An intelligent portrayal of Christian thinking for the modern world. Glad to see Hart expressing these views. Especially regarding the barbaric nature of the American health care system.
You can make an argument that health care should be treated as a "public good" (things which free marketeers treat as special cases because they don't play by the normal market rules for one reason or another) without saying socialism is preferable to markets. I like his honesty on theology, especially how we should rethink a lot of tradition around hell, but this was surprisingly shallow for such a deep man. If you take something like the Frasier Index or Heritage Economic Freedom Index, prosperity directly correlates in states and nations to economic freedom. It's not a matter of balancing two evils -- communism and libertarianism -- to find a golden mean. The least economically free places (N Korea, Cuba, etc) have the least prosperity and well being, and the most economically free places (Singapore, Switzerland) have the most. Same with states in the US -- Florida and Texas do the best and people move there in droves. California and New York, pursuing a socialist game plan, do the worst and people flee. Solving the issue of social safety nets and public goods takes creativity but it doesn't have to mean abandoning basic economics and the free market. The Scandinavian nations, who experimented with socialism in the 80s, moved to a social market economy and are all HIGHER on the Economic Freedom Index than the United States, meaning they are further from socialism and command models.
I deeply disagree. Socialismo historically has failed both at creating wealth and distributing wealth. Capitalism with Welfare State seems to be the best system for the poor, balancing the needs of creating and distributing wealth. If we look at the economic system in the promisse land, God allows individuals to benefit from the fruits of their labor and at the same time establishes rules and taxes to take care of the orphan and the widow.
That is exactly what he means by socialism. Capitalism with a safety net and a public health system. Why can't you understand that he's not talking about communism or Venezuela?
Intelligent man but still quite obtuse politically. It’s not hard to see how one could be a sincere Christian yet generally be opposed to state coercion and prefer a more federalist approach to government in line with the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity.
I can provide a reason: There's no such thing as "Patristic Universalism". Consensus of the Fathers is that Jesus promised eternal life, contrasted to eternal perdition for the damned. Not a single Father was unequivocally universalist and the only one who *might* have been, even David Bentley Hart has admitted used language that referenced an eternal Hell - St. Gregory of Nyssa. I'll go with the overwhelming evidence and not the ambiguity. I am a Christian and all Christians oppose universalism. If I was Orthodox, I would oppose universalism too because the Fifth Ecumenical Council would declare me a heretic otherwise. I am a Catholic, but still, whether one is Protestant, Catholic, or Orthodox, the only type of people who are universalists are called heretics and as a Christian, I affirm that. I hope that all universalists can see the light before they deceive the world into thinking they can embrace their own self-wills and still end up in Heaven. Universalists, and this has been declared by the Church and even David Bentley Hart who follows the Fifth Ecumenical Council (I would assume) is aware that his own Church has declared him anathema. Anathema - cursed - won't make it to Heaven unless he repents of this heresy. All universalists go there.
So, the American system which has an enormous amount of government involvement is inexcusable, and the European ones are notoriously bad as well, so then maybe we should try a libertarian system?
ARE you out of your mind? That's as naive as a communist system. Who's going to police it? Where are the laws going to be made? Who's going to collect taxes? Whose going to build the roads?
This guy is conflating Libertarianism with Anarchism and Objectivism. It’s very simple. Libertarians believe in respect for Life, Liberty and Property. Want to give your property to the poor without coercion? Great! That’s completely ok within Libertarianism. Want to raise money for roads and public services? Great! Do it at the local level and get the Feds out of it. It has nothing to do with being generous or greedy. It’s about the absence of violence and coercion and limiting of large, federal government. That’s it. Never speak on things that you don’t understand.
Libertarianism isn't about something being lost by an individual, it's about not wanting to get robbed by and contribute to a state that robs people, which is completely compatible with Christianity. You can criticize whatever your perceptions are about certain aspects of American culture but that's a separate issue than if the state has the moral right to rob people (it doesn't). And yes robbery is violence, so trying to reframe it as "Well actually, Libertarians are just selfish." is missing the point. Anyone can come up with some sort of caricature of a group of people in order to belittle the ideology that they subscribe to, which you'd think a Christian Universalist would have a lot of experience with being on the receiving end of that. I could understand the argument that if the state is going to rob you than you might as well be a socialist, but even in the video he says that the state far more often than not has nefarious motives, which is exactly what is pointed out by Libertarians/Anarchists. The state can't be trusted in the long term, and it's not even moral to begin with. I'm not in the least surprised DBH has this opinion though; anything other the Universalism and free will he seems to refuse to be logically consistent. True "socialism", if we're just going to call good social attitudes by a political label that really has had the opposite effect, is done by charity because charity is voluntary.
Well, that's the thing, as a "Christian universalist", he tends to be constantly on the dishing out end of the characterizations. And yes, take out the voluntary aspect of the contributions, and charity disintegrates, it is turned into force.
