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Communism is not that bad.
Here, before I lose you, let me skip over all the millions of people killed, all the churches shut down, all the countries dereligiofied, all the monks and nuns told to "work" (as if they weren't doing it before!), and just give you one little quote in order to throw you a bone and tell you that I understand your concerns with communism. Here’s from the Manual on Moral Theology that I read this morning. This is from a section dealing with marriages between Catholics and non-Catholics, after saying that these should be avoided nearly at all costs, once it is allowed that some of these should take place, how they should be addressed:
“If a public sinner or a person known to be under censure, e.g. a formal socialist or anarchist, refuses to go to confession and be reconciled with the Church prior to marriage, the parish priest shall not assist at the marriage…” (It lists very careful exceptions after this point)
So yes, I know that Communism is bad. What I am saying is that it is not that bad.
How is it not that bad?
Whoa, slow down, partner! I will tell you this at the end, so that we can sink some legitimate time into this, since you are so concerned about it. First, let us find out what exactly communism is.
What is Communism?
First of all, it is not what you think it is. I made this point in a very subtle and creative way in my article about sodomy. Nobody knows what sodomy is, no matter how confident they are about it, or else it should give them great pause when they realize that most sodomy is committed by heterosexual married couples. In that article, I dealt also with murder, and pointed out that in a true, spiritual sense, one who curses another in his soul has attempted to murder them.
Let us take the same approach to Communism. First, we can talk about it as a philosophy, then as a theology, then we can examine the Communist, and you will see how it is not that bad.
Communism as a Philosophy
Ultimately, Communism is the idea that wealth should go to those who need it from those who produce it. We can see a thousand consequences of this short line. We could talk about the definition of wealth. The assumption that it correlates to paper money (which is swiftly if not already replaced by electronic money) is quite a telling assumption historically speaking. Currency, in all times in history until about 1920 was the least common form of wealth that anyone held. Things like cattle, wine, grain, fermented vegetables, preserves, cloth, dye, spices, salt, children, slaves, marriages (that is, who your daughter and aunt are married to), land, structures, and ancestry were all much more common forms of wealth not only in people’s possessions but also their minds.
We could talk about the definition of need and produce. We could talk about the mechanism of distribution. We could talk about the government or private corporations. All of these things are interpretations of Communism, but the Sola Scriptura version of it, avoiding all interpretation, is much more benign especially once the words are well-defined. And we would expect it to be because it comes from monastic tradition.
Here is a quote from the Rule of Saint Augustine, written about the year 400: “3. Call nothing your own, but let everything be yours in common. Food and clothing shall be distributed to each of you by your superior, not equally to all, for all do not enjoy equal health, but rather according to each one's need. For so you read in the Acts of the Apostles that they had all things in common and distribution was made to each one according to each one's need (4:32,35).”
Why is Communism bad?
I will point out that this rule is made for men of the same state in life. A similar rule exists among families, in which the father who can produce the most distributes to the pregnant wife or the baby or the teenage boy that needs the most. Therefore, the economic approach of distribution according to need is not wrong in and of itself. As Hilaire Belloc said, and many people before him, every lie subsists off of a portion of the truth. Communism is bad because of its scale or its method.
But by far the most stinging criticism of Communism, which is the reason it is condemned by the Church, is that it is atheistic. This should not surprise us because obviously someone who formally declares God to not exist would not be in good standing with the Church. And thus all that has gone wrong with Communism, from a Catholic’s perspective, could theoretically could be laid at this one cause: that it is atheistic. Certainly the simple, economic definition which I have given of it is not condemned by the Church, or it could not be the third rule of a major monastic order dating back to possibly the single most famous Western Church Father and doctor. Theoretically, then, one could argue that if Communism only wasn’t atheistic, then the Church could embrace it.
