Radio Lux Lucet #20 | Karl Marx at 200

Radio Luke's Lucid is on the air. Welcome. Thanks for joining me today. I'm your host Steve Matthews This is episode number 20.

And today we're gonna be talking about of all people Karl Marx Yes, and you're probably saying yourself.

Well Steve I thought this was supposed to be a Christian radio show and what are you talking about this awful Karl Marx fellow?

Well Karl Marx whether we like him or not, and he's certainly not not one of my favorite people

But whether we like him or not, he's a pretty significant figure and he's been in the news quite a bit here this past week

Maybe you've seen some things on this Karl Marx. This is actually the 200th anniversary of his his birth

It was reading through Something here. This is a actually from an article in encyclopedia

Britannica And it says that Karl Heinrich Marx was born on May 5th 1818 in Trier Rhine Province, Prussia So he was from northern

Germany and he died on March 14th 1883 in London, England now Karl Marx lived

I guess it was over the last 30 years of his life. He lived in England So that's he he spent quite a bit of time in in Great Britain and living in London And he's best known as as the author for the the

Communist Manifesto and also for his later work Called Das Kapital or or simply capital and and it was in that work together with his co -author

Friedrich Engels that Marx laid out the the basic tenets of communism a

Few other interesting points about Karl Marx is that he was the oldest surviving boy of nine children

So he came from a pretty big family His father's name was Heinrich and he was a successful lawyer.

His mother's name was Henrietta She was from Holland both his parents were

Jewish and according to this article in the Encyclopedia Britannica Encyclopedia Britannica, they descended from a long line of rabbis

But the article goes on to also say this it says about a year before Karl was born His father was baptized in the evangelical established church and also that Karl was baptized when he was six years old so both his father and Karl himself were both baptized into the into the the

The the Protestant Church, that's very interesting. I didn't know that until I was actually reading through this this piece in in Encyclopedia Britannica The article that goes on to talk about that Marx was educated.

He went to high school at Trier from 1830 to 1835 and It makes the point it says that Marx's writings during this period that is referring to his time in high school

Exhibited a spirit of Christian devotion and a longing for self -sacrifice on behalf of humanity well

When he went off to college, I think he that that's when he really became Really turned to atheism

But at least there was a time there that it seems to have been some some Christian influence in his life when when he was a young man

So All this brings me in to talk a little bit about Karl Marx's 200th birthday this that was

Celebrated here this week. It's interesting. There's a a An article and this is from ABC News It has the following headline says

Karl Marx's hometown unveils giant bronze statue of philosopher on Philosophers 200th birthday.

So this is big It's about an 8 foot tall larger -than -life statue of Karl Marx Which was a gift of from the

From the the government of China the communist government of China, you know A lot of times I don't think that we in the

West maybe necessarily always talk about the you know, the the communist government of China, you know, there's a lot of Manufacturing goes on in China.

There's a lot of things that are Borrowed from the capital from capitalism that go on in China.

So it's not in some ways It's not communism of the say the

Soviet Union variety or the Eastern European variety that that took place during the Cold War Nevertheless, it is a communist government

It's a it's a government that that is very open and its advocacy of Charles Darwin.

I think the current president of China She He mentioned in a speech that you know, the

Karl Marx was one of the really great thinkers of the age Well, I wouldn't say that he was a great thinker in the sense.

He was a good thinker. He certainly was a very influential thinker and And I don't think anyone can deny that whether or not we we actually like what were

Karl Marx had to say The ABC News article is is pretty much straight down the middle.

It doesn't Appear to take sides one way or the other however,

I want to read you a couple of examples of Newspapers that do that.

Now. This is an article. It's from the Guardian The Guardian is a newspaper from from Great Britain and it's it's very leftist and it has a headline on it

It says two centuries on Karl Marx feels more revolutionary than ever That's by a fellow named

Stuart Jeffreys and Jeffreys goes on to write the other day I stood at the grave of Karl Marx and Highgate Cemetery Karl Marx is buried in London It's in North London wondering if he has anything to say to us today 200 years after his birth on May 5th 1818 workers of all lands unite reads the tombstone

But they haven't the solitaire the solidarity of the exploited which Marx took to be necessary to end capitalism

Scarcely exists and Stuart Jeffreys goes on to lament the fact that Even in China, you know the world's biggest socially socialist society

That even China, you know, it supplies capitalist enterprises with cheap labor that undercuts other workers around the world so Stuart Jeffreys is very upset.

