Karl Marx claimed that economics determines history and that one’s economic class determines one’s ideas. Ironically, he proved himself wrong, in a deadly way. The twelve-thousand-word propaganda tract written by Marx in 1848 and known as The Communist Manifesto was a concise summary of many ideas that Marx himself created. These ideas proceeded to shape the history of the twentieth century, including its political and economic history, as well as the ideas of most twentieth-century intellectuals. This history included approximately one hundred million innocent citizens slaughtered by Marxist governments, millions more enslaved by Marxist governments, international conflicts on an unprecedented scale, and an intellectual tradition that, at present, is thoroughly entrenched in the humanities and is in the process of destroying the ideas and ideals of the West. There have probably never been fewer words that have caused more misery and destruction than those written by Karl Marx in The Communist Manifesto.
Continue reading “The Communist Manifesto: Philosophic and Economic Ideas/Historic Consequences”Corrupt Capitalism or Socialism?
Only New York Times “experts” could describe the nationalization of private industries currently taking place in Russia as examples of “corrupt capitalism,” rather than as examples of socialism. As defined by novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand, “capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned.” Socialism, its antipode, is “a theory or system of social organization which advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production, capital, land, etc. in the community as a whole.”
Government “Rights” (published in NY Post)
In “Hong Kong: New management,” the Post’s editorialist claims that “Beijing makes no secret whatsoever of the fact that it intends to run a tight ship from now on. And, in the final analysis, that’s as much its right as it would be of any government.”
A “tight ship”? When applied to a government that has slaughtered millions of innocent human beings, and denied the rights to liberty and property of millions more, what is this sickeningly vague phrase intended to be a euphemism for?
According to the principles identified by the Declaration of Independence, it is individual citizens, not governments, who are endowed with rights, and that “to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” For the same reason that a slave “owner” has no right to compel another human being, a criminal government, such as that of Communist China, has no “right” to violate the rights of its citizens. As noted long ago by novelist/philosopher Ayn Rand, there can be no such thing as “a right to enslave.”
Political Force vs. Individual Choice (published in Cleveland Edition)
Why does Roldo Bartmole, in his article “Our Tin Cup Rattlers,” refer to wealthy businessmen who support the doctrines of government subsidies as “capitalists,” when such doctrines are fundamentally socialist? In a system of laissez-faire capitalism, forced public subsides for both the rich and the poor would not exist; the choice of public support for either would be strictly individual and voluntary.