R. Scott Clark
R.Scott Clark is the President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, the author and editor of, and contributor to several books and the author of many articles. He has taught church history and historical theology since 1997 at Westminster Seminary California. He has also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007.
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The guy in the video has no clue. Marxist-Leninist Communism is not Democratic Socialism. Hiding the truth behind invoking the “red menace” meme is not fair. If you want to see Democratic Socialism in action lets talk about Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, and Holland. BTW all these Countries are also Constitutional Monarchies with freely elected Parliaments and Prime Ministers, Finland is also Democratic Socialist but no Monarchy, only a Parliament and Prime Minister. All of these these countries have a standard of living the equals or exceeds the U.S.
Jon,
1. You missed his point. Have you read Marx & Engels? “Democratic” socialism is a way point on the material dialectic. It’s the tyranny of the majority.
2. Comparing the USA to e.g., Sweden is trickier than it looks on the surface. In 2009 Rory Cooper noted:
3. (As a classical liberal) I define freedom as the relative absence of external constraints. Democratic socialism brings more civil restraint on free speech, religious liberty, association, and commercial activity, not less.
4. I’m an Augustinian. I don’t trust you or anyone else with more authority to regulate my civil life and commercial activities. Putting more authority in the hands of depraved people doesn’t make them less depraved or less apt to abuse their authority and power.
5. All forms of centralized political organizations are driven by an essentially pagan eschatology: If we just give more of our liberty (as defined above) to x (a larger, more intrusive government), then Y (utopia or an approximation of it) will occur. History says that’s not true.