Socialism Is Not About Sharing – It’s About Killing

When I comment on articles about socialism on Facebook or web sites like Christianity Today or Patheos, I often get the response that socialism is just sharing and I wonder where they got such an idea. After all, if you read the writings of the followers of Saint-Simon, Marx, Lenin, Stalin or Mao, none of them mention sharing.

So where did so many US citizens get the idea that socialism is just about sharing? I think the answer lies with “milk cow economics.” Starting in middle school, most social studies classes eventually get around to it. Here is a typical example from one of the many sites that popped up in a search of the term:

Socialism: You have two cows. You give one to your neighbor (share).

Communism: You have 2 cows. The State takes both and gives you some milk.

Fascism: You have 2 cows. The State takes both and sells you some milk.

Nazism: You have 2 cows. The State takes both and shoots you.

Socialist Eat Their Young

It’s well known that “millennials” prefer socialism to capitalism. That doesn’t worry me, though. Someone said that if you aren’t a socialist when you’re young you don’t have a heart; if you’re not a capitalist when you age you have no head.

Most young people think they can transfer the morality of the family to the nation and it takes a while for them to understand the fallacy, if they ever do. A lot of PhD economists haven’t caught on.

The public school system has taught them “milk cow” economics for twelve years that says socialism is about sharing and caring while capitalism is nothing but greed. Who would want to identify with capitalism after a dozen years of such brainwashing?

But the main reason millennials oppose capitalism is that they can see how the student debt problem, lack of jobs, slow wage growth, etc. assault them, while the media, economists and conservative politicians chant daily that this is a capitalist system. Why wouldn’t they hate capitalism?