Category: Socialist indoctrination

Posted on

Why and How Genuine Socialism has Disappeared

Paul Dowling has referred to socialism as: “government-Induced slavery in the name of the general welfare.”* After a couple decades of socialist indoctrination, an apparent majority of American students from their K12 days through the university have now come to endorse and support what Dowling refers to as “government-induced slavery.” They think of themselves as socialists. Thus there are now more socialists in the world and in the United States. Interestingly, however, there is no longer any real socialism in the world. My book, Socialism, reviews a hundred years of European history in demonstrating why and how we now have many socialists, but no socialism!

*Paul Dowling, “What Do Democrats & Republicans Believe, & Just What Is a Free Republic All About?” http://eaglerising.com/47186/what-do-democrats-republicans-believe-just-what-is-a-free-republic-all-about/ Eagle Rising, 9/15/2017.

Dowling’s point is that socialist thinking has made government over-reach seem natural in political life today.  There has always been a place for the government to provide public services, i.e., those services such as national defense, state highways and infrastructure, police and fire services, etc., but a graduated income tax for the purpose of income redistribution and the institution of the welfare state under Lyndon Johnson provide political justification for the pursuit of socialist policies that have become ever more popular in the absence of real socialism. This has enabled the promotion of “freedom-killing socialist beliefs by many in government, media, and academia.”

Once, socialism was a term for an economic system that:

1) demanded the nationalization of industry.  All business was to be owned and controlled by the government. Socialism also

2) insisted that all economic activity be based on a governmentally-designed and -directed economic plan; it also

3) mandated governmentally-controlled and -directed industrial regulation through a large, omnipresent bureaucracy. When these economic policies and strategies failed, the system simply

4) diverted its focus to social policies.  Socialists have long enjoyed threatening and attacking the established, culture-based traditions that had been the social glue of nations for centuries.  Originally, in the early socialist years of the Marxian era, social traditions such as marriage were under attack.

Traditional social policies were considered the creations of and glue for bourgeois society. The view was that the “haves” of society had made the social rules and imposed them on the “have nots.”  To “expropriate the expropriators” it was important for the socialists to destroy the old traditions and build new ones for the new order.

In a later era, it appears that social policy, once a mere footnote to the more significant economic policy, became a set of hot items to constitute part of a political platform and substitute for economic policies that had proven ineffective and undesirable.  For example, after World War II, all socialist countries felt it essential to

To control a massive economy, Stalin had to resort to economic planning,

follow the example of Josef Stalin and develop a national economic plan. Gradually, it became apparent that this effort added nothing to economic performance.  One should not have expected that one gargantuan, state economic plan could be detailed and complex enough to replace the millions of individual plans that are developed formally and informally by the myriad of individual firms and consumers that comprise the national economy in a market system.  So when one drops the national plan from the socialist party’s political platform, it can easily be replaced, for example, by the feminist movement. Another substitute for traditional socialist economic policies is simply an expansion of the entitlements of the welfare program, such as providing free secondary education or cancelling student debts.

All of the traditional economic pillars of socialist policy failed.  Nationalization didn’t work because the

Nationalization of industry and economic planning failed.

parliament, charged with the management of the nation’s industries, did not have time to manage the many thousands of firms involved.  That would mean hiring managers who would act for the state, but may in practice be inclined to pursue their own personal interests rather than the interests of all the citizens. So there would have to be a national review from time to time of the state-owned firms’ performances. That all worked very poorly, so the alternative was simply to rely on a large bureaucracy to regulate all the activities of the private firms. Thousands of bureaucrats could then drown the private managers in an avalanche of rules and red tape, raising production costs and the prices we consumers pay as those costs are passed on to us.

