by Caleb Nelson
[205] Every emergency, whether real or imagined, is an excuse for a power-grab. Statism designates concentration of power in the state at the expense of individual liberty, with the state having power over every sphere of human activity.
As Ernst Huber, an official Nazi party spokesman said in 1933, “The concept of personal liberties of the individual as opposed to the authority of the state had to disappear . . . . There are no personal liberties of the individual which fall outside the realm of the state and which must be respected by the state . . . . The constitution of the nationalistic Reich is therefore not based upon a system of inborn and unalienable rights of the individual.”
[206]
George W. F. Hegel, one of Germany’s most prominent philosophers, stated the fundamentals of statism thus, “A single person . . . is something subordinate, and as such he must dedicate himself to the ethical whole. Hence if the state claims life, the individual must surrender it.”
[207] He didn’t stop there, however. To Hegel, the State wasn’t merely a secular entity, but a manifestation of God, “the Divine Idea as it exists on earth.” Thus, the purpose of the State is not the protection of its citizens, because it is not the means to any human end. The State is an “absolute unmoved end in itself” with supreme right against the individual! Hitler wrote that, “The state must act as the guardian of a millennial future, in the face of which the wishes and the selfishness of the individual must appear as nothing and submit.”[208]
Leonard Peikoff, writing on what he called, “Hitler’s war against reason,” observed that “statism and the advocacy of reason are philosophical opposites. They cannot coexist—neither in a philosophic system nor in a nation.”
[209] Such a contradiction is the primary source and cause of today’s political and economic woes. Those problems come when a freedom-loving nation is clamoring to be chained down by statist ideology. American leaders have been openly statist for over a century, as Woodrow Wilson clearly showed us when he said, “I am perfectly sure that the state has got to control everything that everybody uses.”[210]
Slowly, Americans have been led to believe that men should not deal with one another as free agents via persuasion, but that the only way men can deal with one another is through physical force wielded by an elite government. The heart of totalitarianism is that the collective holds all rights, and the individual has none.
We will now move on to a discussion of the collectivist philosophies as applied to the political systems of Communism, Socialism, Fascism, and Democracy.
PART 2: COMMUNISM
“Remember the Roman Emperor who said he wished humanity had a single neck so he could cut it? People have laughed at him for centuries. But we’ll have the last laugh. We’ve accomplished what he couldn’t accomplish. We’ve taught men to unite. This makes one neck ready for one leash. We found the magic word. Collectivism.” – Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead
Communism is a social structure in which classes are abolished and property is commonly controlled, as well as a political philosophy and social movement that advocates and aims to create such a society.
“Pure Communism,” in the Marxist sense, refers to a classless, stateless, and “oppression-free” society where decisions on what to produce and what policies to pursue are made democratically, allowing every member of society to participate in the decision-making process in both the political and economic spheres of life.
(In Communist literature, “bourgeoisie [means] the class of modern capitalists, owners of the means of social production and employers of wage labor . . . . Proletariat [means] the class of modern wage labourers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labour power in order to live.”)
[211]
The founders of modern Communism, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, decided it was man’s duty to remake the world in a fashion that would best preserve mankind. They accepted the fact that this would be a cruel and ruthless task, involving the destruction of all who opposed it. With a clean sweep, Communist leadership would gradually introduce a society of perfect harmony for all future ages.
However, Marx and Engels also realized that they would have to develop a new view on morality and ethics for their Communist followers. As Lenin said, “Our morality is wholly subordinated to the interests of the class struggle of the proletariat.”
[212] To the Communist, whatever pragmatically works to bring about the Communist ideals is morally good; whatever does not is morally bad. It is not wrong to lie, steal, cheat, or even kill if it is for a “good” cause. In the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels stated plainly that Communism “abolishes eternal truths, it abolishes . . . all morality.”
[213]
Karl Marx
[xv]
A twentieth century American Marxist, William Foster, said it this way, “With [the Communist], the end justifies the means. Whether his tactics be ‘legal’ or ‘moral’ or not, does not concern him, so long as they are effective pragmatically. He knows that the laws as well as the current code of morals are made by his mortal enemies . . . Consequently, he ignores them insofar as he is able, and it suits his purposes. He proposes to develop, regardless of capitalist conceptions of ‘legality,’ ‘fairness,’ ‘right,’ etc., a greater power than his capitalist enemies have . . .”
