We are reading The Communist Manifesto in one of my classes. Shocking, I know.
Marx lays down ten measures that he believes will revolutionize the capitalist mode of production. His fifth is especially relevant: “Centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.”
Scott Horton in his interview with Peter Schiff points out that this is how socialism will/has come to America. In essentially buying out AIG, a failing insurance company, the government has set a dangerous precedent. That the company is failing is beside the point; the fact is the government decided the company needed to be bought out and therefore they bought the company out. Because it has the legal power to create credit out of thin air, this precedent allows the Federal Reserve to essentially “buy” the country if it wants.
Marx never intended agrarian countries like Russia and China to lead the Communist Revolution, but rather he thought industrialized nations like America and Great Britain would lead the way.
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Socialism came to America with the Constitution. End of story.
How did the Constitution bring socialism to America. The Constitution has its downfalls, but socialism?
He’s talking junk. Yea, those dead white men didn’t make a new nation perfect, but it was a damn sight better than anything else out there. And if you don’t think so, go live elsewhere for a while.
*Cough*
http://www.ntu.org/main/press_issuebriefs.php?PressID=542
Perhaps that’s why the founders created a representative republic & constitutionally limited government. Just a thought.
Are there ANY “libertarians” (anarchists/free market guys) left at this website? All I see in the comments so far are a bunch of idolatrous statists who were apparently all brainwashed on the glories and virtues of the Sacred Piece of Paper at such a young age that they were never able to overcome this brainwashing enough to realize that it’s just a piece of paper, written on by fallible (and, if you have considered anything Mr. Albert Jay Nock has had to say, likely criminally-inspired) men and that, glorious as their attempts at creating a limited, freedom-protecting republic may have been, the truth is they FAILED at the outset by establishing a government in the first place.
Government: an institution whose sole authority comes from the use of coercion and violence against its “citizens.”
Freedom: the absence of coercion; the ability for an individual to fully exercise his rights of self-ownership so long as he does not engage in behavior that limit those same rights in others.
Where there is government, there is no freedom. It doesn’t matter if you paper over government with a pretty Constitution, the heart of the matter is you kill freedom as soon as you set up a government.
If the US Constitution establishes a government which makes claims to rights granted to it by a collective entity that does not exist (the People), and if that government claims and exercises rights granted which no single member of the false collective had themselves, which therefore makes it impossible for them to grant these rights to another individual or collective representational organization, and this government operates at the expense of individuals via the forceful collection of taxes, then do tell how the Constitution did NOT bring socialism to America?
Does the Constitution not provide for the “common defense?” By virtue of the term and the method in which it is financed (taxes), isn’t it obvious that some pay more than their “fair share” for the “defense” they receive, and others pay not enough, and that therefore the costs of this “common defense” established to protect this involuntary, false collective, are being SOCIALIZED?
Government IS socialism. If you support government, you support socialism, no matter how big or small. If everyone was paying what they owed, there would be no need for taxes and no need for government.
The US Constitution established and sanctified socialism in this country. End of story.
Ziv Zulander, even in the 18th century Britain and its white settlements, apart from Ireland, were better places than the new USA in terms of freedom. That is, the rebels revolted against what they saw coming, but it never did come (largely because of the rude shock they gave, of course). On the other hand, the rebels immediately betrayed freedom with exiling and expropriating Loyalists, reinforcing slavery, etc. Even today the former “white dominions” are better places that way than the USA (no Patriot Act etc.). Stating their motives doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, so you shouldn’t try that.
Regarding Mr. Taylor’s rather accusatory comments towards constitutionalists or minarchists, would all of humanity’s problems be magically solved by the marketplace if all governments were dissolved tomorrow and the entire world became thoroughly anarchist, creating a utopia in the process? Sure, there would be improvements in some areas of life (ex., much freer markets), but there would also be entirely new problems with which to deal (ex., no legal recourse against evildoers).