Today, socialism consists only of 1) bureaucratic regulation of industry, 2) extensive social policies including welfare statist entitlements and legalizing and endorsing traditionally anti-social private activity. Where the latter involves mutually-acceptable personal activity of adults this seems reasonable and acceptable to tolerant and peace-loving individuals in the community.  What is more troublesome is the increasing proclivity to push, for example, for the coming social acceptance of pedophilia. In any case, the final and fundamental pillar of contemporary socialism is 3) the redistribution of income.

The Nature of Socialism Part II

Income Redistribution

Individuals opposed to socialism find income redistribution unjust. This is based on the hypothetical case of a person wanting to help a poor old woman by giving her money. To acquire the needed funds, however, the benefactor robs you at gunpoint.  This simply forces you to be “charitable” by constraining you to use the fruits of your labor for redistribution to someone else to whom they do not belong.

Although charitably helping others is a virtue to be encouraged,  when government raises taxes in order to provide government relief, the taxpayer cannot control the level of giving, and individuals also lose their ability to provide charity to the recipients they would choose.  First, the government-provided charity forces productive people to work for unproductive people.   Second, politicians inevitably vote to award charity to people who are not truly in need, in order to win their votes. The structure of welfare programs such as social security is designed to win the support of taxpayers by including them both as payers and recipients in the plan. The program thus becomes very expensive with basically everyone being entitled, and the entire nation begins a process of drifting toward insolvency. Politicians support defined groups in exchange for votes.  Those opposed to the socialist system of charity for votes are not really supporting charity, but a form of pay-for-play corruption.

Correct Principles of Government and the US Constitution 

Socialists always call for “democracy” and rail against those who, according to them, are not permitting our “democracy” to function. But the word “democracy” does not appear anywhere in America’s founding documents. The United States governmental system is not a democracy so much as a republic. Republicanism is based upon the Constitutional view that the government follows a set of consistently applied, universal principles, rather than upon the notions of fleeting majorities who may wish to tyrannize over minorities. The Constitution is intended to promote liberty, not democracy. The Constitution protects the rights of individuals’ from their own government, as well as from their fellow citizens.  Thus, the Constitution establishes distinct, unequivocal and enforceable rules to protect the rights of the individual.  It is for this reason that the government’s size and functions were strictly limited to those not granted to states.  Every American is thus equal – equally protected against the mob tyranny into which democracy has the potential to descend. The government is the agent of the society’s individuals and it has no right to possess or implement any power to harm one individual or group in order to help another individual or group.

If all Americans thought it right to let the government run the agencies of charity, taking it out of the hands of the people, perhaps it would be appropriate to let the government take care of all of those who couldn’t (or who chose not to) take care of themselves. That would be sad, however, for those who wish to take care of their own children or their own parents.  Perhaps income redistribution is the choice of most Americans today, even of those who lose control over those funds which they could otherwise use for their own charitable impulses. It is clear in any case that the government’s choices lead to the dependence rather than the self-reliance of recipients. It is clear that in the presence of welfare-state entitlements, the demand for charitable services will ultimately far exceed the supply generated by available funds, given the presence of budgetary needs for other, non-welfare policies. These and other problems are also discussed in another blog on this site entitled “The Failed Welfare Policies of Socialism.” The economics of income redistribution and welfare policies are presented in detail in the book Socialism: Origins, Expansion, Decline and the Attempted Revival in the United States.

It should be noted from recent natural and terror disasters that Americans are willing, even anxious to help those in need. If those welfare transfers organized by government were left on a voluntary basis and were combined with the efforts of well-organized private agencies, generous Americans might even be able to meet legitimate charitable needs without relying on governmental redistribution of incomes.

Posted on

What Kind of Socialists are the “Antifa”?

The evolution from K12 youth indoctrination to organized political activity in the United States is reminiscent of the Hitler Youth movement (Hitlerjugend, HJ). This official organisation for male youths from 14 to 18 in Germany was a paramilitary organization. The proclaimed purpose of the Antifa in the U.S. is to fight against the racism that officially motivated the German fascist youth. The de facto purpose of the movement is simply to take the objectives of the far left to the street. In doing so, the movement is very reminiscent of the Hitler era street bullying of political opponents. The “racism” being attacked by the Antifa and the American left is merely a chimera reflective of hatred; it is often nothing more than name-calling used to demonize any antagonist, usually without any relationship to any issue of actual racism.

