The Ten Planks of the Communist Manifesto 1848 by Karl Heinrich
Marx |
How "Marxist" Has the United States Become? |
Although Marx advocated the use of any means, especially including violent revolution,
to bring about socialist dictatorship, he suggested ten political goals for developed countries such as the United States.
How far has the United States -- traditionally the bastion of freedom, free markets, and private property -- gone down the
Marxist road to fulfill these socialist aims? You be the judge. The following are Marx's ten planks from his Communist Manifesto.
1. Abolition of private property in land and application of all rents of land to public purpose.
The courts have interpreted the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (1868) to
give the government far more "eminent domain" power than was originally intended, Under the rubric of "eminent domain" and
various zoning regulations, land use regulations by the Bureau of Land Managementproperty taxes, and "environmental" excuses,
private property rights have become very diluted and private property in landis, vehicles, and other forms are seized almost
every day in this country under the "forfeiture" provisions of the RICO statutes and the so-called War on Drugs..
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
The 16th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, 1913 (which some scholars maintain was
never properly ratified), and various State income taxes, established this major Marxist coup in the United States many decades
ago. These taxes continue to drain the lifeblood out of the American economy and greatly reduce the accumulation of
desperately needed capital for future growth, business starts, job creation, and salary increases.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
Another Marxian attack on private property rights is in the form of Federal
& State estate taxes and other inheritance taxes, which have abolished or at least greatly diluted the right of private
property owners to determine the disposition and distribution of their estates upon their death. Instead, government
bureaucrats get their greedy hands involved .
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
We call it government seizures, tax liens, "forfeiture" Public "law" 99-570 (1986);
Executive order 11490, sections 1205, 2002 which gives private land to the Department of Urban Development; the imprisonment
of "terrorists" and those who speak out or write against the "government" (1997 Crime/Terrorist Bill); or the IRS confiscation
of property without due process.
5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with
state capital and an exclusive monopoly.
The Federal Reserve System, created by the Federal Reserve Act of Congress in 1913, is indeed such a
"national bank" and it politically manipulates interest rates and holds a monopoly on legal counterfeiting in the United States.
This is exactly what Marx had in mind and completely fulfills this plank, another major socialist objective. Yet,
most Americans naively believe the U.S. of A. is far from a Marxist or socialist nation.
6. Centralization of the means of communication and transportation in the hands of the state.
In the U.S., communication and transportation are controlled and regulated by the
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) established by the Communications Act of 1934 and the Department of Transportation
and the Interstate Commerce Commission (established by Congress in 1887), and the Federal Aviation Administration as well
as Executive orders 11490, 10999 -- not to mention various state bureaucracies and regulations. There is also the federal
postal monopoly, AMTRAK and CONRAIL -- outright socialist (government-owned) enterprises. Instead of free-market
private enteprrise in these important industries, these fields in America are semi-cartelized through the government's regulatory-industiral
complex.
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.
While the U.S. does not have vast "collective farms" (which failed so miserably in
the Soviet Union), we nevertheless do have a significant degree of government involvement in agriculture in the form of price
support subsidies and acreage alotments and land-use controls. The Desert Entry Act and The Department of Agriculture.
As well as the Department of Commerce and Labor, Department of Interior, the Evironmental Protection Agency, Bureau of Land
Management, Bureau of Reclamation, Bureau of Mines, National Park Service, and the IRS control of business through corporate
regulations.
8. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of Industrial armies, especially
for agriculture.
We call it the Social Security Administration and The Department of Labor. The National
debt and inflation caused by the communal bank has caused the need for a two "income" family. Woman in the workplace since
the 1920's, the 19th amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, assorted Socialist Unions, affirmative
action, the Federal Public Works Program and of course Executive order 11000. And I almost forgot...The Equal Rights Amendment
means that women should do all work that men do including the military and since passage it would make women subject to the
draft.
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.
We call it the Planning Reorganization Act of 1949 , zoning (Title 17 1910-1990) and Super Corporate
Farms, as well as Executive orders 11647, 11731 (ten regions) and Public "law" 89-136.
10. Free education for all children in government schools. Abolition of children's factory labor
in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc. etc.
People are being taxed to support what we call 'public' schools, which train the
young to work for the communal debt system. We also call it the Department of Education, the NEA and Outcome Based "Education"
.
So, is the U.S. a "free country" today? Hardly! Not compared
to what it once was. Yet, very few Americans today challenge these Marxist institutions, and there are virtually no
politicians calling for their repeal or even gradual phase-out. While the United States of America may still
have more freedoms than most other countries, we have nonetheless lost many crucial liberties and have accepted the major
socialist attacks on freedom and private property as normal parts of our way of life. The nation, whose founders included
such individualists as Thomas Jefferson, George Mason, James Madison, John Adams and Patrick Henry, has gradually turned away
from the principles of individual rights, limited constitutional government, private property, and free markets and instead
we increasingly have embraced the failed ideas and nostrums of socialism and fascism. We should hang our heads in shame
for having allowed this to happen.
But, it is not too late to reverse these pernicious burdens and instead
enact pro-freedom reforms to put our nation back on track again. It can be done.
In some ways the Left has a head start over us on the pro-freedom Right.
