THE QUESTION:

Is Socialism Christian? Is Capitalism Christian?

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

The COVID-19 crisis has produced a nearly unprecedented degree of U.S. government intervention in the economy and more may lie ahead. This occurs at a time of surprising and rising Democratic Party fondness for more thoroughgoing socialism. Although the prime mover of this phenomenon, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, is very unlikely to win the presidential nomination, his status as the runner-up in both 2016 and 2020 is significant.

While polls show growing fondness for socialism among Democrats, Americans as a whole disagree, due to opposition from self-identified political Independents and, more especially, Republicans. Some remarkable numbers show this is no business-as-usual era, as surely as did the election of President Trump.

After the 2018 election, BuzzFeed found that 47% of young Democrats (ages 22 to 37) identified as socialists, or democratic socialists, or accepted either label. Early this year. Gallup said 76% of Democrats are willing to vote for a socialist as president. Public Opinion Strategies reported that 77% of Democrats thought the nation would be “better off” by moving in a more socialistic direction.

Yet another thunderbolt came this month from a CBS/YouGov tracking poll. It showed that 56% of Democratic primary voters in Texas had a favorable view of socialism but only 37% were favorable toward capitalism. In California, voters aligned the same way, 57% vs. 45%.

All factions recognize that “markets” are the universal fact of life in modern internationalized commerce. The issue is how “free” or centralized they should be, whether businesses are owned by the government or workers or private investors or some blend, whether unguided market forces or public officials control decision-making, and the extent to which government imposes regulations and what they should be.