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Yes, another top level comment about The Origins of Woke from me, in the same thread on the same week. But this is about something else. I had an epiphany while reading the book.
I've wondered for many years why Marxism is more socially acceptable than racism when it's responsible for even more deaths than the Holocaust. It's because companies are (de facto) legally required to fire racists, but they're not required to fire Marxists. In fact, firing a Marxist for merely being Marxist would be illegal in California.
California has a state law against firing people for their political beliefs, but it didn't protect James Damore, who was fired in compliance with the law against creating a hostile work environment for protected groups.
It all adds up.
I believe it's because Marxism better comports with Christian egalitarianism.
A flattering thought if you're a member of the atheism plus crowd but the sad truth is that there is nothing particularly Christian or egalitarian about Marxism, just the opposite in fact
I think at small scales it certainly can be. A Christian household where the main breadwinner, explicitly puts his children and wife above himself when using the fruits of his labour to sustain them and make them happy (something I see in the conservative families around me all the time), and their charity in looking after unfortunate souls in their family/town.
Acts 2:44–45 “And all that believed were together and had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need
Has at least some overlap with:
"From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs"
Now that breaks down at scale, I completely agree, and absolutely in practice pretty much immediately, but there is certainly something there that echoes. Communal living can work at small scales with high trust (such as in a family or religious group).
It's as communist as it is monarchical: The legitimate head, lovingly leading, providing for and serving his family, who follow respectfully and gratefully.
Or democratic: a family taking each others concerns into account, searching for compromises between their individual desires and the needs of the moment that allow everyone to flourish.
....It seems to me that all three comparisons are backward, though. Christianity is churches, and churches are family, and families are the real thing; systems of government are the imperfect copies of them.
...And churches still do this today. Two chapters later, there's an example of what that actually looked like in practice:
Private property, yo.
Churches can be democratic (Quakers) or monarchical (Catholic), or at least different churches have different methods of leadership as do families.
But my point is that Marxism does have some overlap with Christianity,and just as feudalism does and so does democracy. Christianity contains within itself multitudes, and Christianity contains elements that are compatible with the divine right of kings, and elements that are compatible with Marxism and elements that are compatible with capitalism. It's probably one of the things that has made Christianity so successful as a religion. It contains Prosperity theology and ascetic Puritanism both. And it does share some teachings with Marxism.
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