[arielmessenger]

because it was based originally on religious commitment, e.g., Acts 3:44,45
"Now all who believed were together, and had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as anyone had need."

Marx took this as the basis for his "From each according their ability, to each according to their need." but Marx ruined the socialist ethic by divorcing it from religious commitment and tying it to militant commitment. You just cannot force people to share without building up resentments in non-religious committed folks. Guns only work to keep a militant socialist system working until people just get too fed up with the lack of freedom militant socialism entails.

I am a social change activist who's social philosophy is "Communitarian" as opposed to Socialist. While both are economic/political programs based on shared material resources, Communitarianism is a free choice for those who do link spiritual values with sharing material goods and services but there is no hierarchy of government to enforce that material sharing. It's a voluntary commitment and therefore much stronger as one can see in the continuing success of communitarian socialist societies like the Mennonites and Amish whose commitment to sharing is based on religious belief.

Meanwhile, the militant socialists failed to win the hearts and minds of their constituents over the long term because you cannot force the sharing ethic without religious commitment.