Posts Tagged ‘Karl Marx’

Actually, Socialism IS When the Government Does Stuff

Posted by M. C. on June 9, 2022

“Abolition of private property” means that nothing will be owned by private individuals. While socialism is the transfer of some property to the government, communism is the transfer of all property to the government.² Once again, this is not how communists explicitly define their ideology, but the way they do define it is effectively equivalent.

by Danny Duchamp

https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/actually-socialism-is-when-the-government-does-stuff/

Of course, that is too honest to be a real Karl Marx quote.

It is a popular meme that is used to mock the allegedly misguided view of many who oppose socialism. It has been famously paraphrased by prominent socialist, Richard Wolff.

“Socialism is when the government does stuff; and it’s more socialism the more stuff it does; and if it does a real lot of stuff, it’s communism.”

These comments were made sarcastically, as socialists do not believe that “government doing stuff” accurately sums up their ideology. I intend to argue that it does.

Let me be clear: I am not proposing an alternate definition of socialism. The definitions that socialists and communists give themselves usually line up with the standard definition you can find in dictionaries and encyclopedias, and I am not going to stray from that standard definition. Instead, I will argue that their definition is synonymous with “socialism is when the government does stuff”—whether they acknowledge it or not.

For an analogy, imagine I said that I want a hollowed out half sphere made of wood (with a slightly flattened bottom so that it will stand still on a table) in which I plan to put fruit. You sum this up by saying that I want a fruit-bowl. I can protest and say that you’re putting words in my mouth, but what I described simply is a fruit bowl, and you’re not committing any kind of straw-man fallacy by telling me that.

Here is the first dictionary definition of socialism that comes up on Google: “a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.”

The Wikipedia definition is a little more elaborate but amounts to the same thing: “Socialism is a political, social, and economic philosophy encompassing a range of economic and social systems characterized by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership.”

“Social ownership of the means of production” is equivalent to the means of production being “owned … by the community as a whole.”

How is something to be owned by “the community as a whole?” Ownership means that you get to decide what is done with something. If you and I disagree on who gets to eat your apple, then whatever you decide will take precedence, because it is your apple. If a “community as a whole” owns something, and two people within that community disagree on what should be done with something, who takes precedence? Whoever it is, he is the real owner of that thing, not the “community as a whole.”

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The Middle of the Road Leads to Socialism

Posted by M. C. on October 30, 2021

https://mises.org/library/middle-road-leads-socialism

Ludwig von Mises

PDF icon middle_of_the_road_leads_to_socialism_mises.pdf

The fundamental dogma of all brands of socialism and communism is that the market economy or capitalism is a system that hurts the vital interests of the immense majority of people for the sole benefit of a small minority of rugged individualists. It condemns the masses to progressing impoverishment. It brings about misery, slavery, oppression, degradation and exploitation of the working men, while it enriches a class of idle and useless parasites.

This doctrine was not the work of Karl Marx. It had been developed long before Marx entered the scene. Its most successful propagators were not the Marxian authors, but such men as Carlyle and Ruskin, the British Fabians, the German professors, and the American Institutionalists. And it is a very significant fact that the correctness of this dogma was contested only by a few economists who were very soon silenced and barred from access to the universities, the press, the leadership of political parties and, first of all, public office. Public opinion by and large accepted the condemnation of capitalism without any reservation.

1. Socialism

But, of course, the practical political conclusions which people drew from this dogma were not uniform. One group declared that there is but one way to wipe out these evils, namely to abolish capitalism entirely. They advocate the substitution of public control of the means of production for private control. They aim at the establishment of what is called socialism, communism, planning, or state capitalism. All these terms signify the same thing. No longer should the consumers, by their buying and abstention from buying, determine what should be produced, in what quantity and of what quality. Henceforth a central authority alone should direct all production activities.

2. Interventionism, Allegedly a Middle-of-the-Road Policy

A second group seems to be less radical. They reject socialism no less than capitalism. They recommend a third system, which, as they say, is as far from capitalism as it is from socialism, which as a third system of society’s economic organization, stands midway between the two other systems, and while retaining the advantages of both, avoids the disadvantages inherent in each. This third system is known as the system of interventionism. In the terminology of American politics it is often referred to as the middle-of-the-road policy.

What makes this third system popular with many people is the particular way they choose to look upon the problems involved. As they see it, two classes, the capitalists and entrepreneurs on the one hand and the wage earners on the other hand, are arguing about the distribution of the yield of capital and entrepreneurial activities. Both parties are claiming the whole cake for themselves. Now, suggest these mediators, let us make peace by splitting the disputed value equally between the two classes. The State as an impartial arbiter should interfere, and should curb the greed of the capitalists and assign a part of the profits to the working classes. Thus it will be possible to dethrone the moloch capitalism without enthroning the moloch of totalitarian socialism.

Yet this mode of judging the issue is entirely fallacious. The antagonism between capitalism and socialism is not a dispute about the distribution of booty. It is a controversy about which two schemes for society’s economic organization, capitalism or socialism, is conducive to the better attainment of those ends which all people consider as the ultimate aim of activities commonly called economic, viz., the best possible supply of useful commodities and services. Capitalism wants to attain these ends by private enterprise and initiative, subject to the supremacy of the public’s buying and abstention from buying on the market. The socialists want to substitute the unique plan of a central authority for the plans of the various individuals. They want to put in place of what Marx called the “anarchy of production” the exclusive monopoly of the government. The antagonism does not refer to the mode of distributing a fixed amount of amenities. It refers to the mode of producing all those goods which people want to enjoy.

The conflict of the two principles is irreconcilable and does not allow for any compromise. Control is indivisible. Either the consumers’ demand as manifested on the market decides for what purposes and how the factors of production should be employed, or the government takes care of these matters. There is nothing that could mitigate the opposition between these two contradictory principles. They preclude each other. Interventionism is not a golden mean between capitalism and socialism. It is the design of a third system of society’s economic organization and must be appreciated as such.

3. How Interventionism Works

It is not the task of today’s discussion to raise any questions about the merits either of capitalism or of socialism. I am dealing today with interventionism alone. And I do not intend to enter into an arbitrary evaluation of interventionism from any preconceived point of view. My only concern is to show how interventionism works and whether or not it can be considered as a pattern of a permanent system for society’s economic organization.

The interventionists emphasize that they plan to retain private ownership of the means of production, entrepreneurship and market exchange. But, they go on to say, it is peremptory to prevent these capitalist institutions from spreading havoc and unfairly exploiting the majority of people. It is the duty of government to restrain, by orders and prohibitions, the greed of the propertied classes lest their acquisitiveness harm the poorer classes. Unhampered or laissez-faire capitalism is an evil. But in order to eliminate its evils, there is no need to abolish capitalism entirely. It is possible to improve the capitalist system by government interference with the actions of the capitalists and entrepreneurs. Such government regulation and regimentation of business is the only method to keep off totalitarian socialism and to salvage those features of capitalism which are worth preserving. On the ground of this philosophy, the interventionists advocate a galaxy of various measures. Let us pick out one of them, the very popular scheme of price control.

4. How Price Control Leads to Socialism

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Ludwig von Mises

Ludwig von Mises was the acknowledged leader of the Austrian school of economic thought, a prodigious originator in economic theory, and a prolific author. Mises’s writings and lectures encompassed economic theory, history, epistemology, government, and political philosophy. His contributions to economic theory include important clarifications on the quantity theory of money, the theory of the trade cycle, the integration of monetary theory with economic theory in general, and a demonstration that socialism must fail because it cannot solve the problem of economic calculation. Mises was the first scholar to recognize that economics is part of a larger science in human action, a science that he called praxeology.

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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: British Fabians, communism, Interventionism, Karl Marx, Middle of the Road, Socialism | Leave a Comment »

A Global Fiat Currency: “One Ring to Rule Them All” | Mises Wire

Posted by M. C. on September 25, 2021

It is therefore the incentive resulting from a single world currency that paves the way toward a world government and a world state.

https://mises.org/wire/global-fiat-currency-one-ring-rule-them-all

Thorsten Polleit

1.

Human history can be viewed from many angles. One of them is to see it as a struggle for power and domination, as a struggle for freedom and against oppression, as a struggle of good against evil.

That is how Karl Marx (1818–83) saw it, and Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973) judged similarly. Mises wrote:

The history of the West, from the age of the Greek Polis down to the present-day resistance to socialism, is essentially the history of the fight for liberty against the encroachments of the officeholders.1

But unlike Marx, Mises recognized that human history does not follow predetermined laws of societal development but ultimately depends on ideas that drive human action.

From Mises’s point of view, human history can be understood as a battle of good ideas against bad ideas.

