Socialism as a Religion, by Professor Leo Wiener 1920

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Socialism is only a form of religion, differing in no way from previous religions. Religion has always taken the side of the suffering proletariat, from Buddha and Christ to St. Augustine and St. Jerome. This is because religion has been founded on promises of rewards in Heaven, which tickled the poor people who could get nothing on earth. Socialism resembles Mohammedanism (Islam) exactly, because it wants to get salvation by fire and sword; kill as many people as possible and you will have your Heaven on earth—maybe. That is why in discussions the Socialists have the best side: they compare a perfect system of promises with an imperfect one of fact.

Garabed came to me with his perpetual motion machine last year and spent a few days with me. and then he went to Washington with the fire of a walking delegate in his face: and they took his machine and put it in a room with all the hundreds of other models that have all been absolutely perfect, except that they wouldn’t work.

Now, here is Capitalism that has been going for 7000 years, and the Socialist comes along and says the machine is breaking down, and he offers a perfect Garabed instead. Let us rather improve the machine that we have and not experiment with a Garabed.

Why, Capitalism is infinitely superior to Socialism. Socialism has no history. Take Capitalistic Athens and Socialistic Sparta. All we know about Sparta is that they learnt to steal. Take Peru—there were only two classes, lords and laborers. There are just two classes in Russia today, the man that works with his hands and the man that works with his mouth. There were hundreds of thousands of these systems in history; they were invariably failures because distribution, they said, belongs to the men at thc bottom. All civilization is due to Capitalism—to our system of savings and distribution.

Moreover, Socialism kills desire. It makes a dead level with no wanting, no seeking. Preachers take to it now because it is trying to do something for the proletariat. Let it be a party, like the Catholics, Mormons, Mohammedans,-all right; it has its excellent place there; but a state institution—never.

Look at Russia today. Some people who can't speak Russian, who know nothing about Russia, say the Bolsheviks are doing all right. Bolshevism is a complete and horrible failure. Bolshevism is the logical successor to Socialism, after which the vacuum. There is a Socialist instinct in Russia, they say. That is not true. They are Socialistic only to the extent that they are undeveloped. In the sixteenth century they began to make the villages pay taxes. They paid socialistically—~hence were called Communes. A young Danish Socialist went over there. (All young people are Socialists; when they get mature they quit.) He found prosperity only where there was Capitalism. There the straw thatch gave way to titles, the piano, the graphophone were found: there civilization begins.

There have been three hundred Socialist experiments in this country, and they never went far. They were right around here—Roxbury, Hopedale— the governors of them gave them up. I lived in one of the first Russian Socialist colonies in the seventies—a cooperative house-management scheme. It began in hysteria and finished in hysteria.

I hold no brief for Capitalism. But I am unwilling to give up what has worked for 7000 years for something that has never once worked in 7000 years.