There isn't something wrong with socialism if it is among an assembly of willing Christian believers, this is in fact an ideal displayed under Christ's apostles in the church in Acts 2 and 4. It is not a stable arrangement generally otherwise, for a really long-term arrangement, with people generally having a selfish nature and resistant to it, and there will be tendency to overcome it, with what is contrary to wills being seen as repressive.
But socialism shown as an ideal for a Christian community will work where the work that believers are doing is secure for them, this being with the provision that there is Christian compassion and caring for one another among them.
Albion said:
Then it isn't socialism.
If the wealth-sharing is voluntary and done for a religious reason, it is not socialism--by definition.
Even if Christian believers living communally in such an arrangement would not have traditionally been called socialist, there are those enough that would see this arrangement as socialist.
grasping the after wind said:
Even then it doesn't work as witnessed by the fact it was abandoned very early by the Christian communities of the first century and failed miserably( to the point of near extinction of the colony) in a latter attempt by the Pilgrims in colonial America.
Pilgrims did not persist as a distinct society merely because the Puritans, a distinct group of immigrant people, came and dominated the colony there, which I know about. In the case of the first church of believers, in Jerusalem, which were under the apostles of Christ and had rapidly expanded to thousands of believers, it was not unsuccessful, but eventually it had been scattered by the severe persecution, which is not being currently seen here, and the congregation that had been left decades later had to flee when Jerusalem was about to be overthrown by the army coming against them, as Christ warned they would have to do. We don't know of any cases where Christian believers lived that way still soon after that, but it had been clearly an example to believers.
grasping the after wind said:
Christians are not special creatures with special powers of selflessness they are as human as everyone else with the same flaws and the same basic human nature. In a true socialist set up some will rebels against what they see as themselves being taken advantage of by those that are unwilling to contribute to the same degree as they are, some will see they can contribute less and reap the same reward as those contributing more and others will see they can use the inclinations of both of those groups to gain political power over them and thereby gain greater reward from the system than either of the others. Humans are creatures with a built in desire for inequality of status much like other pack animals they want to find their niche in the community and are most secure when they can be sure of exactly how highly regarded they are in comparison to others. Humans are natural competitors and do not fit well into a system that denies that such a trait exists.
No, Christians are not special creatures, and indeed there is the selfish nature present, but this is what believers should overcome. As was pointed out, there is desire in human nature for cooperation among others with them that can be stronger. The arrangement for Christian believers that was shown by example is certainly possible for them, and it is something willing committed believers can come to, and not a bad thing.
I had said with agreeing that for socialist arrangements close to that among people who are not basically Christian believers it would not be so stable for such reasons, though there might be committed practitioners of socialism there that can have it still continue for a long time.
grasping the after wind said:
It is tangential and does not address the question of what is wrong with socialism.
For reason of these points that are mentioned here, there isn't something wrong with it for a true community of real Christian believers who are willing. There is the instability likely for other communities and societies with such arrangement, and this is what would be wrong with it, though that would not be impossible to overcome.