Ideas are good if the actions they recommend bring results that are beneficial for everyone and lead the actors to their desired goals;

At the same time, good ideas are ethically justifiable, they apply to everyone, anytime and anywhere, and ensure that people who act upon them can survive.

On the other hand, bad ideas lead to actions that do not benefit everyone, that do not cause all actors to achieve their goals and/or are unethical.

Good ideas are, for example, people accepting “mine and yours”; or entering into exchange relationships with one another voluntarily. Bad ideas are coercion, deception, embezzlement, theft.

Evil ideas are very bad ideas, ideas through which whoever puts them into practice is consciously harming others. Evil ideas are, for example, physical attacks, murder, tyranny.

2.

With Lord of the Rings, J. J. R. Tolkien (1892–1973) wrote a literary monument about the epic battle between good and evil. His fantasy novel, published in 1954, was a worldwide success, not least because of the movie trilogy, released from 2001 to 2003.

What is Lord of the Rings about? In the First Age, the deeply evil Sauron—the demon, the hideous horror, the necromancer—had rings of power made by the elven forges.

Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them.
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

But Sauron secretly forges an additional ring into which he pours all his darkness and cruelty, and this one ring, the master ring, rules all the other rings.

When Sauron puts the master ring on his finger, he can read and control the minds of everyone wearing one of the other rings.

The elves see through the dark plan and hide their three rings. The seven rings of the dwarves also fail to subjugate their bearers. But the nine rings of men proved to be effective: Sauron enslaved nine human kings, who were to serve him.

Then, however, in the Third Age, in the battle before Mount Doom, Isildur, the eldest son of King Elendils, severed Sauron’s ring finger with a sword blow. Sauron is defeated and loses his physical form, but he survives.

Now Isildur has the ring of power, and it takes possession of him. He does not destroy the master ring when he has the opportunity, and it costs him his life. When Isildur is killed, the ring sinks to the bottom of a river and remains there for twenty-five hundred years.

Then the ring is found by Smeagol, who is captivated by its power. The ring remains with its finder for nearly five hundred years, hidden from the world.

Over time, Sauron’s power grows again, and he wants the Ring of Power back. Then the ring is found, and for sixty years, it remains in the hands of the hobbit Bilbo Baggins, a friendly, well-meaning being who does not allow himself to be seduced by the power of the One Ring.

Years later, the wizard Gandalf the Gray learns that Sauron’s rise has begun, and that the Ring of Power is held by Bilbo Baggins.

Gandalf knows that there is only one way to defeat the ring and its evil: it must be destroyed where it was created, in Mordor.

Bilbo Baggins’s nephew, Frodo Baggins, agrees to take the task upon himself. He and his companions—a total of four hobbits, two humans, a dwarf, and an elf—embark on the dangerous journey.

They endure hardship, adversity, and battles against the dark forces, and in the end, they succeed at what seemed impossible: the destruction of the ring of power in the fires of Mount Doom. Good triumphs over evil.

3.

The ring in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings is not just a piece of forged gold. It embodies Sauron’s evil, corrupting everyone who lays hands or eyes on it, poisons their soul, and makes them willing helpers of evil.

No one can wield the cruel power of the One Ring and use it for good; no human, no dwarf, no elf.

Can an equivalent for Tolkien’s literary portrait of the evil ring be found in the here and now? Yes, I believe so, and in the following, I would like to offer you what I hope is a startling, but in any case entertaining, interpretation.

Tolkien’s Rings of Power embody evil ideas.

The nineteen rings represent the idea that the ring bearers should have power over others and rule over them.

And the One Ring, to which all other rings are subject, embodies an even darker idea, namely that the bearer of this master ring has power over all other ring bearers and those ruled by them; that he is the sole and absolute ruler of all.

The nineteen rings symbolize the idea of establishing and maintaining a state (as we know it today), namely a state understood as a territorial, coercive monopoly with the ultimate power of decision-making over all conflicts.

However, the One Ring of power stands for the particularly evil idea of creating a state of states, a world government, a world state; and the creation of a single world fiat currency controlled by the states would pave the way toward this outcome.

4.

To explain this, let us begin with the state as we know it today. The state is the idea of the rule of one over the other.

This is how the German economist, sociologist, and doctor Franz Oppenheimer (1864–1946) sees it:

The state … is a social institution, forced by a victorious group of men on a defeated group, with the sole purpose of regulating the dominion of the victorious group over the vanquished and securing itself against revolt from within and attacks from abroad…. This dominion had no other purpose than the economic exploitation of the vanquished by the victors.2

Joseph Stalin (1878–1953) defined the state quite similarly:

The state is a machine in the hands of the ruling class to suppress the resistance of its class opponents.3

The modern state in the Western world no longer uses coercion and violence as obviously as many of its predecessors.

But it, too, is, of course, built on coercion and violence, asserts itself through them, and most importantly, it divides society into a class of the rulers and a class of the ruled.

How does the state manage to create and maintain such a two-class society of rulers and ruled?

In Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, nine men, all of them kings, wished to wield power, and so they became bearers of the rings, and because of that, they were inescapably bound to Sauron’s One Ring of power.

This is quite similar to the idea of the state. To seize, maintain, and expand power, the state seduces its followers to do what is necessary, to resort to all sorts of techniques: propaganda, carrot and stick, fear, and even terror.

The state lets the people know that it is good, indispensable, inevitable. Without it, the state whispers, a civilized coexistence of people would not be possible.

Most people succumb to this kind of propaganda, and the state gets carte blanche to effectively infiltrate all economic and societal matters—kindergarten, school, university, transport, media, health, pensions, law, security, money and credit, the environment—and thereby gains power.

The state rewards its followers with jobs, rewarding business contracts, and transfer payments. Those who resist will end up in prison or lose their livelihood or even their lives.

The state spreads fear and terror to make people compliant—as people who are afraid are easy to control, especially if they have been led to believe that the state will protect them against any evil.

Lately, the topics of climate change and coronavirus have been used for fear-mongering, primarily by the state, which is skillfully using them to increase its omnipotence: it destroys the economy and jobs, makes many people financially dependent on it, clamps down on civil and entrepreneurial freedoms.

However, it is of the utmost importance for the state to win the battle of ideas and be the authority to say what are good ideas and what are bad ideas.

Because it is ideas that determine people’s actions.

The task of winning over the general public for the state traditionally falls to the so-called intellectuals—the people whose opinions are widely heard, such as teachers, doctors, university professors, researchers, actors, comedians, musicians, writers, journalists, and others.

The state provides a critical number of them with income, influence, prestige, and status in a variety of ways—which most of them would not have been able to achieve without the state. In gratitude for this, the intellectuals spread the message that the state is good, indispensable, inevitable.

Among the intellectuals, there tend to be quite a few who willingly submit to the rings of power, helping—consciously or unconsciously—to bring their fellow men and women under the spell of the rings or simply to walk over, subjugate, dominate them.

Anyone who thinks that the state (as we know it today) is acceptable, a justifiable solution, as long as it does not exceed certain power limits, is seriously mistaken.

Just as the One Ring of power tries to find its way back to its lord and master, an initially limited state inevitably strives towards its logical endpoint: absolute power.

See the rest here

Author:

Thorsten Polleit

Dr. Thorsten Polleit is Chief Economist of Degussa and Honorary Professor at the University of Bayreuth. He also acts as an investment advisor.

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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Global Fiat Currency, J. J. R. Tolkien, Karl Marx, Lord of The Rings, One Ring | 1 Comment »

Nikita Khrushchev Speech In 1959

Posted by M. C. on May 10, 2021

Remember, socialism leads to Communism. So, how do you create a Socialistic State?

““Your children’s children will live under communism, You Americans are so gullible. No, you won’t accept communism outright; but we will keep feeding you small doses of socialism until you will finally wake up and find you already have Communism. “

1) Healthcare – Control healthcare and you control the people. We give you Covid 19 and the Jesuit Jab; the 2nd Jesuit injection will kill the Covie Kool aid drinkers.

Nikita Khrushchev Speech In 1959

https://www.trinityfarms.org/?s=Nikita+Khrushchev

Trinity Farms International Ministries

For some of our younger readers who have never heard of Nikita Khrushchev, here is a short bio on the hard line communist.

Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev was a Soviet politician who led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War as the first secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and as chairman of the Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. After his term he settled in America.

Khrushchev’s Message 61 years ago

Khrushchev said “We [Communism} will bury you!” A quick read but a lasting thought. Pretty scary now.Khrushchev’s Message 61 years ago:

THIS WAS HIS ENTIRE QUOTE: A sobering reminder. It has been almost exactly sixty years ago since Russia’s Khrushchev delivered this speech Do you remember September 29, 1959?

