Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” (Matthew 19: 23-24)*
Contrary to ‘prosperity theology‘ trends we find among some right-wing Christians, most Christians long upheld the virtues of the marginalized (not to mention a skeptical attitude toward work). We find the injunction to do so most clearly in Bible passages like the one above. And we find a similar tradition in leftist politics – positing the working class as the main agent for social and political change.
Are these the same ideas? Can the wealthy play a positive role in society?
The Eye of a Needle
While the ‘eye of a needle’ passage seems simple enough, theologians always complicate things. On a standard reading, a young, wealthy follower of Jesus asks Jesus what he should do to enter the Kingdom of God. In response, Jesus challenges him to sell his possessions.
In short, Jesus tells a young man to get rid of his wealth. Wealth blocks the nascent Christian from leading a life of service. Jesus thinks it’s extremely difficult to build the attitudes and behaviors one needs to be a good Christian when one is also wealthy. To get there, Jesus argues for a purification of the self through giving up wealth and status.
Over the centuries, many Christians tried to explain all this away. But, their interpretations aside, it seems early Christians really did condemn wealth and the wealthy.
Class Politics…
So, where do leftists take this line of thought? On a basic Marxist reading, the working class is best positioned to make social and political change. Why? In order for the capitalist system to function, capitalists must exploit workers. This produces in workers the alienation that comes from the ways the system functions. It’s thereby easier for workers to come to know this system and then develop a vision of themselves as a class – one that drives change.
More recently, some leftists go beyond all this, but they maintain the basic insight about the connection between experience and knowledge. Some leftists claim, for example, that those who benefit from racism – i.e., some white people – cannot lead anti-racist movements. And, of course, they also claim wealthy people cannot compose the core of socialist – i.e., anti-class – movements.
…and the Wealthy
But what should we make of this claim? Can the wealthy play a positive role in socialist movements?
As a class, certainly not. Progressives like Elizabeth Warren build their movement around relatively wealthy people with relatively left-leaning views. I mention this not to pick on Warren so much as to point out that Warrenism represents close to a “best case scenario” for the wealthy as a class – a scenario where wealthy people seem to genuinely care about building a better world.
But it didn’t work. Political Warrenism regularly fails at creating positive change. And Warren’s base isn’t a reliable ally to the left.
By contrast, wealthy individuals have always been a key part of socialist movements. Friedrick Engels – author of The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 and long-time collaborator with Marx – is an obvious example. But hardly the only one. And so, leftists can always use another Engels, even if we shouldn’t fill out our leader or member ranks with them.
Christianity’s Eye of a Needle vs. Class Politics
Let’s return to the eye of a needle quote and contrast it to class politics. Jesus spoke about purifying the soul before leading a life of service.
By contrast, the left doesn’t need talk of ‘souls.’ We do find rhetoric like this on the left, but we rarely find it in successful leftist class politics. We don’t need the wealthy to self-flagellate or give away their things. If anything, these kinds of actions show how wealthy people make everything about themselves.
It’s the mission of the left to prepare for the end of class and the building of a socialist society. That project requires collective action, not moralism. We don’t need the wealthy to give away enough possessions to pass through the eye of a needle. We just need enough people working together for a democratic economy and society. That’s a different project.
N.B.
For the Bible quote above, I used the New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha (New Revised Standard Version). This is a scholarly edition of the Bible with extensive commentary and reference to the secondary and historical literature. And, for what it’s worth, the Quran contains a similar passage. But its version glosses over the specific point about wealth and the wealthy.
