Communism and Christianism / Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View

by William Montgomery Brown

On the contrary, it can be shown that the invention of a great labor saving, rapid-producing machine is, upon the whole, the greatest triumph of the human mind and that nearly all among such machines are invented, made, operated, kept in order and improved by the laborer.

Masters may be more cunning than slaves, but cunningness is not an evidence of a high order of intellectual power. Many of the lower animals are quite the equals, if not indeed the superiors, of capitalists in this quality, but no animal is the equal of any man, not to speak of the exceptionally skilled laborer, in the power to produce efficient machines for the production and distribution of the necessities of life.

Romanism began its career as a child of the feudal system for the production and distribution of commodities for the profit of the owners of the land and the means for its cultivation. The mission to which it was born was the assistance of its father, feudalism, in robbing and enslaving the workers who tilled the soil, and never did a servant more faithfully or efficiently perform a task during a longer period.

Protestantism began its career as a child of the capitalistic system for the production and distribution of commodities for the profit of the owners of the means and machines for their manufacturing. The mission to which it was born was the assistance of its father, capitalism, in robbing and enslaving the workers, who make and operate the machines, and never did a servant more faithfully and efficiently perform a task in a larger or more fruitful field.

Hitherto all systems of economics have had the same soul, competition; and, because of it, every one among them has been a diabolical trinity of which lying is the father; robbing is the son, who proceeds from the father; and murder is the spirit, who proceeds from the father and the son.

Labor, "the certain man" of every nation, is half dead lying in the ditch by the wayside, despoiled and wounded, the victim of capitalism, the greatest liar, robber and murderer of all the ages.

The church is the archangel or prime minister through which this Beelzebub, capitalism, has done most of his lying, though within the last hundred years the business has become so great that the office of coadjutor to this archangel was created, and the press appointed to it.

The state is the archangel or prime minister through which this prince of devils, capitalism, has done most of his robbing and killing, though the church has often taken a helpful hand in these departments of the devil's work, the great work of converting earth into a hell.

Nearly all of the backwardness of the world and more than half of its unnecessary sufferings have been due to efforts to prevent changes in religion and politics. Our nation is passing through the darkest period of its history because of such efforts on the part of the powers which be in the state, and they are supported by those in the church.

Speaking of the change with which we are here especially concerned, the one involved in the supplanting of an old economic system by a new, there have been several revolutions due to such changes, and another is inevitable and imminent.