Ever since that morning when the “Joe the Plumber” story broke and Americans saw the video showing candidate Barack Obama uncharacteristically allowing his inner socialist to slip out for a few seconds I have noticed that the media has suddenly become very concerned with the hard definition of Socialism. Since they did not like The One being criticized, particularly with an epithet like the S-word, they pounced on it every time the McCain campaign compared Obama’s slipped words to Socialism. In retrospect it seems obvious that the proper response to those transparent partisans posing as journalists was to point out that his positions are socialistic even if they do not precisely match the writings of some unhappy French guys like Leroux or Reybaud from the nineteenth century. But the now legendary interference-running by the mainstream media for their candidate of choice got me thinking about our tax system and where I draw that line.
Before we do go any further in this discussion, let’s define some terms. Starting about the time that Mr. Obama spoke of “spreading the wealth,” his supporters both inside and outside of the media adopted an often successful tactic of responding to the socialist label with an always patronizing dismissal of the notion, going into a hair-splitting definition of the word in an attempt to obfuscate the larger point. Therefore, since the use of the word socialism is so often met by an intentionally tangential debate about strict definitions, I find it useful to use another term in its place. Let’s dispense with the debate about one particular flavor called socialism but instead focus on the umbrella philosophy of collectivism that also includes its cousins of Marxism, Maoism, communism, and fascism. But exactly where is the line at which point the social contract of funding base common needs crosses over into collectivism?
I think that most reasonable people would agree that we need taxation at some level in order to be able to sustain a certain level of common government services and functions; the basic infrastructure that all of us use. Things like the interstate system or the military come to mind, as well as more immediate examples like the police and firefighters. I know that purist libertarians will say that even the roads should be privately built and maintained, though I was never able to go that far even back when I was an uppercase-L Libertarian, but let’s just accept that at some point there are legitimate roles for government and that those commonly useful actions must be funded in some way.
Income taxes
The basic idea of a straight (flat) income tax is to fund things in a way that hits the lower earning people a little more lightly than the higher-earning people, and most people seem to be okay with that, though I think that there are often some implicit assumptions in that thinking that often prove false, as I will discuss in a moment. For our first example, if the income tax is a flat 15 percent, then the young person earning $20K/yr pays $3000 in income taxes and will likely receive a refund check if withholding is a part of the tax. In that same 15 percent tax scenario, the builder who made $200K last year would pay $30,000 in income taxes and the CEO who made a million pays $150K in taxes. It is the same percentage but obviously a higher dollar amount based upon higher earnings. Here is where I would like to make one point that I think is often missed. We are already crossing into collectivism here even though we are still discussing a straight, flat income tax. Remember that when we talk of genuinely common things provided by government, things like the FAA/FBI/FCC/FDA/USDA/EPA/etc (it goes on forever), these things are being provided pretty much equally to each of our example taxpayers. Yet when the young person pays a mere three grand for these common services while the builder and CEO pay 30K and 150K respectively, it already seems like this lower earner is getting a great deal to me. As I hinted at above, I would speculate that a lot of taxpayers can accept this arrangement because they assume that the people getting the tax break are either young and just starting out (and likely to pay much more in taxes over their lifetime) or old and on a fixed income (having paid a lot of taxes already). But I think that a lot of compassionate people would feel differently if they knew that in many cases the people were simply being subsidized by the rest of us for large parts of their entire lives. I will not dwell on this point, but I do want to stress that even though a flat tax feels like a very fair model (and is infinitely more so than our current tax code) it already skews the bill-paying towards the more productive people in society who in most cases are not getting anything more for their money.
On that note, a friend of mine made an interesting devil’s-advocate counter argument that we should look at it more like insurance. His analogy is that just like people purchasing insurance pay higher premiums for insured items of higher value, the higher earners have more possessions and more at stake, and therefore it would then make sense for them to pay higher taxes for all of this infrastructure and stability provided by the government. However, even if you accept my friend’s position you have to admit that to a large extent the flat income tax already accomplishes that, as my example numbers demonstrated. Moreover, you could easily argue that the higher funding requirements should only apply to funding those parts of government that directly protect our possessions, like the police and firefighters; I am hard pressed to see how wealthy Americans get more out of the interstate system or the FCC, for example.
That flat income tax approach, though it comes up from time to time during some political cycles, should not be confused with what we have in the United States. In America we have what people like to call a progressive income tax, which means that the tax rate itself is increased based upon the amount of income. [This gives me the opportunity to make the point that you should always be exceptionally wary when someone uses the self-congratulatory word ‘progressive’ as a complimentary adjective as their likely intended “progress” is toward a more collectivistic society] Under this nice sounding tax (after all, who wants to be against progress?) the young person still pays 15 percent, or that same $3000, but the builder is in a higher tax bracket and pays 28 percent, or a much higher $56,000! Furthermore, the CEO who under the flat tax paid $150K in taxes finds himself in the 31 percent tax bracket and now pays a whopping $310,000 in taxes. Of course, Congress has added in a lot of deductions and loopholes and write-offs that allow people to end up paying a lower effective tax rate, but the point holds. What the progressive income tax adds is something subtle and insidious; once you start adjusting the rates paid based upon income level you are starting to decide how much people need and should be allowed to keep. That is a dangerous step that once crossed leads to a complete loss of any objective moral compass.
Four types of taxpayers
I would like to break Americans up into four groups based upon their role as taxpayers, as I think that it will help provide some clarity in discussing the truth about our system of taxation.
First, let’s start at the top. The people who make the most money pay the most in taxes, and as I demonstrated above they are not getting any more services from the government in exchange for this significantly higher tax burden; these taxpayers are the Cash Cows. Often denigrated and used in class warfare rhetoric, these people comprise the bulk of the investment class – the people who create jobs for the rest of the people. While I do not want to limit the Cash Cow label to this highest group, it is repellant to me that the top one percent of earners in America pays over 40 percent of the federal income tax burden. That is a higher share than is paid by the bottom 95 percent! These people are often despised and envied, but they are a big part of the engine of our economy.