You should dig a little deeper. American "libertarianism" (e.g., Ayn Rand) presents a clear picture of an atomized society, where each individual stands alone. If you think that represents the spirit of Jesus, then I'd truly like to know what you are smoking! "Socialism" and in particular "communism," on the other hand, are grossly misunderstood by our culture, given half a century of "red scare" and propaganda. For example, do you realize that Marx focused little on the state or state control. Indeed, the Soviet Union did not even call themselves "Communists" for this reason; they called themselves "Socialists," because they saw themselves as on the way to communism, not yet there. Rather, communism is about working people, about giving power to them. It's about breaking power hierarchies, as best we can. Empowering everyone, economically and otherwise. The same is true of the best of socialist thought today. No more domination of one class or group over others. That sounds very Christian, to my ears! Further, I agree with Hart: it's the only way humanity has a future.
except, of course, for the fact that historically the state has been the coercive force, through enclosures, vagabond acts, and abroad imperialism and colonialism (ironically the imposition of taxes onto the colonized was a tactic used to impose a capitalist wage-labor regime onto them) in subjugating populations to wage-labor and rob them of their own means of subsistence. the irony of the libertarians is that capitalism itself was constructed under not the flourishing commercial centers of post-feudal continental europe like florence or venice, but the highly centralized state of Britain and its agrarian capitalism. turns out people don't simply voluntarily give their means of life up to be tied to the wage labouring under another with relations of impersonal domination and it had to be perpetually enforced. It was the original (state-enforced) robbery, first the peasants of their customary personal and common lands, then the entire colonized populations of the world, that gave rise to a regime where the metabolism of society is dependent on the valorization of capital. And then of course the one dimensional libertarians read 1984 and need to simplify society thus redirect their enjoyment of hatred and resistance onto the simplified big bad state who collects those big bad taxes. The funniest part of right-wing 'libertarians' is that every aspect of them is a parody. Not only was the state a violently enforced means of originally forming capitalism, not only were taxes a means of imposing capitalist social relations onto colonized populations, but the very term 'libertarianism' itself was coined by anarcho-communist Joseph Dejacque to refer to the anarchist tradition (itself socialist since its origins in Proudhon), popularized once calling oneself an anarchist became outlawed, before the right wing folks stole the term for their own in the mid 20th century. For all the faults of the anarchists, at the very least they knew the historical and logical necessary connection between capital and the state. Right-wing 'libertarians' adopt a one dimensional, childish game of resistance and lose even that crucial insight.
Probably economic justice would be a better term to use, as the term socialism has been so abused, for americans it tends to mean the opposite of the original idea. and people have been indoctrinated into pro greed/ego fundamentalism. Tolstoyanism, distributism, cooperativism are very close to christ's message and also the constitution of Medina. Read Michael Hudson's Forgive Them Their Debts for the social side of Christ's message. I get that people zealously identify with the society they are born into, but the whole west & its ideals are going through a slo-mo emperor has no clothes moment, wise up, sooner the better.
I agree. I think Hart uses Socialism mostly for its polemical effect because he knows the word has come to acquire a mostly marxist meaning in contemporary discourse and will elicit strong reactions. But for the sake of accuracy (and I doubt Hart would really dispute that) I suppose better terms could be employed, or some qualifier for socialism (such as Christian Socialism, Apostolic Socialism, whatever) could come in hand.
@@gre8 In my opinion it's just lost all meaning. Even 'marxist' means different things to different people (Rosa Luxemburg, Lenin, and the average American). There's a clip of Chomsky noting that America labelled the USSR socialist to discredit socialism while the USSR labelled itself socialist to lend itself the credibility of socialism, both assuming different meanings for the term. Few even think of 'democratic ownership and control of capital, finance, infrastructure, and the means of production.'
Sweden is a mess. Why? Read some books on economics. If you’ve never read a book on economics a good one to start with is ‘Basic Economics’ by Thomas Sowell. If you want the government to reduce poverty get informed.
The ideal he’s describing is not socialism, it’s distributism. Every Christian who daydreams about a free society sharing economy wants distributism. Socialism is an economic system based on a philosophy that is not only atheistic, but ahumanist. It cannot be implemented without state compulsion, and cannot be sustained because of it. Put in religious terms, socialism is a system of Law; distributism is an economy of Grace. Their goal, respectfully, is the same - but socialism has never met the goal.
You apparently never heard anything about, much less read anything about, either Christian socialism or Christian communism. The very first communist meeting Marx ever attended was by Christian communists.
Libertarians don't believe *anyone* should have their things taken away from them, and libertarians don't believe other people should have their things taken away from them for the sake of things the libertarians like. He says that libertarians are the selfish ones, even though *he* wants to use *other people's stuff* for the things *he* wants, and the *libertarians don't!*
@@SebastianLundh1988Then Libertarians shouldn’t live in any organized societies where things like taxes or public services exist. The Bible teaches us that all belongs to God and that what we have we should use to help others. The Bible doesn’t teach a mine, mine, mine attitude. Certainly the Bible acknowledges private ownership of material things but that is only as a steward since God is the maker and sustainer of all.
