Economics: Was Jesus Christ a socialist? As celebration of his birthday becomes more and more a festival of capitalism so the prospects grow that two former enemies - socialism and the church might find common cause, writes Marc Coleman

When the last pope, John Paul II, visited Cuba some years ago, he seemed to get on quite well with Fidel Castro, while at home our own great socialist helmsman, Bertie Ahern, is a great defender of the role of religion in society.

Under his guidance the religious orders have been given a significant role in social partnership.

As good historians of the era relate, economic misery of pre-Christian times made fertile ground for the spread of Christianity.

The starving, the slaves and those dispossessed by conquest found themselves with nothing to lose and nowhere to turn.

But although it was to have a profound influence on those in power, Christianity was not a doctrine of economic organisation.

If anything Christianity was a rejection of the whole notion that you could improve the fundamental human condition by recourse to power.

Socialism requires the direction by the state of the means of production so that the fruits of production can be redistributed among the least well-off. Christianity makes no comment about the manner in which the economy is organised, but presuming that differences in wealth will exist under most systems, enjoins individuals to do the redistribution themselves out of their own free will.

Socialism is a doctrine of power, Christianity a doctrine of love and, as the great poet John Milton wrote three centuries ago, love and power are opposites, never to be reconciled.

Of course the notion that private initiative could ever be substituted for state intervention seems ridiculous to us now.

We take the state for granted and assume that all concern for the weak and the poor must be channelled through it.

If anything, the state has often been disastrously ineffective at solving poverty, while private initiatives have worked wonders.

Great organisations such as the Rowntree and Carnegie foundations brought decent working conditions to English and American workers long before the state did.

In this country the Catholic church provided the poorest people with an education, the quality of which would put many "modern" secular education systems to shame. In England, atheist parents scramble to get their children into Catholic schools while state-run comprehensive schools are a byword for failure and mediocrity.

Since the 1960s here, the State has taken over more of this work. From providing minimal assistance to the poor, it now distributes wealth, provides education and many other forms of social assistance.

With families breaking down with depressing speed, it is now entering into areas we never thought it would.

The willingness of people to look after their parents is declining rapidly, placing a burden on the State. In our schools teachers are increasingly forced to provide parenting services because some real parents are either too busy, scared or disinterested in doing their job, while juvenile delinquency and crime places an increasing burden on the Garda.

And in an ever-increasing number of cases the State is becoming a de facto parent of children whose parents are too dysfunctional to even try and raise them.

Everywhere and more often than before, the taxpayer is confronted with the cost of a declining common ethic which, in this country, comes from Christianity.

The question to ask now is whether the State is going too far. By trying to patch up deep-seated personal and family problems in this way, the State is trying to solve problems that can only be solved by people, families and communities acting on their own initiative.

While it can make a better world for people to live in, it cannot make better people to live in that world.

Put another way - if the bonds of ethics and civility in a society are falling asunder, the application of state sellotape will merely delay and not prevent what is to come.

Far from becoming an instrument of Christianity, the State is becoming a substitute for it. The bonds of family, community, good manners and proper upbringing were fostered by a Judaeo-Christian tradition stretching back centuries. In the naïve assumption that the State will foot the bill, those traditions are being abandoned in favour of synthetic alternatives.

At the same time a consumerist culture is giving people too little time to spend with their families and friends and more money to indulge in alternatives.

In this way, the substance of life - religion, family and community - is being squeezed in a relentless pincer movement by the two great materialist forces of our age - capitalism and state interventionism.

Thankfully, there are still fabulous people out their who give of their time and resources to engage in voluntary work. Through the good offices of Goal, Oxfam, the Vincent de Paul and others, the Christmas generosity of millions of people is channelled directly towards those most in need. What they do is no substitute for a functioning welfare system - although whether our welfare system functions is another matter - but it is the fullest expression of a civic society.

Arguing for the private operation of the welfare system would be a step too far. But the social welfare system will always fail the poorest people until it manages to recruit within its ranks the enthusiasm of our voluntary workers.

And until it adopts a few Old Testament ideals of hard work and helping those who help themselves, it will always remain a dependency trap rather than an instrument of liberation.

In answer to the question posed at the start of the article: Christ was definitely not a socialist. As a carpenter, he would have belonged to the small-business community.

As such he would probably have believed in a free market where charity was so widespread that a social welfare system was unnecessary.

Over two thousand years after his birth, Christianity remains a hugely ambitious vision of mankind. Until attained, State intervention is the best substitute we can hope for.