The Fruist of Communism; Socialsitic Redistribution; F. Mahaffy

Sometimes, however, those who denounce the violence of the com munist revolution support the eco nomic aims of the communists in the redistribution of the wealth by the power of the state and thus give aid and comfort to the enemy they are combating. Others - in cluding an increasing number of The Reverend Mr. Mahaffy has served since 1945 as a missionary of the Orthodox Presby terian Church in Eritrea, East Africa. 562 influential clergymen - recognize that the economic aims of social ism cannot be attained apart from violence and so join in advocating the bloody revolution. Profound scholars have clearly pointed out the economic fallacies and follies of socialism but their works have been neglected. Too few see the relationship between the philosophy of the communists and their economic goals. Few also recognize the fact that these economic ends demand a philoso phy of violence in order to attain them. The communist threat to our civilization makes it impera tive that we deal both with the underlying philosophy of commu nism and also with its economic end of redistribution. Only thus may we be prepared to offer a 1967 THE FRUIT OF COMMUNISM: SOCIALISTIC REDISTRIBUTION 563 viable alternative to communism.

Confusion exists as to precisely what communism is and how it differs from socialism. Karl Marx, the fatherof BocialiBm,deBignated his views "scientific socialism." "Communism" was originally used to describe the utopian state reached after the economic fac tors of production had so changed man and his environment that classes and conflict no longer ex isted' the state had withered away, and men 'lived in harmony on earth. This was to be the final synthesis arising out of the con flict between the capitalists and the working class. Socialism, which involved an absolute dictatorship, the dictatorship of the proletariat, was to be a temporary and inter mediary stage which would lead to full communism. Communism in this sense has never existed and never will. Marx and others, however, also spoke of their revolutionary move ment to effect socialism as com munism. Communism today refers essentially to the Marxist ideology and may be described asa means of inaugurating socialism. All communists are socialists. Com munist Russia is designated, "The Union of Soviet Socialist Repub lics." On the other hand, not all socialists are communists. In fact, many socialists vigorously repu diate the open violence of the communists. Also, communists gen erally reject such socialists as not true Marxists. Both, however, agree in supporting the main end of socjaUzation of the means of production. Both want to abolish (though there are degrees of thor oughness of this abolition) pri vate property, and substitute for it state ownership in the means of production.

Karl Marx, however, reached his conclusions on the basis of a specific philosophical position. This basic philosophy has become the driving force behind communism. Some reject this atheistic, dialec tical philosophy and yet support socialism for other reasons; even some Christians claim that it is a system in accord with the Word of God. Basically, the economic ends of communism and socialism are identical, though the underly ing philosophies may differ. The IIScientific Socialism ll of Marx Karl Marx was an atheist be fore he was a communist. He said, "Religion is the opi urn of the peo ple. I hate all gods." The idea of God and all religion was for him the result of the attempt of people to compensate for their own de fects and weaknesses. This atheism of its founder constitutes an in tegral part of the communist teach ing. In communist lands there is a systematic attempt to stamp out all 564 THE FREEMAN September religion, especially Christianity. At particular times it may suit their ends to let up temporarily on their persecution, but even that is to ward the end of weakening its de fenses and promoting its final destruction. Atheism is taught in the government schools; other schools are prohibited or drasti cally restricted. The church is tol erated or subverted and used to advance the ends of communism.

Because communism is militantly atheistic, there can never be a modus vivendi between Christian ity and communism for they are two hostile religions. While Chris tians tolerate atheists and con sider it their duty to seek their conversion to Christianity, the communists seek the utter de struction of Christianity. This blatant atheism of the communists helps explain the vio lence of their activities. There is no God to whom they consider themselves responsible, no divinely given moral code or law as the norm for acceptable ethical con duct; whatever promotes the ends of the communist cause is moral. This rejection of Christian moral ity and all Godgiven standards accounts for the fact that one can not deal with a communist or a communist nation as he would with a person or nation where God is feared. When the nations learn this important truth, there will be fewer unholy alliances with such godless powers.