The Regular Joe Taxpayer is the person who is always a net taxpayer. By my definition this is the bulk of what we would call the middle class. The best way to look at these people is that they are paying their fair share of the tax burden, roughly paying into the system enough for their fair share of the common services. Unlike the Cash Cows, these people are getting a fair shake in terms of their tax burden, but unlike the remaining two groups, they do not make other people subsidize their lifestyles.
The next group is comprised of people who are non-taxpayers. At tax time their income gets offset by convoluted deductions and loopholes, and they end up with a net tax payment of zero, likely getting a refund of the overpaid income taxes withheld during the year. However, to be in this group these people also must not live off of the rest of us via government redistribution programs. Since they are getting all of the common services and infrastructure that the top two groups are funding they are rightly called the Free Ride group.
The last group is the Societal Parasites – these people are a big tick on the neck of productive America. I can make the argument that they should lose the right to vote given that they will never vote for fiscal responsibility since they are not funding anything.
Even at this point, with our [allegedly] Progressive income tax, you could still argue that we have not taken a hard left onto Socialist Parkway, but we are surely slowing down with that left blinker flashing, particularly with a certain percentage of our people paying nothing into the system. However, we undeniably cross the line into socialistic when we set the system up with fake tax breaks and credits that end up with government checks going to people who pay zero in net income taxes. This is not the typical (and all too often ignorantly happy) “I got money back” refund of overpaid withholding taxes with which most of us are familiar but instead a check with real dollars that was taken from some other taxpayer who had a better year than the person who used government to take another’s property. Though arguments can be made that a “progressive” income tax is collectivistic in and of itself, once you start shifting money from one group to another you have undeniably crossed a line. Redistribution of wealth is collectivism. When one individual can use the government to take the property of another individual we have crossed a moral line after which there is no more moral compass. The argument becomes one simply of degree.
According to the IRS’ own numbers, the bottom 50 percent of taxpayers pay only 3 percent of the income taxes, and the bottom 40 percent pays nothing – in fact they are actually paying a negative number as they are being paid for being unsuccessful. How can a system where almost half of the people pay nothing towards the cost of things not be considered collectivist? Note that this is well before one ever considers a new health care entitlement.
I think that it is worth noting that since it is completely based upon income, you can end up with people who have made a fortune and are now living off of it paying nothing into the system. How much do George Soros or Ted Kennedy or some empty-headed Hollywood star care how much income taxes increase? They are good to go, thank you very much. It insults my intelligence when I see their constant attempts to take some high morals approach when they claim that they would be okay with paying higher taxes.
The Immorality of Collectivism
I mentioned earlier that I believe collectivism to be inherently immoral regardless of the results of an implementation of that system. Churchill once said that “the inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.” In practice these results have proven to be true time and time again. To Churchill’s first point, we will always have an unequal sharing of “blessings” when those blessings are based upon a free market meritocratic system, but we also always have incredible opportunity to better ourselves. But Churchill’s second point properly points out that the results of socialism are better for a few people at the expense of everyone else. In this sense collectivism is immoral because it turns the entire system upside down, structuring things to be best for and most conducive to the needs of the least productive, least successful, and all too often least ambitious among us. Often lost in the debate is the sad fact that often the mere reality of government involvement results in a worse situation for all involved, including the unavoidable creation of less ambitious people with no incentive to work harder.
Socialism is immoral because at its core, once you strip away the camouflage of false compassion, it requires an acceptance that the government owns you, that when the rubber hits the road you are simply a number, and that if you are more productive than most other people you will be regarded as a cash cow to be milked for what some group of statists considers The Common Good. You can dress that up in the “party dress” of alleged compassion but it remains un-American and immoral.
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I want to dispute your moral argument for capitalism here. I’ll present a condensed version so you can check whether I understood you correctly:
1. The “free market meritocracy” gives us “incredible opportunity to better ourselves”.
2. “[T]he results of socialism are better for a few people at the expense of everyone else.”
3. “[C]ollectivism is immoral because it turns the entire system upside down, structuring things to be best for and most conducive to the needs of the least productive, least successful, and all too often least ambitious among us.”
4. Socialism creates a government that dehumanizes you.
The third hypothesis is the most ridiculous, so I’ll start with that one. How do you come up with that the poor are so from laziness and lack of ambition?
You have to look at -why- people don’t have motivation to be “successful”. I’d argue from my observations when I went to public school that the poor felt no reason to work in school. They have to pull financial weight in families who can’t get paid enough, or have disabilities – cuts down on study and social time (the latter of which is necessary for success in school for a lot of kids, believe it or not). The stress in poor households distract them from rising in the ranks academically. Everything around them tells them that they are staying someone’s wage slave, even the education system. They can’t even often be placed in the same schools with middle- and upper-class children, because their parents want to live in “nice” neighborhoods where they can send their children to “nice” schools – so the poor get stuck in poor school districts with the teachers stupid enough to try and teach them something that the teachers know won’t ever matter, because the poor overall don’t have a voice in this nation. For one, the criminal justice system isn’t exactly centered around instilling moral values in violators of the law.
US law is partially set up to keep the poor in line and the rich in power. It punishes any method they could use to rise in power in this society: theft, cheating on taxes, disputes in law (who’s going to hire the better lawyer – and what cop is going to care about a poor person’s woe?), rioting and rebellion (even peaceful assembly, if it speaks out against the elite and is serious enough, is opposed and shut down by the government, often by pretty disgusting tactics), others. But it allows and thus rewards the crimes of the rich against the poor and credulous: wage slavery, running gambling establishments, bribing government officials to pay more attention to them than one’s other constituents (which further drives the poor and middle-class down), credit unions, banks. The market’s history is a constant series of fooling someone into giving more than one takes. Is this the “opportunity to better ourselves” that you mentioned? Because the only better selves in this system are the craftier and more anti-social selves.