The enemies of American freedom do admittedly dominate the entertainment industry, television news media, and academia --
but we have the tremendous strategic advantage that reality (including man's nature) is on our side; so, unlike the socialists
and "liberals" (welfare-state fascists), we are not in the position of having to advocate a system which constantly tries
to "make water to go uphill" -- or force human beings into a rigid utopian staitjacket based on the whims of some clique of
central planning bureaucrats. We know that individual freedom for peaceful people within a constitutional republic works
in practice; our country's history demonstrates that. The piecemeal abandonment of those principles and institutions
which once made America great has proved to be a a dead-end road to failure. That is why I tend to be a long-term optimist
even though things often look pretty glum in the meantime. Just as Prohibition was eventually repealed, I feel encouraged
that such key statist achievements as the income tax, government schools, fiat money/central banking (the Federal Reserve),
"environmentalist" regulations, property forfeiture laws, and other Marxist planks and leftist institutions can be rolled
back and repealed altogether, although it may take several decades.
Those who would carry forward the ideas and principles of self-ownership,
private property, free markets, laissez faire, the rule of law, and constitutionalism which informed America's founders must
become more active on the key ideological battle fronts. We need more influence not just in politics, but in areas of
entertainment, academia, journalism, think tanks, churches (we need our own individualist Walter Rauschenbushes), literature,
art, and other venues of expression and activism.
Marxism and socialism have proved to be colossal failures all over the
world. As Frederic Bastiat wrote in his classic The Law just
prior to his death, "let us now try liberty"!
Chinese foreign trade began as early as the Western Han dynasty (206 BCE-9 CE), when the famous "Silk Road" through Central Asiawas pioneered by Chinese envoys. During later dynasties, Chinese ships traded throughout maritime Asia, reaching as far as theAfrican coast, while caravans extended trade contacts
in Central Asia and into the Middle East. Foreign trade was never a major economic activity, however, and Chinese emperors considered
the country to be entirely self-sufficient. During parts of the Ming (1368–1644) and Qing (1644–1911) dynasties, trade was officially
discouraged. In the mid-eighteenth century, the government restricted sea trade by setting up the Canton System.
In the nineteenth century, European nations used military force to initiate sustained
trade with China. From the time of the Opium War(1839–42) until the founding of the People's Republic in 1949, various Western countries
and, starting in the 1890s, Japan compelled China to agree to a series of unequal treaties that enabled foreigners to establish essentially
autonomous economic bases and operate with privileged status in China. One classic account of this period is Carl Crow's 400 Million Customers, a humorous but realistic
guide which has lasting insights. Foreign privileges were abolished when the
People's Republic came into being.
Foreign trade did not account for a large part of the Chinese economy for the first
thirty years of the People's Republic. As in most large, continental countries, the amount of commerce with other nations was small relative to domestic
economic activity. During the 1950s and 1960s, the total value of foreign trade was only about 2 percent of the gross national product (GNP). In the 1970s trade grew rapidly but
in 1979 still amounted to only about 6 percent of GNP.
The importance of foreign trade in this period, however, far exceeded its volume. Foreign
imports alleviated temporary but critical shortages of food, cotton, and other agricultural products as well as long-term
deficiencies in a number of essential items, includingraw materials such as chrome and manufactured goods such as chemical fertilizer and finished
steel products. The acquisition of foreign plants and equipment enabled China to utilize the more advanced technology of developed countries to speed its owntechnological growth and economic development.
During the 1950s China imported Soviet plants and equipment for the development program
of the First Five-Year Plan (1953–57). At the same time, the Chinese government expanded exports of agricultural products
to repay loans that financed the imports. Total trade peaked at the equivalent of US$4.3 billion in 1959, but a sudden decline
in agricultural production in 1959-61 required China's leaders to suspend further imports of machinery to purchase foreign
grain. Under a policy of "self-reliance," in 1962 total trade declined to US$2.7 billion. As the economy revived in the mid-1960s,
plants and equipment again were ordered from foreign suppliers, and substantial growth in foreign trade was planned. But in
the late 1960s, the activities of the Cultural Revolution (1966–76) caused trade again to decline.
The pragmatic modernization drive led by party leaders Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping and China's growing contacts with Western
nations resulted in a sharp acceleration of trade in the early 1970s. Imports of modern plants and equipment were particularly
emphasized, and after 1973 oil became an increasingly important export. Trade
more than doubled between 1970 and 1975, reaching US$13.9 billion. Growth in this period was about 9 percent a year. As a
proportion of GNP, trade grew from 1.7 percent in 1970 to 3.9 percent in 1975. In 1976 the atmosphere of uncertainty resulting
from the death of Mao Zedong and pressure from the Gang of Four, whose members opposed reliance on foreign technology, brought another decline in trade.
Beginning in the late 1970s, China reversed the Maoist economic development strategy and, by the
early 1980s, had committed itself to a policy of being more open to the outside world and widening foreign economic relations
and trade. The opening up policy led to the reorganization and decentralization of foreign trade institutions, the adoption
of a legal framework to facilitate foreign economic relations and
trade, direct foreign investment, the creation of special economic zones, the rapid expansion of foreign trade, the importation of foreign technology and management
methods, involvement in international financial markets, and participation in international foreign economic organizations. These changes not only
benefited the Chinese economy but also integrated China into the world economy. In 1979 Chinese trade totaled US$27.7 billion - 6 percent of China's GNP but only 0.7 percent
of total world trade. In 1985 Chinese foreign trade rose to US$70.8 billion, representing 20 percent of China's GNP
and 2 percent of total world trade and putting China sixteenth in world trade rankings.
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