Redistributing wealth

Remember, oh my more than a year ago, our discussions about Liberation Theology? And the S-word (socialism) came up? Well, it's still not the great Satan.

While I was in Hawai'i (in English Hawaii) and folks told me about how the state government had solved several economic-related problems the last few years... the state simply took them over (like pension plans) and the taxpayer subsidizes when there is a shortfall of funds. Talked to a lot of Australians, Kiwis (New Zealand peeps) and Canadians, also a couple of Brits (who point out each UK taxpayer's share of our stock market dive is about 17,000 pounds sterling. Of course they all agreed, the only obviously right plan to our economic woes is to nationalize the lot.

Now in Texas, most of the state would scream "socialism" and well yeah, sure, they'd be right. But MY only obvious response to them would be "and your point would be ...?"

Roger, it's good to see the citation of the Jubilee passage in Leviticus and the Luke 4 passage where Jesus is shown as the realization of the Jubilee in all its redistributionist glory.

You'd think that the purveyors of the 'Christian Nation' idea and of the inerrantist Bible would have latched on to those passages and 'claimed' them. But no, they go in the Opposite Way. Well, almost all of them. I have an inerrantist friend who doesn't. He was the Christian Church's Campus Foundation minister at the University of Illinois until he started, about 30 years ago, his own independent congregation that included former student anti-Vietnam War leaders and counter-cultural activists.

I've mentioned it before, but before you joined us, that this friend and I wrote a long "Bicentennial Bible Study" based on the Jubilee, while I was working for the Peoples Bicentennial Commission (PBC). My comments on the Jubilee at a conference at the U. of Michigan were denounced in 1976 by the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (known as the McCarran Committee after its founder and first chairman, the anti-communist zealot, Senator Pat McCarran, Democrat from Nevada). They published a report "The Attempt To Steal The Bicentennial - The Peoples Bicentennial Commission. (It was a closed hearing -- we were never invited to testify.) While misquoting me as using manipulative language that I always avoided, a witness got an essential thing right:

"(he says) that the Bible even makes it clear that there should be a periodic sharing of the wealth. He says, look at the jubilee year that is talked about there in Leviticus 25, and that there is nothing in the Bible to support the existence of corporations."

A senator then asked: "So, when he uses terms concerning the Bible, he is really not getting away from the Marxist theory at all?"

The answer: "No, he is not....He is simply using it to cover up what he is really trying to do. He says that the point is that if you can get the fundamentalists turned on to the PBC concept of economic democracy and show it is supported in the Bible, you will have tapped a major power source in moving the thing forward."

While I didn't and wouldn't phrase it quite that way, I think the general idea is still valid. I remember that my pastor friend was both amused and appalled by the committee's conclusions: he realized how, like so many others, they simply didn't get it. It was an eye-opener.

With all this nonsense about 'socialism' and the horrors of redistribution, it would be good for us to point out publicly that it's not so scary, for the Bible Tells Us So. Even Adam Smith has told us so.

Looking at what Faith Rudd (dragonclouds) just wrote about James 5: 1-6 makes me so sorry that I didn't quote that passage at that Michigan conference. That sure would have convinced the good Senators that I was not only a Marxist but a violent revolutionary. "Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries which are coming upon you." How apt for a time of so many converging crises.

I have never understood why socialism is always labelled as Bad. The way I see it, socialism is the ideal state for humanity and the way that God wanted us to be, only man is fallen and greedy and selfish so it does not work. But if only we would listen to the word of God, it would work! I think James 5:1-6 says it all.

This is a touchy subject with me at the moment - I'm reading The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressel (an excellent novel of the Edwardian era dealing with socialism).

Socialism, although once clearly defined is a relative term these days. If the workers start owning the means of production, such as the workers at Ford Motor company start splitting the profits up and get rid of the Ford family and the shareholders, that is when we have socialism as originally defined by Marx and Engels.
As a career Civil Servant I guess I have been a Socialist tool all my life, by current Republican definition. The tax payers paid their taxes for me to be a firefighter when I was younger and a Counselor/Social worker when I was older. Our Police Department is funded by tax payer dollars and they deliver services to us. As a veteran I use the socialist V.A. medical health care system. All our members of the Armed Forces get Socialist health care for service members. Yet if we start talking about health care for sick children, we are called communists. Is it such a quantum leap in imagination to conceive of the same government that has an army or delivers fire services delivering health care?
World War II hero and Republican President Dwight Eisenhower taxed millionaires at the 90% rate. We seem to have plenty of money for oil companies to get subsidies even as they rake in obscene profits at our expense. Our government gives Agri-business huge government subsidies so they can undercut foreign competition. These agri-business firms do things like flood the Mexican economy with corn and beans, that put the small Mexican farmer out of business. Then Americans are angry at the Mexicans when they come here looking for work so they can feed their families. Our tax dollars forced their situation! We already have Socialism for the rich! Unfortunately for us working stiffs, it is raw cut throat capitalism that our leaders seem to desire for us.
There are many reforms that are socialist but a progressive income tax structure as currently proposed by Obama, are not.