@@ThisDoctorKnows Why shouldn't libertarians live in organized societies? Jesus said that you're supposed to the poor, and not that you're supposed to give your neighbor's things to the poor. Jesus said that if you want treasures in heaven, you're supposed to give to the poor, but if the government takes your money you can't do that.
Socialism in the modern era is simply Governmentalism ..... I LOVE DBH but I do wish he had read Friedrich Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom" which is what all governmental socialism eventually becomes with citizens gradually becoming serfs to the government. Jesus does not want us to exchange Mammon Worship for Government Worship no matter what even the wonderful DBH says.
The last quip from DBH was so incredibly uninsightful, and basically the same thing as your average capitalism-loving republican saying to democratic socialists “well if you really believe in socialism why haven’t you given all your money to the poor and why do you buy stuff manufactured on the free market?!” Nothing of value is really gleamed from this sort of gotcha rhetoric. It’s odd. DBH has such amazing insights in philosophy, theology, and literature, yet whenever he opens his mouth about politics he suspends all manner of insight, nuance, and grace. It’d be nice if this channel stuck to its wheelhouse, being primarily Christian theology and Universalism in particular, and leave uninsightful political rants like these out of an otherwise great corpus of videos.
You should come out of American libertarian propoganda. What DBH said was not a rant. Libertarians, while arguing against the government, enjoy the public goods from the State. The individualist position is a contradictory one, because society is not just a collection of individuals. It is a social-whole where public goods, the political authority are inseparable from the individual and the benefits the individual earns.
@@ben-dr3wf I’m not in “American libertarian propaganda” and am not myself a libertarian. So that is completely baseless and irrelevant. And yes, his last comments, which I am explicitly referring to in my original comment, are an incoherent rant. There is absolutely nothing contradictory about “arguing against government” (which is just a vague and uninsightful description of libertarianism) while consuming public goods of which they were coerced into funding. Your conception of a “contradiction” is ultimately just simple minded and utterly surface level, the likes of which unfortunately populates much of our political discourse, along with other such rhetoric which I have referenced in my previous comment, such as when dense republicans reprimand socialists for engaging with the free market of the country in which they live, so on and so forth. And again, you further show you don’t know much about libertarianism. Libertarianism is not essentially “individualist.” The null libertarian position is merely one that is against coercion, primarily in the form of a state, and that the state as such is illegitimate. Nothing about this is essentially “individualist.” This is just basic Poli-Sci 101 knowledge. Walk into any Poli-Sci course in university and say that the libertarian position is one of an “individualist position” and you’ll be laughed out of the room. The same will happen if you say that the libertarian position is that society is “just a collection of individuals” because libertarianism is “individualist” (again, it isn’t). Maybe actually try reading primary sources of libertarian thought instead of completely strawmanning their position. Then you’d be able to reject actual libertarianism, as I have, while actually being informed about what it is they believe. And Hart unfortunately just makes his case worse when he sums up libertarianism as a philosophy of selfishness. Absolutely no nuance, tact, or grace, just empty rhetoric that plagues surface-level political discourse in America.
You’re being pedantic. Hart is talking about objectivism and relating to the classical critiques against commerce. If libertarianism in your view is simply against coercion of a certain sort then that is one way to define. For other people it means gaining and keeping what is “yours” at any cost to your neighbors.
"Socialism is least barbaric", are you kidding. This channel has drifted beyond what unites us and is now just driving a wedge. And Spare me the intersectionality defense and an explanation of "socialism isn't communism" infantile rebuttals. I wish yall the best. Godspeed
@@ChrisSamuel1729to you maybe, to me it’s the freedom to create freely to add value to the world. If Christians want to change the world, then do it. You aren’t going to do Gods will through the government. If you want to change the world then heal the sick and feed the poor. Why should we lower ourselves to politics when we have the power of God in us?
@@ChrisSamuel1729 It's not. It's an economic system of competition that emphasizes free abilities to produce jobs, products, and leisure for the populace. Greed is mammon worship. Can capitalist systems of economy lead to greed? Yes. Can socialist economic systems lead to greed? Yes. Have they both led to greed, murder, and destruction? Yes. But socialism also has the more dangerous tendency to strip at free will, which erodes charity.
Spare me the communism is bad infantile rebuttals. Try to at least rise to the minimal level of being critical of 100+ yrs of colonialist state capitalist propaganda. You have to grow up at some point.
Politics really is his weakness. He wades in on these topicsand makes a fool of himself. Then his minions defend him in the comments because "muhh he's smart bruhh"...
Can you detail the economy and social systems of the various advanced countries? Do that, go on to determine their strengths and weaknesses, and then come back to offer an opinion that has a bit of merit.
@@SebastianLundh1988As long as you ignore the exploitation of the poor and the weak and buy into the military industrial complex used to brutally sustain the wealthiest so called freest societies then I can see how capitalism makes sense.
