Jesus would not have endorsed the Democratic Socialists of America | Opinion
In the same year that Americans are celebrating the Declaration of Independence and the principles of liberty found there, members of the Democratic Socialists of America are making political gains.
At my institution and in churches around the country, Christians are revisiting an old question: Was Jesus the first socialist? The idea is appealing to many of my students and fellow followers of Jesus.
Our Lord’s emphasis on helping the poor and the first disciples’ sharing of resources in the book of Acts suggests a natural alignment with the tenets of socialism. However, discussions around these teachings ignore the central characteristics of socialism; that is, the use of force.
Economic studies of government laws and policies always seek to distinguish between the “seen” and the “unseen.” Economists ask both the question of what the immediate effects of a government policy will be but also ask what the likely unintended consequences are of the same.
What is seen in Jesus’s teaching is a call to radical generosity. What is unseen by many readers of this teaching is that the call was always directed at the individual’s heart, not the Roman authority or tax collector. Socialism is defined by the concentration of power to forcibly achieve a redistribution of wealth. Socialist policies are not voluntary but rather coercive, resulting from a monopoly power the government holds over the use of force.
There is no evidence that Jesus endorsed the forcible redistribution of wealth by political authorities. When confronted with a question about the distribution of a family’s wealth, Jesus replied by asking who appointed him a judge or arbiter and instead cautioned against envy (Luke 12).
Furthermore, Jesus’s parables repeatedly uphold the principles of a free society, such as honoring contracts and the right to one’s profit from their labor or their private property. In the “Parable of the Talents,” the man who invests and generates a return is applauded, while the one who hides his capital is reprimanded (Matthew 25).
Economic theory and historical experience show that nations with the most economic freedom have higher rates of long-term growth and prosperity. You cannot redistribute anything to anybody if it is not created by somebody in the first place. Government policies that take from Peter to pay Paul must limit the ability to create wealth, which is what allows the poor to flourish.
Adam Smith, the so-called first economist, demonstrated, that the least of us will only be better off when the wealth of the nation increases. He wrote, “The demand for those who live by wages, therefore, necessarily increases with the increase of the revenue and stock of every country, and cannot possibly increase without it. The increase of revenue and stock is the increase of national wealth. The demand for those who live by wages, therefore, naturally increases with the increase of national wealth, and cannot possibly increase without it.”
Despite the good intentions Christians see in democratic socialism, people are not well served by more state mandates and market interventions. Such policies retard economic growth and society’s standard of living for all.
So no, Jesus isn’t a socialist. We’re not to seek a more equal society through political authority, but to seek the kingdom of God.
Jesus’s call is one of redemption and freedom, not a blueprint for a socialist state.
Peter Crabb is a professor of economics and the director of the Center for the Study of Market Alternatives at Northwest Nazarene University in Nampa.