The Unseen Connection Between Minneapolis and Capitalism

Everything that is happening in Minneapolis is tragic, terrible, confusing, and sad on both sides. At the heart of the entire spectacle is this reality: America has an immigration problem and at the heart of our problem is capitalism, but not in the way you think. Despite all the cries in America to do away with capitalism the reality is that neither North Korea, Cuba, nor Russia has an influx immigration problem.

Socialism hasn't worked because the right people haven't done it.

Here is the frequent claim, “socialism hasn’t worked because it just hasn’t been done by the right people yet.” Here is the fallacy of that claim. If the failure of every historic attempt is blamed on the wrong leaders, then the system never has to answer for its own inherit flaws. A political or economic idea must be judged, not only by its promises, but by what it predictably and repeatably produces when attempted.

This is not an exact quote but he teaches this idea in "The State and Revolution" (1917) where he says that what people call socialism is in fact the first phase of communism.

History matters because Marxism/communism/socialism (i.e. state ownership or state control, centralized planning, price controls, etc.) always generates the same result across multiple cultures: concentration of power, political policing, shortages, propaganda, and a small privileged ruling class that is somehow always exempt from the rules.

This isn’t because the wrong people showed up to run it. It’s because the system of socialism concentrates enormous authority in the hands of whoever is in control. The government decides what gets produced, who gets hired, who gets a permit, who gets housing, who gets rationed goods, and what speech is counter-revolutionary. When power is that centralized, you don’t need a devil to corrupt it, the incentives are built into it.

North Korea and South Korea share a peninsula, a people, and a long history. Which country would you prefer to live in? One became a closed, coercive command society; the other became a relatively open market democracy. If someone says “I’d rather live in South Korea,” they’re already conceding defeat in their argument for socialism.

Socialism vs Capitalism

What is the difference between socialism and capitalism? In simple terms, it’s about ownership and management.

Under capitalism, private individuals and firms can own property and businesses, prices are largely set by supply and demand, and profits/losses act like feedback. People can try ideas, fail, and try again without needing the state to approve. That feedback loop built into capitalism is excellent at producing innovation and revealing what works and what doesn’t.

Under socialism, ownership and/or control is given to the state and the economy is coordinated by political decision makers rather than by markets. The problem isn’t that cooperation is bad; it’s that central planning has a knowledge problem. No government committee can actually gather and process the constantly changing, local, on-the-ground information that prices communicate every day. As Ronald Reagan once said, “The most frightening words in the English language are, “I am from the government and I am here to help.” Under capitalism the market determines what people want, what resources cost, what substitutes exist, what’s suddenly scarce, and what’s newly possible.

Both capitalism and socialism have rich and poor because inequality is innate in the human condition. However, the key question is this: which system produces mobility and broad prosperity? Capitalism is the only one of the two that reliably generates a large middle class and that is because it allows widespread participation in ownership, work, and enterprise. It grows the overall economic pie large enough so that ordinary people can rise in wealth, position, and power through innovation and industry. The great value in capitalism is that it results in many more people who are not trapped in poverty, unlike socialism.

Now let’s be honest, most countries today are mixed economies. The real debate isn’t zero government versus total government. It’s whether the engine of production and innovation is primarily free exchange and private initiative, or centralized political control.

The tragic lesson of the last century is that when you replace markets with planning, you don’t get a fairer

Russian Communist

utopia run by angels, you get a tighter fist. Even if you found the right people to “run it” once they start running it, they are no longer the right people because the system of socialism has the inherit flaw of rewarding the few in power, and the promise of that reward and power is intoxicating. Which is why socialist, communist, even facist eschew captialism.

Socialism is not Christianity

One the mistakes progressive theologians make is to assume that the Christianity of the first century was socialistic. Yes, Christianity is relentlessly pro-generosity, pro-mercy, and pro-care for the poor. But it’s also pro-don’t steal and pro-reward for personal effort. One of the larger themes within Christianity is reward. This is why the idea of “the government takes and distributes.” in socialism is actually in opposition to Christianity.

In the New Testament, the model for economic justice inside the church is voluntary, Spirit-produced giving, not compelled transfer by threat of force.

When Zacchaeus makes restitution and gives half to the poor, it’s not Caesar making him do it, it’s repentance (Luke 19). When Paul teaches generosity, he’s explicit: “not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Cor. 9:7). Even in Acts, where you see the sharing of the church, the key point is that it’s free will. Peter tells Ananias the property was his to keep or sell, and the money was his to give. In other words, his sin wasn’t “private ownership,” it was lying to God (Acts 5:4). The New Testament church’s economics are rooted in worship, love, and a transformed will, not government forced redistribution.

All of this matters because Christianity isn’t about making and moving money; it’s about trying to form people. You can’t legislate the fruit of the Spirit. A government can mandate a payment, but it cannot command compassion. It can enforce compliance, but it cannot produce love. Christianity doesn’t measure righteousness by how much one gives; it measures it by whether the heart is turned toward God and neighbor.

But what if people are uncaring and unwilling? And here is the argument I have often heard: “If people won’t do it willingly, then the government needs to step in.” They may sound good, but it’s flawed in a number of key ways.

·      It turns charity into entitlement enforced by coercion.

·      It assumes the state is morally superior to the citizens it’s correcting.

·      It treats force as an acceptable substitute for virtue.

Finally, the “if people won’t the government must” logic has no limiting principle. How much should be taken? From whom to be given to whom? For what goals? Who decides what needs are legitimate?

Once you’ve said, “We can force people to do the good they refuse to do on their own,” then question must be asked, “Who gets to define what is good.” And in a fallen world, the answer to that question is never neutral and the outcome is never “good.”

Socialism often rises as a desperate hope for people who hate their current situation so much that they will endorse what they haven’t truly examined.

Russia promised liberation; it delivered a harsher tyranny. North Korea versus South Korea plainly shows outcomes aren’t theoretical. No matter how you approach it, coerced virtue will always corrupt both the giver and the society and the final product will be the opposite of virtue.

In August of 1961, the East German government began sealing off Berlin. Overnight barbed wire appeared. Streets were cut in half. Train lines were severed. Within days it became a concrete wall with guard towers, floodlights, patrol dogs, and a death strip designed to stop people from leaving.

Here is the harsh reality that modern lovers of socialism don’t know or refuse to admit: the wall wasn’t built to keep the enemy out, it was built to keep the citizens in.

The Berlin Wall

Families woke up and found their jobs, schools, and relatives suddenly on the other side. Some tried desperately to escape, sprinting across open ground while guards shot at them. Some made it, many didn’t. And get this, the regime called it “anti-fascist protection.” But here is what it really was: the state fighting to preserve itself from the choices of its own people.

If an economic or political system is truly good, it doesn’t need concrete and rifles to prevent mass exit. In fact, people will travel hundreds and thousands of miles to be a part of it and the challenges won’t be with those exiting but with those entering.

One of the biggest lessons that is being missed in the Minneapolis debacle is this: America has an immigration problem because people want to live here under capitalism not socialism, freedom not restraint, liberty not regulation, even if it means breaking the law and risking life and limb.

Again, neither North Korea nor Russia has an influx immigration problem, the masses don't want to live there, they want to live here.