By: Dr. Jerry Bergman
Montpelier, Ohio
The new left in America, as typified by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and the so-called “squad,” now appears to have a major influence in the Democrat party.
The modern radical left was largely birthed by the German intellectual Karl Marx (1818-1883). For this reason, many of his followers are today called Marxists.
They now dominate many social-science departments at our leading universities. Marx himself has an unusual history.
His parents descended from a long line of rabbis. Soon after Marx’s father converted to Christianity, Karl professed Christianity. He was baptized a Lutheran in 1824, attended a Lutheran elementary school, and received praise for his Christian essays “on moral and religious topics.”
His first written work, titled “The Union of the Faithful with Christ,” was a treatise on the “love of Christ.” Marx, at the time he wrote it, believed that Christianity made all men brothers. He wrote in a school essay that the “brotherhood of man was rooted in the union of the faithful with Christ.”
Marx concluded that it is only through the love of Christ that “we turn our hearts at the same time to our brothers, whom He [Christ] has bound more closely with us, for whom He also sacrificed Himself.”
Union with Christ, he wrote, gives us “an inner elevation, comfort in sorrow, calm trust, and a heart susceptible to human love, to everything noble and great, not for the sake of ambition and glory, but only for the sake of Christ.”
Marx remained a committed Christian until he encountered materialist writings and ideas as a University of Berlin student from 1836 to 1841. While attending the university, Marx became increasingly critical of Christianity, especially the New Testament miracles. At the end of his university studies, Marx’s strident criticism of Christianity became more explicit and aggressive.
His slide from Christianity eventually led him to militant atheism as expressed in his favorite quote, “religion is the opiate of the people.” In his Ph.D. dissertation he explained in detail why he rejected God.
Specifically, from his university studies Marx concluded that the proofs for God’s existence are all empty tautologies.
When Darwin published his book “The Origin of Species,” Marx fully accepted his explanation for the origin of life, especially the survival of the fittest.
Marx eventually wrote the book “Das Kapital,” published in 1867, that changed the world. Darwinism became a firm part of communism, which is why both Russia and China have embraced this worldview.
In “Das Kapital,” Marx condemned capitalism and inspired the Communist Revolution, whose claimed goal was human equality.
To achieve this goal, he wrote that force was fully justified. The major way equity was created was by the redistribution of wealth by force. Obviously, the wealthy class resisted the government’s attempt to take away their wealth, which they believed they had earned honestly by hard work.
The result was the worst mass murders in all of history. An estimated half-billion persons died in the communist wars, including the Korean, Vietnam, and 30 other wars. The fruits of communism and the aggressive persecution of Christians still plague North Korea, Cuba, and the mixed economies of both China and Russia. Ironically, the communist leaders are often now the super wealthy class.
The left’s push for equity stresses giving rewards based on the fact that we do not all start life from the same place. Therefore, society must make adjustments to reduce all imbalances.
Although this sounds good, it often amounts to billions spent on welfare. Communism, today called the radical left, although very appealing to many, has an abysmal record of failure. It has not worked no matter where it has been tried. The latest example is Venezuela.
A friend from communist Venezuela, who, with his family, fled the country, explained that it was once one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Now it is one of the poorest due to, he claims, the controlling party called the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela).
The President of Venezuela was a billionaire head of state until January 3, 2026, when the United States military, acting on orders from President Donald Trump, captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores.
Approximately 200 U.S. Special Operations forces launched a nighttime raid on Maduro’s heavily fortified “fortress” in the capital city of Caracas. It appears that the country is now moving to a Western-style democracy, and conditions have improved enormously.
Some fear that it appears America may be heading in the same direction as Venezuela. Marx and his followers ignored the fact that government works best as a meritocracy, the political system in which economic goods and/or political power are vested in individual people based on talent, effort, and achievement, rather than social class.
Rewarding everyone, regardless of talent or effort, results in a reduction in achievement. The new mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani, has focused on the redistribution of wealth, free city buses, rent control, universal childcare, and raising taxes on those who earn over $1 million annually.
The result of these policies from previous governors is that over 2,400 millionaire households, especially those with income over $750,000 annually, have left New York. Over 41,000 NYC residents moved to Florida during the last five years, taking $13.8 billion in income with them.
This exodus has created a significant tax revenue loss. New York now has a $5.4 billion budget deficit and, so far, has not been able to implement most of Mamdani’s campaign promises.
As the late Justice Scalia said, the governmentalization of charity “affects not just the donor but also the recipient. What was once asked as a favor is now demanded as an entitlement…
The transformation of charity into legal entitlement has produced both donors without love and recipients without gratitude.” It has also produced a welfare state of single mothers and their children who learn to survive by crime.
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Dr. Bergman is a multi-award-winning professor and author. He has 9 degrees and has taught at both the graduate and undergraduate level for over 40 years. His over 2,100 publications are in both scholarly and popular journals. Dr. Bergman’s work has been translated into 15 languages. He has spoken over 2,000 times to college, university and church groups in America, Canada, Europe, the South Sea Islands, and Africa. He lives in Montpelier and is available to present in churches and schools. Jerry can be reached at JerryBergman30@yahoo.com Bergman’s website is: https://crev.info/author/jbergman/