He doesn't like the fact that That capitalism still exists at all even if it exists in in in really very damaged for me

That's kind of interesting a lot of people, you know, they blame the current problems In the world on capitalism.

Well, there really isn't a whole lot of capitalism is actually out there even in in the United States I mean people look to the

United States as this bastion of capitalism, but it really isn't If we have a very mixed system in the

United States Our system is probably closer to fascism than it is to to actual capitalism

And I don't want to go down that rabbit trail too far today But but what we have in the United States and really what we have in the you know, the so -called capitalist

West It's not just the United States. It's it's really any other any of the other countries in the West as well

Well, we have is not capitalism. It's it's it's really some form or another of a fascism

But a lot of people think it's capitalism and that's that's a big problem right there Because it tends to to confuse them and when they see things go wrong

They they tend to blame it on capitalism rather than blaming it where the putting the blame where it should be which is is on big government

So that was the that was the the Guardian the Guardian thinks that the Karl Marx is pretty awesome

There was another article and I wanted to share this with you It has a headline that reads don't celebrate

Karl Marx his communism has a death count in the millions Now this article is by James Bovard and it's a pretty good article

James Bovard is a is a libertarian now. I'm not a libertarian, but I was a libertarian at one time

It's great. I don't believe that the Christians can consistently be libertarians And again, that's kind of a rabbit trail.

I don't want to go on today I think that'd be something to be very interesting to explore at another time however, a

Lot of what libertarians, right? I certainly can't appreciate and James Bovard has been a very consistent defender over the years of limited government of Capitalism and of course, those are things that as a

Christian I very much believe in and he's quite a good writer And I'll just read you a short portion of what he had to say here

He said Saturday marks 200 years since the birth of Karl Marx and tributes are arising

Out around the around the globe in a New York Times tribute headlined.

Happy birthday Karl Marx. You are right philosophy professor Jason Barker declared that quote educated liberal opinion is today more or less unanimous in its agreement with Marx's basic thesis and quote on the flaws of capitalism

But this is true only if quote educated liberal opinion in quote simply does not care about tyranny

So, yeah, I mean Karl Marx It's kind of interesting Karl Marx wanted to to free the working classes in order to free the working classes

What he wanted to do was was increase government power, which

I think on the on the surface of it seems Pretty contradictory wouldn't you say? Here's what what

Bovard writes he says quote Marxist assumed that vastly increasing government power was the key to liberating humanity

Glorifying command and control was the flip side of demonizing prices and profits But all powerful regimes quickly became ends in themselves in 1932

Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin decreed the death penalty for any theft of state property is

Millions of Ukrainians were starving due to the brutal collectivization of farms Even children poaching a few years a few years of corn could be shot

Well, yeah that doesn't exactly seem like the workers paradise now does it but some people think that the

Karl Marx was great and they they they they like his rhetoric about You know about freeing the working class, but they they don't want to recognize the extreme violence that was

Really right on the surface. I don't even want to say implied. It was actually right on the surface in in a lot of his writings

So that was James Bowman and I'd encourage you to read his article it's as I said, I think it's it's quite good

It's called don't celebrate Karl Marx. His common communism has a death count in the millions

That was published again in USA Today, which is a kind of a mainstream. I was actually surprised that they publish this

That's a pretty mainstream type of a publication and I'm Pleasantly surprised that they they would run that that op -ed by by James Bovard now

What I want to do here in a couple minutes is actually want to read to you a section out of the communist manifesto

But just to assuage you as I said, I'm not trying to to make communists out of you far from it

In fact, I want to inoculate you against communism communism is not Christianity Christianity is not communism

The two systems are not compatible as a Christian. I reject communism and I would encourage if if you are a

Christian to read your Bibles and to to really consider whether You know, it's possible to follow the dictates of Karl Marx And to get those ideas out of the pages of Scripture.