In their effort to rationalize street violence, young socialists declare they are on a campaign against Fascism, hence the emergence of the Antifascists or “Antifa.” (Given their modus operandi they might better be called “Antifa Fa”. Out in the streets they certainly do resemble Fascists.) From their supportive position, the left-wing media have tended to refer to them as “activists” or simply as “protesters.”  The link between the Antifa and their political party is not as direct and open as the relationship between the Hitlerjugend and the National Socialist Party, but it is no less apparent. 

Conceptual Beliefs of the Antifa

When I published my book on socialism, the Antifa was just getting organized and had not yet made its public appearance, so I did not include the group in the book. The same can be said for Black Lives Matter. But at that time the Occupy Wall Street Movement had already appeared and the things that must be observed about that group apply to the lawless preferences of the later young socialists as well.

American socialists were formerly the left wing of the Democratic Party;  since sometime around the emergence of the Obama phenomenon,  we can refer to them as simply Democrats.  It is not sufficient for the Antifa merely to attack “Fascists;” the insult must be generalized.  There are in reality precious few Fascists in the United States, but that does not hinder the Democratic Party and the liberal media from smearing the few through the “Antifa” and to broaden the attack to include all “white supremacists,” which of course includes the entire political opposition.

A website description of the would-be Nazi activists in the United States today declares “…the largest neo-Nazi group in the United States is the Detroit-based National Socialist Movement (NSM), with around 350 members in the entire country. Led by Jeff Schoep, the group mostly avoided the in-fighting that decimated some other neo-Nazi groups. The NSM reached a peak of activity in the mid-2000s, organizing a number of public events and rallies around the country, but its activities have tailed off somewhat more recently…” (See https://www.adl.org/education/resources/reports/state-of-white-supremacy#neo-nazis.)

What I wish to point out is the fact that the movement in the U.S. today is trivially small and declining – it is a stretch to call it a movement. When the recent Boston counter-protest was touted as involving ten times more anti-Nazi protesters than Fascists, that was probably an extreme understatement. In Boston there are probably about as many Fascists as New-England witches. As all but the Democrats seem to be aware, racism and white supremacy sentiment have long been fading away in America. The Democrats have become confused about racism, I believe, because their political tactic of first (and recently last and only) resort is to cry “Racism!” to smear all political opponents. It has nothing to do with whether there is any actual hint of racist attitudes or behaviors. You just scream racism regardless of the event. 

Neo-Nazis probably know as little about the economics, politics, and history of Fascism as the average socialist or “Antifa.” Fascists are fanatics who are as sour in heart and mind as those prepared to oppose them in the streets.  Ironically, the “Antifa” are as mistaken about the political nature of Fascism as are socialists generally.  In socialist propaganda, Fascism is falsely presented as a right-wing phenomenon. Scholars understand, however,  as Hitler himself did, that his was a nationalistic form of socialism, although it was inclined to combat ethnic rather than social/economic class enemies. I elaborate on this point and present evidence in my book, which presents evidence that national socialism was a leftist phenomenon. Hitler just switched the class struggle in Mein Kampf (My Struggle) from being a social to an ethnic conflict.  He was thereby a true racist, but he was not the only racist socialist. 

The Dissemination of Ideological Truth

 

Currently the danger of violence in the United States stems from the socialist movement, a prominent wing of which claims for itself the euphemism “anti-Fascist”, which is aided, abetted and encouraged by the socialists who have recently come to dominate the Democratic Party. Going back to the last presidential campaign, which included the hiring of “activists” or “protesters” by the Clinton campaign to attack Trump rallies, the large numbers of young criminals who want to turn every event into violence and a looting spree have not disappeared from society since the 2016 election.  President Obama loved and encouraged such groups, which is seen by looking back at his lack of anything negative to say about the Occupy Wall Street movement, the Black Lives Matter and other hate groups. He was more likely to make them honored guests at the White House.

