Lesson 13: The Communist Manifesto, Part 5

I hold weekly meetings for interested parties here in Hendersonville, NC. This is a synopsis from our 13th meeting.

Synopsis of Week 13 Meeting:

1. There is an inherent flaw in my nature. As a rational and reasonable person, I generally believe that most or all other people are rational and reasonable until proven otherwise. Some may say this is far too egalitarian and generous, giving credence to any number of boobs, nuts, or despots. Yet I find a vast wealth of insights within each range of intelligence and demeanor. The key to it all is sincerity. If one’s presentation is earnest, I find myself listening to it with some intensity. As a youth, this naturally caused some problem as I did not filter, permitting an array of philosophies to come thither, under the umbrella that to learn was to grow. As not a youth, I still ascribe to this mindset, except that I have developed a prejudice, which is that if my individualism is called to question the message is to be ignored, even defeated. Any message which relies on the surrender of my personal sovereignty is in my terminology “master racist,” that is, elitist with the goal to subjugate all beneath. Communism is one of several “master racist” theories, all of which are distasteful or dangerous, or both.

A common denominator among such master racist theories is a tendency to blame the Jews for social and/or economic ills. As we have learned, Marxism is based fully and almost completely on the notion that capitalism, the supposed scourge of all mankind, is derived exclusively from Judaism, and that the Jews, being unable to escape their own religion and/or genetics, must be at the very least reeducated to renounce Judaism. Nazism, the nationalist version of communism, takes this paranoia and hatred to its highest level. Islam has at various times in its history, most strikingly at present, decided that the nation of Israel and the Jews therein are the root cause of Arab misery. Even the Christian religious oligarchy has for most of its history tended to lay much blame on the Jews, leading to many pogroms and persecutions. In so examining these truths, every member of society is at some point forced to make a choice: either (1) take personal responsibility for the ills in one’s life, or (2) place the blame on someone else, that is, play the victim. Note that when things go wrong and the decision is to find a scapegoat, it generally has been the Jew who is so crucified; and this much easier due to master racists having previously laid the groundwork, causing the excuse “there must be something to it.”

We are currently at the forefront of a monsoon for such master racism. Marxists are again blooming with familiar anti-Semitism, locked arm in arm with Neo-Nazis and Islamic fascists. These have many anti-Jewish sympathizers not otherwise affiliated. Fortunately, at this particular juncture in history Christians have made a majority decision to defend the Jews. Perhaps it is that Christians and Jews find themselves in common territory, both blamed and persecuted for current social and economic ailments. Nevertheless, in an attempt to peel away at the capitalist structure, Jews and Christians are bombarded in their respective houses of worship by the Marxist perversion of the “social justice” philosophy. We therefore are on the precipice.

Some have questioned why I focus on the antiquity of Marx when it seems that the pressing need is to fight against the current atmosphere of master racism. When I began this undertaking, I could not respond properly; but I can now tell you quite confidently that to understand Karl Marx is to understand all current events, whether the topic is Big Government, the Euro, Occupy Wall Street, Al Qaeda, or Barack Obama. It’s not that Karl Marx was “right” but that his adherents have made him pervasive, struggling in a never-ending battle to organize human grievances into power blocs, then wielding such power within the realms of politics, war, labor, media, education – everywhere. The victim mentality, once the realm of losers and the mentally deficient, has become ubiquitous, fostered by softening agents such as political correctness, welfare giveaways (including corporate bailouts), fairness doctrines, judicial activism, male feminization, and directed compassion (social justice). Once established, Victims are focused against the Oppressor. This direction is by a “Savior,” that is, a doctrine which is the antithesis of the Oppressor. The acceptance of such Savior (communism, for example) comes irrespective of its flaws in that “at least it’s not the same old thing.”

The fact that such progression of events recurs every day, sweeping with it those in society so predisposed to utopian solutions, indicates that individualistic and sovereign ideology has been permitted to go weak and flabby. The nature of Law, whether we say through Torah or Constitution, is attacked every day as relative (for the atheist), outdated (for the anarchist), and exploitative (for the communist). Private property, absolutely protected by the Law, is viewed as imperialistic. The ownership of guns, meant to defend private property, is subjected to its own war. Freedom of religion, speech, assembly, and the press is proposed as only meant for those who weep for the common good. In all things and in every way, the individual is being forced to choose between personal autonomy and hive mentality. More and more, the latter is being touted as the remedy for a variety of personal maladies and inconveniences, and is further supported by the ideology of “utilitarianism” which benefits the “general welfare,” overturning the “atomism” of libertarianism (a fallacy in itself).