I don't think you can do it In fact, I would say you can't do it. You can't do it But here's a

Some people would object to reading Karl Marx Some people would say well if you read Karl Marx, and if you understand

Karl Marx and you're a communist Well, that's not really true. And I want to bring

Bring Gordon Clark into the discussion here just for a moment Gordon Clark wrote a book It's called faith and saving faith.

And I would if you haven't read it, it's I would really encourage you to read it It's not a long book.

It's actually a very slim book I think the edition that I have is it's I'm pretty sure it's well under a hundred pages

It's the kind of thing that you can sit down and read without Without spending too much time on I know that you know

Gordon Clark is maybe an author has some very dense material But a lot of what he says in there, I think is relatively straightforward

Maybe compared to some of the other books that he wrote basically what he argues in faith and saving faith is this

He says that faith whether it's of a a secular variety or whether it's of a

Christian variety is basically From a psychological standpoint. It's it's the same thing in that in this respect in that it consists in two parts

There are two you you can take the idea of faith and you can break it down into two parts or maybe elements

Maybe we could call them that Two elements to faith and here are the elements number one understanding and Number two is agreement.

And if you wanted to to put his his teaching on on faith If you wanted to put it maybe into a formal way of speaking you would say this

Gordon Clark taught and he taught correctly, by the way, I agree with Gordon Clark. I think he was was spot -on on what he said

What Gordon Clark would say is that faith is assent to an understood proposition Or to put it more simply in order to have faith you have to number one

Understand what someone is saying and number two you have to agree with him So you have to have understanding and you have to have agreement

So for instance when when you sit down to read Karl Marx, you can read Karl Marx You can read the

Communist Manifesto and you can understand it, but simply understanding the Communist Manifesto does not make you a

Marxist You only are a Marxist if you understand the Communist Manifesto and if you agree

With the Communist Manifesto, so you have to understand and you have to agree with it So as Christians, we shouldn't be afraid of studying

Things such as Karl Marx. There's that There's a verse I don't have it in front of me here

But where where the the Apostle Paul warns his readers, you know, don't be cheated by philosophy and a lot of times

Christians have this idea that the way that you Avoid being cheated by philosophy is not to study it at all

You know, I don't want to get cheated by philosophy. I don't want to get cheated by Karl Marx So I'm not gonna ever read

Karl Marx or ever talk about Karl Marx or think about Karl Marx Well, the problem is that we live in a world that is is popular by people who do read

Karl Marx and who do think about Karl Marx and Who do understand Karl Marx and who do agree with Karl Marx?

And we in if we don't have at least an understanding of what

Karl Marx said How are we going to be able to talk to those people? another aspect of this of it is this how are we going to Protect ourselves from the from being influenced by them.

I have a paragraph here and this is actually taken from a an essay by John Robbins, it's called molding men and I think that he actually states this particular issue.

He states it very very well and And he talks about how some people discourage

Students he was talking to this the particular context this was a Christian college and that there were were some speakers that were were encouraging people, you know, not to study and And to avoid, you know, particularly studying

Studying secular philosophy and he said that these these these these many says they urge students to avoid studying philosophy

This is John Robbins. I'll just put quotes around this quote. They he's talking about some of these these speakers on Christian colleges

They urge students to avoid studying philosophy, but the study of philosophy is the second way of recognizing

Counterfeits when banks train tellers they have them study genuine bills But they also showed them some counterfeits so that the tellers can see the differences between the fakes and the real bills

The study of secular philosophy is very rewarding if only for that reason By seeing where Plato Aristotle and Marx made their mistakes, perhaps you can avoid the same mistakes understand the scripture better Ironically is those who are not familiar with secular philosophy

Who are most influenced by it? because they do not recognize secular ideas when they appear in the media the churches and in their own minds and Quote, so that was that was

John Robbins talking about the importance of Christians studying secular philosophers and he used that idea of a bank teller, right?