I mean you’re really overestimating the ability of the poor to overcome the myriad of defenses and traps that the rich have set up to guard their gold piles – and to use the poor to increase that gold pile. They either got slavery or starvation, because – maybe you would – but most people who talk and act like you sure as hell aren’t going to throw them a bone if they ever go on strike or protest and there goes their bread-winning for a few years. You see, the property-holding elite know that collectivism makes one stronger than trying to go it alone. You pool capital together and you can make bigger business moves than the other entities at work in the market. But if the poor gathered together, if -they- pooled resources and thus had the ability to push a bigger weight around in society, then guess who would come breaking them up? If the workers did start to follow a Marxist praxis to power, even if nonviolently, then someone would shut them down with the help of the government, who for some reason, shock, sides with the elite – or really, the government would be the first in line to prosecute the workers. Read A People’s History of the United States (Howard Zinn) for a long gallery of such incidents. Read the case for government agencies’/Mafia’s conspiracy to kill Martin Luther King, Jr. (http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/WFP020403.html).
So um, sorry, I’m not seeing this Nietzscheish vision of humanity you’re selling here, where only a certain section of society gets to be happy. Yeah, we’d share in each other’s misery, that’s what makes us stronger, when we tackle problems together. Again, the big capital owners in this society know that. And especially interested people have made sure the workers don’t figure it out.
The response to hypothesis #2 should be obvious: Marxism equalizes society; the rich suffer and the poor prevail until there is no difference of class, but one society. The compassionate among the middle class certainly don’t care; I can’t understand how the rest of us do.
And – seriously – read Marxist theory. It never calls for any national government that you saw in the 20th century, in which, yes, the capital-holding elite lost in favor of another brutal elite, promising a society in which the people are important, then showing their true anti-Marxist colors once established enough. That’s not Marxism, that’s sociopathy, that’s telling people lies (where the truth would be a real Marxist society) in order to gain more popular support than one would with only false promises to the elite. (Like how Obama -promised- a lot of things to the people but instead, with the Democratic Congress, has been making deals with big businesses.) Of course a sociopathic dictator is going to make the people think that they have a voice in society. But Marx called for that the working class take power themselves and establish a labor-based rather than capital-based economy, which equalizes the nation and leads toward democracy (because equal economic power lends to equal political power, as if the two could really be separated).
The system that dehumanizes humans is not socialism, but capitalism, which enslaves people to someone’s desire to profit off of others. Too many of us know this too painfully well to listen to the propaganda, because the suits can talk all they want but all we see in the system is dehumanization, applying more and more pressure to individuals and alienating members of society from each other – in favor of the company bottom line (which most “members” of the company will never see), strict private property laws and the inequalities and oppression that arise from both.
Re: the comments of innominehumanitas, of course the rich have an easier go of it than the poor. Rob used a excellent quote from Churchill, who by the way was born into English aristocracy, and certainly lacked for no advantages growing up in elite boarding schools.
But to counter the argument that the poor face a system designed to keep them in line, I’ll offer two examples from different generations. My grandparents were a young couple in rural Alabama during the Depression. They were poor, but so was everyone else. They grew their own food. They scrimped and saved every nickel their whole lives. Their four children all graduated from college, one becoming a successful surgeon. My grandmother is still alive, and thanks to a frugal live and compound interest, has a generous estate that she’ll leave to her children.
The second example is my wonderful wife, who was born in New York to immigrants from South America. Her parents spoke only Spanish, and she entered 1st grade not knowing any English at all. It was slow at first, but she learned quickly and became a top student in her class. Her parents worked one or two jobs. She worked summers and took loans to supplement her scholarship to a competitive private college. She has a successful career at the CDC in public health, and her sister is a doctor.
I submit that if the only thing holding back the poor is motivation – MOTIVATION? – then the parents of poor kids are doing a crappy job of telling their kids the importance of hard work and discipline, and the powerful mind control that the rich use on the poor is working better than we’d hoped. (rubs hand together)
@David -
I’m glad your family made it; so has mine, through difficult times as workers. But to say that the more resilient of the poor pull through with a heroic amount of effort is no justification of the system. All you’ve done, really, is make my position seem paranoid without showing me how it is so, even though I’ve shown quite a bit of evidence for my argument. Can you offer a substantial reason that the poor should blame themselves for their poverty instead of the rich, when the rich do all kinds of things to the poor that an average person would consider deplorable if it came to their awareness? I’m arguing that the poor should -stop- thinking “I should just try harder”; the amount of work and the amount of absurdity from employers that they endure is surreal – and it would be easier in the long term for the poor to find an effective way to push back than to keep living like this. Of course, that makes sense to someone until you notify someone that this is the spirit of what Karl Marx advocated.
Innominehumanitas:
>> “Can you offer a substantial reason that the poor should blame themselves for their poverty instead of the rich”
Why is this a matter of blame? What about personal responsibility? Are we not all responsible for ourselves. If you wish to assess blame, then who is more responsible, the individual that does nothing and blames others for their plight, or those that have put forth the effort, taken the risk, tried and failed (perhaps repeatedly), getting an education and improving their life and that of their family?
>>” I’m arguing that the poor should -stop- thinking “I should just try harder” “
Oh really? So you do not believe in individuals taking responsibility for their life and putting forth honest legitimate effort and hard work to improve same?
>>”… the amount of work and the amount of absurdity from employers that they endure is surreal”
Please provide one current example that exemplifies this if you would. I have employed a few hundred people during my life across multiple small companies, so I have seen both sides of the employer/employee relationship. Employers that do not treat people well tend to not be competitive and as a result not stay in business very long. Sure, there are always exceptions, but the blanket statement you made begs an example so I have a reference to your point of view.
>>”.. and it would be easier in the long term for the poor to find an effective way to push back than to keep living like this.”
Sounds anarchistic to me. Are you advocating anarchy? If not, what are you proposing?
>>” Of course, that makes sense to someone until you notify someone that this is the spirit of what Karl Marx advocated”
I don’t know of anyone personally to whom that makes sense. You espouse Marxist philosophy, so do you also advocate the actions taken by Marx and others that have followed this path? Marx and Lenin are responsible for the deaths of millions, many times more than any capitalist of which I am aware. You use the moniker “innominehumanitas” In the name of humanity or using Cicero’s definition a ‘good human’. I certainly do not know of any historians that would categorize Marx, Leninor any that have followed those philosophies as a ‘good human’, do you?