We are hurtling towards destruction by, in a word, envy. Not that coveting is a new idea; after all, it’s covered by the Ten Commandments. The problem is that, down to the least fiber of society, such godly mandates have not been enforced. There used to be a time when the street-corner communist would not be permitted to continue his diatribe, run off by citizens or even the local beat cop; now, under the aegis of “freedom of speech,” the communist is given even more right than the preacher, though the former is to every degree a traitor and the latter at worst a nuisance. The schoolroom, once under indirect supervision by the parent, is now a breeding ground for perversion and treason, the teacher of such trash often protected by the local school board. And let us not forget Washington DC, ground zero for central planning, where actual communists, socialists, and assorted eugenicists chair entire divisions of government.

But I submit that we are to blame. We, the individualists who are shocked at the state of the country and the world, have done little to stop it. When we vote, we choose pocketbook over principle. When we shop, we give little thought to our community. When we educate, we don’t choose our materials carefully. We don’t want to get too involved, because it means a loss of free time or some social ostracism. Many feel that perhaps it’s dangerous, leading to fights or prison. We are tired and scared. And so many give in, throw hands in the air, and surrender to the winds of change. Once so surrendered, these cynical become tools of master racists; for they who no longer want to be tired or scared begin to mock and criticize those who have not been themselves defeated. There is thus an envy against fortitude, seeking to destroy thy neighbor’s soul.

This goes beyond just a difference of opinions. This is a struggle between good and evil.

2. Let us continue now with more drivel from The Communist Manifesto:

“No sooner is the exploitation of the laborer by the manufacturer, so far, at an end, that he receives his wages in cash, than he is set upon by the other portions of the bourgeoisie, the landlord, the shopkeeper, the pawnbroker, etc.”

Poor little laborer. Born into a certain class, unable to move up the ladder, always to be under the thumb of the elite. Hooey! This is entirely middle-European medieval thinking, and has nothing to do with other various locales and time-slips, including that of the United States. Likewise, such an economic caste system is unlike Judaism in nearly every respect and much more like Hinduism. Furthermore, with the luxury of historical hindsight, we know that such a scenario is more indicative of communism than capitalism; for the subjugation of the laborer is mandatory in a society which proscribes a set portion for all things.

“The lower strata of the middle class — the small tradespeople, shopkeepers, and retired tradesmen generally, the handicraftsmen and peasants — all these sink gradually into the proletariat, partly because their diminutive capital does not suffice for the scale on which Modern Industry is carried on, and is swamped in the competition with the large capitalists, partly because their specialized skill is rendered worthless by new methods of production. Thus the proletariat is recruited from all classes of the population.”

Notice that in Marx’s static world, everyone remains ageless (figuratively speaking) and immobile, as if new workers are not constantly being born or emigrating from here to there. Marx builds a terra totally industrialized, without regard for natural rights. He is not describing true capitalism or republicanism but instead a dystopia which will juxtapose nicely to his proposed utopia. Marx is one of the great swindlers of all time.

The existence of such oppressed populations bestows on Marx a type of visionary status. For if an historical oligarchy of the aforementioned nature can be applied, the fantasy world of Marxism is brought to life in vivid color. Then, it is a simple matter to sway by emotional redress the sympathies of a great crowd. That common folk have been poorly represented, both politically and economically, in many ways and many times, is a fact. Yet, the slow evolution of free societies from barbaric (autocratic) frameworks is not evidence that Marx’s government by mob rule (democracy) has in the past or will in the future work to any more efficient or fair degree. In fact, just the opposite.

The folly of Marxism therefore cannot be overstated. If the idealized stateless society (that is, without rule of law) is successfully implemented, it must denigrate back to the very barbarism it presupposes to overcome. The French Revolution is the prime example for such mayhem. However, no “democratic” revolution, not even the French, was ever literally “stateless.” Due to human nature, barbarism and “the new boss” takes over immediately. Yet, rather than acceding to history and logic, the Marxist sees this impurity of former revolutions as still providing an opportunity for “true” collectivism to one day reign. It is this eternal optimism of the human spirit which Marx has kidnapped, and for which hundreds of millions have needlessly been murdered.

The collectivist dreamer is the Marxist’s greatest ally, for he is the architect, having the greatest passion.

