Covetousness is foundational to socialism, since socialism is premised on politicians and the poor coveting the wealth of the rich. But covetousness violates the 10th commandment:
“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.” (Exodus 20:17)Note that the commandment forbids coveting “anything that is your neighbor’s.” This rules out the justification by socialists that “the rich don’t need all their money—taking some of their wealth for redistribution won’t hurt anybody!”
One of the qualifications for being a ruler is to hate covetousness:
“Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens:” (Exodus 18:21, KJV)This verse, as Daniel F.N. Ritchie writes, disqualifies from office those with socialist leanings, since civil rulers require “the characteristic of ‘hating covetousness,’ and socialism“is the politics of covetousness.” Daniel F. N. Ritchie, A Conquered Kingdom: Biblical Civil Government (Saintfield, Northern Ireland: Reformed Worldview Books, 2008), 628.
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