Socialism vs Private Property 2

Gary North has written about sovereignty and economics:

"Not the State, but familial, church, and private charity are enjoined. Personal responsibility is the focus of Old Testament welfare requirements.

"The key issue, therefore, is the question of sovereignty. All property belongs to God. God delegates to individuals, as members of His covenantal institutions, the responsibility of acting as stewards of this property. God, as Creator, can alone claim total sovereignty over property. No single earthly individual or institution can ever legitimately assert the right of absolute ownership. All ownership is covenantal, and therefore bounded by the appropriate Mosaic laws: civil, familial, personal, and ecclesiastical."

"An Introduction to Christian Economics," by Gary North, pp. 213-14, The Craig Press, 1973, 1 January 2014, footnotes omitted, http://www.garynorth.com/freebooks/docs/pdf/intro_to_christian_economics.pdf.

Marx based differences in wealth on what he saw as different classes in society, as if classes are permanent statements of a person's membership in a particular group, like the caste system in India.

Where does wealth and class distinction come from? "But thou shalt remember the Lord thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth . . . ." Deut. 8:18a. "The Lord maketh poor, and maketh rich: he bringeth low, and lifteth up." I Sam. 2: 7. Therefore, status in life is based, again, on God's determination. Marx, an atheistic Humanist, contended that capital accumulation creates artificial classes which cannot be breached by someone from another class.

Does class create capital, or does capital create class? What is high class? Low class? If class is a perspective on life, then high class manifests in a long-term perspective, whether the issue in question is capital - accumulation versus consumption, or time - long term versus short term, or politics - freedom over security and dependence, or religion - God instead of man. One's perspective on the above issues does not depend on how much capital one owns at the time, but it could determine how much one owns in the future. "The blessing of God, it maketh rich, . . ." Proverbs 10:22.

A poor person with a long term (high class) perspective determines to build something; therefore, he saves for the future. He builds capital. That poor person has a high class perspective, whereas the spendthrift who inherited his wealth, or the hoarder, has a low class perspective. God will bless the one with more capital, while the other will lose what capital he has. The one who builds and invests will see benefits in the future. Jesus said that he who has to him more shall be given. Luke 19:11-28.

The irony of Marxism is that the very method with which the person who has a long term perspective can escape one level of "class" and move to another is denied by Marxism, which demands total sovereignty. The liberty of the individual and of groups of individuals to accumulate capital and take risks for productivity's sake is the key. But as sovereignty moves from the individual to the state, then that key is removed.

Private property cannot be separated from liberty without completely undoing liberty. And the state's taking of liberty is an advance toward the sovereignty of the state over God Himself. Therefore, Marxism and atheism are forever connected, and more power and sovereignty to the state and denial of God are forever connected, and more restriction on private property is forever theft from God and His agents. And statist socialism can never be Christian or Biblical.