From the December 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

Today Christians celebrate the birth of their Christ. It is therefore appropriate once again to examine the Christian religion and its relations to socialism and the working class.



Christianity is a comparatively recent religion but it is thick with the debris of man’s earlier superstitions. The pagan influence on the Christmas festival is especially well marked, for December 25th was a holy day long before Jesus Christ was even thought of. Primitive man worshipped the sun because the course of his life was dominated by the yearly round of that planet in the heavens. This practice was widespread but especially in northern countries mid-December was thought to be a critical time, as the days became shorter and shorter and the sun itself weaker. Great bonfires were lit to give the sun god strength and, when it became apparent that the shortest day had passed, there was great rejoicing. Thus the Roman winter-solstice festival, held on December 25th in connection with the worship of the sun-god Mithra, was known as the birthday of the unconquered sun-god.



December 25th was not generally introduced into the Western Church as Christmas day until the fourth century and it was even later before it was accepted in the Eastern Church. Several Christian sects had previously fancied the 24th or 25th of April as a suitable “holy” period—thus arbitrarily connecting Christ’s birth with the vernal equinox rather than the winter-solstice—while still other factions chose alternative solar festivals. However, St. Chrysostum (5th century) gives a very practical reason why December 25th was to be preferred. “On this day the birthday of Christ was lately fixed at Rome, in order that while the heathens were occupied in their profane ceremonies the Christians might perform their holy rites undisturbed.”



Man’s consciousness is a reflection of his material environment. While he was struggling to find his feet in the universe it was understandable that he should interpret phenomena which he could not comprehend in supernatural terms but, in the twentieth century, such irrational relics from the past can be of no value to the working class.



Christians have argued against the materialist conception of history by claiming that the driving force behind the universe is a god’s will and that, while everything else may be subject to change, God and his religion remain constant. Yet the briefest examination of Christ and his theories shows him clearly as a product of his times. For example, he plainly shared the then common belief that disease was due to infestation with demons and he told his followers, “In my name ye shall cast our devils”. Again, religion has always been the willing tool of the ruling class. The church today holds chattel slavery to be immoral. But when Constantine the Great accepted the Christian religion the pope of the time received him with acclamation and no one suggested to him the need to surrender his slaves, of which he held thousands. Similarly, the Christians’ god today dutifully reflects the interests of capital. Thus for hundreds of years the popes excommunicated those who put their money out at usury and denied them Christian burial because of this “grievous sin”. Yet, strangely, since Pope Benedict XIV’s condemnation in 1745, God has not moved his spokesmen to breathe one word against this practice.



We are told that the Bible is God’s word. This being the case, his laconic message could not be clearer—“Thou shalt not kill”. The record of the Christian churches in this century alone illustrates that they have never hesitated to take sides in Capitalism’s bloody quarrels. In the first world war the workers were urged to slaughter one another with God on their lips: “God of our Fathers . . . Be thou the rampart of our costs, the frontline of the battlefield”. And in the second world war Christians intoned in harmony with capitalist interests in both Germany and Britain. “You have every reason to say prayers for the Führer. May God preserve him, because we need an eternal Germany.” (Reported in the Daily Mail, May 9th. 1944.)



On the other hand in the Church of England Newspaper, February 23rd, 1940, we find a thoroughly English god rallying under the Union Jack: “It is to the living God therefore we must look for deliverance in the present hour. He it is Who delivered our fathers from the ‘Invincible’ Spanish Armada; He appeared on our behalf in 1914-18; and He will help us now if we call upon Him with a true heart.”



Capitalism is a dirty business, based as it is upon the misery of the majority of mankind. But it is well served by its priesthood, always ready with the facile lie and the glib distortion to endorse the actions of the bourgeoisie and persuade the workers that their present lot is part of some unalterable, God-given system.



Clearly then the Christian religion is a most versatile creed. Is it possible that it could be adapted again to serve the interests of a socialist society? The answer is no, for at all times Christianity and Socialism are contradictory. Socialism involves a rejection of leadership and the determination that the workers themselves must achieve socialism. Conversely? Christianity is rooted in a blind faith in leaders, both worldly and supernatural. The priests urge their flocks to remain servile and reap the blessings of poverty. They say that it is not up to the workers to consider the system which robs them, throws them into unemployment, subjects them to war and disease; that it God’s province. The Bishop of Barcelona orders: “Have confidence in your Bishops, who have received from God the mission of commanding; learn to obey . . . do not change a word of the directives that the Holy Church gives you through the Bishops. Be obedient!”