“Your children’s children will live under communism, You Americans are so gullible. No, you won’t accept communism outright; but we will keep feeding you small doses of socialism until you will finally wake up and find you already have Communism. We will not have to fight you; We will so weaken your economy, until you will fall like overripe fruit into our hands.” The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.”

Remember, socialism leads to Communism. So, how do you create a Socialistic State?

There are 8 levels of control; read the following recipe:

1) Healthcare – Control healthcare and you control the people. We give you Covid 19 and the Jesuit Jab; the 2nd Jesuit injection will kill the Covie Kool aid drinkers.

2) Poverty – Increase the poverty level as high as possible, poor people are easier to control and will not fight back if you are providing everything for them. We give you Covid checks.

3) Debt – Increase the debt to an unsustainable level. That way you are able to increase taxes, and this will produce more poverty. We give you the national debt and you pay the interest with federal taxes every April 15th and not 1 penny goes to the America or the US Treasury. You must pay your fair share or live in fear of man. We the people are the keepers of the fraud funding what we have today.

4) Gun Control – Remove the ability to defend themselves from the Government That way you are able to create a police state. Can’t buy ammunition or guns so we’ll take them.

5) Welfare – Take control of every aspect (food, housing, income) of their lives because that will make them fully dependent on the government. Meat is too expensive and Gates is buying all farm land making him the largest land holder in America.

6) Education – Take control of what people read and listen to and take control of what children learn in school. MSM is bought and paid for by the CCP along with the Dem’s.

7) Religion – Remove the belief in God from the Government and schools because the people need to believe in ONLY the government knowing what is best for the people. Incorporate all churches making all citizens corporations.

8) Class Warfare – Divide the people into the wealthy and the poor. Eliminate the middle class This will cause more discontent and it will be easier to tax the wealthy with the support of the poor. Exactly what we have today with 1000’s of businesses closed and we offer you, Antifa and BLM to aid the effort.

A perfect parallel to the Democrat agenda!

America fulfilled the 10 Planks of Karl Marx many years ago. Do you understand what that means; can you name them?

Now for the icing on the cake with G Edward Griffin.

This was filmed over 50 years ago but it’s like it came from today’s news. Watch the whole thing, it’s only a few minutes long.

“This video filmed in 1969 will shock you at how relevant and effectively exposes what certain groups are trying to do again. Will you as an American and Christian allow it to happen?

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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: communism, Karl Marx, Nikita Khrushchev, Socialism | 1 Comment »

Doug Casey on the End of Western Civilization…….

Posted by M. C. on November 6, 2020

We’re told to protect them, as if they were a valuable and endangered species. I say, “A pox upon stakeholders.” If they want a vote in what a company does, then they ought to become shareholders. Stakeholders are a class of being created out of nothing by Cultural Marxists for the purpose of shaking down shareholders.

https://internationalman.com/articles/doug-casey-on-the-end-of-western-civilization/

by Doug Casey

International Man: The decline of Western Civilization is on a lot of people’s minds.

Let’s talk about this trend.

Doug Casey: Western Civilization has its origins in ancient Greece. It’s unique among the world’s civilizations in putting the individual—as opposed to the collective—in a central position. It enshrined logic and rational thought—as opposed to mysticism and superstition—as the way to deal with the world. It’s because of this that we have science, technology, great literature and art, capitalism, personal freedom, the concept of progress, and much, much more. In fact, almost everything worth having in the material world is due to Western Civilization.

Ayn Rand once said “East minus West equals zero.” I think she went a bit too far, as a rhetorical device, but she was essentially right. When you look at what the world’s other civilizations have brought to the party, at least over the last 2,500 years, it’s trivial.

I lived in the Orient for years. There are many things I love about it—martial arts, yoga, and the cuisine among them. But all the progress they’ve made is due to adopting the fruits of the West.

International Man: There are so many things degrading Western Civilization. Where do we begin?

Doug Casey: It’s been said, correctly, that a civilization always collapses from within. World War 1, in 1914, signaled the start of the long collapse of Western Civilization. Of course, termites were already eating away at the foundations, with the writings of people like Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Karl Marx. It’s been on an accelerating downward path ever since, even though technology and science have been improving at a quantum pace. They are, however, like delayed action flywheels, operating on stored energy and accumulated capital. Without capital, intellectual freedom, and entrepreneurialism, science and technology will slow down. I’m optimistic we’ll make it to Kurzweil’s Singularity, but there are no guarantees.

Things also changed with the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913. Before that, the US used gold coinage for money. “The dollar” was just a name for 1/20th of an ounce of gold. That is what the dollar was. Paper dollars were just receipts for gold on deposit in the Treasury. The income tax, enacted the same year, threw more sand in the gears of civilization. The world was much freer before the events of 1913 and 1914, which acted to put the State at the center of everything.

The Fed and the income tax are both disastrous and unnecessary things, enemies of the common man in every way. Unfortunately, people have come to believe they’re fixtures in the cosmic firmament. They’re the main reasons—there are many other reasons, though, unfortunately—why the average American’s standard of living has been dropping since the early 1970s. In fact, were it not for these things, and the immense amount of capital destroyed during the numerous wars of the last 100 years, I expect we’d have already colonized the moon and Mars. Among many other things…

But I want to re-emphasize that the science, the technology, and all the wonderful toys we have are not the essence of Western Civilization. They’re consequences of individualism, capitalism, rational thought, and personal freedom. It’s critical not to confuse cause and effect.

International Man: You mentioned that the average American’s standard of living has dropped since the early 1970s. This is directly related to the US government abandoning the dollar’s last link to gold in 1971. Since then, the Federal Reserve has been able to debase the US dollar without limit.

I think the dollar’s transformation into a purely fiat currency has eroded the rule of law and morality in the US. It’s similar to what happened in the Roman Empire after it started debasing its currency.

What do you think, Doug?

Doug Casey: All the world’s governments and central banks share a common philosophy, which drives these policies. They believe that you create economic activity by stimulating demand, and you stimulate demand by printing money. And, of course, it’s true, in a way. Roughly the same way a counterfeiter can stimulate a local economy.

Unfortunately, they ignore that, and completely ignore that the way a person or a society becomes wealthy is by producing more than they consume and saving the difference. That difference, savings, is how you create capital. Without capital you’re reduced to subsistence, scratching at the earth with a stick. These people think that by inflating—which is to say destroying—the currency, they can create prosperity. But what they’re really doing, is destroying capital: When you destroy the value of the currency, that discourages people from saving it. And when people don’t save, they can’t build capital, and the vicious cycle goes on.

This is destructive for civilization itself, in both the long term and the short term. The more paper money, the more credit, they create, the more society focuses on finance, as opposed to production. It’s why there are many times more people studying finance than science. The focus is increasingly on speculation, not production. Financial engineering, not mechanical, electrical, or chemical engineering. And lots of laws and regulations to keep the unstable structure from collapsing.

What keeps a truly civil society together isn’t laws, regulations, and police. It’s peer pressure, social opprobrium, moral approbation, and your reputation. These are the four elements that keep things together. Western Civilization is built on voluntarism. But, as the State grows, that’s being replaced by coercion in every aspect of society. There are regulations on the most obscure areas of life. As Harvey Silverglate pointed out in his book, the average American commits three felonies a day. Whether he’s caught and prosecuted is a subject of luck and the arbitrary will of some functionary. That’s antithetical to the core values of Western Civilization.

International Man: Speaking of ancient civilizations like Rome, interest rates are about the lowest they’ve been in 5,000 years of recorded history. Trillions of dollars’ worth of government bonds trade at negative yields.

Of course, this couldn’t happen in a free market. It’s only possible because of central bank manipulation.

How will artificially low interest rates affect the collapse of Western Civilization?

Doug Casey: It’s really, really serious. I previously thought it was metaphysically impossible to have negative interest rates but, in the Bizarro World central banks have created, it’s happened.

Negative interest rates discourage saving. Once again, saving is what builds capital. Without capital you wind up as an empty shell—Rome in 450 A.D., or Detroit today—lots of wonderful but empty buildings and no economic activity. Worse, it forces people to desperately put their money in all manner of idiotic speculations in an effort to stay ahead of inflation. They wind up chasing the bubbles the funny money creates.

Let me re-emphasize something: in order for science and technology to advance you need capital. Where does capital come from? It comes from people producing more than they consume and saving the difference. Debt, on the other hand, means you’re living above your means. You’re either consuming the capital others have saved, or you’re mortgaging your future.

Zero and negative interest rate policies, and the creation of money out of nowhere, are actually destructive of civilization itself. It makes the average guy feel that he’s not in control of his own destiny. He starts believing that the State, or luck, or Allah will provide for him. That attitude is typical of people from backward parts of the world—not Western Civilization.