Unlike you, Dave and I have used our real names as we are not ashamed of our comments and live our lives by these same principles. Can you say the same?
@Tim O’Pry
“Unlike you, Dave and I have used our real names as we are not ashamed of our comments and live our lives by these same principles. Can you say the same?”
Not meaning to be overafraid or accusing you of being a serial killer or anything, but I can’t see who is talking to me on the Internet and I only have one life. I wouldn’t suggest that you put your name all over the Internet either. And you are waging a “war” on socialism; there’s more than one way of ruining someone’s life and I’ve heard many stories of people making a point of doing so in the name of ideology.
But I’m not ashamed to live by my principles. I live Marxs slogan: “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need”. If I see a need in society, then I move to fill it with my ability. I don’t yet have many abilities, so I plan to study social work in grad’ school so people feel like they can trust I’ll do a good job meeting needs. In contrast I could never be a professional market player, trying to trick someone into giving more than he or she takes, AKA profiting in a business deal. I refuse to make more than median wage in this country (about $40,000, although as a social worker I won’t likely make that much), because I believe that everyone should be making it, or something closer to it, thus giving -all- people the responsibility as to where this society goes, rather than just a few who hold most of the capital.
“What about personal responsibility? Are we not all responsible for ourselves. If you wish to assess blame, then who is more responsible, the individual that does nothing and blames others for their plight, or those that have put forth the effort, taken the risk, tried and failed (perhaps repeatedly), getting an education and improving their life and that of their family?”
“You espouse Marxist philosophy, so do you also advocate the actions taken by Marx and others that have followed this path? Marx and Lenin are responsible for the deaths of millions, many times more than any capitalist of which I am aware.”
First of all, here you have contradicted yourself, but it’s okay, because our teachers, direct and indirect, in this society have taught us to contradict ourselves. You say that in the market people are responsible for themselves. If someone swindles them in a trade, or if someone pays them shit wages for a lot of work, then it’s their fault, they should get an education so they are better equipped in order to avoid these people who like to cheat others. In elitist capitalism, the attention is rarely put on the cheaters and the connivers, except by those who resent them. The cheated and connived are told (or tell themselves) to change, rather than doing something about the cheaters and connivers. But then you tell me that if someone kills another person, the killer is responsible. Why not be consistent and put responsibility in the victim’s hands? Ask: why are they so weak and stupid as to put themselves in a vulnerable position; why did they become a person that the killer thought deserves to die?
You may say that this is an unfair comparison, because a killing is more severe than a swindling. So I’ll use theft as an example, meaning the act of putting your hands on something that is someone else’s territory and putting it where they can’t use it but you can. I don’t want to assume, but you probably also think that in a theft, the thief should be changed (that is, the ability to steal should be removed from the thief), rather than the original property holder. But isn’t this blaming the more powerful or intelligent of the two, for being able to take something they want? It creates a serious problem for the current market to do so, because the market system is created by the actions of humans who favor taking more from others than they give to others. So I condemn that trend; also I push for a social rather than capital mindset, in which we work to build up humans, rather than capital stockpiles.
Secondly, Marx advocated that the people take over, yes, using violence, much like the warmongers in the American colonies who wanted independence from Britain, only again the people would take over rather than the American elite winning over the British elite. What he did not advocate was that one man rule over all the rest; how the hell would that be good for the empowerment of the working class and the peasants? The Russian people had been trying to get their brutal rulers off their backs for centuries before the Bolshevik-led movement finally rolled them over. All Marx wanted was popular rule, not the installation of another oppressive ruler (Yosef Stalin) who – uh – apparently pretended – sort of – that his interests were the best for the people. So Lenin’s strange political development from classical Marxism set the revolutionaries up for a ruler who could be as cruel as the czars that they worked so hard to depose. In fact, there was a section of the intellectuals in Russia, called the Mensheviks, who believed socialism would develop naturally and that it should be also done peacefully. The Bolsheviks were Lenin’s and Stalin’s idea; Marxist in that they wanted total and sudden revolution, but not in that they wanted to rule the people afterward, rather than the other way around.
As for me, I do not know where I stand. I was bullied by other children in school and I refused to fight back, so I don’t think it’s in my nature to advocate a violent take-over. But I will take your advice and find some way to educate the poor and the middle class, that they don’t have to take so much bullshit from the rich and those who manage the property of the rich. I think that their forceful (although not violent) self-advocacy will improve their lives and thus the mindset of society, when people see that gross exploitation of others is not going to work in 21st-century America. We will have to go back to kindergarten and re-learn how to share, a lesson we made a point to forget as soon as possible. I will teach them to stop fighting each other, using stupid excuses like the difference of skin color to find someone to take from. I’ll give them the opportunity to better themselves that is refused them by this elitist system, especially by those who think that the system already provides them an opportunity, despite how that claim runs against the research of any social scientist of which I know, even the ones who praise elitism.
I suspect actually that I’m the first real Marxist that you guys have come across, so I’m laying out a lot for you to chew on. I hate genocide, I hate objectifying people more than most in this country, who worship a god who plans to kill most of the human race some time in the future, even for the slightest disobedience to his absolutist rule. Why don’t you read a translation of Marx himself and see what you’re waging such passionate war against? Democracy, economic equality. Drop the Cold War, drop the propaganda and misrepresentations and look to the primary sources. I think you’ll find a dramatically different picture than was laid before us in the Red Scares and by sociopathic dictators in the 20th century. Marx has his flaws, some pretty serious ones, but overall his system is a world better to me than the one we live in now.
And yes, democracy is anarchy. The less that people strive to be above another, the less hierarchical is the society. In my personal life I generally try to consider the desires of other people in my decision making; that makes me work toward anarchy on a very small scale, rather than whatever hierarchy I can achieve. And I don’t have to chunk dust bins at a police barricade in Pittsburgh to be my degree of anarchist. There’s also nonviolent anarchists like Howard Zinn that too many people ignore in favor of the stereotype (and how valuable have stereotypes ever been?).
innominehumanitas:
It is not Tim who is waging a War On Socialism, it is me: Rob Waterson. Tim and I may agree on many things, and I appreciate his response to you, but this is my blog and my personal war on the slavery that is socialism. Like Tim said, I use my name proudly and will stand up for my beliefs.
