All the conservative Christian responses to this meme rely on bad assumptions.
•That socialism is just wealth redistribution. It’s not; it’s common ownership and management of the means of production. Wealth is already socially-generated (created by groups); socialism actually acknowledges this and resolves to make it socially-controlled (democratic management) in turn.
•That capitalism is about voluntary wealth acquisition. It’s not; it’s a system where a sliver of the population owns the core productive property while the majority owns no true capital aside from their labor. “Voluntary charity” will never solve this rift.
•That capitalism rewards hard work and thus people should be able to “keep what they make”. This is incorrect; if capitalism actually rewarded hard work and contribution, the wide majority of struggling working-class people would be upper-middle class at least. Capitalism rewards ownership – of capital, of land, of property, of stock – more than any particular labor contribution; the richest people accrue passive income from this ownership.
•That capitalism doesn’t rely on force for wealth redistribution. It does, and it has since its inception; colonialism, genocide, slavery, and environmental destruction laid the groundwork for the massive wealth of the capitalist “developed world”, and it continues to rely on hierarchical exploitative relationships with the colonized world. Capitalism utilizes force (military aggression, police brutality, state suppression, etc) when the accumulation of capital is threatened.
ifesbob 