The collectivist who dissents from Marx may only find such freedom within the representative capitalism he believes to disdain. The collectivist who finds his solace in imaginations of a brave new world has only this liberty to daydream while in a free and individualistic society. That is, the “enemy” of the collectivist is actually his only friend (but the reverse is not true).

“The proletariat goes through various stages of development. With its birth begins its struggle with the bourgeoisie. At first the contest is carried on by individual laborers, then by the workpeople of a factory, then by the operative of one trade, in one locality, against the individual bourgeois who directly exploits them. They direct their attacks not against the bourgeois conditions of production, but against the instruments of production themselves; they destroy imported wares that compete with their labor, they smash to pieces machinery, they set factories ablaze, they seek to restore by force the vanished status of the workman of the Middle Ages.”

Marx is a great showman, but he perhaps believes his own tripe. Either way, he is a sociopath, a description applied to him also by his “friend” (and “father of modern anarchy”) Bakunin [see previous Synopses].

That the small updrafts of revolution felt in Europe would seem to predate later upheavals is a myth. In fact, except for the French Revolution (and even this is probably suspect), all communist uprisings have not been spontaneous but deliberate agitations. But the pure evil and hatred from the French masses has never since been equaled, and every community organizer who so wishes has a form of “revolution envy.”

“At this stage, the laborers still form an incoherent mass scattered over the whole country, and broken up by their mutual competition. If anywhere they unite to form more compact bodies, this is not yet the consequence of their own active union, but of the union of the bourgeoisie, which class, in order to attain its own political ends, is compelled to set the whole proletariat in motion, and is moreover yet, for a time, able to do so. At this stage, therefore, the proletarians do not fight their enemies, but the enemies of their enemies, the remnants of absolute monarchy, the landowners, the non-industrial bourgeois, the petty bourgeois. Thus, the whole historical movement is concentrated in the hands of the bourgeoisie; every victory so obtained is a victory for the bourgeoisie.”

Whether Marx is speaking figuratively or literally, this is the danger we all face. For when the working man (proletariat) is organized to “help” the middle class to defeat the excesses of the rich, there appears to be a common cause under which everyone wins.

Note, however, the progressive agenda. At first, the working man intends only that the “non-working” rich (monarchy, landowners, non-industrial [key!] bourgeois, and petty bourgeois) be removed from their offices, even from their wealth, for they are “non-productive” members of society. These are by Marx called “enemies of their enemies.” Thus, the middle class, whose goal has been to be upper class, find themselves driven backwards by an ideology of envy, focusing no longer on their own self-interest but on the habits and living conditions of the “non-working” rich.

In a modern example, the middle class daily hears how the “banksters” have stolen the future while providing no reasonable service to the community. The medieval fear of Machiavellian (or perhaps Papal) economics is freshly driven through minds of mush, aptly prepared through university education and media bombardment. Therefore, the question becomes not whether “banksters” provide value but rather in which manner shall we dispose of them. A lynch mob is gathered.

The emotional storm which may be summoned by envy should never be underestimated. Certainly, Marx was aware of such power (see Marx and Satanism in Synopsis Week 3). Nevertheless, the morality of a bankster resides only in the rule of law (Constitution, Torah), not in one’s relative social or economic position.

If a bank has been bailed out by tax dollars, the target of contempt ought not be the bank but the politician and bureaucrat who voted for, authorized and financed that bailout. Such public officials have no recourse; they either provide common value by their representative service or they do not. If not, their ouster is the vote. It is thus the height of insanity, immorality, and illogic to protest a bank for receiving bailout funds but not to unseat the corrupt politician who greased all the squeaky wheels. Once again, we the people are to blame for being led by emotion and not pragmatic thought.

The banker who fails is not subject to such public scrutiny. This is a private sector matter, and the banker’s perceived value is denoted by his dismissal or retainer.

Marx, however, attempts to flip the tables, claiming that the private sector ought to be under the scrutiny, command, and authority of the workers themselves (the dictatorship of the proletariat), where no man may achieve without consensus. Only the Marxist idealist, driven by blind emotion, could be deceived to such totalitarianism. Yet, there are many such idealistic fools, and therein lies our destiny.