[214]
HISTORY’S ONE EVIL ACCORDING TO COMMUNISM
The Marxists have a special interpretation of history. They try to explain all human progress in terms of class struggle. They apply a pairing of opposites to their version of history. All past societies, according to Communist theory, have been a combination of opposite forces or classes—“freeman and slave, patrician and plebian, lord and serf, guildmaster and journeyman, in a word oppressor and oppressed.”[215]
There was one evil which was responsible for all past conflicts and will be the cause of one last great and terrible class struggle. All selfishness, jealousy, struggle, and war were traced to one root cause—private property. Marx called this “the leading question,” and said that, “the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of Private Property.”
[216] If you could get rid of that, he contended, as well as “that single unconscionable freedom—free trade,” there would be no more fighting because there would be nothing to fight over![217] (Marxists fail to distinguish between the right of private property and the abuse of private property.)
They were also wrong about the causes of war. Private property has never been the issue. The cause of war is linked to a belief which is still vibrantly infectious today, and one which Communists hold dear—the belief that the initiation of physical force is acceptable.
Marx considered material possessions to be anathema to the fulfillment of human nature. He wrote that the “enemy of being is having,” that “the less you eat, drink and read books; the less you go to the theatre, the dance hall, the public house; the less you think, love, theorize, sing, paint, fence, etc . . . .—The greater becomes your treasure which neither moths nor dust will devour . . . . The less you are, the more you have; the less you express your own life, the greater is your . . . life.”
[218]
COMMUNIST GOALS
The Communist Manifesto states ten goals to be accomplished in the progress towards pure Communism. These are important to recognize, both to identify the progress Communists have made in these areas in all countries of the world, and to identify why these things will further the movement to abolish private property. We have included them here as a reference:
1. “Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.”
2. “A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.”
3. “Abolition of all rights of inheritance.”
4. “Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.”
5. “Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an
exclusive monopoly.”
6. “Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state.”
7. “Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.”
8. “Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.”
9. “Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.”
10. “Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc.”
[219]
Communism not only denies the right of private property, but as we can see in point 8, above, “Equal obligation of all to work,” it also denies explicitly the right to liberty. In theory and in practice, Marxism/Communism denies all individual rights.
Friedrich Engels
[xvi]
The Principles of Communism, by Engels, advocated further measures against the evils of private property:
1. “Limitation of private property through progressive taxation, heavy inheritance taxes, abolition of inheritance.”
2. “Gradual expropriation of landowners, industrialists, railroad magnates and ship-owners, partly through competition by state industry, partly directly through compensation in the form of bonds.”
3. “Confiscation of the possessions of all emigrants and rebels against the majority of the people.”
4. “Organization of labor or employment of proletarians on publicly owned land, in factories and workshops, with competition among the workers being abolished and with the factory owners, insofar as they still exist, being obliged to pay the same high wages as those paid by the state.”
5. “An equal obligation on all members of society to work until such time as private property has been completely abolished. Formation of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.”
6. “Centralization of money and credit in the hands of the state through a national bank with state capital, and the suppression of all private banks and bankers.”
7. “Increase in the number of national factories, workshops, railroads, ships; bringing new lands into cultivation and improvement of land already under cultivation—all in proportion to the growth of the capital and labor force at the disposal of the nation.”
8. “Education of all children, from the moment they can leave their mother’s care, in national establishments at national cost. Education and production together.”
9. “Construction, on public lands, of great palaces as communal dwellings for associated groups of citizens engaged in both industry and agriculture and combining in their way of life the advantages of urban and rural conditions while avoiding the one-sidedness and drawbacks of each.”
10. “Destruction of all unhealthy and jerry-built dwellings in urban districts.”
11. “Equal inheritance rights for children born in and out of wedlock.”
12. “Concentration of all means of transportation in the hands of the nation.”