I mean Unless you've actually held, you know Say a real $20 bill and then maybe seen a really good fake copy and held it in your hand and looked at it

It might be easy to be fooled You know, if somebody makes a really good copy and there are some people that can make some really good counterfeits

You might get fooled by it but if you've had a chance to study the counterfeit to feel it to see what it looks like to see how it how

What it what it feels like To compare it to the the real genuine article it's going to enable you to To spot the fake when you're out there and you're in the process of doing your job as a teller

And it's the same thing as Christians, you know by by reading and studying under in understanding not agreeing with but understanding

Some a writer such as Karl Marx. It's a way of inoculating ourselves against the

Really one of the the most influential thinkers of the past of the past hundred fifty two hundred years

I mean, there's a lot of Marxism that's out there In in one form or another and it's important that we be able to recognize it and to be able to critique it

Now I mentioned that there's a lot of Marxism out there and I wanted to read from you This is just a very small section of the

Communist Manifesto the Communist Manifesto very famously Has ten planks, you know in Christianity we have the

Ten Commandments well in in Marxism there are the the ten planks of the Communist Manifesto and I'm going to read through these for you and And maybe just briefly comment on them on them and I think you might be surprised how many of these ten planks of the

Communist Manifesto are actually prevalent and in set up and In ingrained into our society certainly here in the

United States and and I think you could also say that throughout the supposedly capitalist Western world

So here we go. Just reading through this. This is the beginning of it This is Ingalls writing says these measures will be of course different in different countries

Nevertheless in the most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable number one

Abolition of property and land and application of all rents of land to public purposes

Now, you know, there's a tremendous amount of violence implied in that but what what communism is all about is

It's all about Putting the means of production in the hands of of the government the

The private citizen is not supposed to own the means of production in Marxism You can own your own pair of shoes and you know your own shirt and things like that But you can't own the store in which those are sold.

You can't own the factory that makes the shirts you can't own the farms that that say

You know that grow the you know, I don't know Flax or or whatever it is, you know, whatever you use whatever material that it that's used say for shirts

Or making clothing you can't have any of those things you can't own farms you can't own factories you can't own stores

You can't own the means of production. You can own your own Like I say your own toothbrush or maybe your own pair of shoes or something like that And and of course, you know, we haven't totally abolished private property in in the

West and the supposedly capitalist West But we have slapped on it Very high taxes and lots and lots of regulations in fact

I kind of want to I want to pause on that because my the very first time I ever had any Communication with John Robbins.

It was interesting. I wrote him an email and this goes back Oh, I'd say about 15 and now it goes back to maybe around the year 2000 about 18 years ago 18 20 years ago

Somewhere in that range. I don't have the email anymore. I'm really upset that I don't have that but For all that I do remember very well what the contents of the email were and what

I did is I wrote him this email And I asked him I said, what's the difference? Between fascism and communism.

What's the difference between these two because it wasn't clear to me. I mean they both seem like pretty totalitarian systems

Pretty oppressive systems and and they were very hostile to one another, you know fascist and communists, you know

Famously have Have hated one another for a long time But yet it seemed to me that a lot awful lot that they had an awful lot in common, too

Well, I so I asked I asked John Robbins his question and he wrote back to me and he said well

The the main difference is that in communism the state owns the means of production in The fascist system the state doesn't own the means of production, but they regulate and subsidize everything

So, you know the the factory owner and a fascist system can still own this factory but the government tells you how to run everything

Whereas in the communist system the state owns the factory and you know If you own the factory before the communists took over Well, that's just too bad because you're gonna lose it and the state's gonna take over So the the fascist let you let you own the factory

But you you don't have a lot of say in terms of what's actually done with it Whereas the communists just take it from you outright

So that's the difference between those two systems and and I thought it was interesting to the way the way that John closed that email

Back to me. He said we have a lot more fascism than we do communism in this country It's talking about the

United States and that's true. So, you know, yeah right now you know the government hasn't come in and taken everybody's property, but when you think about the massive amount of Controls and in regulation and taxes that we all have to deal with in virtually every facet of our lives you realize

That that we don't have a capitalist system. It's more of a fascist system where everything is controlled from From on high someplace.