“In contrast I could never be a professional market player, trying to trick someone into giving more than he or she takes, AKA profiting in a business deal.”
As Adam Smith so brilliantly described in Wealth of Nations, when two people voluntarily exchange goods and services both parties do so because they feel that they are getting something worthwhile. For instance, I am a computer programmer and my company pays me a good salary because I produce something that they consider to be worth at least as much as what they paid me. There is no coercion there; it is completely voluntary. Do you actually believe that earning a profit is a bad thing? Do you realize that you have a standard of living that was built and is maintained by captialism? Have you considered holding true to your beliefs and moving to a country whose government shares your belief system, or at least relocating from very conservative Texas to a collectivist state like Massachussetts?
I worked with a woman several years ago who went on and on about how wonderful things were in Europe and how the government took care of the people with all of their socialistic welfare state programs and controls. Her husband was British and they had lived in Europe for a time. Finally, I asked her why she continued to live in the US when Europe was such a panacea in her mind. Her response was that they lived here because the job opportunities in the US were better. When I pointed out that the two things were related, that the lack of opportunity in Europe was a direct result of the government meddling in the free market and hurting the economy, she looked like a deer caught in the headlights. After I suggested that she hold true to her beliefs and move to her beloved Europe, rather than trying to turn *my* country in a collectivist system, she and I were never again on good terms. So I will say to you what I said to her: there are plenty of countries in the world built on the “government owns its subjects” philosophy that is required for your world view. Move to one and you will see the truth of the contrast between capitalism and EuroSocialism or Marxism. But you will not, you will get your social worker degree and you will live off of the government which gets all of its money by taking it from the productive people who earned it with captialistic ventures.
“You say that in the market people are responsible for themselves. If someone swindles them in a trade, or if someone pays them shit wages for a lot of work, then it’s their fault, they should get an education so they are better equipped in order to avoid these people who like to cheat others.”
Correct, but your use of the word “cheat” is bullshit. What someone will pay you is a direct result of the uniqueness and supply-and-demand of that skillset. Since anyone in the world can be a social worker, the pay for that is low and deserves to be, but since a smaller number of people educate themselves well enough to be an engineer or doctor or lawyer then they rightly earn a lot more money. What they provide is worth a lot more than social work. You may get a warm feeling from social work that is worth giving up 50K a year in salary but that is simply a choice that you make; do not kid yourself that you cannot make it. Anyone with ambition and motivation can succeed in America but not if they are perennial excuse-makers as you seem to be.
As an example, I come from a middle class family and I have nothing but a high school diploma, but I taught myself how to write software at the age of 19 and have had no trouble finding people willing to employ me because I have a skill that is worth something. By your logic I should just be exploited by the evil rich.
“Secondly, Marx advocated that the people take over, yes, using violence, much like the warmongers in the American colonies who wanted independence from Britain, only again the people would take over rather than the American elite winning over the British elite. What he did not advocate was that one man rule over all the rest; how the hell would that be good for the empowerment of the working class and the peasants?”
Wow. Again, if you feel so strongly about the illegitimacy of this country and its system why do you stay here? I think that we both know the answer: because you know that even being an unambitious anti-capitalist excuse maker in America involves a higher standard of living than someone living in one of your [non-existent] workers’ paradises. If you feel so strongly about this you should go experience what it is like to live in one of those countries. You would come back and kiss the ground when you returned and might even grab yourself a copy of The Wealth of Nations or Free To Choose or The Road to Serfdom so that you could understand why the beautifully uncontrolled system of capitalism, the “invisible hand”, builds such a wonderful standard of living.
Where has your system (marxism) ever been implemented without devolving into complete slavery to the government? In truth what you end up with is a politburo of elitists who look at you as simply one member of a herd of cattle that they will manage and milk for what they define as the common good. Your theoretical system is just that: a theory that never works in reality because it involves government ownership of its subjects, rightly called slavery.
“As for me, I do not know where I stand. I was bullied by other children in school and I refused to fight back, so I don’t think it’s in my nature to advocate a violent take-over.”
This speaks volumes to me. We all got picked on as kids. When I was twelve two kids beat the hell out of me, one of them using a stick, for no good reason. Did I pull back into my shell and spend the rest of my life running scared and making excuses as you seem to be doing? Hell no. I resolved to never take an ounce of shit from anyone again and I stuck to that. I studied martial arts for many years and am now that guy who walks softly but carries a massive stick.
“I suspect actually that I’m the first real Marxist that you guys have come across, so I’m laying out a lot for you to chew on. I hate genocide, I hate objectifying people more than most in this country, who worship a god who plans to kill most of the human race some time in the future, even for the slightest disobedience to his absolutist rule. Why don’t you read a translation of Marx himself and see what you’re waging such passionate war against? Democracy, economic equality. Drop the Cold War, drop the propaganda and misrepresentations and look to the primary sources. I think you’ll find a dramatically different picture than was laid before us in the Red Scares and by sociopathic dictators in the 20th century. Marx has his flaws, some pretty serious ones, but overall his system is a world better to me than the one we live in now.”
Not at all, I have met with and argued with your ilk many times. Quite often all it takes for people like you to come around is getting out of the bullshit-caccoon of college life and spending a little time in the real world fending for yourself. From my experience people who follow the ideology that you espouse are people who simply want to make excuses for their lack of success.
The most ludicrous thing to me is the dissonance between your rosy view of marxism and the brutal reality of its implementation. The cold hard fact is that many human beings are not like you, they will not simply “refuse to fight back” and when faced with the slavery of marxism they do not just roll over. What typically happens is that the benevolent marxist leaders kill them. That flies in the face of your claim that you hate genocide – those systems are built on and maintained by fear and genocide.