Again, within capitalist society there is a continual class struggle which can only be abolished by the establishment of a classless society—socialism. But Christians believe that there is a harmony of interests under capitalism. Pope Leo XIII in his Encyclincal on Labour asserted: “If one man hires out to another his strength or his industry, he does this in order to receive in return the means of livelihood, with the intention of acquiring a real right, got merely to his wage, but also to the free disposal of it . . . Socialists . . . strike at the liberty of every wage-earner, for they deprive him of the liberty of disposing of his wages.” The good pope has a point—in that socialism will certainly deprive everyone of the “liberty” of wage-slavery. However, with typical Christian charity (towards the bourgeoisie) he chooses to overlook the fact that under capitalism the workers are forced to sell their labour power to the owners of the means of living. This is not, as the pope suggests, a case of fair exchange but is based upon the appropriation of the surplus value created by the workers by the master class.



Yet there are those who still maintain that Socialism and Christianity can somehow by synthesised, given the right leader as a catalyst. The Labour Party has always taken this line and the so-called Christian Socialist Movement lingers on. desperately trying to create some sort of comprehensible amalgam out of conflicting idealist and materialist theories. Their analysis of capitalism is based upon the contention that it is an “evil” system, rooted in sin. But in their literature, we find: “Capitalism has served mankind by accumulating capital, so making large scale production possible and increasing wealth generally . . .” Thus these Christian gentlemen admit that what they call “sin” and “ evil ” have been of service to man. This inconsistency is the inevitable result of trying to accommodate Christianity and Socialism—the utopian and the scientific.



Christmas is supposed to be a time of good cheer when the harsh reality of this world is briefly forgotten. But it is impossible to disregard capitalism even at this time of the year. We address our Christmas message to the working class, about to enjoy yet another wretched holiday under capitalism—the system they chose to perpetuate when they voted for the Labour and Tory parties…

 John Crump

 As 2022 approaches, with nearly nine billion vaccine doses administered worldwide, public health experts say goals of global vaccine equity have fallen woefully short. Not only has ramped-up vaccine production failed to address shortages in low-income countries, but there remains a long way to go in addressing the myriad challenges related to getting vaccines from tarmacs in low-income countries into residents’ arms.

Meanwhile, the emergence of the Omicron variant, which some widely-used vaccines appear less effective against, could cause even wider upheaval in global supply and delivery.

“By virtually every measure, global vaccine distribution and equity have been an abysmal failure and a deep moral crisis,”  Lawrence Gostin, the director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown Law, told Al Jazeera. “I think that’s unquestionable.”

“We’re now at a point of having more than a billion doses a month of vaccines being produced, but it’s a slow trickle still to get to low-income countries and lower-middle-income countries,” Dr Krishna Udayakumar, founding director of the Duke Global Health Innovation Center, told Al Jazeera. “So we have not solved the supply challenge by any means…”

 The U.S. Census Bureau estimated more than 21 million Americans didn’t have enough to eat in early December as pandemic relief payments run out and grocery prices rise. Low-income families may soon face more pressure with monthly child tax credit payments ending.

The number of households in which there was sometimes or often not enough to eat reached 9.7% this month, a five-month high, according to data collected between December 1 and 13 by the U.S. Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey. That figure in households with children sunk from 11% to 7.8% in August, after the first child tax credit monthly payments went out.

Grocery prices in the U.S. are up 6.4% from a year earlier.

 Food banks are also seeing a rise in demand, and clinics meant to help malnourished and underfed children have seen an increase in patients.

Hunger in US is on the rise as pandemic relief dries up | Food News | Al Jazeera

 Nurses, care home staff and police officers working on Christmas Day will be thousands of pounds worse off than they were a decade ago as a result of wages failing to keep pace with prices, Trades Union Congress analysis has shown.

Police sergeants and constables have had the biggest reduction, with inflation-adjusted pay £5,595 a year lower than a decade ago. Nurses have had an effective wage cut of £2,715 and local authority care workers a cut of £1,661, the report found. A chef would be earning £1,050 more a year this Christmas had pay kept pace with price rises, while a waiter would be £859 better off, the TUC said.

The coming year is expected to bring a fresh squeeze on living standards. Annual inflation is running at 5.1% and is expected by the Bank of England to peak at about 6% in the spring.

Frances O’Grady, the TUC’s general secretary, said: “Many of the key workers who are bracing themselves for another surge of Covid cases are earning less in real terms than they were a decade ago. That is not right…thousands of key workers will be hard at work on the front line, many of them dealing with staff shortages as a result of the Omicron variant. But their pay awards are falling way short of what they should be, especially in a cost-of-living crisis…”

Essential workers thousand of pounds worse off than a decade ago, TUC says | Pay | The Guardian

 200,000 children are at risk of being left homeless this winter, charity Shelter said.

A poll carried out by YouGov for Shelter found that 104,000 families in privately rented homes received eviction notices in the last month, or were behind on their rent and were in danger of losing their homes. Shelter estimated that 55,000 children, along with their families, have already been evicted in the last three months.