So yeah, that was the first plank in the communist Of the communist manifesto. The second plank is this and you're like this a heavy progressive or graduated income tax

Well, do we have that in the United States? Well, we it hasn't been too long since we since tax day what was that April 17th this year 2018 and yes, we do have a heavy and a program and a graduated income tax the more money you make the

The greater hunk the greater the percentage the government takes out of takes from you

I think I read someplace where the bottom 50 % of wage earners don't pay any income tax at all Or something to that degree and the more money you make the the bigger the chunk that the government demands out of your hide

So that's that's certainly something that we have here in the United States that began with the establishment of the

IRS in Was it was it? 1914

I want to say the income tax maybe went into effect and in around 1914 1915

I don't know the exact year but it was right around that time And And of course when you think of all not not just the the cost in terms of taxes

But how much time we spend on that and my goodness, let's say it's a huge burden to be born

And of course the United States is not alone in that. I think pretty much every Advanced Western nation has has a similar system to the the

Internal Revenue Service So that's number two a heavy progressive or graduated income tax number three

Abolition of all right of inheritance. Well, I mean we have death taxes, right? So if somebody dies and They has a certain estate sometimes what's had what what has happened is people have actually had to To sell the farms or sell the businesses because they didn't have the cash

To be able to pay the inheritance taxes when they when they receive the business You know the family business of the family farm now,

I think that there have been some changes in that Over the past year in the the

Trump administration, I think reduced the The the death taxes, but I mean death taxes really are something that that's very much in accord with Marxism Well, they don't call it a death tax.

I know the death tax is what what people like me call it But they would call it an inheritance tax.

I guess somehow an inheritance tax sounds better than a death tax Because you know, they tax you all your life and then when you die then they they kick you again

But Karl Marx didn't didn't he wanted to get rid of inheritance that was the third point So the fourth plank is this confiscation of all property of all immigrants and rebels

So if you wanted to leave the country, for instance, if you didn't like the government, well, they just take your property Sorry, yeah, you can leave the country.

But yeah, you know every every last red cent that you've ever had Well that you're gonna have to leave with us So again, this is is just really very totalitarian

This is very heavy -handed big government and this is supposed to make free You know that it's there was that that famous saying of the

Nazis. They said, you know our bite mocked fry You know work makes free.

I think there was a sign over one of their concentration camps and people look at that and and of course that was a you know, that was a big bunch of propaganda and And that's very famously propaganda, but you know the idea that that somehow

Massive central government makes the workers free is is I think just as absurd

As is that that saying of the Nazis? So yeah, so Karl Marx he wants to confiscate the property of all immigrants and rebels

Okay plank number five the central this is maybe my personal favorite here plank number five of the

Communist Manifesto is That's kind of like one of those old David Letterman top ten list, right?

Anyway, this is number five on the Marx's greatest hits here centralization of credit in the hands of the state by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly

Hmm. I wonder if we have anything like that in the United States. Oh, oh, wait him. Oh, I know. I know. I know

I know the Federal Reserve Yes The Federal Reserve is

You know if I had to pick one institution that should be abolished It would be central banking.

Now. The Federal Reserve is just but one example of a central bank It's the the most prominent central bank in the world

It's the lead central bank as it issues the currency the US dollar which is the world's reserve currency

But yes Karl Marx. He loves central bankers Well central bankers have wrought enormous evil not just in this country

But in in any country where they're present, which is just about every country on the face of the earth

They have done enormous damage But these people Karl Marx thinks things are wonderful number six of the communist plank of the

Communist Manifesto centralization of the means of communication and Transport in the hands of the state so you can't talk to one another and you can't move around Unless it's under the the control of the state

Well that that doesn't exactly sound like a free society does it and do we have things like that in in the

United States? Well, I would argue very much that we do, you know You think about for instance the

Federal Communication Commission the Federal Communication Commission the FCC for short I mean they regulate what goes out over the airwaves so, you know television broadcasters radio broadcasters, they all fall under the regulation of the

FCC and You know, there's been a lot of people who have noticed in recent years that you know

That the American press has really become pretty much the lapdog of the government Basically what they do is whatever talking points the government hands them.

