Form of socialism based on religious values
Religious socialism
is a
type of socialism
based on
religious values
. Members of several major
religions
have found that their beliefs about
human society
fit with
socialist
principles and ideas. As a result, religious socialist movements have developed within these religions. Those movements include
Buddhist socialism
,
Christian socialism
,
Islamic socialism
, and
Jewish socialism
. According to the
Encyclopedia Britannica Online
, socialism is a "social and economic doctrine that calls for public rather than private ownership or control of property and natural resources. According to the socialist view, individuals do not live or work in isolation but live in cooperation with one another. Furthermore, everything that people produce is in some sense a social product, and everyone who contributes to the production of a good is entitled to a share in it. Society as a whole, therefore, should own or at least control property for the benefit of all its members. [...] Early Christian communities also practiced the sharing of goods and labour, a simple form of socialism subsequently followed in certain forms of monasticism. Several monastic orders continue these practices today".
[1]
The teachings of
Jesus
are frequently described as socialist, especially by Christian socialists.
[2]
Acts 4:35
records that in the
early church
in
Jerusalem
, "[n]o one claimed that any of their possessions was their own", although the pattern would later disappear from
church history
except within
monasticism
. Christian socialism was one of the founding threads of the British
Labour Party
and is claimed to begin with
the uprising
of
Wat Tyler
and
John Ball
in the 14th century CE.
[3]
Abu Dharr al-Ghifari
, a
companion
of
Muhammad
, is credited by multiple authors as a principal antecedent of Islamic socialism.
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]
The
Hutterites
believed in strict adherence to biblical principles and church discipline, and practised a religious form of
communism
. In the words of historians Rod Janzen and
Max Stanton
, the Hutterites "established in their communities a rigorous system of Ordnungen, which were codes of rules and regulations that governed all aspects of life and ensured a unified perspective. As an economic system, Christian communism was attractive to many of the peasants who supported social revolution in sixteenth century central Europe", such as the
German Peasants' War
, and "
Friedrich Engels
thus came to view
Anabaptists
as
proto-Communists
."
[9]
Overview
[
edit
]
Religious socialism was the early form of
socialism
and
pre-Marxist communism
. In
Christian Europe
, communists were believed to have adopted
atheism
. In Protestant England,
communism
was too close to the
Roman Catholic
communion rite
; hence
socialist
was the preferred term.
[10]
Friedrich Engels
argued that in 1848, when
The Communist Manifesto
was published, socialism was respectable in Europe while communism was not. The
Owenites
in England and the
Fourierists
in France were considered respectable socialists, while working-class movements that "proclaimed the necessity of total social change" denoted themselves
communists
. This branch of socialism produced the communist work of
Etienne Cabet
in France and
Wilhelm Weitling
in Germany.
[11]
Some view the
early Christian Church
, as described in the
Acts of the Apostles
, as an early form of
communism
and religious socialism. The view is that communism was just
Christianity
in practice, and
Jesus
was the first communist.
[12]
This link was highlighted in one of
Karl Marx
's early writings, which stated that "[a]s Christ is the intermediary unto whom man unburdens all his divinity, all his religious bonds, so the state is the mediator unto which he transfers all his Godlessness, all his human liberty".
[12]
Furthermore,
Thomas Muntzer
led a significant
Anabaptist
communist movement during the
German Peasants' War
which Engels analysed in
The Peasant War in Germany
. The Marxist ethos that aims for unity reflects the
Christian universalist
teaching that humankind is one and that there is only one god who does not discriminate among people.
[13]
Pre-Marxist communism was also present in the attempts to establish communistic societies such as those made by the
Essenes
and the Judean desert sect.
[14]
[15]
[16]
In the 16th century, English writer
Thomas More
, venerated in the Catholic Church as Saint Thomas More, portrayed a society based on common property ownership in his treatise
Utopia
, whose leaders administered it through reason.
[17]
Several groupings in the
English Civil War
supported this idea, especially the
Diggers
, who espoused clear communistic yet agrarian ideals.
[18]
[19]
[20]
Oliver Cromwell
and the Grandees' attitude to these groups was, at best, ambivalent and often hostile.
[21]
Criticism of the idea of
private property
continued into the
Enlightenment
era of the 18th century through such thinkers as the profoundly religious
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
. Raised a
Calvinist
, Rousseau was influenced by the
Jansenist
movement within the Roman Catholic Church. The Jansenist movement originated from the most orthodox Roman Catholic bishops who tried to reform the Roman Catholic Church in the 17th century to stop
secularization
and
Protestantism
. One of the main Jansenist aims was democratizing to stop the aristocratic corruption at the top of the Church hierarchy.