Shelter’s research also showed that 71% of renting families would struggle to find another home this winter, and 21% say their children knew they were struggling to pay the rent. Of those surveyed, 11% said their children worried about becoming homeless.

Shelter’s chief executive, Polly Neate, said: “No child should have to worry about losing their home this Christmas, let alone 200,000. But so many families will spend every day with the threat of eviction looming over them, not knowing if they will still have a home next year.

“Eviction notices have started dropping on doormats and our services are working round the clock to help families who have nowhere else to go.”

200,000 UK children could be made homeless this winter, warns Shelter | Homelessness | The Guardian

 South Korea’s total population of nearly 52 million is set to decline 0.18% by 2021 year-end, for the first time since the country began collecting census data, according to figures released by Statistics Korea.

The country’s fertility rate is the lowest in the world at 0.8 children per woman.

The government institution in charge of statistics and census data also mapped out a worst-case scenario, according to which the present population will drop to around 12 million by 2120 — around 23% of today’s population. 

Moreover, Statistics Korea predicted that the average age of the population is set to rise, from a median of 43 in 2021 to 62 by 2070.

 The combination of an aging population and falling birth rates spells trouble for renewing the workforce, while the country faces a bigger spending burden in the form of tax revenue and health care.

$188 billion, €167 billion has been spent in the decade up until 2020 on financial incentives for couples to have children. But so far, the increased spending has had little effect in boosting birth rates.

Figures released by the Seoul Metropolitan Government on December 16 show that the number of marriages in the city has fallen by 43% in the last 20 years, down from 78,745 in 2000 to 44,746 last year. The average age of first marriages was 33 in 2020, up from 29 two decades ago.

What′s behind South Korea′s population decline? | Asia | An in-depth look at news from across the continent | DW | 21.12.2021

 The United States grew by only 0.1%, with an additional 392,665 added to the U.S. population from July 2020 to July 2021, bringing the nation’s count to 331.8 million people. 

There was a net increase of nearly 245,000 residents from international migration but only about 148,000 from new births outnumbering deaths.

In more than two dozen states, most notably Florida, deaths outnumbered births. Deaths exceeded births in Florida by more than 45,000 people.

“We have an aging population and that means fewer women in child-bearing ages,” William Frey, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution said. “We see younger people putting off having children and they’re going to have fewer children.”

US population growth at lowest rate in pandemic’s 1st year | AP News

 As 2021 draws to an end let us not forget what the passing year brought.

The combined wealth of the 745 U.S. billionaires surpassed $5 trillion in 2021, up 70 percent since the beginning of the pandemic.

U.S. corporate after-tax profits hit a record high of $2.5 trillion in the third quarter of 2021, further enriching wealthy executives and shareholders. 

Corporations went on a stock buyback spree in 2021, spending a record $234 billion on share repurchases in the third quarter of the year. As analysts have long documented, stock buybacks artificially inflate executives’ stock-based pay and siphon off capital that could be used to raise worker wages 

 As of November 2021, there were 3.5 million fewer people in the U.S. labor force than before the pandemic. The drop has been most dramatic among Black women, a sign of how racial barriers compound pandemic-related health concerns and the shortage of affordable child care services.

 The British government has been accused by NGOs and trade unions of “chasing colonial post-Brexit fantasies” at the expense of the world’s poorest.

They urge Liz Truss to keep aid focused on poverty reduction rather than geopolitical manoeuvring.

The groups criticise the rebranding of the UK’s development investment arm, which will see the Commonwealth Development Corporation (CDC) become British International Investment (BII) next year.

“This new strategy and name change appears to repurpose BII as an institution that focuses solely on private-sector investment and profit-making, rather than development goals and poverty reduction,” write the 12 organisations, including Global Justice Now, the Trades Union Congress (TUC), the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (Cafod) and Unison.

“Rather than investing in general job creation and projects with only the most tenuous relation to poverty reduction, in the hope that the economic benefits will trickle down to the world’s most marginalised communities, UK aid must retain a strong poverty reduction mandate … and support decent job creation to retain its international credibility,” they said.

Increased funding for BII will “almost certainly lead to catastrophic cuts to other, grant-based areas of aid spending”.

“Ultimately, this means that more UK aid will be directed to projects, countries and sectors that provide an economic benefit to the UK, rather than to the world’s most marginalised communities,” they add.

Unison’s international officer, Mark Beacon, said: “Ministers shouldn’t be channelling the diminishing aid budget into the private sector. They must instead fund quality public services to reduce global challenges such as poverty and inequality.”

UK accused of abandoning world’s poor as aid turned into ‘colonial’ investment | Aid | The Guardian