But with the development of industry, the proletariat not only increases in number; it becomes concentrated in greater masses, its strength grows, and it feels that strength more. The various interests and conditions of life within the ranks of the proletariat are more and more equalised, in proportion as machinery obliterates all distinctions of labour, and nearly everywhere reduces wages to the same low level. The growing competition among the bourgeois, and the resulting commercial crises, make the wages of the workers ever more fluctuating. The increasing improvement of machinery, ever more rapidly developing, makes their livelihood more and more precarious; the collisions between individual workmen and individual bourgeois take more and more the character of collisions between two classes. Thereupon, the workers begin to form combinations (Trades’ Unions) against the bourgeois; they club together in order to keep up the rate of wages; they found permanent associations in order to make provision beforehand for these occasional revolts. Here and there, the contest breaks out into riots.

The difference between local and central economics is made. Yet, Marx is either blind to or unwilling to inform that it is central economic planning which is the maker of tumult. While pretending to care for local trade and production, Marx simultaneously makes the case against private property ownership and the “fascist” police element which protects it. This confusion is necessary for Marxism to triumph.

Local economies naturally thrive to better degree of affability and affordability, but even at such a small unit level the protection of property, whether through central police force or by individual gun ownership, is proper and essential. For if a trained police force is conscripted by a tyrannical central government, it is mandatory that the people have their own musketry in order to save themselves from poverty or extinction. Marxism denies the authority for a central government (capitalism) but still insists on a new and undeniable central government, the crafty “dictatorship of the proletariat.” The question is and shall always be, however, “And what if I as a free being reject that central authority?”

Now and then the workers are victorious, but only for a time. The real fruit of their battles lies, not in the immediate result, but in the ever expanding union of the workers. This union is helped on by the improved means of communication that are created by modern industry, and that place the workers of different localities in contact with one another. It was just this contact that was needed to centralize the numerous local struggles, all of the same character, into one national struggle between classes. But every class struggle is a political struggle. And that union, to attain which the burghers of the Middle Ages, with their miserable highways, required centuries, the modern proletarian, thanks to railways, achieve in a few years.

Simply speaking, Marx credits the capitalists for slitting their own throats. When ventures to mass market transportation and communication devices succeed, it is an unwitting “victory” for the working man, who can turn these means of “oppression” on the Oppressors. This is called twisted logic; for neither the bourgeoisie nor proletariat ever has in mind such connivance, but only the Marxist agitator-organizer sees technological marvels as opportunities to destroy the very system which created them.

This organization of the proletarians into a class, and, consequently into a political party, is continually being upset again by the competition between the workers themselves. But it ever rises up again, stronger, firmer, mightier. It compels legislative recognition of particular interests of the workers, by taking advantage of the divisions among the bourgeoisie itself. Thus, the ten-hours’ bill in England was carried.

Marx here uses hindsight to rewrite history. It was not conspiracy which drove industry to exploit men but only the necessity of growth. The working class took the meager increase in living standards as a fair trade for unfair business practices, until at last the industry barons understood by both safety issues and labor strikes that minimal investment would not cut it. But only the Marxist would view this voluntary contract for subsistence as forced slavery. Whether the conditions allow or not for such a comparison, the fact is that no police force kept these industrial workers chained to their posts; and therefore liberty, even if not libertine, is a better lot in life than the Negro slavery of the United States and elsewhere.

Regarding changes in labor laws, these too are driven by men of character, not only disgruntled proletariat. For without the cooperation of sane and moral leaders (in business, in politics), an upset working class should not exist in the face of fascism and brutality. Marx excludes those elements of moral influence – the family and the church – which impact the social evolution he so dearly (and inaccurately) historicizes.

Altogether collisions between the classes of the old society further, in many ways, the course of development of the proletariat. The bourgeoisie finds itself involved in a constant battle. At first with the aristocracy; later on, with those portions of the bourgeoisie itself, whose interests have become antagonistic to the progress of industry; at all time with the bourgeoisie of foreign countries. In all these battles, it sees itself compelled to appeal to the proletariat, to ask for help, and thus, to drag it into the political arena. The bourgeoisie itself, therefore, supplies the proletariat with its own elements of political and general education, in other words, it furnishes the proletariat with weapons for fighting the bourgeoisie.

Beyond the dramatic claptrap, Marx sets the stage for subversion. Those who read this script are apt to believe that military enlistment is a step towards insurrection, but true moral documents (Torah, Constitution) comment upon such treason.