Dialectical Materialism Karl Marx also based his social istic views on dialectical material ism. Unlike the philosopher, Hegel, who was an idealist and advocated a spiritual monism, holding that reality was spiritual in nature, Marx held to a dialectical mate rialism, contending that reality was material. Hegel taught that God reveals himself in history in a dialectical process. One histori cal movement constitutes the the sis which gives rise to its con flicting antithesis. Out of this con flict emerges the synthesis which takes that which was valuable in the thesis and antithesis and forms a higher stage of the mani festation of the Absolute. Marx adopted a dialectic explanation of history but held that the thesis, its antithesis, and the synthesis which arose from their conflict were the result of material eco nomic factors. The culmination of history for Marx and the com munists would be the result of the antithesis between the capitalists and the workers which would erupt in a violent bloody revolu tion which would in turn usher in the synthesis of socialism. This dialectic underlies all their think ing.

Dialectical materialism, in its 1967 THE FRUIT OF COMMUNISM: SOCIALISTIC REDISTRIBUTION 565 denial of God and assertion that all is matter, in reality sets up an idol god. Man is the highest form of matter and the comm unist state the highest expression of his material brain. Thus, God is re placed by the state. This state be comes the recipient of the honor of the citizens and the absolute mas ter of their lives, though there is no logical reason whatsoever why the dictator and his cohorts who constitute the state should be a higher manifestation of matter than any individual within that state. This state grants to the in dividual slaves under its rule the right to live. It controls all prop erty and parcels it out according to its own whims. Thus, the state becomes the father and God to the subject. It is not a crime in Rus sia or Red China for the state to slaughter millions of people who are deemed to interfere with the progress to socialism. The state becomes God. Atheistic com munism is in a real sense a reli gion, albeit the diabolical religion of state worship.

Economic Determinism Closely related to dialectical ma terialism is the doctrine of eco nomic determinism advocated by IVlarx. Man's life, his thoughts, hig c]~gg, ~nd even hig religion are determined by his economic en vironment. Such a concept logically would destroy all responsibil ity. vVithout responsibility man is no longer man. Yet communism holds men responsible, not to God or to a divine law or norm, but to the Communist party and state. They have no right, however, on their own premises, to hold men whose thoughts and even religion are determined by their economic environment responsible to any other man whose thoughts and Iif e are also economically deter mined. The Marxian and communist philosophy is also characterized by a utopian idealism. There is no room in the system for this id~al ism, yet this is the end toward which the dialectical process re lentlessly drives with the irresist ible force of an inviolable logic.

In this classless and conflictless society, human nature is so rad ically changed by the material factors of production that all is well. Marxian idealism pictures a material heaven on a material earth with men who are no more than matter living together in perfect peace and harmony. Yet, a heaven without God, without morality, and with no hope of anything but the dust at death is in reality a picture of hell. The institution of the family on which our civilization has been built has no place in the com munist society. This godless phi566 THE FREEMAN September losophy denies all Christian morals, approves mass murders and the perversion of sex. Deceit, thefts, and blasphemies form a part of this vicious system. Surely, no Christian could for a moment sup port it! To describe it, and this description accords with the de scription of the communists them selves, is sufficient to condemn it.

Communism is built on a philoso phy antithetical to the principles upon which our civilization has been built. Should this philosophy prevail, that civilization cannot endure for long. Rejection 01 Moral Absolutes The economics of the welfare state socialists is not significantly diverse from that of Karl Marx. Whether consciously so or not, both spring from an underlying philosophy which denies moral ab solutes. This philosophy mayor may not be Marxian; in either case it substitutes for the Moral Law of the Creator a relativistic standard of man. When leading churchmen adopt the philosophy of violent revolution to attain their redistributionist ends, their underlying philosophy closely re sembles that of Marx. Both <re ject the right to private property and thus the right to life. Marx's tome, Das Kapital, deals with economics. Marx did not like the way he found wealth distributed and proposed the solution, "From each according to his abil ity; to each according to his need."

The rationale for his objection to the distribution of property he found in his labor theory of value, surplus value, and exploitation by the capitalists of the .working class. He contended that the value of a product was determined ex clusively by the labor that went into it. The capitalist who hired the laborer, on the other hand, refused to pay him the full value of the product but retained "sur plus value" for himself in the form of profits. Since the laborer was not getting his due from his employer, a conflict necessarily arose. The solution to this con flict, according to his dialectic, lay in the revolution of the exploited laboring class against the cap italists which would result in the dictatorship of the proletariat and the eventual communism of the classless society. It has been clearly demonstrated (see Bohm-Bawerk's Capital and Interest and Ludwig von Mises' Socialism, as examples) that Marx's theory was erroneous.

