Conservative leader Ben Shapiro. (YouTube)

(CNSNews.com) – Socialism, a leftwing ideology that calls for government ownership and control of the economy and civil society violates at least three of the Ten Commandments, said nationally syndicated columnist, New York Times bestselling author, and syndicated talk radio show host Ben Shapiro at the Young America’s Foundation’s National Conservative Student Conference on Thursday in Washington, D.C.

“Socialism violates three of the Ten Commandments,” Shapiro told the crowd of mostly young activists and students. “Idolatry, because you’re not supposed to worship government, you’re supposed to worship God.”

“It violates the prescription against theft, because socialism is indeed theft even if you vote for the theft,” he said.

“And it violates the prescription against jealousy -- you’re not supposed to envy your neighbor, you’re not supposed to covet your neighbor’s property,” said Shapiro. “That’s what socialism is about.”

Recently, people like Alexandria Ocascio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders have been able to excite the Democrats and the left, Shapiro said. They claim to be democratic socialists, but there is no difference between them and socialists.

“Socialism seeks to destroy the system of action and consequence,” Shapiro said.

Democratic Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a congressional candidate from New York, and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a self-described socialist who has praised Communists Fidel Castro and Daniel Ortega. (YouTube)

Self-proclaimed democratic socialists look to countries such as Denmark and Canada to prove that socialism works; however, these countries just have socialist policies but are not socialist, Shapiro said. According to the Heritage Foundation’s economic freedom scale, the United States ranks 18 while countries such as Denmark, Switzerland and Sweden rank higher.

Sanders often points out how well Denmark’s “socialist” economy works, but he has a few things wrong, Shapiro said.

“Even the prime minister of Denmark started objecting to this,” he said. “In 2015, Bernie Sanders was going around talking about how Denmark is just the best place ever…and the Danish prime minister went to Harvard Kennedy School of Government and he said, ‘I know that some people in the U.S. associate the Nordic model with some sort of socialism, therefore I would like to make one thing clear: Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy.’”

That’s all true, said Shapiro.

When comparing other countries with the United States on economic policies, those who believe in socialism should be aware of the differences in the culture and size of the economies, said Shapiro. Things such as culture and population are very different in the U.S. than those in socialist countries.

In addition, people that are considered “poor” in America are not considered poor in other places around the world, he said. At some point or another, people feel that their situation is unfair.

“Wealth is not created by socialism; suffering is created by socialism,” Shapiro said.