The fact that the upper class normally conscripts or appeals to the working and middle classes for military might and protection does not necessarily designate a lack of courage, or even elitism. To categorize the upper class as mere shells of human beings is an emotional nip to unduly glorify the lower classes. In fact, many “elite” began as mere grunts. Marx thus ignores (likely, intentionally) all of the capitalist rags-to-riches and private-to-general biographies which do not further his narrative of an inescapable caste system.

Further, as we have already seen, entire sections of the ruling class are, by the advance of industry, precipitated into the proletariat, or are at least threatened in their conditions of existence. These also supply the proletariat with fresh elements of enlightenment and progress.

This goes back to Marx’s view that each evolutionary step in economic progress rearranges the social order, so that a former Oppressor may become a future Victim. Thereby, no vestige of possible grievance is left unattended, all such complaints fodder for Marxist organizational power.

Finally, in times when the class struggle nears the decisive hour, the progress of dissolution going on within the ruling class, in fact within the whole range of old society, assumes such a violent, glaring character, that a small section of the ruling class cuts itself adrift, and joins the revolutionary class, the class that holds the future in its hands. Just as, therefore, at an earlier period, a section of the nobility went over to the bourgeoisie, so now a portion of the bourgeoisie goes over to the proletariat, and in particular, a portion of the bourgeois ideologists, who have raised themselves to the level of comprehending theoretically the historical movement as a whole.

In other words, people begin to choose sides between rich and poor, whether or not that is their actual place in the “caste” system.

Marx is thus a hypocrite. If the division of classes is, as Marx claims, a trick of the bourgeoisie, Marxism’s playing of an “unfairness” card (that is, with negative emotions, distinguishing between rich and poor) is itself bourgeoisie! In modern parlance, Marx has raised a type of false flag. To go further, in his Pharisaic hypocrisy (saying and not doing), Marx is the ultimate false prophet and unmasked non-savior; for he has broken a cardinal commandment in that he is a respecter of men (that is, of classes).

Of all the classes that stand face to face with the bourgeoisie today, the proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class. The other classes decay and finally disappear in the face of Modern Industry; the proletariat is its special and essential product.

A burst of pride from Marx fixates his acolytes to believe they are special, all the while breaking the code that no one is any more special than another. This is the ideology which bespeaks the master racism we have formerly explored.

The lower middle class, the small manufacturer, the shopkeeper, the artisan, the peasant, all these fight against the bourgeoisie, to save from extinction their existence as fractions of the middle class. They are therefore not revolutionary, but conservative. Nay more, they are reactionary, for they try to roll back the wheel of history. If by chance, they are revolutionary, they are only so in view of their impending transfer into the proletariat; they thus defend not their present, but their future interests, they desert their own standpoint to place themselves at that of the proletariat.

A line between “true revolutionary” vs. “poser” is drawn. Those who join the side of the proletariat for the sake of preserving some trace of their social and economic status are viewed as useful idiots, purposeful puppets of the “cause” until such time that the chaff may be separated from the wheat. There will be, after all, a litmus test following the revolution. They will turn on and eat their own.

Note that the “lower middle class” also denotes their children. Those offspring of the upper class down to the middle class may be counted on to revolt against their own parents’ “degeneracy.” Nevertheless, the lower middle class are in many ways true believers, not yet having reached the stratum of “made men.” They have neither enough “stuff” to protect nor too much to “throw off their shackles.” The class distinctions here are important, for they also attribute loyalty and ferocity to the revolution. Marx is therefore showing us part of his playbook.

The “dangerous class”, [lumpenproletariat] the social scum, that passively rotting mass thrown off by the lowest layers of the old society, may, here and there, be swept into the movement by a proletarian revolution; its conditions of life, however, prepare it far more for the part of a bribed tool of reactionary intrigue.

War-gaming with Marx is a brutal business. His view on the ultra-poor is truly frightening, savaging them as mainly traitors by way of their longing for even the level of working class.

Note that at no time does Marx give any value to conscience, morality, or his arch-nemesis - conversion through repentance.

In the condition of the proletariat, those of old society at large are already virtually swamped. The proletarian is without property; his relation to his wife and children has no longer anything in common with the bourgeois family relations; modern industry labor, modern subjection to capital, the same in England as in France, in America as in Germany, has stripped him of every trace of national character. Law, morality, religion, are to him so many bourgeois prejudices, behind which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeois interests.