Marxism and its slavery-to-the-state cousins of socalisim, communism, maoism, fascism, etc, require that the government be willing to kill off the detractors and history has shown that the leaders of such systems have killed more of their own citizens than anything else in world history. As Stalin said, if you are going to make an omelette you need to break some eggs, but in reality those broken eggs are piles of bodies. People like me would rather die on our feet than live on our knees and historically your Dear Leaders seem to have no problem doing the killing.
Talk to a Ukrainian about being starved by Stalin because they did not want to go along.
You need to expand your view of history beyond the ridiculously discredited crap that Howard Zinn wrote. There is a world of truth and countless examples out there that you are refusing to see.
As Churchill allegedly said, if you are conservative at 20 you have no heart but if you are liberal at 40 you have no head. You will come around. ;^)
I think the only point on which the two of us can agree is that I am not going to fundamentally change your mind nor you mine. However, that does not mean we cannot debate specific points in a respectable and civilized manner. Despite the fact that in a true Marxist society I would not be allowed to espouse such beliefs without fear of retribution, we are fortunately not in such a society, so we both benefit from one of the basic tenants of an institution that you apparently dislike and disdain.
Your use of a nom de guerre and hiding behind a purported veil of fear for your safety is specious at best, but arguably would be required for dissent in your Marxist utopia. Ironic, don’t you think?
You claim that something I stated was contradictory, but fail to state how so. You stated:
“You say that in the market people are responsible for themselves. If someone swindles them in a trade, or if someone pays them shit wages for a lot of work, then it’s their fault…”
I stated no such thing, please read my statements again without interjecting your twist/interpretation and elucidate what in anything that I wrote is contradictory. Please do not take the tact of ‘..when you cannot counter the logic, attack the source..’. It is not effective and will not serve your purpose in this discussion. Outside of the few of us in this thread, I seriously doubt many others will be following this discussion.
And no, you are far from the first young person I have run across that latched on to some semblance of Marxism, Communism or Socialism in college and felt that they had seen “the divine light” to fix all of the world’s ills.
Judging by your statements, I would guess your are in your early 20s, attending college, probably utilizing student loans or other benefits of this corrupt capitalist system you purport to overturn (another irony IMHO). You have yet to have a real job much less a profession, as such the majority of your purported knowledge is based upon hyperbole. I would venture that most if not all others with which you associate and share these beliefs are in a similar situation.
I on the other hand am in my 50s and by your age I had served in my nation’s military, lived overseas, traveled abroad and had the opportunity to see some of these cultures and systems you believe are so wonderful – they are not. Since that time, I have spent over 12 years in law enforcement, started three companies and created hundreds of jobs and actually contributed to society both monetarily as well as with my time and sweat of my brow. So, unlike you, I speak from actual experience, knowledge and life. Oh and for the record, I supported myself from the time I was 17, worked my own way through college using the GI Bill. I have never applied for nor accepted any form of government aid nor unemployment. And no, the GI Bill is not ‘government aid’, as I actually did something to earn it.
While I respect your right to have these beliefs, I have served as has my son and 8 prior paternal generations in our military to protect those rights. You on the other hand purport to know better by reading books written by individuals who for the most part never accomplished nor contributed much either, except perhaps to some mass graveyards in multiple countries. And yet you still choose to deride the very country, for which members of my family and friends have fought and died.
Fear not: While you and your Marxist friends conspire in ways to kill and overthrow this country that has given you this freedom, the patriots of this country will continue to stand watch and actually protect and support all of our citizens, even you – as we have sworn to do all these many generations. Sleep well at night with your assumed name, posting your beliefs that mock us, knowing that nothing you say or do will sway us from this task. Hopefully, someday you will come to value what so many have died to preserve and will join us on the line – upon that day, we will welcome you as our brother and until then we will continue to protect you. Semper Fi
@ Rob:
Here’s what seems to be your view of Marxism judging just from your response here:
1. Marxism requires a “government owns its subjects” philosophy.
2. Marxism requires a “politburo of elitists who look at you as simply one member of a herd of cattle that they will manage and milk for what they define as the common good”.
3. Marxism goes against human nature and requires genocide.
4. Marxism is for the weak who just don’t want to work hard enough to be anything of value.
Okay. Marx. Had a vision of the working class and the peasants rising up, violently, to overcome the non-working aristocracy and/or the big capital-holders. He acknowledged that they would not treat the deposed elite nicely (probably executing some of them), but believed that eventually they would settle down and let the bourgeoisie back in to work alongside them – or the bourgeoisie would die off. They, being the people unified, would instate a system that was far more democratic than the status quo, which angered them to revolution in the first place. Including – communal ownership of property, rather than private ownership of property, except for items that especially needed to stay with the individual. And – democratic decisions on how to manage said property.
This is very different from the Bolshevik revolution and those similar to it. Vladimir Lenin set up the Russian revolution to be led by one party made of a handful of individuals, which included Yosef Stalin. This means that the people were taking directions from a handful of individuals, who called themselves far more capable of leading than the people themselves: an elitism, not a populism. When czarist rule ended at the hands of the people, the Bolshevik party did not step down, as they promised to do. I see this as no different than populist appeals by other sociopaths in history who hadn’t read a word of Marx, who were only promising things to people to get their support, then to enslave them.
Please, stop insisting to me that people who lied to everyone about planning to participate in something like that which Marx imagined – are true Marxists. And it makes no sense to insist that advocating Marxist ideals necessarily results in oppression, unless the people ruling themselves leads to oppression – at least greater oppression than we have now – and if so then you and I will have to disagree on that, although I will admit that it would be a tyranny of the majority, not perfection. But considering the “communist” revolutions of the 20th century, they’re no different than if a man or a party of people promises to instate a republic, or a democracy, or a totalitarian dictatorship, but in fact instates something else. There are, for example, so many national governments that declare they are republics and democracies – and are nothing of the sort. Should we denounce republicism or democracy while looking at things which are at more than a surface look – not either? Of course not.
Marxism is an idea of a progression into a social system in which a people largely govern themselves with a minimum of hierarchy (like a confederation, although with obvious differences), economically and politically – called communism – but is not complete anarchism. So let’s get past the straw men and talk economics and politics. If you think that there are flaws within a system with that description, then let’s talk about those. If you still want to dispute my claims about Marxism then we will have to review Marx’s words and then reconvene and dispute or agree upon them.
