Marxist Principles in Our Governments?

Say it ain’t so. I’ve heard it said that if you review Marxist principles, you’ll find many are alive and well in the functioning of state and federal governments. With the recent stirrings of eminent domain in the news, and given Marx’s obsession with property, I thought it worth visiting the den of the Marxists at Marxist.org itself and putting that statement to the test.

Below is a list of issues taken from that site in discussion of how the general Marxist rev will overtake a society. My comments are below each point.

Democracy would be wholly valueless to the proletariat if it were not immediately used as a means for putting through measures directed against private property and ensuring the livelihood of the proletariat. The main measures, emerging as the necessary result of existing relations, are the following:

(i) Limitation of private property through progressive taxation, heavy inheritance taxes, abolition of inheritance through collateral lines (brothers, nephews, etc.) forced loans, etc.

Out of control property tax and a rather exorbitant inheritance tax certainly fits this bill doesn’t it? Inheritance isn’t, of course, abolished, but arguably you could see how it’s frowned upon by “progressives”. Do we need to say more? Property tax has become the favorite tool for funding local government and penalties for not paying rise to the level of confiscation of that property. If that isn’t a pure application of Marxism, I’m not sure what is. But, as a County Auditor once told me, such thoughts that property tax could be limited or abolished are “naïve”.

(ii) Gradual expropriation of landowners, industrialists, railroad magnates and shipowners, partly through competition by state industry, partly directly through compensation in the form of bonds.

Let’s try this one word answer to the above. AMTRAK. The rest, you should be able to fill in.

(iii) Confiscation of the possessions of all emigrants and rebels against the majority of the people.

Replace rights with possessions, which technically they are, and yes this is most certainly an agenda of the Left that has thoroughly infected government, from the legislative to the judiciary. And it doesn’t have to be a minority, it can be whatever boogeyman the Left wants to empower their cause against. That’s the beauty of this new Left.

(iv) Organization of labor or employment of proletarians on publicly owned land, in factories and workshops, with competition among the workers being abolished and with the factory owners, in so far as they still exist, being obliged to pay the same high wages as those paid by the state.

No competition certainly works, doesn’t it? It’s also the norm in government-inspired monopolies. The U.S. monopoly on first-class mail comes to mind. No competition leads to complacency and inefficiency, but that’s exactly what much of the state governments and the fed practice in the industries they’ve come to control. As to the state workers making more than private sector, though, with the exception of the feds, I’d have to call that a cause that’s been lost. State and local workers usually make much less than the private sector.

(v) An equal obligation on all members of society to work until such time as private property has been completely abolished. Formation of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.

I don’t think we’re there quite yet, though there are certainly forces that could be described as “leaving the fringe for the main” on the Left who advocate the elimination of private property. Eminent domain’s callous and willful taking of the land for any and all reasons goes a long way to devaluing property owner’s rights as well.

(vi) Centralization of money and credit in the hands of the state through a national bank with state capital, and the suppression of all private banks and bankers.

Federal Reserve. Banks are basically subordinate to it and its diktat’s.

(vii) Increase in the number of national factories, workshops, railroads, ships; bringing new lands into cultivation and improvement of land already under cultivation – all in proportion to the growth of the capital and labor force at the disposal of the nation.

Land management issues by environmental groups, the intellectual successors of the Marxists, have greatly accomplished this very thing. If you’re land has a “navigable waterway”, wetland, or “historic or scenic site” as designated by a government entity, your land is already not your own to do with as you please.

(viii) Education of all children, from the moment they can leave their mother’s care, in national establishments at national cost. Education and production together.

A bloated public education system is the result of this basic tenet of Marxism. The resistance against private and home schooling comes from those who believe the state knows better how to raise your child than you do. The child is not a child to them. It’s a little social experiment they can mold and shape into their own little Leftist minion.

(ix) Construction, on public lands, of great palaces as communal dwellings for associated groups of citizens engaged in both industry and agriculture and combining in their way of life the advantages of urban and rural conditions while avoiding the one-sidedness and drawbacks of each.

Well, there’s certainly no shortage of stupid sculptures and ridiculous monuments built and being proposed to fit the general theme of this bill, but I can’t recall any palaces off the top of my head. Like they say, though, you gotta start somewhere.

(x) Destruction of all unhealthy and jerry-built dwellings in urban districts.

Urban renewal. This is more eminent domain at its finest. They’ve already done it, and even the most individual-right loving legislators seem hesitant to pull back from this narcotic power.

(xi) Equal inheritance rights for children born in and out of wedlock.

More of a moral issue, but the devaluation of family in our modern society could be seen as success for this principle as well.

(xii) Concentration of all means of transportation in the hands of the nation.

Didn’t really work in the more rural states, although it has taken hold quite significantly in places like New York. Proponents will still argue against the individual being able to so freely move about. It’s never couched in those terms, though. Usually it’s an environmental/energy issue, the new battleground of the Left.

It is impossible, of course, to carry out all these measures at once. But one will always bring others in its wake.

That it is. Always remember, baby steps you little Marxists… baby steps. This was the 20th Century. We see its effects in our every day lives, as outlined above. So did we really defeat Marxism, or did those in power just convince themselves they knew just the right combination of our old ways and Marxism to make something they thought was better? I can’t see the better of it. Less freedoms, more taxes and more government control at the federal level seem to me more of a loss than a victory over Marx. I wish I could say otherwise. Something to think about, isn’t it?