International Man: What does it say about the economy and society that people work so hard to interpret what officials from the Federal Reserve and other central banks say?

Doug Casey: It’s a shameful waste of time. They remind me of primitives seeking the counsel of witch doctors. One hundred years ago, the richest people in the country—the Rockefellers, the Carnegies, and such—made their money creating industries that actually made stuff. Now, the richest people in the country just shuffle money around. They get rich because they’re close to the government and the hydrant of currency materialized by the Federal Reserve. I’d say it’s a sign that society in the US has become quite degraded.

The world revolves much less around actual production, but around guessing the direction of financial markets. Negative interest rates are creating bubbles, and will eventually result in an economic collapse.

International Man: Negative interest rates are essentially a tax on savings. A lot of people would rather pull their money out of the bank and stuff it under a mattress than suffer that sting.

The economic central planners know this. It’s why they’re using negative interest rates to ramp up the War on Cash—the push to eliminate paper currency and create a cashless society.

The banking system is very fragile. Banks don’t hold much paper cash. It’s mostly digital bytes on a computer. If people start withdrawing paper money en masse, it won’t take much to bring the whole system down.

Their solution is to make accessing cash harder, and in some cases, illegal. That’s why the economic witch doctors at Harvard are pounding the table to get rid of the $100 bill.

Take France, for example. It’s now illegal to make cash transactions over €1,000 without documenting them properly.

Negative interest rates have turbocharged the War on Cash. If the central planners win this war, it would be the final deathblow to financial privacy.

How does this all relate to the collapse of Western Civilization?

Doug Casey: I believe the next step in their idiotic plan is to abolish cash. Decades ago they got rid of gold coinage, which used to circulate day to day in people’s pockets. Then they got rid of silver coinage. Now, they’re planning to get rid of cash altogether. So you won’t even have euros or dollars or pounds in your wallet anymore, or if you do, it will only be very small denominations. Everything else is going to have to be done through electronic payment processing.

This is a huge disaster for the average person: absolutely everything that you buy or sell, other than perhaps a candy bar or a hamburger, is going to have to go through the banking system. Thus, the government will be able to monitor every transaction and payment. Financial privacy, even what’s left of it today, will literally cease to exist.

Privacy is one of the big differences between a civilized society and a primitive society. In a primitive society, in your little dirt hut village, anybody can look through your window or pull back the flap on your tent. You have no privacy. Everybody can hear everything; see anything. This was one of the marvelous things about Western Civilization—privacy was valued, and respected. But that concept, like so many others, is on its way out…

International Man: You’ve mentioned before that language and words provide important clues to the collapse of Western Civilization. How so?

Doug Casey: Many of the words you hear, especially on television and other media, are confused, conflated, or completely misused. Many recent changes in the way words are used are corrupting the language. As George Orwell liked to point out, to control language is to control thought. The corruption of language is adding to the corruption of civilization itself. This is not a trivial factor in the degradation of Western Civilization.

Words—their exact meanings, and how they’re used—are critically important. If you don’t mean what you say and say what you mean, then it’s impossible to communicate accurately. Forget about transmitting philosophical concepts.

Take for example shareholders and stakeholders. We all know that a shareholder actually owns a share in a company, but have you noticed that over the last generation shareholders have become less important than stakeholders? Even though stakeholders are just hangers-on, employees, or people who are looking to get in on a shakedown. But everybody slavishly acknowledges, “Yes, we’ve got to look out for the stakeholders.”

Where did that concept come from? It’s a recent creation, but Boobus americanus seems to think it was carved in stone at the country’s founding.

Editor’s Note: The economic, political, and social volatility in the days and weeks ahead promises to be extreme. The impact on your savings, retirement funds, and personal freedoms could be unlike anything we’ve ever seen.

Do you want to know exactly what you should be doing differently with your portfolio and in your personal life? Then you need to see this urgent video.

EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: The Day After—How to Prepare for What Comes Next

It reveals what you can do to prepare so that you can avoid getting caught in the crosshairs. Click here to watch it now.

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Welcome to the Socialist States of Amerika – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on November 2, 2020

BLM is merely the militant wing of America’s Marxist movement, which is the primal originator of the present strife.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/11/vasko-kohlmayer/utopia-envisioned-welcome-to-the-socialist-states-of-amerika/

By Vasko Kohlmayer

Previously we suggested that the unfolding disarray we are witnessing in America is in reality an attempted neo-Marxist revolution. We have also spoken at some length about the important role that Black Lives Matter is playing in this process.

To obtain a realistic assessment of our predicament, however, we must be careful not to overstate the long-term significance of BLM. BLM is not the ultimate cause of our crisis. The groundwork for it had been laid long before BLM came into existence. It had been prepared in decades prior by leftists who kept systematically undermining the foundations of our society under the auspices of the Marx-inspired philosophies and ideologies we listed in this piece.

BLM is neither the mastermind nor the originator of America’s plight. BLM is merely the militant wing of America’s Marxist movement, which is the primal originator of the present strife. Violent groups such as BLM and Antifa emerge into prominence when problems and contradictions in a society reach a critical point and the overthrow of the existing system becomes a realistic possibility. It is at this stage that the militants come to the fore and try to foment the maximum disarray possible. If they succeed in creating enough havoc, Marxist politicians who have infiltrated the government attempt a coup. If the system is sufficiently discomposed, the coup has a good chance of succeeding.

Although BLM is now spearheading the advancing revolution, its mission is only temporary. Should the revolution succeed, BLM’s violent ways will no longer be needed. Once the Marxists seize power, there will be no more need for internal destabilization. When this comes to pass, order will be restored and BLM disbanded. Some of its more militant leaders will be cancelled (by the firing squad) and some of those who survive will be absorbed into the new ruling structures. The foot soldiers – the looters, the hooligans, the gross woke – will be sent home and told to become good socialist citizens. They will be put under discipline of hard work in order to contribute to the well-being of their new society. Their factory shifts will begin at 8:00 AM and run until 6:00 PM. They will be required to dress and behave decently, just like their counterparts in North Korea. There will be no welfare payments, pornography, drugs or rap music for them. Insolence, shouting and protesting of any kind shall not be tolerated under any circumstances. Those who refuse to submit to the new socialist rules will be quickly dealt with by the internal police. Once in their hands, the former looters and misfits will tearfully recall the old times when they were coddled by good old American cops in whose tender care they enjoyed all kinds of rights. No such privileges under the new American Stasi regime! If there is a silver lining, America’s Marxist revolution will put an end to sixty years of the Left’s systematic destruction of the black family by misguided welfare programs. The destruction was, of course, by design because it was needed at that stage to further the Marxist agenda of subversion of American society.

Ending the moral dissolution

The new socialist regime will move quickly to enforce morality. Up until now the Marxists have used sexual dissolution as a means of unravelling America’s moral fabric. They truly have done an excellent job. But it will have to stop at once when they are in charge. It is our prediction that a new government agency will be set up to deal with this matter. It will be called something along the lines of “The Department for Elimination of Sexual Degeneracy from the Socialist States of Amerika.” If the history of other socialist regimes is any guide, transexuals will be packed off into labor camps and open homosexuals will be given the option of changing their ways or be subjected to surgical removal of their reproductive organs.

Public displays of moral degeneracy will be strictly banned in socialist Amerika

As far as racial minorities are concerned, their equality and special privileges will be quickly eliminated. No more reverse discrimination in the Socialist States of the former USA. Here is a well-known secret: socialists and leftists are inveterate racists. They have always been – they despise dark-skinned people. This attitude goes back all the way to Karl Marx who himself was a hardened and cynical racist. Marx, for example, claimed that French ethnologist Pierre Tremaux had scientifically proven that “the common Negro type is the degenerate form of a much higher one.”

Below is an account by Paul Kengor of the contemptible way in which Karl Marx treated his own son-in-law, Paul Lafargue, who was Cuban by birth:

“Paul came from Cuba, born in Santiago, and Marx thus viewed him as marred by ‘Negro’ blood and denigrated him as ‘Negrillo’ or ‘the Gorilla.’ Karl never let up his ridicule of poor Paul. In November 1882, still 14 years after Lafargue and Laura [Marx’s daughter] married, Marx complained to Engels that ‘Lafargue has the blemish customarily found in the negro tribe — no sense of shame, by which I mean shame about making a fool of oneself.’”

Founder of communism: Karl Marx was an inveterate racist who despised black people

One wonders what the founders of BLM, who are self-confessed Marxists, think of Marx’s ugly racism. Why have they not cancelled Marx given that they have cancelled others for far less egregious statements? They have, in fact, accused people of racism and subsequently done away with them for making no racist comments at all. Karl, however, gets a pass. Why is this so?