His example of comparing healthcare systems as some justification for “you can’t be a Christian if you’re not some socialist” is such a strawman which shows his lack of understanding in this area and is simply going off vibes.
He may be a ringer of a theologian, (I don't know; I've never read any of his books), but he's still a gravely out of touch ivory tower type. Statements like this evince a dire disconnect from economic reality. For him to say you can only be a Christian if you're a socialist is not only incredibly condescending and insulting but completely oblivious not only of socialism's dismal record of failure but also of the fact that socialist countries have historically been the most atheistic and hostile to Christianity. One must never confuse giving and taking. As Christians we ought to be charitable and compassionate with our fellow men, but an authoritarian, redistributionist government is not only a seriously bad idea but is in fact contrary to the Christian ethic. Virtue only comes through voluntary choice; grace is the free bestowal of a gift to one who hasn't earned it and has no right to it by another who has and does. There's nothing easier to be generous with than other people's money; it's a lot harder (and more noble) to do it with your own. A society in which every person believes they have a right to everyone else's earnings not only subversively institutionalizes the very greed it claims to disdain, but corrupts the human spirit because it abolishes grace, the very foundational tenet of Christianity. Hart is just another sheltered academic, haughty and oh so self-righteous.
If being socialistic is good, we should all practice that in our personal lives but its failures on a big government level are proven. If we’re going to have the best government, it’s having a righteous king, like that’s to come in the future. Until then, capitalism offers the best possible freedom and outcomes.
@@ronking3049 Yes. If we sit around and do nothing the Holy Spirit will magically transform the world, like Cinderella's Fairy Godmother! FFS conservatives are so fucking dumb. We are to partner WITH the Holy Spirit.
I love DBH but every once in a while He says something that sort of breaks the spell. Mills economic philosophy? You mean Jon Stuart Mill? Who advocated for a liberal vision of socialism? The same vision hart has praised in writing multiple times as it exists in the Nordic countries etc…
Ehhh, He should stick to Universalism . Roads would get made 😆. Part of the reason education is so high is because government writes a blank check, etc. Human desire would still be fulfilled, just not due to guns pointed at your head if you refuse to pay taxes(that are a cesspool of waste). Healthcare is its own beast (we have investors who dump billions into drug discoveries) , I mean they deserve some type of return. New drugs come out almost weekly at this point and the money funnel that requires is insane. More legislation and govt involvement only tend to raise the price. Govt and business have two different goals. They have inherent trade offs but to say socialism is the hierarchy is bare minimum Ill informed. Dostoevsky noted that you could grant people said socialistic utopia and they would tear it down just to see what happens if they had never really experienced Hell so to speak. . The numbers for socialism make sense. People don’t, nor will they ever. Also as humans we tend to raise our comfort levels once something adjust to a new normal.. So, how far down that rabbit hole are we going? Also if you do loose everything and file bankruptcy this would suck. However you can literally start over the next day.. No other system in history has really granted this type of freedom. To call libertarianism selfish is in itself a selfish statement.
@@webz3589 I’m aware. He’s excellent when it comes to classical theism and beauty of the infinite is a magnificent book. But his specialty isn’t politics and last time I checked that wasn’t the point of this channel either. If leftists want to do their pseudo-moralistic posturing on things they know nothing about they have plenty of other options
The New Testament is not much about "politics" in the sense of statecraft and philosophy either; what it is about is moral outrage at social-economic injustice.
David bently hart being based.
DBGart, lesser known cousin of DBHart :)
Haha yes@@daniel_so_you_know
I assume you mean "biased." We all have our biases; there is no unbiased position from which one can argue.
@@davebartholome2924 🤯🤯🤯
An intelligent portrayal of Christian thinking for the modern world. Glad to see Hart expressing these views. Especially regarding the barbaric nature of the American health care system.
I am more convinced that this kind of Christianity is where the real future of Christianity lies.
It has to be. The hate-fueled "Christian" conservatism we see in the U.S. is unsustainable.
@@anthonymccarthy4164 God help us
@@bradleymarshall5489 LOL
He's a universalist. A resurrection of a dead heresy that will die out yet again.
@@newenglandsun4394 He has seen the Kingdom. Many haven't.
Truth.
You can make an argument that health care should be treated as a "public good" (things which free marketeers treat as special cases because they don't play by the normal market rules for one reason or another) without saying socialism is preferable to markets. I like his honesty on theology, especially how we should rethink a lot of tradition around hell, but this was surprisingly shallow for such a deep man. If you take something like the Frasier Index or Heritage Economic Freedom Index, prosperity directly correlates in states and nations to economic freedom. It's not a matter of balancing two evils -- communism and libertarianism -- to find a golden mean. The least economically free places (N Korea, Cuba, etc) have the least prosperity and well being, and the most economically free places (Singapore, Switzerland) have the most. Same with states in the US -- Florida and Texas do the best and people move there in droves. California and New York, pursuing a socialist game plan, do the worst and people flee. Solving the issue of social safety nets and public goods takes creativity but it doesn't have to mean abandoning basic economics and the free market. The Scandinavian nations, who experimented with socialism in the 80s, moved to a social market economy and are all HIGHER on the Economic Freedom Index than the United States, meaning they are further from socialism and command models.