I will not argue that. I do not even mean to imply it. Actually, this topic is so detailed and nuanced that a book should be written about it rather than an article, and I am doing that. The book is called The Village Economy: How Ordinary Men and Women Can Live A Real Life and if you would like to be kept abreast of it, then please follow me on some social media.
This topic is definitely far more detailed than I am giving it credit here. The Church teaches us things simply so that we can act on them. But the details are important, because, as the devil attempted to do to our Lord using Scripture, something can be hidden in the details that is deadly. I believe that is what is happening with Communism, especially so far as it is treated in conservative and Catholic media.
Why is Communism Not That Bad?
Nor do I intend to fully parse out what good things can be gained from listening to Communists. My only point is just that: we should listen to Communists. Like anything that is a sin, it is committed by individuals with all circumstances to consider, and it can be mixed up with virtue. The reason it can be mixed up in virtue is because sin really does not exist in an eternal sense, and it is only a twisting of something true. Communism, as you will find out from proponents of it if you go and listen to them carefully, as I have done (enduring endless vulgarity, denouncement, and mockery to sift through and find it), is absolutely correct in all of its criticisms of Capitalism.
That is why it is not as bad. Capitalism, I contend, has lost us more souls to hell than Communism ever could. Why? Because Communism is ultimately only a response to Capitalism. And I even suspect it was the devil getting ahead of the curve, preempting the Church that was distracted by Americanism and offering a solution to the disaffected people who had been rendered into something much worse than slaves, really cannon fodder (as the World Wars proved, being the wars of Capitalism).
Both Communism and Capitalism make a mistake in saying everything is economics. Those mistakes have persisted so long that it is now the case that everything is indeed economics, and if we do not solve economics, then nobody will ever hold the True Faith. Why? Because they are working too hard for effeminate weirdos to have time to study it. Why? Because if they miss their mortgage payment, they are on the street, and everyone tells them they deserved it.
Usury is the only problem we have.
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Post Script
I will include as a post script some notes from an email exchange with the holy friend that asked me about this topic:
Hello sir,
Well, there is a kind of an idea that all the old heresies come back and resurface, and that’s true, but I do not think they are as compartmentalized as people think. All the different ones seem to be described as a type of gnosticism. Gnosticism is like the king of heresies, because it separates the soul from the body and tries to say one is better than the other. The soul. Modernism is the queen of heresies because it makes the body more important, and the soul is below the body. I would say Communism is below these things. It is atheistic. Atheism tends to be slapped on to philosophical ideas and used to entertain people who do not go any deeper, because they get fixated on some particular issue. In the case of Communism, the issue of economics, and so the devil offers all these true solutions to the economic situation, but says like he said to Christ, only bow down to me, or only admit I do not exist, or something like that.
I was talking with some atheists last night and experienced the same frustration. Being lost in empirical weeds and not getting to the heart of the matter. Like Darwin saying men are apes, well, that means the Irish can be enslaved like an ape, and a pygmy man is then in a zoo with apes. Or men are machines, well, like your friend says, then AI can have legal personhood.
They were upset about slavery in the bible saying you could beat a man to death. Well, I am upset about usurious slavery today beating a man’s mind to death every day. They were upset that the Israelites killed the babies of the Amalekites. Well, I am upset that planned parenthood exists, and that Catholics think NFP is for keeping the poor from having babies, and that that is a good thing.
It’s just getting the solution in exchange for some poison. That’s all communism has ever been, from what I could tell. The men who came up with it happened to be atheist. They could deal with godless economics. Well, Catholic men had similar solutions, but they were not marketed as well.
May the Lord reward you,
Mr. Nathaniel S
I hope I can get some kind of rest tdoay. An adult conversation is my goal. Thanks for helping with that.
Original Question: If transgenderism is the latest manifestation of the Gnostic heresy, which heresy might Communism be incarnating in our age?
Nathaniel Slattery resides in Tennessee with his wife and children. He writes when he can. He also keeps sheep, does various forms of hard labor, cares for his family, and is a devout Catholic.