No more Black Privilege in socialist Amerika

Up to the point of their victory, American Marxists will use black people as pawns to foment racial strife and division in American society. Once they take over, blacks will lose their usefulness and the new socialist rulers will show their true colors. Black people will be scorned and treated with contempt. Now they will see and feel what real racism is. The black revolutionaries will rue their stupidity and regret bitterly that they have let themselves be duped this way. They will yearn for a return of the present America where black people enjoyed unprecedented rights and opportunities. Never in history has any minority had it as good as blacks have it in America today: they are not only completely equal but enjoy special advantages unavailable to the rest of the population. Rather than being discriminated against, as is often falsely claimed, African Americans enjoy what amounts to Black Privilege. So efficacious is this privilege that a black person can become President of the United States even though their accomplishments are quite miniscule. Just ask Barrack Obama, a former community organizer. Had Mr. Obama been white, he would have never gotten anywhere close to the Oval Office. Given his lack of experience and attainments, a white Obama would have been laughed out the moment he announced his candidacy. There can be no question that Obama was elected largely because of the color of his skin. If Joe Biden wins tomorrow, there is a great likelihood – given Biden’s enfeebled state – that within two years Kamala Harris will succeed him as president. If this should happen, it would mean that America would have two black presidents within six years. Both would be affirmative action presidents, since Kamala Harris was also chosen to be Biden’s running mate primarily because she is black (the second reason was that she is a woman). Harris was certainly not selected because she is particularly competent or distinguished. In fact, her main talent seems to be bestowing sexual favors upon her political benefactors. But such is the great power of Black Privilege that black men and women can be propelled into the Oval Office despite their dearth of credentials.

There will be no more Black Privilege under the American Stasi regime, to be sure. I fully expect that not long after their victory, American Marxists will start dealing with what they will call the “Negro Question.” If the history of socialist states is any guide, gulag type establishments will be set up for black people. It will not be good or pretty, but at least the duped black revolutionaries will not be able to say that they had not been forewarned. Here is the warning: Don’t play Marxists, because you shall be devoured by the beast.

The rich will pay for their cowardice in the socialist utopia

The rich will be another demographic to be put on the chopping block. It is truly astonishing to watch so many of them trying to play along. They think that their donations and odious virtue signaling will win them the good graces of the barbarians. An incident involving Apple shows just how spineless and pathetic some of them are. A couple of months ago, a photo appeared of an empty Apple store in one of the riot-beset cities. Knowing that the looters would likely break in, the staff had cleared out the shelves of the store. But before they evacuated, they placed a big BLM sign on the vacant table where Apple devices used to be displayed. In other words, they publicly pledged support for those who were coming to loot them and vandalize their property. Instead of taking a stand against this evil of lawlessness, theft and wanton destruction, they kiss up to the worst criminal elements in our society. Apple, Nike and others like them should do what is right and oppose this kind of behavior, as should every decent person and organization in America. They should demand that the police stop this criminal outrage. If the police are not able to do so, they should hire their own security to beat back the looters.

The cowardice and stupidity of the rich who run and own these woke corporations is something to behold. They believe that their pandering they will get them off the hook, but in this they are badly mistaken. The rich are among the first to go after a successful leftist coup d’état. They are the obvious target because they have what everyone wants: wealth. In liberal democracies their property is protected by law and a web of institutions. In socialist regimes, on the other hand, there is no reliable system of property rights or protections. Wealth is freely taken from those who have it by those in power. The only way you can keep wealth in a socialist paradise is to be highly positioned in the party apparatus. (And even then your situation is precarious, since you never know when the next purge may come.) Business people are never part of hard-core socialist governments, because those that rise to the top in such enterprises are usually murderers, criminals or riffraff agitators such as Stalin, Castro and Chavez. These are the wealthy ones under socialism. These types are naturally suspicious of practical businessfolk and harbor an instinctive dislike of them. This is why in Marxist utopias the wealthy are mercilessly cancelled (by the noose), or expropriated and exiled (the lucky ones). Despite their naïve hopes to the contrary, the same fate will befall the American rich should the unfolding revolution succeed.

Cleaning up the woke

The woke will likewise have to be dealt with promptly once the revolutionary stage ends and their usefulness is exhausted. The socialists will not want to have any clowns or oafs littering their society. Like in North Korea, all their laptops and screens shall be confiscated, and they will be duly dispatched to work. Their hair will be restored to their natural color, the rings from their noses, tongues and other body parts will be ripped away and they will be issued groovy brown uniforms in which to pass their diligent days. The screen-addicted, junk-food weaklings will be put under a vigorous exercise regime to strengthen their enfeebled bodies and minds. Under socialism we used to have massive sport events called the Spartakiads. It was a compulsory program whereby we were forced to rehearse collective athletic routines and then perform them in stadiums so that the system could show off its healthy glorious communist youth. The woke will greatly benefit from this kind of strict regime and their bodies and minds will be much edified in the process. After their intense sports sessions, they will have no energy or inclination to discuss their eighteen gender identities.

Woksters the beautiful: The woke will have to clean up and be well-behaved in the Socialist States of Amerika

The socialists in charge will put a quick end to all the woke nonsense, since no society – socialist or otherwise – can survive if this kind of thinking infects the minds of the population. It is truly tragic that we have not recognized this and have allowed the hard left push all kinds of perversions and inanities into the minds of our young people. A society that allows such things inevitably ends up confused and soft and becomes an easy target for a takeover. The Marxists now feel that their chance has come. The question is whether we are still capable of enough clarity and moral resolve to stop them.

The Best of Vasko Kohlmayer Vasko Kohlmayer [send him mail] is a naturalized citizen.

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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Amerika, Karl Marx, neo-Marxist, Socialist States | Leave a Comment »

This Is a Marxist Revolution – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on October 31, 2020

BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors confesses that she and her colleagues are committed Marxists

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/10/vasko-kohlmayer/this-is-a-marxist-revolution/

In our recent posts we have tried to show that the upheaval that is presently convulsing this country is in reality a neo-Marxist revolution in progress.

Despite the many obvious signs, most people in this country are still oblivious to this. Not only do they not recognize that this is an attempted revolution, the idea that it could be a Marxist one seems completely implausible. Most Americans think of Marxism as some bugaboo that is periodically brought up by wild-eyed alarmists who see a Bolshevik underneath every protest banner. They believe that this ideology has long been discredited and that no one in their right mind would take it up as a viable way of looking at the world.

In this they are only half correct. Even though it is true that history has shown Marxism to be dead wrong, Marxism is far from being dead as a worldview. Quite to the contrary, it is very much alive. It shapes – directly or indirectly – the worldview of many in the American intelligentsia, many of whom hold important posts at universities, in the media and in government.

To be sure, most of these individuals do not openly present themselves as traditional Marxists. Many of them, in fact, even concede that classical Marxism is flawed, having failed to deliver on its promises and predictions. This attitude gives these ideological mutants an air of seeming reasonableness and objectivity. But they will not let go of Marx’s basic assumptions. Having retained Marx’s core “insights,” they either modify his theories on the edges or develop them in new directions. As a result, in the last eighty years we have witnessed a proliferation of philosophies and theoretical systems derived from Marx’s teachings. Here is a partial list:

Critical Race Theory
The Frankfurt School
Liberation Theology
Critical Theory
Black Theology
Maoism
The Praxis School
De-Leonism
Autonomism
Austro-Marxism
The Budapest School
Western Marxism
Neo-Marxism
Structural Marxism
Neue Marx-Lektüre
Cultural Marxism
Islamo-Leftism
Trotskyism
Left Communism
Eurocommunism
Freudo-Marxism
Analytical Marxism
Libertarian Marxism
Marxist Feminism
Marxist Theology
Marxist Humanism
Post-Marxism

Even though the theoretical system above deal with many different aspects of the life of the individual and society, they grew from the same poisoned Marxist root. Yet despite their ignoble origin, most of these schools of thought are considered acceptable if not outright respectable.

Many contemporary leftwing schools of thought are offshoots of the teachings of Karl Marx

You may have not heard of most of them, but they have been massively influential in the world of ideas. These ideas have in turn influenced the way we conduct our everyday affairs. Critical race theory is one such example. This Marxist-spawned system has become the de facto worldview in many university departments, particularly in the humanities and social sciences. Astonishingly, critical race theory had been routinely taught to employees of the federal government under the guise of sensitivity training. It was only last month that President Trump, by executive order, put an end to this blatant form of Marxist indoctrination.

If you do not know what critical race theory is or where it comes from, you may find the following description illuminating:

“Critical race theory is a modern approach to social change, developed from the broader critical theory, which developed out of Marxism. Critical race theory approaches issues such as justice, racism, and inequality, with a specific intent of reforming or reshaping society. In practice, this is applied almost exclusively to the United States.”