I deeply disagree. Socialismo historically has failed both at creating wealth and distributing wealth.
Capitalism with Welfare State seems to be the best system for the poor, balancing the needs of creating and distributing wealth.
If we look at the economic system in the promisse land, God allows individuals to benefit from the fruits of their labor and at the same time establishes rules and taxes to take care of the orphan and the widow.
That is exactly what he means by socialism. Capitalism with a safety net and a public health system. Why can't you understand that he's not talking about communism or Venezuela?
@@RMT192 Because the word he is using, Socialism, is NEVER used for capitalism witha strong safety net.
Intelligent man but still quite obtuse politically. It’s not hard to see how one could be a sincere Christian yet generally be opposed to state coercion and prefer a more federalist approach to government in line with the principles of subsidiarity and solidarity.
Christian Pacifism is perfectly consistent with Patristic Universalism. DBH didn’t provide a reason for why he disagrees with Pacifism.
I can provide a reason: There's no such thing as "Patristic Universalism". Consensus of the Fathers is that Jesus promised eternal life, contrasted to eternal perdition for the damned. Not a single Father was unequivocally universalist and the only one who *might* have been, even David Bentley Hart has admitted used language that referenced an eternal Hell - St. Gregory of Nyssa. I'll go with the overwhelming evidence and not the ambiguity. I am a Christian and all Christians oppose universalism. If I was Orthodox, I would oppose universalism too because the Fifth Ecumenical Council would declare me a heretic otherwise. I am a Catholic, but still, whether one is Protestant, Catholic, or Orthodox, the only type of people who are universalists are called heretics and as a Christian, I affirm that. I hope that all universalists can see the light before they deceive the world into thinking they can embrace their own self-wills and still end up in Heaven. Universalists, and this has been declared by the Church and even David Bentley Hart who follows the Fifth Ecumenical Council (I would assume) is aware that his own Church has declared him anathema. Anathema - cursed - won't make it to Heaven unless he repents of this heresy. All universalists go there.
Ignorance is here to stay.@@newenglandsun4394
That seems to be the norm with him from what I’ve seen. He just asserts and anyone who disagrees is condescended to.
Great talk
I'd love to know his thoughts on the American Solidarity Party.
I love him
based af
Big true.
So, the American system which has an enormous amount of government involvement is inexcusable, and the European ones are notoriously bad as well, so then maybe we should try a libertarian system?
ARE you out of your mind? That's as naive as a communist system. Who's going to police it? Where are the laws going to be made? Who's going to collect taxes? Whose going to build the roads?
This guy is conflating Libertarianism with Anarchism and Objectivism. It’s very simple. Libertarians believe in respect for Life, Liberty and Property. Want to give your property to the poor without coercion? Great! That’s completely ok within Libertarianism. Want to raise money for roads and public services? Great! Do it at the local level and get the Feds out of it. It has nothing to do with being generous or greedy. It’s about the absence of violence and coercion and limiting of large, federal government. That’s it. Never speak on things that you don’t understand.
Excellent point.
Libertarianism isn't about something being lost by an individual, it's about not wanting to get robbed by and contribute to a state that robs people, which is completely compatible with Christianity. You can criticize whatever your perceptions are about certain aspects of American culture but that's a separate issue than if the state has the moral right to rob people (it doesn't). And yes robbery is violence, so trying to reframe it as "Well actually, Libertarians are just selfish." is missing the point. Anyone can come up with some sort of caricature of a group of people in order to belittle the ideology that they subscribe to, which you'd think a Christian Universalist would have a lot of experience with being on the receiving end of that.
I could understand the argument that if the state is going to rob you than you might as well be a socialist, but even in the video he says that the state far more often than not has nefarious motives, which is exactly what is pointed out by Libertarians/Anarchists. The state can't be trusted in the long term, and it's not even moral to begin with. I'm not in the least surprised DBH has this opinion though; anything other the Universalism and free will he seems to refuse to be logically consistent.
True "socialism", if we're just going to call good social attitudes by a political label that really has had the opposite effect, is done by charity because charity is voluntary.
@@alt8938 amen
Well, that's the thing, as a "Christian universalist", he tends to be constantly on the dishing out end of the characterizations. And yes, take out the voluntary aspect of the contributions, and charity disintegrates, it is turned into force.