[22]
The participants of the
Taiping Rebellion
, who founded the
Taiping Heavenly Kingdom
, a
syncretic
Christian-
Shenic
theocratic
kingdom, are viewed by the
Chinese Communist Party
as proto-communists.
[23]
Buddhist socialism
[
edit
]
Buddhist socialism advocates socialism based on the principles of
Buddhism
. Both Buddhism and socialism seek to provide an end to suffering by analyzing its conditions and removing its leading causes through
praxis
. Both also seek to provide a transformation of personal consciousness (respectively, spiritual and political) to bring an end to human alienation and selfishness.
[24]
People described as Buddhist socialists include
Buddhadasa Bhikkhu
,
[25]
B. R. Ambedkar
,
S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike
,
Han Yong-un
,
[26]
Gir? Senoo
,
[27]
U Nu
,
Uchiyama Gud?
[28]
and
Norodom Sihanouk
.
[29]
[30]
Bhikkhu Buddhadasa coined the phrase "Dhammic socialism".
[25]
He believed that socialism is a natural state,
[31]
meaning all things exist together in one system.
[31]
Han Yong-un felt that equality was one of the main principles of Buddhism.
[26]
In an interview published in 1931, Yong-un spoke of his desire to explore Buddhist socialism: "I am recently planning to write about Buddhist socialism. Just like there is Christian socialism as a system of ideas in Christianity, there must be also Buddhist socialism in Buddhism."
[26]
Tenzin Gyatso
, the Fourteenth
Dalai Lama
of Tibet, stated that "[o]f all the modern economic theories, the economic system of Marxism is founded on moral principles, while capitalism is concerned only with gain and profitability. [...] The failure of the regime in the former Soviet Union was, for me, not the failure of Marxism but the failure of totalitarianism. For this reason I still think of myself as half-Marxist, half-Buddhist".
[32]
Christian socialism
[
edit
]
Some individuals and groups, past and present, are both Christian and socialist, such as
Frederick Denison Maurice
, author of
The Kingdom of Christ
(1838). Another example is the
Christian Socialist Movement
, affiliated with the British
Labour Party
.
Distributism
is an economic philosophy formulated by such Catholic thinkers as
G. K. Chesterton
and
Hilaire Belloc
to apply the principles of
social justice
articulated by the Roman Catholic Church, especially in Pope
Leo XIII
's encyclical
Rerum novarum
.
Various
Catholic
clerical parties have at times referred to themselves as Christian Social. Two examples are the
Christian Social Party
of
Karl Lueger
in Austria before and after World War I and the contemporary
Christian Social Union in Bavaria
. Nonetheless, these parties have never espoused socialist policies and have always stood on the conservative side of
Christian democracy
.
[33]
Hugo Chavez
of
Venezuela
was an advocate of a form of Christian socialism as he claimed that
Jesus
was a socialist.
[
citation needed
]
Christian anarchism is a
Christian movement
in
political theology
that combines
anarchism
and Christianity.
[34]
The foundation of Christian anarchism is a rejection of violence, with Leo Tolstoy's
The Kingdom of God Is Within You
regarded as a key text.
[35]
[36]
Tolstoy sought to separate
Russian Orthodox Christianity
?which was merged with the
state
?from what he believed was the true message of Jesus as contained in the Gospels, specifically in the
Sermon on the Mount
. Tolstoy believed that all governments that wage war, and churches that support those governments, are an affront to the Christian principles of
nonviolence
and
nonresistance
. Although Tolstoy never actually used the term Christian anarchism in
The Kingdom of God Is Within You
, reviews of this book following its publication in 1894 appear to have coined the term.
[37]
[38]
Christian anarchist groups have included the
Doukhobors
,
Catholic Worker Movement
and the
Brotherhood Church
.
Christian communism is a form of
religious communism
based on Christianity. It is a theological and political theory based upon the view that the teachings of
Jesus Christ
compel
Christians
to support communism as the ideal
social system
. Although there is no universal agreement on the exact date when Christian communism was founded, many Christian communists assert that evidence from the
Bible
(in the Acts of the Apostles)
[39]
suggests that the first Christians, including the
apostles
, established their small communist society in the years following Jesus' death and resurrection.
[39]
Many advocates of Christian communism argue that it was taught by Jesus and practised by the apostles.