Marx made the serious mistake of failing to take into account the time element in production. What he demanded was the present value of a product which would not be finished until later. Also, he erred in his idea that labor was the sole 1967 THE FRUIT OF COMMUNISM: SOCIALISTIC REDISTRIBUTION 567 source of value. He selected his data to "prove" his case and ig nored a vast amount of data that refuted it. Such biased selection and manipulation of data char acterized much of his writings. Once, in the midst of a blister ing African desert on the backs of plodding camels, my co-worker and I came to the unhappy discovery that the guide we had hired for the trip had never previously seen that country. Uncertain of when or if we would reach a source of water, our meager supply sud denly increased in value. We would not have exchanged our jerry tin of water for the price of a camel. Value, contrary to Marx, does not reside in the object itself as the product of labor-hours but is sub jective; it is what the prospective buyer or seller is willing under the particular circumstances to give up in exchange for the object.

Savings Benefit Laborers In the United States and other countries where between 85 and 90 cents of each dollar a product realizes goes to the laboring man who helped produce it, it can hardly be said that the laborer has been exploited. It is often ignorance of the percentage the laborer actually receives that leads to this conclusion. Besides that, much of the remainder goes to purchase better machines and to build up the business which will result in cheaper products and more people employed. About $20, 000 has been invested to provide for each job in our land. This is something radically dif ferent from the concept of ex ploitation condemned by Marx and the socialists. The reason wages are lower in many parts of the world is because there is a lack of capital invested to provide the tools for production on the farms and in the factories. This capital must come either from the savings of the people or from outside in vestment.

To have to depend solely on sav ings is a slow painful process ac companied by much suffering, long hours of work and low wages for a long time until sufficient capital is accumulated. This accounts for the suffering, child labor, and long hours of hard work in Eng land in the early days of the In dustrial Revolution. There was no other way at that time to trans form an economy from a more primitive form to a more ad vanced industrial economy. This, and not exploitation, accounted for much of the suffering in those days. The other method to hasten the transformation from a primitive to a more advanced industrial economy is by the investment of foreign capital. This, however, re568 THE FREEMAN September quires honest and stable govern ment, lack of oppressive taxes, a reasonable hope for profits along with the conviction that there will not be government expropriation of the factories or of the profits of the investors. The lack of such conditions largely accounts for the continued low standard of living in many parts of the world. Yet, communism and socialism prevent the formation of capital by their ideas of redistribution. The philos ophy of socialism keeps the world in a state of poverty, war, and chaos.

Privilege Based on Coercion The end of communism and also of socialism is the redistribution of property by the coercive power of the state. The communists pro pose to effect this by violent revo lution which aims at bringing the whole world under the iron heel of communism and reduces men to slaves of the dictator. The high concentration of power necessi tated by the pursuit of this objec tive almost certainly and ironically precludes the attainment of this end; hence, communism in reality, by eliminating one class, substi tutes for it a privileged class. This class attains its privilege, not on the basis of its merits or the will of the people, but by violence. Hence, the inevitable tyranny of communism. The more moderate socialists reject such open violence but seek the same ends by more peaceful means. Yet, let it never be forgot ten that the difference is only a matter of degree; there is no dif ference in principle.

The socialist program calls also for violence, though less naked violence than that of the com munists. The communists annihi late the opposition; the socialists merely confiscate their property. Both lead, at different paces, to the absolute dictator, for the so cialist redistribution cannot be ef fected apart from the dictator. So cialism requires that the distri bution of the wealth be according to a single plan-one man's will. This can be effected only by force, or the threat of force, which is the same thing. It is naive in the extreme to think that the economic control de manded by communism and so cialism will not also include con trol of the Iives of the people. Freedom of religion, travel, speech, and political freedom are inseparable from economic free dom. Control the economy, and you effectively control the lives of the citizens. Economic freedom means the freedom to seek to satisfy one's material needs. Economic ac tivity consists essentially in the scaling of our wants to determine which ones have priority. This 1967 THE FRUIT OF COMMUNISM: SOCIALISTIC REDISTRIBUTION 569 scaling, however, is related always to our ultimate ends; hence, eco nomic activity cannot be isolated from the spiritual realm.