You should dig a little deeper. American "libertarianism" (e.g., Ayn Rand) presents a clear picture of an atomized society, where each individual stands alone. If you think that represents the spirit of Jesus, then I'd truly like to know what you are smoking! "Socialism" and in particular "communism," on the other hand, are grossly misunderstood by our culture, given half a century of "red scare" and propaganda. For example, do you realize that Marx focused little on the state or state control. Indeed, the Soviet Union did not even call themselves "Communists" for this reason; they called themselves "Socialists," because they saw themselves as on the way to communism, not yet there. Rather, communism is about working people, about giving power to them. It's about breaking power hierarchies, as best we can. Empowering everyone, economically and otherwise. The same is true of the best of socialist thought today. No more domination of one class or group over others. That sounds very Christian, to my ears! Further, I agree with Hart: it's the only way humanity has a future.
except, of course, for the fact that historically the state has been the coercive force, through enclosures, vagabond acts, and abroad imperialism and colonialism (ironically the imposition of taxes onto the colonized was a tactic used to impose a capitalist wage-labor regime onto them) in subjugating populations to wage-labor and rob them of their own means of subsistence. the irony of the libertarians is that capitalism itself was constructed under not the flourishing commercial centers of post-feudal continental europe like florence or venice, but the highly centralized state of Britain and its agrarian capitalism. turns out people don't simply voluntarily give their means of life up to be tied to the wage labouring under another with relations of impersonal domination and it had to be perpetually enforced. It was the original (state-enforced) robbery, first the peasants of their customary personal and common lands, then the entire colonized populations of the world, that gave rise to a regime where the metabolism of society is dependent on the valorization of capital. And then of course the one dimensional libertarians read 1984 and need to simplify society thus redirect their enjoyment of hatred and resistance onto the simplified big bad state who collects those big bad taxes.
The funniest part of right-wing 'libertarians' is that every aspect of them is a parody. Not only was the state a violently enforced means of originally forming capitalism, not only were taxes a means of imposing capitalist social relations onto colonized populations, but the very term 'libertarianism' itself was coined by anarcho-communist Joseph Dejacque to refer to the anarchist tradition (itself socialist since its origins in Proudhon), popularized once calling oneself an anarchist became outlawed, before the right wing folks stole the term for their own in the mid 20th century. For all the faults of the anarchists, at the very least they knew the historical and logical necessary connection between capital and the state. Right-wing 'libertarians' adopt a one dimensional, childish game of resistance and lose even that crucial insight.
@@alt8938 Concieving of all taxes as violent robbery is delusional, selfish, and immature.
This sounds like a good version of the European welfare state more than genuine "socialism".
Yes, the basis for a welfare state is thriving capitalism, as free market as possible. It's a good balance I believe.
Probably economic justice would be a better term to use, as the term socialism has been so abused, for americans it tends to mean the opposite of the original idea. and people have been indoctrinated into pro greed/ego fundamentalism. Tolstoyanism, distributism, cooperativism are very close to christ's message and also the constitution of Medina. Read Michael Hudson's Forgive Them Their Debts for the social side of Christ's message. I get that people zealously identify with the society they are born into, but the whole west & its ideals are going through a slo-mo emperor has no clothes moment, wise up, sooner the better.
I agree. I think Hart uses Socialism mostly for its polemical effect because he knows the word has come to acquire a mostly marxist meaning in contemporary discourse and will elicit strong reactions. But for the sake of accuracy (and I doubt Hart would really dispute that) I suppose better terms could be employed, or some qualifier for socialism (such as Christian Socialism, Apostolic Socialism, whatever) could come in hand.
@@gre8 In my opinion it's just lost all meaning. Even 'marxist' means different things to different people (Rosa Luxemburg, Lenin, and the average American). There's a clip of Chomsky noting that America labelled the USSR socialist to discredit socialism while the USSR labelled itself socialist to lend itself the credibility of socialism, both assuming different meanings for the term. Few even think of 'democratic ownership and control of capital, finance, infrastructure, and the means of production.'
Sweden is a mess. Why? Read some books on economics. If you’ve never read a book on economics a good one to start with is ‘Basic Economics’ by Thomas Sowell. If you want the government to reduce poverty get informed.
You ever been to Sweden? Or have you never left the Louisiana swamps?
@@darkknightsdsI would bet good money they have never been to Sweden. The idea that Sweden is a mess is laughable.
@@ThisDoctorKnows exactly my point :)
Sowell is a garbage economist.
The ideal he’s describing is not socialism, it’s distributism. Every Christian who daydreams about a free society sharing economy wants distributism. Socialism is an economic system based on a philosophy that is not only atheistic, but ahumanist. It cannot be implemented without state compulsion, and cannot be sustained because of it. Put in religious terms, socialism is a system of Law; distributism is an economy of Grace. Their goal, respectfully, is the same - but socialism has never met the goal.
You apparently never heard anything about, much less read anything about, either Christian socialism or Christian communism. The very first communist meeting Marx ever attended was by Christian communists.
Try reading the Acts of the Apostles, dumb ass
Socialism, ok, I guess...but focused on National needs.
Libertarians don't believe *anyone* should have their things taken away from them, and libertarians don't believe other people should have their things taken away from them for the sake of things the libertarians like. He says that libertarians are the selfish ones, even though *he* wants to use *other people's stuff* for the things *he* wants, and the *libertarians don't!*
Libertarianism is the least Christian political philosophy
@@darkknightsds How so?