The text then goes on to list some of the key assumptions behind this Marxist-inspired creed:

American government, law, culture, and society are inherently and inescapably racist.
Everyone, even those without racist views, perpetuates racism by supporting those structures.
The personal perception of the oppressed—their “narrative”—outweighs the actions or intents of others.
Oppressed groups will never overcome disadvantages until the racist structures are replaced.
Oppressor race or class groups never change out of altruism; they only change for self-benefit.
Application of laws and fundamental rights should be different based on the race or class group of the individual(s) involved.

Needless to say, the cumulative effect of all the various Marxist schools has been enormous. Slowly pressing their principles into the fabric of American life, they have gradually corroded traditional American values to the point that we are now confused about our identity. What, indeed, does America stand for? The decades-long infusion of Marxism into America’s bloodstream has reached a critical level and now we are on the verge of a Marxist coup d’état. Find this hard to believe? Let us conduct a quick reality check.

In the last four months we have witnessed widespread “protests” and riots which shook America to the core. Serious rioting took place in hundreds of localities across the United States, causing damage and destruction unprecedented in this country’s history. In a number of places chaos and lawlessness prevailed for days. Straining our system on multiple levels, these dramatic events have brought the US to the brink of breakdown. So much so that it increasingly feels as if we are slouching toward civil war.

This upheaval has been instigated by Black Lives Matter. It is this outfit that has sponsored, encouraged and organized those who have by violence driven America to the edge.

It is known that Black Lives Matter has been founded and is being run by committed Marxists. In a June article on redstate.com, the journalist Brandon Morse writes about BLM founders:

“By their own admission, their purpose isn’t to heal this country, it’s to rip it apart and remake it into a more Marxist kind of society… A 2015 video has resurfaced proving that the entire intent of the Black Lives Matter movement is Marxism. As you can see during the interview with the Real News Network, BLM founder Patrisse Cullors admits she and her cohorts are ‘trained Marxists.’”

BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors confesses that she and her colleagues are committed Marxists

BLM leaders are, in fact, quite open about their beliefs and objectives. In this video BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors openly admits that she and her colleagues are “trained Marxists.” This is what she says:

“We actually do have an ideological frame. Myself and Alicia [Alicia Garza, a co-founder of BLM] in particular, we’re trained organizers. We are trained Marxists. We are super versed on ideological theories.”

These Marxists direct and guide the actions of BLM. It is they along with their allied groups such as Antifa – which is another Marxist outfit – who have brought this country to the precipice.

Marxism is thus not some discarded ideology harbored by a few harmless, pointy-headed professors in ivory towers. Marxism is a living creed, forming the motive behind the thinking and actions of those responsible for the present upheaval in the United States. Rather than being irrelevant, Marxism is a powerful and destructive force that threatens to rip America apart.

The chaos has been deliberately induced, because, in order to take over, Marxists need lawlessness and disorder. When the society is destabilized and its population sufficiently confused and demoralized, the revolutionaries make their move to seize control. This can happen sooner than most people would imagine, perhaps as early as next week. If Trump should win on the 3rd of November, the hard left will not accept the result and a Marxist coup may well be attempted.

The Best of Vasko Kohlmayer Vasko Kohlmayer [send him mail] is a naturalized citizen.

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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: BLM, Karl Marx, Marxist Revolution, Patrisse Cullors | 1 Comment »

10 Ways the Communist Manifesto has Infiltrated the USA

Posted by M. C. on August 13, 2020

Did you ever think about property tax like in No. 1?

I suspect 2, 3, 5, 8 & 9 will make themselves obvious depending on how the election pans out. Obvious as in they are already here but they will get worse.

https://www.thedailybell.com/all-articles/news-analysis/top-10-goals-in-the-communist-manifesto-accomplished-in-america/

By Joe Jarvis

If you can’t handle one little arbitrary political abduction at the hands of secret government police, socialism may not be for you.

Socialists protesting in Portland are learning that “The worst thing that can happen to a socialist is to have his country ruled by socialists who are not his friends.” -Ludwig von Mises

See, you might not realize it, but the USA is already heavily influenced by the socialist/ communist philosophy of Karl Marx.

Socialism is more of an umbrella term, meaning centralized control of the means of production– like factories and farming– in the hands of the state.

Communism is more extreme, with complete abolishment of private property, and a dictatorial government that allegedly attempts to distribute wealth “to each according to his need,” and extract labor “from each according to his ability.”

The two are related enough to use them interchangeably for our purposes.

Karl Marx was born over 200 years ago. And despite the utter failure of his communist philosophy in practice, the cult lives on. Still people want to try again… this time they will get it right.

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels originally published The Communist Manifesto in 1848. It laid out the beliefs and action plan of the Communist Party. The goal was to get communists of every nationality to rise up and unite to overthrow their “capitalist oppressors.”

Little did they know their words would be used by the likes of Stalin and Mao as justification for over 100 million murders all in the name of a great leap forward for society.

In America, the goals of the communists have crept their way into society with little fanfare. Many people have no idea that public schools, the graduated income tax, and even a central state-controlled bank (like the Federal Reserve) were tenets of the Communist Manifesto.

In one section The Communist Manifesto boils down to a list of ten main goals.

Here are those goals, in Marx and Engels’ own words, followed by some discussion about of how deeply they have seeped into the United States government.

“1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.”

Also known as property taxes.

Can you really say you own land if you must pay the government every year in order to keep it? Fail to pay your rent, and they will eventually confiscate “your” land. This money is then used for “public purposes” like public schools (just wait for #10) and police, who will remove you from the government’s land if you fail to pay your rent.

And if the local government can fine you for keeping a front yard garden, or backyard chickens, do you really own the land anyway? The proletariat simply trades capitalist oppressors for government oppressors.

The federal government owns outright 28% of all land in the United States, 640 million acres. This includes the Bureau of Land Management’s 248 million-acre turf used to control and oppress political dissidents like Cliven Bundy.

“The BLM is also responsible for subsurface mineral resources in areas totaling 700 million acres.” That means they control almost three times as much land as they own.

Each state government owns an average of 8.7% of its state’s land. Another source claims the feds own over 31% of the U.S. landmass, which brings the combined state and federal total ownership to almost 40% of all land in the USA.

And let’s not forget about eminent domain, where the government can just take your land for “public use” (or public benefit) with “just compensation.”

If you don’t feel that the compensation was fair, simply take the most powerful government on Earth to court– courts that they own. I’m sure you will be treated fairly.

“2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.”

Even after the latest tax cuts, the federal income tax rates range from 10% to 37%. You pay more if you earn more. That’s what a graduated income tax means.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the top 20% of income earners in the U.S. paid 87% of all income taxes in 2018. These people who earn $150,000 or more account for 52% of the income earned in the USA, but will pay almost all of the income taxes.

The top 1% of earners– the evil bourgeoisie making over $730,000 per year–actually paid over 43% of all income taxes in 2018.

So 1% of earners who make 16% of the country’s total income will pay 43% of the total income tax.

It sounds like way more than their “fair share” to me. But the communists won’t be satisfied until everything is owned by the state.

“3. Abolition of all right of inheritance.”

They want to fleece the rich one more time when they die, even though all that wealth was taxed already as income or capital gains.

There is a hefty exemption to the estate tax (AKA death tax)–the first $11 million or so is not taxed. But every dollar over that is taxed at 40%. (State-level estate taxes add additional costs, often with lower exemptions.)

When you think about it, $11 million is not so much money when you are talking about a business that might be passed down through inheritance.

If a business is worth $15 million, the family of the deceased would owe $1.4 million. If they don’t have $1.4 million in cash hanging around, they could have to dismantle the business in order to pay the taxes. That could mean a loss of good proletariat jobs and a hit to the economy.

The same could happen to a piece of land or estate that has been in the family for generations.

The socialists would say, “Aww boo-hoo, screw the rich,” because they are hateful and greedy for other people’s wealth. But understand that they never stop with the rich.

Eventually the middle-class is gutted by the socialists, when they realize all the confiscated wealth of the rich won’t last a year in government spending.

“4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.”

Let’s start with the Exit Tax.

Why don’t you just move out of America if you don’t like the taxes?

Well, America taxes its citizens worldwide, even if they do not live or work in the USA.

Why not renounce your citizenship then?

That is one option. But it’s actually not free. In fact, the U.S. confiscates a serious percentage of property from emigrants.

It is called the Exit Tax. It gets complicated, but basically, the government is going to tax you on your net worth, as if you just sold all your assets.

If you don’t have the liquid cash to cover that, you would actually have to start selling assets–property, stocks, etc.–in order to pay the Exit Tax. Of course, you would be taxed on the income or capital gains first, and then have to pay the exit tax with what is left over.