After having separated out by economic and social class the ethnography of each, Marx pretends to have some superior wisdom and ordinance. Marx lays heavily into his mortal enemies – law (Torah, Constitution), morality (family, individuality, rights), and religion (faith, conviction). In effect, he means to isolate any proletariat who would adhere to old codes of conduct. Reshaping the psyche is an important piece to Marxism (it should be mentioned that Marx’s approach is quite primitive compared to the psy-ops from, say, Saul Alinsky).

All the preceding classes that got the upper hand sought to fortify their already acquired status by subjecting society at large to their conditions of appropriation. The proletarians cannot become masters of the productive forces of society, except by abolishing their own previous mode of appropriation, and thereby also every other previous mode of appropriation. They have nothing of their own to secure and to fortify; their mission is to destroy all previous securities for, and insurances of, individual property.

At last Marx makes known his ulterior goal: the dissolution and destruction of private property. Contracts are to be ignored, including that made between God and men (Torah, Ten Commandments), and between governments and men (Magna Carta, Constitution). It might be argued that I oversimplify, but there is not reason to overcomplicate. Remove these elements of belief from society and there is a resulting chaos which must be managed. Whether or not Marxism is capable to implement such management has been the subject of argument from moment one. Nevertheless, the totalitarianism of supposed communist nations proves outright that Marxist “management” has been and likely will always be at the point of the sword.

The insecurity which Marx seeks to breed is, he supposes, followed by a necessity for security. Philosophically, this has been a template for control over great nations and even religions, but whether insecurity by destabilization of economic framework may be equitably mollified by a promise of “enough” (each according to his needs) has already been answered. Human nature is to want “more” and that is not going to be kosher in the Marxist world to come.

All previous historical movements were movements of minorities, or in the interest of minorities. The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority. The proletariat, the lowest stratum of our present society, cannot stir, cannot raise itself up, without the whole superincumbent strata of official society being sprung into the air.

While this statement of fact appears to be a self-effacing boldness, it also is a misnomer, if not an outright lie. For though the proletariat truly hold the reins to all power, whether by the vote or by the pocketbook, or even by the rising tide, the fact is that most people just want to be left alone. Thus, the age-old question “Why doesn’t somebody do something?” is often met with blank stares and fingers pointing in other directions.

It is not true, however, that the proletariat are paralyzed with fear, or forced to submit through fascism or denaturing their water with fluoride. Instead, there is a normalcy bias which occludes much conversation regarding “fighting City Hall.” The working class are basically good moral folks who would like to see their children do somewhat better than they, while they themselves enjoy a land of liberty which protects all hard-won property rights and certain natural civil rights.

The “minority” to which Marx reflects is not ethnic but economic. He means “the 1%.”

Though not in substance, yet in form, the struggle of the proletariat with the bourgeoisie is at first a national struggle. The proletariat of each country must, of course, first of all settle matters with its own bourgeoisie.

The worldwide urge he describes is settled first nation by nation, as if debts must be paid. Frightening is only the start of it, but Marx is casual towards tacit genocide.

In depicting the most general phases of the development of the proletariat, we traced the more or less veiled civil war, raging within existing society, up to the point where that war breaks out into open revolution, and where the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie lays the foundation for the sway of the proletariat.

A summary.

Hitherto, every form of society has been based, as we have already seen, on the antagonism of oppressing and oppressed classes. But in order to oppress a class, certain conditions must be assured to it under which it can, at least, continue its slavish existence. The serf, in the period of serfdom, raised himself to membership in the commune, just as the petty bourgeois, under the yoke of the feudal absolutism, managed to develop into a bourgeois. The modern labourer, on the contrary, instead of rising with the process of industry, sinks deeper and deeper below the conditions of existence of his own class. He becomes a pauper, and pauperism develops more rapidly than population and wealth. And here it becomes evident, that the bourgeoisie is unfit any longer to be the ruling class in society, and to impose its conditions of existence upon society as an over-riding law. It is unfit to rule because it is incompetent to assure an existence to its slave within his slavery, because it cannot help letting him sink into such a state, that it has to feed him, instead of being fed by him. Society can no longer live under this bourgeoisie, in other words, its existence is no longer compatible with society.

Only a collectivist would see the futility in permitting individual rights to define a community. Whereas the individualist libertarian sees such free market exercise (whether in economics or society per se) as morally superior, shaping the community to its unique talent base, the true collectivist marks it all as inhumane and immoral. Meanwhile, the Marxist manipulates this grievance, endeavoring to take the Thesis (libertarianism) and Antithesis (collectivist community) to the predetermined Synthesis (Marxism).

