Theory vs. Reality

From Burt Prelutsky

The other day, I found myself thinking about two of the 19th century's most influential men. Karl Marx was born in 1818 and died in 1883. John D. Rockefeller was born in 1839 and died in 1937. So far as I know, they never had occasion to meet. But they would have been aware of each other, and each would have thought the other was a dangerous lunatic. Only one of them would have been right.

For much of the world, then and now, Marx was a benevolent visionary, while Rockefeller would be dismissed as an avaricious villain.

Still, it was Rockefeller who helped create Standard Oil, thus providing jobs, homes and oil for hundreds of millions of people here in America and around the world. In addition, his charitable contributions to medical research led to the eradication of hookworm and yellow fever.

Karl Marx, on the other hand, never did anything that helped propel a car, turn a rotor, heat a home or fuel the world's industries. His writings were productive, I suppose, but only in the sense that they helped to produce the likes of Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro, Che and Kim Jong-il.

I suppose if one wished to be charitable, you could credit Marx with helping to create employment opportunities for executioners, gravediggers and gulag guards.

Just for the record, Rockefeller believed in the profit motive. He was a realist and a pragmatist who understood the best and worst of human nature. For his part, Marx believed in a stateless, classless society. He believed that the only thing that prevented men from being perfect saints and angels was capitalism. He was a complete nincompoop. Which is just another way of saying that Rockefeller was a conservative and Marx was a left-winger.

I think the following quote applies in this instance:

A man may deal with theory, and miss the whole impact of the truth.

--G. Campbell Morgan

People are enamored with Marxist theory, which demonstrably doesn't work in real life, and against the Judeo-Christian way of life, which brings real and substantive blessing to the society that embraces it.