But again, a big part of being a communist is hating rich people. People with a net worth of less than $2 million are much less affected by the exit tax, and only have to pay a few thousand dollars to divorce Uncle Sam.

So let’s turn to confiscation of rebels’ property that affects the poorest proletariat… civil asset forfeiture.

This is often used against poor people who cannot afford to defend themselves in court. The police simply steal property or cash that they “suspect” was involved in some type of crime, without having to prove anything.

They don’t even have to charge you with a crime, let alone convict you. And you have to prove your innocence if you want your car, house, or cash back.

For example, police seized over $50,000 from a Christian Rock band that had collected donations for an orphanage, because they couldn’t prove they got the money through legal means.

Between 2001 and 2016, “more than $2.5 billion in cash seizures had occurred on the nation’s highways without either a search warrant or an indictment.”

And that’s not even counting the more than $3.2 billion the DEA has seized since 2007 without filing civil or criminal charges.

Just having cash is a pretty low bar to be considered a rebel. Then again, what should we expect from a communist doctrine?

“5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.”

I wonder if today’s communists are aware of this one. They can’t possibly think the Federal Reserve helps the proletariat, yet that is exactly what the manifesto describes.

Some people might disagree that the Federal Reserve is state-owned. Technically it has a private board, although board members are appointed by politicians.

But the government granted the Federal Reserve dictatorial control over the economy. The government refuses to audit it, and the government protects its monopoly. It is without a doubt a feature of a centralized state.

The Fed sets the interest rates, prints money, and finances much of the debt of the United States government.

It centralizes capital, and lets the government decide how to use it. They usually use it to bail out banks, wage wars, and steal more value from the people through inflation.

The Federal Reserve also makes it easier for the state to confiscate rebel property. With a government monopoly, it can simply freeze accounts at home, and bully banks abroad into accepting the will of the US government.

“6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.”

FCC, FTC, DOT, FAA, TSA, CBP–oh it’s an alphabet soup of communications and transport regulators.

They regulate the phone lines, the roadways, air traffic, rails, mail and package delivery.

This is nothing new.

Around the same time Karl Marx was writing The Communist Manifesto, Lysander Spooner was doing something productive with his time.

Spooner started the American Letter Mail Company to compete with the U.S. Postal Service. He undercut their prices and provided better customer service, but was fined and cited for breaking laws which protected the government monopoly. He was forced out of business in 1851.

The government doesn’t quite have control over the internet, but they did create the conditions to allow a handful of companies to control access to the internet.

The NSA monitors every communication. Customs and Border Protection performs unconstitutional searches at the border, whether you are an American or foreign.

There is even a bill in Congress that would outlaw encrypted communications, so the government could know absolutely everything you communicate via text, call, or online messaging.

And of course, you can’t go out in public without running the risk of being harassed by local, state, and federal police. You don’t have the right to travel without justifying every action to a police officer.

“7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.”

The state has certainly dabbled in factory ownership, like the GM bailout. They control utilities like water and power. And they have certainly subsidized their fair share of business from oil and solar panels to sugar and corn.

We can refer back to #1 to see how much land the government controls, often under the auspices of improving soil and protecting wastelands.

Then there are plenty of government contractors which are basically the same thing as a government-owned company. If 100% of their revenue comes from the government, they are not a private company. This is especially prominent in the defense industry, which is where the term military-industrial-complex comes from.

The government spends about 34% of the GDP every year— in 2020 it will be closer to 50%. That is a significant percentage of the economy which the government owns or controls.

And let’s not forget about everyone’s favorite socialist, Franklin D. Roosevelt, whose New Deal programs like the Tennessee Valley Authority did just this.

Of course this power means sometimes the government poisons an entire river for thousands of miles, like the EPA did to the Colorado River in 2015.

“8. Equal liability of all to labour. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.”

Yes, the Communist Manifesto proposes enslaving all those unwilling to work.

Now, it might not seem like the U.S. government forces people to work. But you have to make money just to park your ass on a plot of land. Local governments want property taxes, which means you must make a certain amount of money just to have a place to live.

People bitch about landlords, but at least they are providing a place to live. Try building yourself a little cottage on government land and they’ll throw you in prison. (So in that sense, they will provide a home to anyone.)

Without the socialist government, you could settle an unused a piece of land, and make your own way in the world.

And the fact that the government claims the authority to tax you on everything you earn basically means you have a liability to labor for the government if you want to labor at all.

This is the antithesis of right to the pursuit of happiness the founders of the USA talked about. That was synonymous with property rights, because working, building, and creating is how most people pursue a fulfilled life.

In fact, they are required for life itself. You can’t stay alive without someone working to feed you, for example.

Therefore, most of us cannot go through life without earning something to pay for necessities. But we can’t just earn what we need, we must earn way more than we need because the government will take a huge chunk of our income.

We tend to think about taxes as a percentage of our income. But what about as a percentage of our time?

The government forces you to work as its slave from about January through April every year. In a typical career, you will spend in total more than 14 full years working as a slave for the government.

“9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equable distribution of the population over the country.”

The government helped create factory farming by regulating all the small-scale producers out of business.

Reason reports that USDA regulations have forced small slaughterhouses to close in favor of large factory-style slaughterhouses. This might sound like a good idea at first. But consider that when one infected animal makes its way to a slaughterhouse, it can contaminate so much more meat.

Having many slaughterhouses distributed across the U.S. meant that any infections were localized, and affected far fewer people. Plus when the slaughterhouse is local, it is easier to know the owners and see the conditions for yourself.

The animals are raised closer to home, requiring less logistics and a more secure supply chain from farm to table.

The U.S. government has long subsidized large crop producers centralizing them, and making it that much harder for small farms to compete.

It started with the Farm Bill in 1933 and continues to this day.

What we get is cheap, but unhealthy products. And even though the products on the shelf look cheap, we already paid for them with our tax dollars through subsidies.

You may not want to buy unhealthy foods loaded with high fructose corn syrup. But your money will pay for that crap whether you like it or not.

As for the second part, the US federal government does all it can to destroy the autonomy of towns and states across the USA. It does this with the carrot– giving money to governments that do its bidding; and the stick– using federal money and agents to enforce its laws, however unjust.

“10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production.”

This may be tenth on the list, but it is number one in ensuring all the rest fall into place.

American communists got this goal in place just four years after the Communist Manifesto was published, with Massachusetts enacting the first compulsory public education law in 1852. After that, it was only a matter of time until the population was indoctrinated to believe whatever the government taught them.

The book Teen 2.0: Saving Our Children and Families from the Torment of Adolescence delves in depth into the history and injustice of compulsory schooling.

It was designed so that the state and corporations could work together to train an obedient workforce, with the public footing the bill.

The point was not open minds and a desire to learn. The aim of the education was setting students up for whatever mediocre to low paying jobs the industrialists wanted them to fill.

The communists succeeded in getting exactly what they wanted out of American schools. And today we see the growing gap between what people learn in school, and what skills they actually need for good jobs. The communists have got the American education system stuck in a stagnant philosophy of industrial labor.

Of course, they did it with supposedly the best intentions. Sounds like a good idea to save kids from dangerous work. But in the process, they also robbed children and young adults of their autonomy and choice. They forced kids against their will into a government institution and set the course for their entire lives.

With childhood education infiltrated by the communists, it was only a matter of time until the US became a socialist country.

And I’d say we are basically there.

That’s why it is so absurd that people think “socialism” would be a radical change for the US. It would be more of the same, a doubling down on every failure you can think of from the last century.

What the socialists being arrested in Portland by other socialists might not realize is that Obama signed the NDAA which is now being used by Trump/ federal troops to kidnap protesters in Portland.

The Republicans and Democrats are different heads of the same beast, just like Socialists versus the National Socialists. The labels hardly matter.

They are authoritarians first, and then break down into factions of communist, socialist, fascist, etc. Each grows the power of the federal government, and hands that power off to the next faction when the tides turn.

A truly radical experiment would actually be trying a real free market for once.

Never let a good crisis go to waste is the mantra of the elites.

In tumultuous times, their tactics have extra potency. They reach for more power.

But this is also when the elite are most vulnerable.

By studying their tactics, you will be more prepared to guard against, and counter-attack the enemy.

The current crisis is being used to exploit the masses. But it also presents tremendous opportunity to take the power back, and reshape this world.

Society is entering a new period of transition, a struggle that will reveal the elites of the next generation.

Now is the time to seize your power if you intend to be among their ranks.