With all due respect to the sincere and well-meaning anarchists on this site, the enemy of humanity is not its governing institutions, prone as they are to abuse, inefficiency, and cumulative degradation. All those institutions do is focus and, therefore, intensify the intentions of their participants, whether those intentions be benevolent or malevolent (usually the latter, unfortunately). If a government is abusive towards those it governs, then the effective culprit is a woeful lack of character and integrity on the part of those governing.
Humanity’s real enemy is man’s innate moral fallibility which ultimately pollutes anything and everything in which we humans are voluntarily or involuntarily involved, not the manmade institutions through which that fallibility is exercised or expressed. Rather than directing one’s anger at the tools of abuse (i.e., oppressive governments, unscrupulous corporations, overbearing homeowner associations, etc.), that energy would be better directed towards rightfully educating and fostering wisdom among those who will be wielding those tools.
A knife that can take a life in the hand of a mugger can save a life in the hand of a surgeon; what we need is more surgeons and less muggers in our society, not necessarily less knives. In that sense, government could be thought of as a large collection of knives to be wielded either by the noble-minded or the villainous. By all means, let’s praise and promote the former while bringing the latter to swift justice.
My understanding from the Communist Manifesto was that in order for a country to move from capitalism to socialism to communism it is necessary that each system had to complete itself in its entirety in order to be able to move to the next one. There is not a single country in the world that has become truly and completely capitalistic, especially not the so-called “capitalist America.” Therefore any country that refers to itself as a socialist or communist society is neither socialist nor communist under the terms set by Marx. They are just dictatorships disguised under Marxian terms. Marx claimed that capitalism could not move on to socialism until a monopoly had been established. So in reality socialism and communism does not exist anywhere in the world according to the guidelines set by Marx. The reason socialism doesn’t actually exist is because we have yet to let capitalism work. Instead we just keep destroying capitalism. So it is possible that Marx is right. The reason why systems like Russia, China, and Cuba won’t work is because they have yet to become purely capitalistic. Socialism can not work until capitalism does, and that has yet to happen anywhere. This is why we must allow capitalism to work before we have the chance to prove Marx wrong. What we do know is correct is that capitalism is definitely the answer for now.
Your “noble” person, acting as they see right and wielding the power of government, can ultimately be just as destructive of liberty as the rankest dictator. Stalin, I am sure, viewed himself as “noble”. George W., I am sure, views himself as “noble”.
The only kind of “noble” person I want is one that recognizes that the state has no legitimate authority, and that any state action that violates my property rights is wrong. This noble person can work to end the states monopoly on force and protection, and then our society can really make some progress.
I agree with Taylor this obsession with the constitution is laughable- free markets are the only way – the american constitution set the standard of centralised monetary policy stop dreaming about how a “return to the constitution” will save you all- only free market ideas will- but People like Ron Paul trumpet the constitution because he knows it is the best way to shore up support with those who long for times when the US was a capitalist nation but are too simplistic to understand it
Governing institutions are not merely enhancers of the moral and objective qualities of the people occupying its offices. Government, the kind that taxes, acts as final arbiter in all -including its own- disputes, and has the final say on the use of violence in its domain, is no way in hell neutral in any regard. In the apriori sense it subverts the possibilty of economic calculation, creates moral hazard, and bifurcates society into those with poltical power and those without.
The U.S. has adopted several of the “planks” of the Communist Manifesto, and centralization of credit is just one of them. Of course, the point of these measures was to lead to a communist society, not that adoption of them would actually constitute a communist society. Marx and Engels were a little more vague about that part of it.
Governing institutions are not merely enhancers of the moral and objective qualities of the people occupying its offices. Government, the kind that taxes, acts as final arbiter in all -including its own- disputes, and has the final say on the use of violence in its domain, is no way in hell neutral in any regard. In the apriori sense it subverts the possibilty of economic calculation, creates moral hazard, and bifurcates society into those with poltical power and those without.
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