In "Part 1" we looked briefly at some reasons why Socialism is bad. Socialism is good-hearted but wrong-headed, and short-sighted. It:

Changes the "giving" motivation to fear

While within a church community the redistribution of wealth happens by love, the same model applied to a pluralistic culture via, "pay higher taxes- or else!" changes the motivation to fear because the plain implication is that bad things may happen to those who don't pay their higher taxes.

It destroys jobs.

Whereas conservative Capitalism taxes the rich (and everyone else) with LOW taxes and allows for reinvestment in business, more money with which to hire more people, and more money by which to take risks like starting a business, Socialism undercuts all of this, leaving fewer employed.

In "Part 2" I will mention two more reasons. Socialism is also bad because:

It steals from and enslaves the citizenry.

When God created mankind, he gave them unalienable rights. Granted, we must understand that this does not mean God has no right to remove our rights. Indeed He does. He gave us rights as a gift, we sinned against Him and continue to do so. As our Creator He has the right to remove our rights even if we had NOT sinned. But in His mercy He has left those rights in place even though we HAVE sinned. But man, in his pride- and having no power or right to give or take rights- removes the rights of his fellow man. One God-given right which Socialism transgresses is the right to property. The New Testament says, "The worker is worthy of his wages." (1 Timothy 5:18). In other words, people have a right to get and keep the fruit of their labor. The government, on the other hand, has the right to collect reasonable taxes. Reasonable. "Render to all what is due them: tax to whom tax is due..." (Romans 13:7) How do we balance these two commands? People have a right to keep what they earn or produce, and government has a right to take a reasonable share of it to use for the common good. An unreasonable share is theft. It is an unreasonable share if taxes are so high that people begin to think, "Why bother working hard? The more I make, the more government takes." That is the thought of a person who feels he or she is being robbed. They are. It is also the thought of a person who feels they are working for nothing- being treated like a slave. They are. Government MUST stay within its' modest, God-given, bounds, or it is stealing from and enslaving the people.

It eventually runs out of money.

What happens when people stop working hard, when jobs are destroyed, when a person or business does not have enough money with which to take a reasonable risk to start or grow a business, and when more and more government jobs are being created and less and less private sector jobs are being created? Eventually, there is no money out there to tax. 1) If people stop working hard, they make less money and have less for the government to tax. (An unwise government will then increase taxes which only compounds its' own problem.) 2) If a person loses a job because the employer is over-taxed, that person now has no money for the government to tax. 3) If a person or business does not have enough money with which to start or grow a business, then the person or business makes less money and has less for the government to tax. (So, again, an unwise government increases taxes and compounds the problem yet more.) 4) If more and more government jobs are being created and less and less private sector jobs are being created- where does the money come from to pay the government employees? The Beast has nothing left to feed on, so it either dies or makes people work at the point of a gun. In the end, an unrepentant growing government, which simply started out trying to do too much for the people, destroys itself and the citizenry. Good intentions are not enough. Government must be humble and wise. It must keep itself small, or make itself small- and let freedom ring.