Socialism is an attempt to create a utopia.  It is an attempt to find a governmental solution to all the world's problems through the perfect system.  But human attempts to create "the Kingdom of God" are all destined for failure.

During the 20th century, Europe embraced socialism.

Socialists throughout the world pointed to the success of welfare state socialism in Europe. By the 1990s the system was already starting to fall apart. By 1995, unemployment rates began to soar. France, for instance, began to have an unemployment rate that continued at around 10%. This continued into the 21st century. The result has been a maze of laws that reward non-work and penalize work. They have created a disincentive for work and the predictable outcome is that their economy is failing.

Looking at other utopia experiments, it appears that there is no way for human beings to create the perfect system.  The Tower of Babel may have been the first attempt.  Down through time, it appears that human governments are temporary.  Those who have thought to create perfect systems have ended up creating fascist societies and totalitarian systems.

In Christian Countries, the emphasis has often been to keep the government as small as possible.  The Church took care of social welfare.  The Church and home took care of training children.  The United States, as an example, set up their Federal Government in a way that made it very difficult to make major changes.  At a certain point, however, those who had a vision of creating a utopia found a way to circumvent the safe-guards and make major changes quickly.  They tried to do what the Church is supposed to do and found that secular government does poorly at such tasks.  They tried to set up new moral codes based mainly on envy, perversion, and promiscuity.

What the world needs is the Kingdom of God.  No human solution will ever be able to succeed.

Europe is now paying a high price for this failed experiment with welfare state socialism. Today's populist revolt against economic integration in France and Germany suggests that these nations remain mysteriously impervious to the need for change. A bigger mystery is why some American politicians are so intent on repeating Europe's mistakes.  Copyright © 2005 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.