- Capitalism and Alternatives -
Religious Socialism
Posted by: St. Marx ( n/a, Canada ) on November 23, 1999 at 14:18:30:
One of Capitalism's strongest arguments against Socialism and Communism is that when it becomes impossible to become filthy rich ( i.e. when making money no longer is the main motivating factor for
working hard ) people become lazy. In high school I read the novel
"Animal Farm", a colourful critique on Communism which, in storybook
fashion, showed several reasons why communism ultimately failed. The
two main reasons were corrupt leaders ( the theme of the novel being
that "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutelt") and how
workers grew lazy since all workers recieved the same amount of food
in spite of how hard each member worked. As such, I feel that Capitalism's critique on Marxism and Socialism is somewhat correct.
However, it seems to me that both of the afforementioned weakenesses of
Communism/Socialism could be rectified through the promotion of basic
religious principles ( i.e. Veber's "Protestant Work Ethic" and a leader having the desire to be fair and just --- compare Biblical tyrants like The Pharoah and King Herod, to Moses and King Solomon ).
What I am saying is that Marxism would have faired wonderfully, if
Marx had not been so opposed to religious faith and institutions ( the
very things that could have motivated the workers to work harder, and
kept Communist/Socialist leaders from becoming corrupt).
I'm not saying that all Socialist should have to adopt a belief in God ( I, by the way, am a Christian ), but I am saying that any Socialist
movement needs to incorporate basic religious/moral values and institutions into its framework in order to work.Personally, I feel
that "Religious Socialism" would be FAR superior than what we have now
in most first-world nations; that being cold, hard "Secular Captialism". I find Conrad Black's recent statement, "compassion is for wimps!" to be VERY revealing concerning the reasons why Capitalism
is doomed to failure ( morally, if not financially). Any comments?
Follow Ups:
|