Well that they go out and repeat you know, it's it's kind of like the old Soviet Pravda or something where where the the

American press is sort of just the Another organ of the state now the press isn't owned by the government, but they're controlled by the government

You know The the government holds over their heads these these broadcast licenses and I think that's one of the way that the government controls

Controls the mainstream media. So we do have centralization of communication And what about what about transport?

Well, I mean we have things like the TSA. I mean you can't get get on an airplane without being groped and there's all kinds of government regulations over various various types of transportation and And so it's you may maybe it's not gotten to the extreme that the

Karl Marx would have liked to have seen but we certainly have a lot of government control over Over communication and and over transportation over our ability to talk about things and our ability to move around Number seven plank of the

Communist Manifesto extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state the bringing into cultivation of wastelands and the improvement of soil generally in a

In accordance with a common plan. So, you know once again, you know, we see here the idea of central planning you know the the

Communist I remember this growing up from the Soviet Union days Back in the days of the evil

Empire as as Ronald Reagan famously called it, but but growing up and in seen

You know news about the Soviet Union I mean you often hear about things, you know These five -year plans that seem like the

Russians were the Soviets were big into five -year plans And so, you know all the the economic activity had to be centrally planned out from from by the state number eight of Plank of the

Communist Manifesto equal liabilities of all to labor Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.

So, you know once again, you know, the state is establishing armies You know, it's not a matter of you know, and I suppose you you would be drafted into these armies as well

You know, you didn't if you if you didn't want to be a farmer Well, maybe that was just too bad, you know, it was off to the off to the fields with you regardless And it kind of reminds me a little bit there there's a wonderful article it's written by by John Robbins I think it's it's called the

Bible in the draft and I don't have have that article here in front of me But it's well worth reading.

It's out there in the Trinity Foundation. It's called the Bible in the draft and he talks about How and he what it is he is he actually?

Expounds first Samuel chapter 8 first Samuel chapter 8, you know it's where the people come to Samuel and they say we want a king we want to be like all the other nations and Samuel goes to God and and God tells

Samuel will go and tell the people this is going to be the behavior of the king if you get a king and Samuel goes through this this

Recites what the King is going to do and The line that gets repeated by Samuel all the time is he will take he will take he will take he will take you know

Samuel says he will will take the best of your fields. He will take your servants. He will take your sons He will take your daughters, you know, and and and and the best of your lands and etc, etc, etc and you know, the king is going to take all of these things and That that's really

I think ties in kind of with that that plank number eight, especially, you know The idea of the establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture

You know that that the government is going to take your son's gonna take your daughters and Press them into to force labor now that's that is not a

Biblical stance on government whatsoever, but that's what the Communists want to do plank number nine combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country

By a more equitable distribution of the population over the country, you know and again and it doesn't maybe say it explicitly here

But of course, this is all done from the top down This is this is all centrally planned and then the final one

This is number ten and maybe in some ways maybe this is the most important one You could probably make that argument number ten drumroll, please plank of the communist manifesto free education for all children in public schools

Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form combination of education with industrial production, etc, etc.

So The communists want the communist like the idea of free public education and of course in in the

West That's that's exactly the way it is. Now, of course, obviously it's not free You know, it's paid for by by very high taxes and it's run by the government

But the communists want to want to get the kids early and they want to fill their minds with with communist propaganda

Now I can tell you, you know, I went to public school I grew up and I went to public school my whole life and I had to unlearn an awful lot and unlearn an awful lot

There when I was growing up there wasn't homeschooling I mean there are a lot of Christian parents at home school their kids now

But that was not the case when I was growing up In fact, I remember the first time I ever saw that I remember we had a new youth minister at my church and and they homeschooled their kids

I saw that I was probably maybe a senior in high school at the time and I I thought well, you know, that's just weird

Now maybe some of you listening either homeschool your children or or maybe you yourself are homeschooled but you know, this was back

I'd you know, it was maybe 35 years ago and the whole homeschool movement was really brand new at the time

I mean it just wasn't done. I mean either you went to public school or or you went to private school of some sort

But you know homeschooling just simply did not exist now I've known many people since that time who have homeschooled their children and I From the results that I've seen

I think it seems to work out very well It doesn't surprise me at all that that it does work out But but that was something very new back then and you know

There's an awful lot of just discouraging things that you you see in the world today But I guess maybe if I wanted to point the one that has been encouraging to me is to see how many people

Are actually doing this now? I mean, I realize it's still a tiny tiny minority of people compared to those who?