“We all got picked on as kids. When I was twelve two kids beat the hell out of me, one of them using a stick, for no good reason. Did I pull back into my shell and spend the rest of my life running scared and making excuses as you seem to be doing? Hell no.”
“Excuse” is a word that someone uses when one wants to degrade someone’s denunciation of the status quo, of wanting other things to change, rather than oneself. Kinda like how you beat the shit out of someone else, rather than took shit from them. Should I call your fighting back a form of whining, making excuses? I’m telling you that the system is absurd and it needs to change. And if I stopped at talking (although communication is an often underrated part of the process of change), then it could be considered whining, sometimes. But I and the people who end up agreeing with me will do something to change it.
With that said, I don’t want to beat the shit out of someone to make things change. When you change things through violence you only create fear or the desire to fight back. But when you persuade someone that your way of thinking is good, then you have two people willing to work together. If not enough people can agree with me that what I define as Marxism is good, then it doesn’t deserve to be implemented, just like any other idea. But if they do, then why shouldn’t it be?
“As Adam Smith so brilliantly described in Wealth of Nations, when two people voluntarily exchange goods and services both parties do so because they feel that they are getting something worthwhile. For instance, I am a computer programmer and my company pays me a good salary because I produce something that they consider to be worth at least as much as what they paid me. There is no coercion there; it is completely voluntary.”
If it’s actually a good deal for both parties involved, then there is no problem. But I see so many bad deals going on that what results is not a society, but rather people using their predatorial instinct on their fellow human beings, hating and envying each other. People are so concerned with keeping up with the Joneses; I hear rumors in my head of what greater cooperation and community can do. Maybe in an introverted, individual job like computer programming, one doesn’t even consider the need to cooperate, except to know what the client wants. It’s a job with high demand and I’ve not heard of many programmers who had much problem paying the bills. But when you have a system in which people are allowed to stockpile capital and let it sit there, unused, while people without enough property on which to subsist are sitting outside the activity in their community, clamoring over each other to impress these employers more than the others, but ultimately there isn’t going to be enough willingness to hire people until the capital-holders see a guarantee of profit – then you have a problem. When you have a few people deciding how the majority of resources in a community are used, too much of the desires and abilities of the members of that community are going to remain unfulfilled, unused. Here I see an awful suppression of human desire and creativity – not its freedom, as apologists of the status quo see or perhaps lyingly claim. Ultimately, one way or another, that’s what’s going to happen when a few people are predominantly in charge of ensuring the utility of labor and capital, simply from private property laws and the hierarchical structure of industry and commerce. So I want to empower more people to voice their desires and abilities. This may generate a clash between the formerly silent and the traditionally loud, but if the loud aren’t willing to negotiate, then sorry. But my crude arithmetic says that this will end up benefiting everyone more than elitism – it creates a more well-rounded consideration of how materials (and more importantly, human effort) can be used.
So is that kind of social work such a worthless profession, as you claim? Because I don’t see anyone magically improving in the ways I described on their own; just as you saw that people just aren’t or don’t want to be as good at computer programming as you could be, so you filled in the gap for them. Although why you think your job is arbitrarily more valuable than mine (as expressed in my salary) escapes me. People’s contributions to society seem far more equal in value to me than conventional status hierarchies judge them. Okay, so some people have to go to school longer in order to do what they do; cool. But while they were going to school, the non-medical students and non-law students weren’t sitting on their ass, they were working too – and gaining important skills.
Again, just so you know, you’d waste your fingers to insist that I want to brute-force anyone to accept my way of thinking. I’m all about changing people’s minds themselves so they make demands in society for change, along with me. That’s no different than demanding better terms in a business contract.
“You need to expand your view of history beyond the ridiculously discredited crap that Howard Zinn wrote. There is a world of truth and countless examples out there that you are refusing to see.”
Yet another false assumption about what I think. Actually, I’ve had my problems with the book, but a good deal of what I’ve read in that book has been confirmed by other sources, so I don’t see it as “ridiculously discredited crap”. It seemed that he romanticized the people in some spots, but it was shocking to realize just how romanticized the presidents and generals have been in my other encounters with US history. I may be an idealist, but I’m not scared of learning from people with different perspectives, I’m not scared of agreeing that their perspective is more valuable than mine before the discussion occurred, just as I am not scared of seeing my ideals as they are.
“I stated no such thing, please read my statements again without interjecting your twist/interpretation and elucidate what in anything that I wrote is contradictory.”
To say that one is responsible for taking care of oneself in some interactions in society, but responsible for the other parties in other interactions – creates a contradiction. I don’t want to misrepresent you, but it seems that if I agree with your system of thinking, I must say: If someone gets you to sign a contract in which you have the raw end of the deal, even if it’s a less severe raw end than other contracts, then it’s your fault. But if they take money from your person with their hands, it’s their fault. Could you tell me whether I am wrong in saying this? Because it blames the victim in some cases of unfair exchanges, but blames the perpetrator in other cases of unfair exchanges. The resolution of this issue that occurs to me is to create a system in which people overall work together rather than overall trying to gain an advantage over the other. As it is, we live by a very confusing/confused ethical-legal system.
@Tim –
Please read my response to Robert. It answers some of your statements about what I think is a straw man held up to Marxism as written by Marx, rather than Lenin or Mao or any other (disgustingly false) claimant of Marxism, whom those who value human life rightfully despise.
It seems as if you are using your service in the military (which, by the way, is run with a pretty tough and strict hierarchy, in which the common soldier has no voice but only obedience or punishment, like the USSR and Maoist PRC – certainly was so back when you were in) as justification to speak for -our- country more than I may speak for it. Far from being a watchman of freedom above the common rabble, you offend the tradition of American rights by insulting my heritage: the founding fathers’ attempt to make all property-holding male members of this nation equal citizens – and we have expanded that to all US naturally-born human beings. You hold your ideology higher than that foundational imperative to consider “all [humans] equal” by not considering me a brother outright.
