By Bradley Eli, M.Div., Ma.Th., ChurchMilitant - In his 1891 encyclical, Leo XIII decried tax and spend bureaucracy that enslaved citizens to the state: [S]ocialists, working on the poor man's envy of the rich ... contend that individual possessions should become the common property of all, to be administered by the state or by municipal bodies. They hold that by thus transferring property from private individuals to the community, the present mischievous state of things will be set to rights, inasmuch as each citizen will then get his fair share of whatever there is to enjoy.