Educate their children in other ways But just the fact that it's out there and the fact that it does seem to have have grown over the decades is very encouraging

To me. So anyway, I hope that you've enjoyed some of this talk here This obviously we we just barely kind of scratched the surface on Karl Marx, but I wanted to share a few things with you especially going through the

Communist Manifesto and seeing just how many of Of those ten planks really have been to some degree or another instituted in the supposedly free and the supposedly capitalist

West And these are institutions, you know Things like public schooling and and a graduated income tax and central banking these things did not exist in the

United States at its founding These things did not exist now. We take them almost as though somehow they've been there since time, you know since You know ever since Adam or something like this, but these things were never part of the

American Republic from the beginning But they've been things that have been brought about subsequent to Marx having written now,

I'm not going to say that Karl Marx is solely responsible for those institutions. I'm sure that he is not but but he is certainly again one of the most influential thinkers of our time and I think that some of the blame for those things can be laid on him.

I don't think there's there's any question about that So anyway, I hope that you enjoyed this podcast.

I would encourage you to To read and to study even Karl Marx to read him to to understand him

But not to agree with him There's that there's a wonderful idea and I know that John Robbins has talked about this in a number of his articles

It's called the Schriftprinzip. It's an idea that was first set forth by Martin Luther and What Martin Luther said the way he described a

Schriftprinzip, that's a German term by the way as you might have guessed for writing principle

And it was the idea that all of the books that all the works by all the scholars in the world

Need to be brought back to the Bible and to be judged by Scripture And of course when we look at the

Bible and we look at what it says about private property When we look at what it says about limited government

We see that that the ideas of Karl Marx simply don't stand up and maybe I just wanted to leave leave you with this in closing

You know think about what the the Bible has to say about about government, you know in Romans 13, you know

Paul talks about two functions of government, you know to punish those who do evil and To praise the good and Peter also talks about that, you know

Nowhere in Scripture do we get this idea that the government should be in charge of education Nowhere, do we get this idea in Scripture?

There should be graduated income tax. Nowhere. Do we get this idea that there should be? Forced armies of agricultural workers or set or excuse me or a central banking, you know

These things these ideas they're completely foreign to Scripture, you know Karl Marx did not get his ideas from Scripture.

The Bible is the mind of God on Economics on politics on all things and when we compare what

Karl Marx said to what the scripture said about government We find it wanting, you know It's weighed in the balance and found wanting and we can say the same sort of thing with economics, you know

Karl Marx wants to abolish all private property. He wants to put put all the means of production into the the hands of the state

But I mean think about a few things, you know, there's that one That's the parable of the what the the workers in the vineyard, you know with a the the vineyard goes out

He hires all these these agricultural workers and he hires some in the morning and some in the afternoon

He hires a few people just about an hour before quitting time and then they get to the end Of the day and he goes on he pays them all the same and and the guys that he hired early on the day

Well, they were angry because you know He paid the people that only worked an hour the same amount as he paid people who've been been working in the vineyard all day

And and you remember what what the what the vineyard owner? Replied he said is it not lawful for me to do what

I wish with my own things Is it not lawful for me to do what

I wish with my own things Well, that is a statement of capitalism.

That is an endorsement of free markets a free enterprise So Again Karl Marx not only is his politics wanting so too is his economics

You know the Bible everywhere and I just that just gave you one example just a brief example the Bible everywhere supports

Not only limited government, but it also supports private property and that is the private ownership of the means of production

You know, we see that all the time in Scripture so I wanted to leave you with that thought, you know, if we we approach

Karl Marx the way that Martin Luther would have us. I think we would We would find his ideas to be

Wide of the mark. He would miss the mark of what the scripture says that That as Christians were were commanded to believe and to practice

In terms of politics and economics. So anyway, that's about all for this week. Thanks very much for time for listening

I really do appreciate that And I hope you got something out of this It's my certainly my prayer that you did and I will talk to you next week.