Our youth are constantly being bombarded with pro-socialist messages from Hollywood, the music industry, professional sports and their teachers and professors. In an August 2018 Gallup Poll, 51 percent of young people aged 18-29 said they have a favorable opinion of socialism, compared to just 45 percent who said they view capitalism positively. Despite mountains of historical evidence revealing the dangers associated with socialism support for Karl Marx’s collectivist ideas is still being discussed.

Why say “no” to socialism? As I have discussed in these blogs, it is unbiblical and ultimatley immoral. Let’s define socialism. It is the collective ownership and management of property. In a purely socialist society – an idea Karl Marx called “communism” – all or nearly all property is owned and managed by the collective. Under such a scheme, people have very little power over their own lives. Even their homes are owned collectively. Samuel warned the children of Israel about this when they were asking for a King. He said they would become slaves to the king. Self-responsibility, individual liberty and freedom to buy and sell are eliminated.

In the case of democratic socialism, this means that people are forced to live according to the desires of the majority. With this model in place, minorities don’t really have any rights. If the majority thinks people should live or work in a certain way, everyone is required to obey, even if it violates their deeply held beliefs. For example, in a socialist country, vegetarians would be required to be part owners in a slaughterhouse.

Charity and generosity, as taught in the Bible, is a better answer than government coercion. Socialist ideas are appealing because they genuinely want to help those who are suffering. Advocates of freedom do support helping others; they just don’t believe the government is best equipped to do it. Charity is morally positive, because it means people are voluntarily helping those in need. A society will either have big government and little people or little government and big people. Generosity brings a collective self worth to a community.

Why is money better in the hands of people than government? Socialism is just inefficient. In an effort to encourage firms to hire more workers, France imposed a 35-hour workweek to make overtime labor prohibitively expensive. However like most efforts to enslave free markets to government control, it ended up doing more harm than good. Now it’s the main barrier to hiring in a country where the unemployment rate is stuck north of 10%.

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How to get your child to just say no to socialism by Justin Haskins. Feb. 3, 2019