generation with a monumental, and probably unsolvable, pension problem. It has an overabundance of unmarried males due to its socially devastating One-Child Policy. Perhaps worst of all, the rural countryside contains 800 million seething peasants, who have watched their urban, coastal neighbors develop and prosper at their expense.

Demography, as columnist Mark Steyn preaches, is destiny, and China's demography forecasts rough times ahead.

In addition, though the Han Chinese are the majority ethnic group, China is hardly monoethnic but consists of dozens of non-Chinese groups, for instance, Zhuang, Mongolians, Manchu, Koreans, Tibetans, and Uyghur. Being exempt from the One-Child Policy, ethnic populations are growing at about seven times the Han population. Most minorities have integrated into Chinese society, yet many Tibetans, Uyghur, and perhaps Manchurians, resent Chinese control and could try to break away. Some of these minorities are strong in areas far removed from Beijing, which keeps the central government on edge.

Regional geography is also a significant factor. Stratfor points out:

Strategically, China is in a box. Its land borders . . . are comprised of the emptiness of Siberia, the emptiness of Central Asia, the mountains of the Hindu Kush, the mountains of the Himalayas, and the jungles (and mountains) of Southeast Asia. All of these borders are just secure enough to limit China's ability to expand, but not quite so awesome (with the obvious exception of the Himalayas) as to provide China with airtight protection.

Geopolitically, China's situation is the worst of both worlds: The wastes and barriers it must cross deny it the ability to expand, yet those same wastes and barriers do not protect it sufficiently from outside pressures. Because it considers itself vulnerable from Russia, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam, and the Philippines—militarily, economically, or philosophically—it is more concerned with holding onto what it has than reaching out for more. It is likely to be insular and protective of its borders for many years.

Finally, China must tread carefully in its dealings with foreign powers, and certainly those on whom it relies in terms of trade. Its economy is built on good relations with suppliers of natural resources and buyers of manufactured goods. If either of these pools dries up, the Chinese economy withers. In other words, if it picks a fight with the wrong opponent, it could effectively slit its own economic throat. In China, economic trouble inevitably leads to social unrest and the likely possibility of a harsh military crackdown.

Certainly, the "China threat" is real, but at the moment, it is nowhere near the stature of a superpower showdown. Under today's circumstances, if push came to shove with the U.S.—and American resolve held—China would likely back down quickly, especially if the Seventh Fleet made a show of force in the South China Sea. However, in tandem with other Asian nations, China would definitely be a force to be reckoned with. Should China enter a military bloc with regional neighbors, the China threat will reach the "alarming" level.