You may disagree with me on political specifics but I consider my efforts to dream of what I will practice later – very much a result of the better parts of my upbringing so far. I was raised on Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, which gives hope and value to those whom the dominant voices in society call weak and poor (and weaken and impoverish). I was raised on his story of the sheep and the goats, in which Jesus said that citizenship in heaven was contingent upon whether someone took care of the oppressed (Matthew 25). I was raised looking at the ancient Christian church in Jerusalem, in which its members sold their property and put the proceeds into a communal fund, so that everyone could have adequate care and all were free to do with themselves what they saw best (Acts 2:45-6). I was raised -thinking- that this nation echoes Emma Lazarus poem’, some of which is printed on the Statue of Liberty:
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
But now I see that so many in America don’t want to adequately care for their tired and poor fellow citizens, much less those of the world. (Indeed, US-based corporations still exploit the poor of the world and the US government continues to destroy Afghanistan, one of the poorest nations in the world.) So I resolve to somehow fill in the gap – and I find in my evil, ignorant youth a social system that attempts to care for -all- of its members, rather than preferring people who enter certain professions or who get on the good side of people with bigger gold-piles. Why wouldn’t I, considering all humans inherently equal, strive to make my community see the way I do? Not with guns or window-smashings, but persuasion and leading by example. But you speak to me as if a foreigner, despite the fact that as a social worker I would do nothing -but- care for Americans, doing less to care for myself than the high-salaried.
How insulting. How patronizing. I don’t hold above you the possibility that I may someday work in your nursing home or hospice, calling you un-American for downgrading my importance in society. But I hope someday that -you- see how pro-America it is to empower the lower-middle and lower classes, showing them how to bring themselves up toward equal status with the rich. That’s not forcing people toward mediocrity; that’s moving people and – more importantly – teaching people how to move toward excellence. That’s not genocide; that’s working so that others may live better. I will echo Marx here when looking at some things done in his name even during his lifetime: “If that’s Marxism, then I am not a Marxist.” What you understand me to be is horrible and it harms the nation your family has generally well-served. Fortunately for all of us, you’re way wrong.
(cont’d) @ Tim -
PS: I don’t mean to say the way the military should be run otherwise – I don’t know that. I haven’t read anything more than Sun-Tzu and heard a few service members and their spouses talk about their experiences. I do think that post-traumatic stress disorder should be treated better, listening to a military wife talk about a serious need for more of that. But my point was we have traditionally praised the work of a group that is run far more like a totalitarian dictatorship than we run our civilian lives. Maybe that’s getting off-topic, but – doesn’t it present a problem to the thesis that people are better off when their lives are not dictated to them? I really hope after reading my two comments above that you are not putting that cardboard cut-out of Stalin in front of me and talking to it, because I think it’s something that presents a crisis to something that your political philosophy and mine have in common.
Your last posts seem to represent your position better (or at least I think I now understand it better) than your opening remarks. I would agree that throughout history humans have represented themselves as many things yet, their actions are not representative of those tenants or beliefs and should not be used as examples to vilify those beliefs (your Lenin/Stalin vis a vie Marx is a good example). The number of people that have died in the name of different religions is an oft used example, but the same holds true for political ideologies as well.
Your personal goals sound altruistic, and it would be ‘nice’ to think that all of mankind may someday live in peace and harmony where everyone works towards the common good. Perhaps, someday in the very far future (long after we are all worm-food), something like that may be possible. I personally doubt it, but you are surely welcome to your beliefs and to pursue those goals as long you do it peacefully and within the laws of our nation. I had thought your position was one of advocating violence in order to change the world order and that any and all means were justified to accomplish those goals – as others in history have claimed as they committed genocide for the ‘common good’. If that is not the case, then by all means I encourage you to pursue those goals and wish you great success and happiness.
Having seen up close and personal the unseemly side of human nature, I have less optimism that humanity is ready for or capable of such deeds. There are few Mother Teresa’s in the world, and far more sociopaths than saints. There is an article that has been floating around the web of late titled ‘On Sheep, Wolves and Sheepdogs’, that characterizes human nature into those three categories. (read here if interested: (http://psychjourney_blogs.typepad.com/psychjourney_podcasts/2009/02/on-sheep-sheepdogs-and-wolves.html)
While obviously a gross over-characterization and over-simplification, I do believe there is some basic truth to it, in that there is a small segment of humanity that is predatory. These are the sociopaths who have no regard for human life and will do anything for their own gratification and/or self preservation. The vast majority would prefer to live in peace, but by and large are not capable of or necessarily interested in having to handle the wolves, so that falls to the sheepdogs.
These threads have gotten too long, rambling and a bit acrimonious, so I will keep this one short. I’m not abdicating any points , simply short on time.
Alright. I’m glad we have more common ground than it first seemed.
I’m a sheepdog perhaps, but a sheepdog that wants the sheep to grow tougher foreheads for butting. A system that involves gross inequalities of power, from ownership of capital or from office-holding in government, tend to attract the wolves into acquiring those positions, or entering the circles in which the powerful move. Because I agree with you that the wolves take power in society, one way or another – some are religious leaders, even – more often than the sheepdogs, I think some toughening up of the sheep is in order.
I could go into ideas for bottom-up social reform, but anyway, again, I’m glad that now you and I understand what each other is saying on these issues.
>>” I think some toughening up of the sheep is in order.”
I agree and that is along the lines of what I was referring to in my references to personal responsbility. Every ‘one’ should first accept responsibility for themselves and their actions. IMO – too many people look to government (Fed and State) to bail them out of bad decisions.
That is not to say we should not have any social programs, in fact we must (have some)- but the majority of the current programs seem to ingender dependence and a sense of entitlement, vs helping people back to a position of independence and self-sufficiency. Society has an obligation to protect and help those that are not capable (permanently or temporarily) from protecting or providing for themselves. However, I do not think that the Federal govt has proven themselves to be a good steward of this responsibility. This is one of the primary reasons (IMO), the Federal govt continues to overreach its Constitutional authority, which leads to more socialistic programs, which in turn takes us back to the original purpose in this article.
My opinions for possible solutions, I will leave for another time.
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