@@SebastianLundh1988Then Libertarians shouldn’t live in any organized societies where things like taxes or public services exist.
The Bible teaches us that all belongs to God and that what we have we should use to help others. The Bible doesn’t teach a mine, mine, mine attitude. Certainly the Bible acknowledges private ownership of material things but that is only as a steward since God is the maker and sustainer of all.
@@ThisDoctorKnows Why shouldn't libertarians live in organized societies?
Jesus said that you're supposed to the poor, and not that you're supposed to give your neighbor's things to the poor.
Jesus said that if you want treasures in heaven, you're supposed to give to the poor, but if the government takes your money you can't do that.
Socialism in the modern era is simply Governmentalism ..... I LOVE DBH but I do wish he had read Friedrich Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom" which is what all governmental socialism eventually becomes with citizens gradually becoming serfs to the government. Jesus does not want us to exchange Mammon Worship for Government Worship no matter what even the wonderful DBH says.
So the Danish are slaves to their government while Americans aren’t. Not a convincing thesis.
If you think DBH hasn't read that then you're as dumb as he (correctly) would assume you are
The last quip from DBH was so incredibly uninsightful, and basically the same thing as your average capitalism-loving republican saying to democratic socialists “well if you really believe in socialism why haven’t you given all your money to the poor and why do you buy stuff manufactured on the free market?!” Nothing of value is really gleamed from this sort of gotcha rhetoric.
It’s odd. DBH has such amazing insights in philosophy, theology, and literature, yet whenever he opens his mouth about politics he suspends all manner of insight, nuance, and grace.
It’d be nice if this channel stuck to its wheelhouse, being primarily Christian theology and Universalism in particular, and leave uninsightful political rants like these out of an otherwise great corpus of videos.
You should come out of American libertarian propoganda. What DBH said was not a rant. Libertarians, while arguing against the government, enjoy the public goods from the State. The individualist position is a contradictory one, because society is not just a collection of individuals. It is a social-whole where public goods, the political authority are inseparable from the individual and the benefits the individual earns.
@@ben-dr3wf I’m not in “American libertarian propaganda” and am not myself a libertarian. So that is completely baseless and irrelevant. And yes, his last comments, which I am explicitly referring to in my original comment, are an incoherent rant. There is absolutely nothing contradictory about “arguing against government” (which is just a vague and uninsightful description of libertarianism) while consuming public goods of which they were coerced into funding. Your conception of a “contradiction” is ultimately just simple minded and utterly surface level, the likes of which unfortunately populates much of our political discourse, along with other such rhetoric which I have referenced in my previous comment, such as when dense republicans reprimand socialists for engaging with the free market of the country in which they live, so on and so forth.
And again, you further show you don’t know much about libertarianism. Libertarianism is not essentially “individualist.” The null libertarian position is merely one that is against coercion, primarily in the form of a state, and that the state as such is illegitimate. Nothing about this is essentially “individualist.” This is just basic Poli-Sci 101 knowledge. Walk into any Poli-Sci course in university and say that the libertarian position is one of an “individualist position” and you’ll be laughed out of the room. The same will happen if you say that the libertarian position is that society is “just a collection of individuals” because libertarianism is “individualist” (again, it isn’t). Maybe actually try reading primary sources of libertarian thought instead of completely strawmanning their position. Then you’d be able to reject actual libertarianism, as I have, while actually being informed about what it is they believe.
And Hart unfortunately just makes his case worse when he sums up libertarianism as a philosophy of selfishness. Absolutely no nuance, tact, or grace, just empty rhetoric that plagues surface-level political discourse in America.
@@ben-dr3wfwhy shouldn’t we enjoy them, cowards like you steal our money to pay for them.
You’re being pedantic. Hart is talking about objectivism and relating to the classical critiques against commerce. If libertarianism in your view is simply against coercion of a certain sort then that is one way to define. For other people it means gaining and keeping what is “yours” at any cost to your neighbors.
"Socialism is least barbaric", are you kidding. This channel has drifted beyond what unites us and is now just driving a wedge. And Spare me the intersectionality defense and an explanation of "socialism isn't communism" infantile rebuttals. I wish yall the best. Godspeed
And capitalism is not Mammon-worship. Right. 🙃
@@ChrisSamuel1729to you maybe, to me it’s the freedom to create freely to add value to the world. If Christians want to change the world, then do it. You aren’t going to do Gods will through the government. If you want to change the world then heal the sick and feed the poor. Why should we lower ourselves to politics when we have the power of God in us?
@@ChrisSamuel1729 It's not. It's an economic system of competition that emphasizes free abilities to produce jobs, products, and leisure for the populace. Greed is mammon worship. Can capitalist systems of economy lead to greed? Yes. Can socialist economic systems lead to greed? Yes. Have they both led to greed, murder, and destruction? Yes. But socialism also has the more dangerous tendency to strip at free will, which erodes charity.