[220]
THE FAMILY AND PRIVATE PROPERTY
Point 8, above, demands government education of children from an early age. What does the education of children have to do with the abolishment of private property? Engels claimed that the institution of marriage was exploitation and Communists should aim to abolish “the dependence rooted in private property, of the women on the man, and of the children on the parents.” Marx decried the “exploitation of children by their parents.”[221]
We’ve shown that all property rights are linked with ownership of your own body. Observe in the following excerpt the fruits of the abolition of all private property, including that of your body. Marx claimed that the Communists would abolish private property to its fullest logical extent when he described how he desired to introduce “an openly legalized community of women.”
[222]
“Community,” in this sense, is the term applied to all communal property under Communism. Some Russian Communists initially attempted to live as true Marxists and in some places mandated that all women were common property. An excerpt from a decree of the Soviet of Saratov (a soviet is a popularly elected legislative assembly) illustrates this and is worth quoting at length to get some sense of the Communist mindset:
“Beginning with March 1, 1919, the right to possess women between the ages of 17 and 32 is abolished . . . By virtue of the present decree no woman can any longer be considered as private property and all women become the property of the nation . . . All women thus put at the disposition of the nation must, within three days after the publication of the present decree, present themselves in person at the address indicated and provide all necessary information . . . .
“Any man who wishes to make use of a nationalized woman must hold a certificate issued by the administrative Council of a professional union, or by the Soviet of workers, soldiers or peasants, attesting that he belongs to the working class . . . . Every worker is required to turn in 2% of his salary to the fund . . . . Male citizens not belonging to the working class may enjoy the same rights provided they pay a sum equivalent to 250 French francs, which will be turned over to the public fund . . . . Any women who by virtue of the present decree will be declared national property will receive from the public fund a salary equivalent to 575 French francs a month . . .
“Any pregnant woman will be dispensed of her duties for four months before and three months after the birth of the child . . . . One month after birth, children will be placed in an institution entrusted with their care and education. They will remain there to complete their instruction and education at the expense of the national fund until they reach the age of seventeen . . . . All those who refuse to recognize the present decree and to cooperate with the authorities shall be declared enemies of the people . . . and shall suffer the consequences.”
[223]
Another decision handed down by a Soviet official said: “There is no such thing as a woman being violated by a man; he who says that a violation is wrong denies the October Communist Revolution. To defend a violated woman is to reveal oneself as a bourgeois and a partisan of private property.”
[224]
ECONOMIC DETERMINISM
One irreducible feature the Marxist view of history was called “determinism,” which denied that man had free will, or agency, to make choices. He was believed to have no choice because his actions were determined by his nature. In the Communist Manifesto, it was proposed that men could not choose whatever form of society they wanted, but only one which promoted the prevailing mode of production. Your society makes your ideas, they said, not you. “Your very ideas are but the outgrowth of conditions of your bourgeois production and bourgeois property, just as your [system of law] is but the will of your class, made into law for all, a will whose essential character and direction are determined by the economic conditions of existence of your class.”
[225] In Poverty of Philosophy, Marx said, “Are men free to choose this or that form of society? By no means.”
[226] He claimed that man’s ideas, views, and consciousness changed with every change in his material existence.
Applied to history and economics, this theory is Economic Determinism, which is the belief that economic laws determine the course of men and thus of history. Marx described how he believed that “the mode of production in material life determined the general character of the social, political, and spiritual processes of life.”
[227]
Marx and Engels felt they had discovered something vitally important to human welfare. Closely associated with economic determinism is a sort of personal determinism. If they could somehow force on mankind a highly-perfected system of economic production it would automatically produce a higher ty
pe of human being!
In other words, as Dr. Skousen put it in The Naked Communist, “they would reverse the Judaic-Christian approach which endeavors to improve humanity in order to improve society.”
[228]
Economic determinism assumes that if you change things outside of a man this automatically compels a change on the inside, that the only way to improve humanity was a change in economic structure. It fails to recognize that environment only conditions man; it does not change his very nature, or remove his agency.
This is an important concept because it identifies how Communists arrive at such a violent, often genocidal, materialism that disregards individual human life, personal agency, and potential.
PEOPLE ARE ASSETS