Dr. James D. Bales Professor of Christian Doctrine, Harding College Presented to Freedom Forum, 1950, Searcy, Arkansas 72143
Socialism’s misunderstanding of human nature is revealed in their view that crime is bred by the private property system, and that it will more and more disappear as one has more and more socialism. Communists have maintained the same thing, but they not only have on their books laws against crimes just as we do, but they have many laws we do not have; and the death penalty is more widely prevalent in the Communist than in capitalist countries.
Socialism is blind to the fact that men will work harder for themselves, for their families, and for causes in which they personally believe, than they will work for the abstraction called the State. One may not like this fact, but to attempt to build an economic system on the denial of it will not make the system productive.
Walter Lippmann said: “We have renounced the wisdom of the ages to embrace the errors the ages have discarded. The road whereby mankind has advanced in knowledge, in the mastery of nature, in unity, and in personal security has lain through a progressive emancipation from the bondage of authority, monopoly, and special privilege. It has been through the release of human energy that men have lifted themselves above the primeval struggle for the bare necessities of existence; it has been by the removal of constraints that they have been able to adapt themselves to the life of great societies; it has been by the disestablishment of privilege that men have risen from the status of slaves, serfs, and subjects to that of free men inviolate in the ways of the spirit. “And how else, when we pause to ponder the matter, can the human race advance except by the emancipation of more and more individuals in ever-widening circles of activity? How can new ideas be conceived? How can new relationships, new habits, be formed? Only by increasing freedom to think, to argue, to debate, to make mistakes, to learn from those mistakes, to explore and occasionally to discover, to be adventurous and enterprising, can change be more than the routine of a recurrent pattern.”
In effect, socialism is almost unlimited trust in unlimited government. This is in contrast with our constitutional, and thus limited, government which while recognizing that government is necessary, yet does not trust it with unlimited power over the lives of the people. Socialism wants us to assume that government can be all wise, all good, all powerful, and all knowing; without at the same time being dictatorial. In fact, it cannot be all wise, all good, all powerful, and all knowing; but it is dictatorial to the extent that is socialistic.
Read more by clicking on the link below.