Spare me the communism is bad infantile rebuttals. Try to at least rise to the minimal level of being critical of 100+ yrs of colonialist state capitalist propaganda. You have to grow up at some point.
@@ronking3049Yes because capitalism has done such a brilliant job of healing the sick and feeding the poor. Get real.
Politics really is his weakness. He wades in on these topicsand makes a fool of himself. Then his minions defend him in the comments because "muhh he's smart bruhh"...
Can you detail the economy and social systems of the various advanced countries? Do that, go on to determine their strengths and weaknesses, and then come back to offer an opinion that has a bit of merit.
@@WantedMan421 The freest economies are the wealthiest. There.
It's actually his strongest topic
@@SebastianLundh1988As long as you ignore the exploitation of the poor and the weak and buy into the military industrial complex used to brutally sustain the wealthiest so called freest societies then I can see how capitalism makes sense.
His example of comparing healthcare systems as some justification for “you can’t be a Christian if you’re not some socialist” is such a strawman which shows his lack of understanding in this area and is simply going off vibes.
He may be a ringer of a theologian, (I don't know; I've never read any of his books), but he's still a gravely out of touch ivory tower type. Statements like this evince a dire disconnect from economic reality. For him to say you can only be a Christian if you're a socialist is not only incredibly condescending and insulting but completely oblivious not only of socialism's dismal record of failure but also of the fact that socialist countries have historically been the most atheistic and hostile to Christianity. One must never confuse giving and taking. As Christians we ought to be charitable and compassionate with our fellow men, but an authoritarian, redistributionist government is not only a seriously bad idea but is in fact contrary to the Christian ethic. Virtue only comes through voluntary choice; grace is the free bestowal of a gift to one who hasn't earned it and has no right to it by another who has and does. There's nothing easier to be generous with than other people's money; it's a lot harder (and more noble) to do it with your own. A society in which every person believes they have a right to everyone else's earnings not only subversively institutionalizes the very greed it claims to disdain, but corrupts the human spirit because it abolishes grace, the very foundational tenet of Christianity. Hart is just another sheltered academic, haughty and oh so self-righteous.
If being socialistic is good, we should all practice that in our personal lives but its failures on a big government level are proven. If we’re going to have the best government, it’s having a righteous king, like that’s to come in the future. Until then, capitalism offers the best possible freedom and outcomes.
I would argue not capitalism but more of a Hoppeian position of natural order.
Free markets, yes. Unfettered materialism, no. You can't be a Christian and pretend that the latter is okay.
Nah
I didn’t know David was that judgmental.
He frequently speaks aggressively on issues due to the high levels of complacency that can develop.
@@bman5257 then he doesn’t trust the Holy Spirit to change people’s hearts,
@@ronking3049 Yes. If we sit around and do nothing the Holy Spirit will magically transform the world, like Cinderella's Fairy Godmother! FFS conservatives are so fucking dumb. We are to partner WITH the Holy Spirit.
I love DBH but every once in a while
He says something that sort of breaks the spell. Mills economic philosophy? You mean Jon Stuart Mill? Who advocated for a liberal vision of socialism? The same vision hart has praised in writing multiple times as it exists in the Nordic countries etc…
Happiest countries on earth. Also very prosperous compared to the US.
@@RMT192right so why is he criticizing mill who advocated for it
Ehhh, He should stick to Universalism . Roads would get made 😆. Part of the reason education is so high is because government writes a blank check, etc. Human desire would still be fulfilled, just not due to guns pointed at your head if you refuse to pay taxes(that are a cesspool of waste).
Healthcare is its own beast (we have investors who dump billions into drug discoveries) , I mean they deserve some type of return. New drugs come out almost weekly at this point and the money funnel that requires is insane. More legislation and govt involvement only tend to raise the price.
Govt and business have two different goals. They have inherent trade offs but to say socialism is the hierarchy is bare minimum Ill informed.
Dostoevsky noted that you could grant people said socialistic utopia and they would tear it down just to see what happens if they had never really experienced Hell so to speak. . The numbers for socialism make sense. People don’t, nor will they ever. Also as humans we tend to raise our comfort levels once something adjust to a new normal.. So, how far down that rabbit hole are we going? Also if you do loose everything and file bankruptcy this would suck. However you can literally start over the next day.. No other system in history has really granted this type of freedom.
To call libertarianism selfish is in itself a selfish statement.
What does all this smug political nonsense have to do with universalism?
Well it doesn't but you do know universalsim isn't the only thing DBH is known for right?
@@webz3589 I’m aware. He’s excellent when it comes to classical theism and beauty of the infinite is a magnificent book. But his specialty isn’t politics and last time I checked that wasn’t the point of this channel either. If leftists want to do their pseudo-moralistic posturing on things they know nothing about they have plenty of other options
The New Testament is not much about "politics" in the sense of statecraft and philosophy either; what it is about is moral outrage at social-economic injustice.
The better question is why do you feel the need to take time out of your day to comment on what you consider "nonsense"?
He knows a great deal about politics and he’s absolutely right in this video.