In the meantime, the left wing continues to spew hatred for contemporary America. Hillary herself labeled half of America as bigoted “deplorables”. The media are currently attempting to brand all Republicans as White Supremacists.  The technique of name calling has been so successful for the Democrats and the media that every imagined offense is labeled racism. It is ironic that it is the policies of the Democrats that have been so disastrous, especially for low-income inner city citizens. 

What’s the next epithet? We have millions of young socialists in this country who are emotionally confused with the name calling and the socialist propaganda.  Historically, there were quite a few Ku Klux Klan racists in the slavery era and in its extended wake, and interestingly, they were Democrats.  Later, Democrats dominated the ranks and leadership of the Jim Crow movement.  Today, the young Marxist revolutionaries whose hero is Bill Ayers are clearly the most numerous and most dangerous hooligans of the present.

Posted on

Socialism and Social Learning, Part I

Socialism and Social Learning, I

Why is one a member of a political party?

In the United States today, the logical order of progression is first to become a democrat and as the party continues to shift further to the left, one need merely remain a loyal democrat to become a socialist as defined in the previous blog. The party has shifted radically to the left since the arrival of Barack Obama on the political landscape.  One will remember that an American socialist believes that one should advocate redistribution of incomes and programs of welfare policy. Since all contemporary political parties have long-since embraced these same policies, albeit in more moderate form, socialism as a political program has nothing new to offer. There’s nothing much left for socialists to do than demand ever more governmental entitlements or “freebies,” and to promote ever more radical social policies. They reject cultural norms and fiscal responsibility.

How does one become a democrat?

Many democrats come from democratic families and later cling to their beliefs as a matter of family loyalty. For some it’s almost like the family religion; loyalty requires that you stay the course and remain true to the faith. Others, however, come to the party when they are in school or in college. Then being a democrat is more a matter of being “credentialed.”  Professors with an agenda are democrats and they let students know early on that anyone not promoting democrats is uneducated and unsophisticated. Once you are urbane and clued in you don’t have to do much research to keep up with the talking points and the party line. My book on socialism addresses not only the historically extended socialist abhorrence of the corporation, the market, and the bourgeoisie or business class, but also the indoctrination of young recruits with the anti-market mentality. It discusses this issue under the rubrics of “social learning.”

How does democratic indoctrination work?

John Cassidy (2009, How Markets Fail: The Logic of Economic Calamities) writes of an experiment by Solomon Asch in the early 1950s. Students participated in a “vision test” to compare the lengths of straight lines. The instructor asked each student to identify which two of the lines matched. The sight test was not at all difficult. The lines were drawn so that it was immediately clear which line on the second card matched the one on the first. In each of the groups, however, only one of the students was a genuine volunteer. All the others had been instructed to give the same wrong answer in two thirds of the trials, picking a line that was clearly not of the same length as the line on the first card.

This experiment was conducted with more than a hundred volunteers at three different colleges. About one in four of the subjects would maintain their independence and pick the right line every time. The remainder followed the majority in at least one of the trials, selecting the wrong line. “Some subjects gave the wrong answer virtually every time, completely ignoring the evidence of their eyes. In follow-up interviews with Asch, the subjects said they had suspected that the other people in their groups had been acting like sheep, copying the answer of the first responder, but despite these suspicions, they also copied their answers. Others said they quickly came to the conclusion that the majority was right, and then attempted to hide their own shortcomings by merging with the crowd…Asch concluded…“That we have found the tendency to conformity in our society so strong that reasonably intelligent and well-meaning young people are willing to call white black is a matter of concern.”