There is of course so little truth to Marx’s depiction of capitalist and libertarian society that one should think it unnecessary to comment, but comment we must for the sake of the naïve and aggrieved. Thus, briefly, Marx’s statement applies only to the sliver of human interaction which still pretends that a monarch is chosen by God, or that industry may freely pollute without restraint. By every measure, capitalism has evolved to the point where such fundamental rules may never again be breached. Oppositely, historical evidence shows that those nations called communist have been lax with their environmental conditions and tyrannical in their authoritarianism, thus causing massive economic and societal damage.

An example of such Marxist double-talk concerns the boom-bust business cycle, commonly blamed on the excesses of capitalism but which is in reality a result of communitarian Keynesian economics. Since 1913, the Federal Reserve has implemented a policy of fractional banking and fiat money, adding tons of phony bills into the system, all in the name of promoting (or perhaps more accurately, providing) technological progress. The first boom wave lasted 16 years and ended about 1929, and was followed by a 16-year bust wave ending about 1945. This bust was caused by investment in a weak market, specifically, initial public offerings (IPO’s). Roosevelt’s New Deal did nothing but exacerbate the effects of the economic hangover known as the Great Depression, the Fed blasting out their notes at a record pace. By the end of World War II, the United States was flush with capital and an increased money supply courtesy of the Federal Reserve. Spurred by this infusion, as well as some reduced government spending, America boomed again, leading to another excess that overran the actual strength of the economy and/or currency. The end of the 1960’s brought another bust, and Richard Nixon made a public surrender of the US Dollar in 1971 by putting an official end to the gold standard (though in reality Roosevelt had effectively outlawed that standard by his 1930’s gold seizure). After the great malaise of the 1970’s, Ronald Reagan returned a bit of discipline to federal spending, taxation, and regulation. From about 1982 to about 1996, the money supply in real terms actually shrank, accompanied by a terrific American economic revival as well as a corrective (though criminal) “savings and loan crisis.” Yet, the Keynesian model did not go away and printing resumed with ferocity, causing both the dot-com bubble (1995-2001) and the housing market bubble (1995-2008) to crumble. Bailouts for favored losers followed, causing even more havoc by a fomenting money supply sent into weak markets (good money after bad). This has left America with the prospect of a decades-long recovery.

What has this to do with our subject? Just that for more than 100 years it has been the collectivist Keynesian model running aground the economy and currency of the United States. Yet the passive-aggressive behavior of the collectivist blames capitalism for the inherent flaws of this failed economic system, despite the fact that Keynesianism has since 1913 ruled the overall ebb and flow. The success of American capitalism is that even within the Keynesian model of fake money, we have been able to create real technology, grow real businesses, build real houses, even manufacture real ballistic missiles. Though on the back of phony notes, capitalism understands the nature of individualism and creativity, rejecting collectivism. The backlash is that Keynesians view capitalists as “ungrateful” for the opportunity, but in reality it has been capitalism which has caused Keynesianism to appear successful! Thus, one might credible assert that capitalism is to be credited for all the growth; and Keynesianism to blame for all the terrible recessions and depressions, and the fact that the United States has no gold standard or other strong basis for its currency.

The essential conditions for the existence and for the sway of the bourgeois class is the formation and augmentation of capital; the condition for capital is wage-labor. Wage-labor rests exclusively on competition between the laborers. The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the laborers, due to competition, by the revolutionary combination, due to association. The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.

Interestingly, Marx embraces the “alienation” of the working class from its value as both laborer and human being. Naturally, this is tactical, since such alienation is useful to stoking the fires of revolution. That the alienated working class has produced from capitalist dreams the means of capitalist destruction Marx finds ironic; but he nevertheless fails to mention the increase in living standard and personal freedom which capitalism has afforded to nearly every person – things which the revolutionary must be willing to refute – things which Marx depicts as “bribes” from the elite.

Marx can, however, provide no surety. America has disproved Marx’s theory in toto. Capitalism continues to struggle its way to victory even under Keynesian economics and socialist entitlement programs provided by infiltrators and sympathizers. The American arena is very different from that of Europe. Americans do not bow to coercion, whether communist or fascist (at least not knowingly). They do not engage in perpetual civil wars and they detest class warfare. America itself was founded by common folk, for common folk. Essentially, America is closest to a “stateless utopia” (small government) – and at this the Marxist gnashes his teeth.

Next Week: We conclude The Communist Manifesto. Promise!