Chapter 1: Can We Build a Just Society.
Summary
Richards begins this chapter with a journey into his past. He traces his early flirtation with communism/socialism back to his time in a youth group with a youth pastor who was more concerned with social issues of the day more so that with the death of Christ. This is followed by an account of how we was taught communistic/socialistic principles at a college that was once Christian, but by his time had turned into a school that was more Liberal Protestant. His brief biography ends with the admission that while he loved communism/socialism as an ideology, reality soon got in the way of the intellectual ideology.
Richards follows his history with communism/socialism with a history of communism beginning with Marx and ending with the fall of the U.S.S.R., with Richards mainly focusing on the deaths that leaders like Mao and Lenin caused. Richards then moves on combat the belief that the early church and the early pilgrims were in fact communist, by stating that the early church voluntarily gave away their possessions and that even Paul instructs that people are to work for their own food. Finally he states that communism in the early Pilgrim colony was a failure, and even they had to turn to private ownership.
In the end Richards says that the reason communism/socialism fails is because it tries to bring Heaven to earth with God. Richards states that only God can bring about his Kingdom, and that any human attempts to bring about total equality will result in the suffering of people. But this does not mean we are to sit idly by and wait for God to bring the Kingdom, but that we have a part in it as his church. Then Richards says to compare capitalism with Heaven would be wrong, rather we must compare it to the extreme of communism and by doing so we will see that capitalism is the best answer.
Concerns/Questions
My first concern is that Richards essentially tossed himself a slow mush ball to hit out of the park rather easily, rather than attempting to hit a fastball by taking on the much tougher criticisms of capitalism, or even less extreme versions of socialism in this chapter. The position that Richards combats is such an extreme position of communism that less than one percent of Americans agree with. A statistic given by Richards himself! I mean come on, anyone who wants U.S.S.R. or Chinese style communism/socialism is either a fool or has their head in the sand! Or maybe there are other options, but the point is that anyone can see that Lenin and Mao’s version of communism was extremely deadly; no ifs, ands, or buts about it. What Richards is doing is attempting to make it look like anyone who supports anything but capitalism is supporting death and suffering. But the truth is that this is unfair, because not all people who criticize capitalism support Maoism or Lenin style communism, heck they won’t even support Marxism. Instead they realize that while capitalism is better than communism that capitalism has its own issues, issues that they desire to be fixed. Now Richards’ tactic is widely used by people from many different backgrounds, so let’s not act like Richards is the only person ever to do this. I am however more disappointed that a person with the credentials that Richards has would resort to such a tactic.
That being said, I love that Richards brought in the “Not Yet but Already Kingdom.” For a second I was beginning to get scared that Richards was going to pull out the, “this is how it is and it can’t be changed until the Lord comes card.” However, in this section he only declares that this type of thinking is wrong, he fails to go into how we ought to live in the “Not Yet but Already Kingdom.” However, I am guessing that he will do that in other parts of the book. So I am not giving up on the hope that Richards will show how capitalism ought to work in the “Not Yet/Already” time period.
I do have one question though. I wonder what Richard’s view of human nature is. He implies that humanity will refuse to work unless made to do so and that is why communism/socialism fails. However, that’s about all he says. I wonder if he ever takes into account the view that it is in the nature of humans to desire mammon, or stuff, and to sometimes obtain it at any cost. I mean mammon is something that is a rival to God when it comes to what we worship. Also God knew that humanity had a coveting problem when he gave us the Ten Commandments. That being said, I wonder how coming to the realization that humans by nature like things, shiny things, expensive things, fun things; and are willing to do immoral acts (not necessarily illegal) to achieve such things, would affect his views on unregulated capitalism.
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