The soctaHst control of. the econ omy involves the control of man's basic freedom of religion and of expression. The press is controlled by the control of property such as buildings, type, and paper. Re ligion is controlled by regulating the use of church buildings, reli gious publications, transportation, and taxes. The pulpit and its mes sage are controlled by economic restraints on those who oppose the communist ideology. Minds are directed by prohibiting the use of books not approved by the govern ment, by making all education state education, and by providing lucrative jobs for those who follow the party line. The socialist state, as Great Britain discovered, in order to effect socialism has also to control labor. Workers are not permi tted freely to move or to change jobs. Even today, adver tisements in British publications are restricted in order to prevent highly trained men from leaving British soil for more lucrative employment abroad.

Once you give to the state the ownership of the means of produc tion, as socialism demands, you have given it the power which if fully exercised will result in com plete control of the lives of the people. The communists recognize this and openly advocate the abso lute dictator. Socialists try to avoid the implications of their position; they strive for economic control while retaining a sem blance of religious and other free dom. The logic of this position, however, inevitably leads the fol lowers of both camps down the same road to slavery; except that the communists arrive there sooner than the socialists. Their early ar rival makes it easier for them to eliminate the socialists and others who refuse to accept the full implications of the communist position. A Distortion of Justice The stated end of socialism of the communist and noncommunist types is the increased welfare of the people through forceful redis tribution of the wealth by govern ment. The means chosen to effect this end, entirely apart from the obvious moral issues involved, are incapable of effecting the desired goal. It is as though a tribal chief from Africa should set out by mule to reach New York. His intentions might well be the very best; the fact would remain, however, that the method chosen to achieve his end was inappropriate.

The confiscation and redistribu tion of property in socialism can never effect improvement in the 570 THE FREEMAN September general well-being of the masses, as has been amply demonstrated wherever socialism has been tried. Socialist states exist today because their bankrupt economies are bol stered by the largess of the capi talist countries. Eliminate that aid, and socialism will die. It will either be replaced by a freer so ciety or revert to primitivism and starvation. The socialism of Russia and of the welfare states involves coer cive redistribution and thus neces s"itates the imposition of the will of one man upon another. The rule of law is replaced by the rule of man. Right becomes what the leaders or rulers in the state judge to be the proper distribution. This is a radical perversion of a justice which regards all men alike under the law. Just as it is theft for the individual to steal, so it is theft for the state to redistribute. J us tice is blind. It has no respect to the person, wealth, position, race, sex, or learning of the individual.

Perversions of this Christian con cept of justice lead to advocacy of socialism. Socialism by its nature, denies the validity of such a con cept of justice and substitutes for it the rule of the strong man who defines right and wrong by his own concept of who ought to re ceive what. Socialism, in itsef forts to make men economically more equal, must treat them un equally, taking from some to give to others. It is acceptance of this distortion of justice which leads to the moral decay and increasing violence in the world. Those who support socialism thereby contrib ute to the rotting of the moral fiber of our nation. Not only is it necessary to reject the underlying godless philosophy of communism; it is just as im perative that we reject the eco nomic principles of socialism. Both deny the right of the Creator to set the norms of conduct in his creation. Marxism is character ized by a professed atheism; so cialism by a practical atheism.

Those who adopt the redistribu tionistprinciples of socialism have thereby forfeited their right to condemn the philosophy of vio lence of the communists. ~ False Freedom THERE is an important difference between having freedom and having "free" goods and services. Whenever goods and services are "free," the people aren't. The government which gives goods and services for nothing must force people to work for nothing. J. KESNER KAHN A REVIEWER'S NOTEBOOK JOHN CHAMBERLAIN STALEl.V..[A TE IN KINGSPORT SYLVESTERPETRO is a teacher who knows the ins and outs of labor law, and he has written many first rate books and articles about the place of unions in a free society. But, as he says, most of his ear lier work could have been done in a study and a law library. His latest book, The Kingsport Strike (Arlington House, $5.00), repre sents a "new Petro," for much of it consists of material gathered on the spot in the Appalachian town of Kingsport, Tennessee, either on the picket lines of the five unions which have been strik ing the Kingsport Press since 1963, or in union halls, restau rants, homes, or the offices of ex ecutives. What we have here is Petro, the reporter (and a very good one), in addition to Petro, the legal philosopher.