Subscribe to THE DAILY BELL and immediately receive TWO FREE BLACKPAPERS:

1. Four Ways The Elite Control You in a Crisis

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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: America, communism, Communist, Karl Marx, Marx | 1 Comment »

Why the Marxist Left Loves Lincoln – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on July 13, 2020

It is little wonder that the ideas promulgated by the New York Tribune, the mouthpiece of the Republican Party, were overtly socialist: Karl Marx himself was a twice-weekly columnist for the paper from 1852 to 1862, contributing over 500 articles.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/07/thomas-dilorenzo/why-the-marxist-left-loves-lincoln/

By Thomas DiLorenzo

“No leader of a powerful nation” should allow such a thing as “the dismemberment of the Soviet Union.”

–Marxist “Civil War” historian Eric Foner, The Nation, Feb. 11, 1991

A July 27, 2019 article in the Washington Post by Gillian Brockell was headlined, “You Know Who Was into Karl Marx? No, not AOC. Abraham Lincoln.” Following up on the New York Times’ 2017 weeks-long celebration of the centenary of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, the Post was doing its part to celebrate and promote Marxian socialism by crowing that “the first Republican president . . . was surrounded by socialists and looked to them for counsel.” The message being conveyed by the Post was that this is what all American presidents should do. They should listen to and obey the Washington Post, in other words.

Much of Lincoln’s socialilstic “counsel” came from Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune, described by the Post as “the newspaper largely responsible for transmitting the ideals and ideas that formed the Republican Party in 1854,” many of which were “overtly socialist.”

It is little wonder that the ideas promulgated by the New York Tribune, the mouthpiece of the Republican Party, were overtly socialist: Karl Marx himself was a twice-weekly columnist for the paper from 1852 to 1862, contributing over 500 articles. An April 1957 article in American Heritage magazine entitled “When Marx Worked for Horace Greeley” spoke of how “the organ of . . . the new Republican party, sustained Karl Marx over the years when he was mapping out his crowning tract of overthrow, Das Kapital . . . The Tribune was not only Marx’s meal ticket but his experimental outlet for agitation and ideas during the most creative period of his life.” Without this financial support, “there might possibly – who knows?—have been no Das Kapital” and maybe even no “Lenin and a Stalin as the master’s disciples . . .” Much of what was written in The New York Tribune by Karl Marx “went bodily into Das Kapital.”

Lincoln was an avid reader of the Tribune since it was “the” voice first of “respectable Whig opinion” and then of the Republican Party. He addressed his letters to Greeley as “Dear Friend Greeley.” Lincoln and Karl Marx personally communicated as well and had a sort of mutual admiration society. Upon being reelected, Lincoln received a letter from Marx saying, “We congratulate the American people upon your reelection by a large majority.” Lincoln responded with a thank-you letter. The Washington Post, meanwhile sounded absolutely giddy in noting that “Once in office, [Lincoln’s] alliance with socialists didn’t stop.” That “alliance” was not only political or literary: Lincoln’s army was filled with so-called “48ers,” German immigrants to America who had participated in failed socialist revolutions in Europe in 1848, the year of publication of The Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels (See Lincoln’s Marxists by Al Benson, Jr. and Walter Kennedy). The Post brings all of this up in order to make the point that, despite President Trump’s occasional references to Abraham Lincoln in support of his populist agenda, the most appropriate use of the Lincoln myth would be to promote their crusade for socialism in America.

There is nothing new about this. At their 1939 national convention the American Communist Party adorned its stage with a gigantic image of Abraham Lincoln alongside a large image of Vladimir Lenin and held Lincoln-Lenin Day rallies in New York City.

In other words, far from defacing the Lincoln Memorial or other Zeus-like images of Lincoln around the country, the radical, violent, and often criminal communists of Antifa and Only Black Lives Matter (“We are trained Marxists,” one of the founders of OBLM has said) are more likely to continue using the image, words, and deeds of Lincoln to assist in their crusade to destroy American civilization and replace it with another communist hell. If they ever get control of the government it is not beyond the imagination that they would follow Lincoln’s footsteps and suspend habeas corpus, mass arrest and imprison dissenters, censor communications, shut down conservative newspapers, withdraw licenses from conservative talk radio and television stations, deport or imprison some opposition members of Congress to send a message to all the rest, abolish the separation of powers, confiscate firearms, and use the military to wage total war on the civilian population of areas of the country where “deplorable” political dissent is strongest.

Dr. Thomas DiLorenzo [send him mail] is a senior fellow of the Ludwig von Mises Institute. His latest book is The Problem with Lincoln.

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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Abraham Lincoln, Horace Greeley, Karl Marx, Marxist Left, New York Tribune | Leave a Comment »

The Unholy Trinity and the Total State – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on April 8, 2020

Thus, we must remember that ideas can have powerful consequences and that liberty must be defended with vigilance.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/04/derek-dobalian/the-unholy-trinity-and-the-total-state/

By Derek Dobalian

The seeds of the Total State were planted by three men in the 19^th century. These three men had delusions of grandeur and believed they had the answers to all of mankind’s troubles and questions. They placed themselves above God. The seeds they planted quickly grew roots and sprouted into the Total States of the 20^th century. These three men were Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, and Abraham Lincoln. The ideologies and actions of these men complimented each other and ultimately led to a level of death and destruction the world had never seen before.

Charles Darwin and Karl Marx

In 1859, Darwin released “On the Origins of Species by Means of Natural Selection, of the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life,” in which he invented the theory of natural selection. A decade prior to this Karl Marx published “The Communist Manifesto,” which advocated for an authoritarian collectivist society that would abolish individual liberty. This manifesto was so influential that almost every major society put some form of it in place in the 20^th century, whether it was a watered-down form of socialism or full-on communism. But this influence was only made possible because of Darwin and his theories. Darwin’s theory of evolution and natural selection discarded God and consequently the idea of objective morality and the inherent worth of every individual. It was Marx himself who said “Darwin’s work is most important and suits my purpose in that it provides a basis in natural science for the historical class struggle.” By destroying the idea that God created us all and granted us natural rights, Darwin gave Marx’s theory a much-needed foundation. This allowed for Marx’s theory to spread, as people began to accept that individuals did not have rights and therefore, that “society” had the right to enforce its will on individuals. After all, if Darwin’s theory is true, then there is no purpose in life and we are all here by chance. And if this is true, then there is no such thing as right and wrong. This thinking, combined with Marx’s idea of a collectivist society centered around an all-powerful state allowed for the creation of the Total State in the next century. Hitler, who was an avowed socialist, stated that “the earth has been acquired on the basis of the right of the stronger.” The German dictator, along with the other leaders of the 20^th century Total States, adopted Marx’s theories and Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” concept, thus leading to an all-powerful state deciding who the most “fit” were and who could and should be sacrificed and destroyed.

Abraham Lincoln

If Darwin and Marx were the originators of the Total State throughout the world, Abraham Lincoln fulfilled that role more specifically in the United States and, more importantly, was the initiator of the horrific Total Warfare tactics they would eventually use. In regards to being a forerunner of the Total State, Lincoln not only wrote about it but actually put it into place. Lincoln argued that states had no right to secede and therefore that the national government had the authority to quash any such attempt with the use of overwhelming force. The results of this were obvious: the consolidation of power into one solitary group, the defining feature of the Total States of the 20^th century. This centralization of power by Lincoln was later praised by Hitler in “Mein Kampf.” Hitler later would echo Lincoln, promising Germany that he “would totally eliminate states’ rights altogether.” Thus, we see that Lincoln’s vision laid the groundwork for the Total State. But that is not all. He also created the precedent for the Total War tactics that the vicious states of the 20^th century would later employ. President Lincoln waged “total war” on the South, laying waste to its land and killing civilians, including children. As Murray Rothbard stated, he “broke the 19^th-century rules of war by specifically plundering and slaughtering civilians, by destroying civilian life and institutions.” In fact, Rothbard declares, “by targeting and butchering civilians, Lincoln…paved the way for all the genocidal horrors of the monstrous 20^th century.” The Total States’ later use of these tactics, which were unprecedented in Lincoln’s time, would make the 20^th century the bloodiest one in history.

Conclusion

The terror of the 20^th century did not occur by chance. It was largely the result of the horrific ideologies and actions of three men who lived in the previous century. Thus, we must remember that ideas can have powerful consequences and that liberty must be defended with vigilance.

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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Abraham Lincoln, Charles Darwin, Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx, Total State | Leave a Comment »

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1. Socialism

2. Interventionism, Allegedly a Middle-of-the-Road Policy

3. How Interventionism Works

4. How Price Control Leads to Socialism

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“1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.”

“2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.”

“3. Abolition of all right of inheritance.”

“4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.”

“5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.”

“6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.”

“7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.”

“8. Equal liability of all to labour. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.”

“9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equable distribution of the population over the country.”

“10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production.”