[40]
Some independent historians confirm it.
[41]
[42]
[43]
[44]
[45]
[46]
[47]
[48]
[49]
[50]
[51]
[52]
Islamic socialism
[
edit
]
Islamic socialism incorporates
Islamic
principles into socialism. As a term, it was coined by various
Muslim
leaders to describe a more
spiritual
form of socialism. Scholars have highlighted the similarities between the Islamic economic system and socialist theory, as socialism and
Islam
are against
unearned income
. Muslim socialists believe that the teachings of the
Quran
and
Muhammad
?especially the
zakat
?are compatible with the principles of socialism. They draw inspiration from the
early Medinan welfare state
established by Muhammad. Muslim socialists found their roots in
anti-imperialism
. Muslim socialist leaders believe in the derivation of
legitimacy
from the public.
Islamic socialism is the political ideology of Libya's
Muammar al-Gaddafi
, former Iraqi president
Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr
, Syrian president
Hafez Al-Assad
, and
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto
, the Pakistani leader of the
Pakistan Peoples Party
.
The Green Book
, written by Gaddafi, consists of three parts, namely "The Solution of the Problem of Democracy: 'The Authority of the People'", "The Solution of the Economic Problem: 'Socialism'" and "The Social Basis of the Third Universal Theory". The book is controversial because it completely rejects modern conceptions of
liberal democracy
and encourages the institution of a form of
direct democracy
based on popular committees. Critics charge that Qaddafi uses these committees as tools of
autocratic
political repression in practice.
Jewish socialism
[
edit
]
The Jewish left consists of
Jews
who identify with, or support,
left-wing
or
liberal
causes consciously as Jews, either as individuals or through organizations, although there is no single organization or movement which constitutes the Jewish left. Jews have been major forces in the history of the
labour movement
, the
settlement house
movement, the
women's rights
movement,
anti-racist
and
anti-colonialist
work and
anti-fascist
and
anti-capitalist
organizations of many forms in Europe, the United States, Algeria, Iraq, Ethiopia, and modern-day Israel.
[53]
[54]
[55]
[56]
Jews have a rich history of involvement in
anarchism
,
socialism
,
Marxism
and Western liberalism. Although the expression "on the left" covers a range of politics, many well-known figures "on the left" have been Jews who were born into Jewish families and have various degrees of connection to Jewish communities, Jewish culture, Jewish tradition, or the Jewish religion in its many variants.
Labor Zionism or socialist Zionism
[57]
(
Hebrew
:
?????????? ?????????????????
,
translit.
Tziyonut sotzyalistit
;
Hebrew
:
????????? ??????????
translit.
Tnu'at ha'avoda
, i.e.
The labor movement
) is the left-wing of the
Zionist
movement. It was the most significant tendency among Zionists and Zionist organizations. It saw itself as the Zionist sector of Eastern and Central Europe's historic Jewish
labour movements
, eventually developing local units in most countries with sizable Jewish populations. Unlike the "political Zionist" tendency founded by
Theodor Herzl
and advocated by
Chaim Weizmann
, Labor Zionists did not believe that a Jewish state would be created simply by appealing to the international community or a powerful nation such as Britain, Germany or the Ottoman Empire. Instead, Labor Zionists believed that a Jewish state could only be created through the efforts of the Jewish
working class
settling in the
Land of Israel
and constructing a state through creating a progressive Jewish society with rural
kibbutzim
and
moshavim
and an urban Jewish proletariat.
[
citation needed
]
Labor Zionism grew in size and influence and eclipsed "political Zionism" by the 1930s internationally and within the British Mandate of Palestine, where Labor Zionists predominated among many of the institutions of the pre-independence Jewish community
Yishuv
, particularly the trade union federation known as the
Histadrut
. The
Haganah
, the largest Zionist paramilitary defence force, was a Labor Zionist institution and was used on occasion (such as during
the Hunting Season
) against right-wing political opponents or to assist the British Administration in capturing rival Jewish militants. Labor Zionists played a leading role in the
1948 Arab?Israeli War
, and Labor Zionists were predominant among the leadership of the
Israeli Defense Force
for decades after the formation of the state of Israel in 1948.
[
citation needed
]
Prominent theoreticians of the Labor Zionist movement included
Moses Hess
,
Nachman Syrkin
,
Ber Borochov
, and
Aaron David Gordon
, and leading figures in the movement included
David Ben-Gurion
,
Golda Meir
and
Berl Katznelson
.
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