The Communist Manifesto

The Communist Manifesto: Alive and Well—in America.

By Don Hull

The United States of America was founded as a Libertarian nation. Every American was assumed the freedom to govern himself. Government existed only to protect our existing natural rights to life, liberty and property, not to assign us new rights or take away old rights and sell them back to us.

But over time, social reformers and power seekers have pushed through legislation that has reshaped America into a Socialist Democracy, now sliding towards a Fascist Dictatorship. Political, economic and personal decisions are made for us by a self-appointed elite through regulations and Executive Orders and by our neighbors through majority vote. Individual self-rule is almost gone. (Want to paint your house? Just make sure it is the correct shade of beige.)

We just “won” a 44-year-long “Cold War” with Soviet Communism, one of the world’s most severe authoritarian regimes. We’re told that “Democracy defeated Communism.” But, did it? What did the Communists want?

To find the answers, we need to look no further than The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx’s 1848 outline “to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeois, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state.” (i.e., to make politicians and bureaucrats the “ruling class.”)

The Manifesto consisted of 10 main articles. Here they are, in no particular order, with their status in America today in the year 2000:

• A heavy progressive or graduated income tax: Fully implemented since 1913. Forty three States have since added their own. The total weight of income taxes today approaches 40%—even more than extracted from serfs in the Middle Ages. The typical American household now pays more in taxes than for food, clothing, and shelter COMBINED.

• Abolition of all right of inheritance: Fully implemented. The “right” has been abolished, but the “amount” remains variable. If the “amount” is small enough, the heirs can keep it all. But at certain levels, death taxes kick-in which lets the state take as much as 55%, even though the estate may consist entirely of after-tax monies. Thousands of heirs each year are forced to sell their inheritance to satisfy the tax collector.

• Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes: Heavily implemented. Although private property is not “outlawed,” per se, it is heavily regulated by, and can be seized for nonviolent behavior such as; violations of zoning laws, environmental and endangered species laws, licensing laws, tax laws, gun laws and drug laws. You don't own your property, you merely "rent" it. Failure to pay your tax-rent or obey other landlord regulations will get you evicted.

The Uniform Building code guidelines, followed by most City governments, actually state that every alteration on one’s own home “requires a permit unless specifically exempted.” This is the old 19th Century Prussian philosophy that “anything not expressly permitted is forbidden.”

The 3 largest categories of property we own—a business, house, or car, even your bank account—can be seized for mere paperwork “crimes.” Genuinely private property—property that you can use any way you see fit with no government interference—is confined to the little things, your shoes and sox, shirt and underwear and probably, your teeth. Everything else is up for grabs.

• Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels: Heavily implemented. Wealthy Americans who “emigrate” to foreign tax havens or who acquire foreign passports are subject to special plunder. “Rebels” include people who resist compliance with intrusive government paperwork such as licenses and permits, drug laws, gun registration, currency reporting laws, income taxes and more. The USA is the earth’s only government that taxes its citizens’ income earned outside its borders.

• Centralization of credit in the hands of the state by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly: Fully implemented by the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. Today, banks are agents of the state who co-operate freely with orders or commands from government agencies to freeze or seize your bank account—from the IRS to the child support grabbers at Social Services. Interest rates are dictated and controlled by the Federal Reserve Board.

• Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state: Heavily implemented through a wide variety of regulations and tariffs.

The FCC and ICC, have given control of telephone, telegraph, TV, and radio to the government while maintaining the fiction of “private” ownership. A private entrepreneur cannot create, buy or sell a TV/radio station without first getting permission from the FCC.

“Transport”—airlines, trucking, buses, taxis, deliveries—is “permit-ed,” supervised, monitored, and taxed by the DOT, NHTSA, ATC, FAA, EPA, DOE, DMV, FEMA, DEA, OSHA, and Labor Departments, among others.

Government is continually trying to increase its power in this area by regulating and/or taxing the Internet.

• Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state: Heavily implemented. American governments at all levels—federal, state and municipal—are heavily involved in the ownership, production, management and delivery of goods and services to consumers, all of which compete with private industries. Some are protected monopolies, with competitors outlawed altogether. (Lotteries, water and power companies, and everyone’s favorite example of incompetence and inefficiency...the Post Office.)

Government is involved in Power Generation (TVA, nuclear and electric plants), Retailing (military PXs and Commissaries), Construction (roads and bridges), Entertainment (national parks, convention centers, athletic stadiums, USO), Broadcasting (NPR radio, PBS-TV, USIA, cable), Transportation (Amtrak, airports, air traffic control, buses), Medical Care (hospitals, ambulance services, clinics, Medicare, Medicaid, HFCA) Security Services (CIA, FBI, police and fire departments), Food Service (school lunches), Agriculture and Forestry (grazing lands, water, timber), Education (K-12 schools, colleges, universities, libraries), Communications (post office, publishing), Charity (welfare, social services), Housing (public housing projects), Insurance (FEMA, Social Security, SSI, USDA), Book-making and Gambling (lotteries and casinos).

Worst of all, Government is involved in Organized Crime. The IRS, FTB, and Board of Equalization take money from wage earners by force. If citizens resist, the IRS, et al, are authorized to use even MORE force to collect EVEN MORE money.

• The bringing into cultivation of waste lands and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan: Partially implemented. Since only 2% of our population raises enough food for all of us and still has 30% left over for export, it appears that America’s agricultural policies are a resounding success. Yet American farms are heavily monitored and supervised by government Central Planners. Farmers are told how many acres of each crop to plant. Soil conservation methods are dictated and, most peculiar of all, farmers get paid NOT to grow SOME crops or are subsidized to grow OTHERS. The USDA is paying farmers NOT to grow ANYTHING on over 50 million acres of cropland—greater than the land area of the state of Wisconsin.

• Equal obligation of all to labor. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture. Although the U.S. welfare state pays people for NOT working, the concept that the STATE OWNS OUR LABOR is fully implemented with minimum wage laws, living wage ordinances, licensing and permit laws, discrimination and sexual harassment, health and safety and child labor laws, income taxes, forced contributions to Social Security, Medicare, and more.

Even seatbelt laws, helmet laws, airbag laws, mandatory car insurance, anti-smoking/drinking laws, truancy laws, and drug laws tell us that the state considers it owns our bodies so has the right to tell us how to behave.

• Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries: Partially implemented through “public/private partnerships” between government and industry. Government subsidizes agricultural and industrial products that it thinks is good for us. “Marketing orders” of fruit and dairy products, subsidies for sugar, and even tobacco farmers, and manufacture of electric cars, are some examples of this category.

• Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of child factory labor; combination of education with industrial production. Fully implemented. Since 1918, every K-12 kid in America has been expected to attend the “free” government school. Refusal to accept this marvelous gift from the social engineers can result in fines and jail time. For both the kids and parents.

Child factory labor has been mostly abolished with restrictions on teenage hiring. Now the opposite has happened. Ambitious teens find it difficult to get jobs unless their parents own the business. Famous mega-achievers of the past, such as Thomas Edison, Eddie Rickenbacker, Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie—who began their working lives as young teens—would find success more difficult to achieve today.

The “combination of education with industrial production” concept is fulfilled by the School-to-Work program which puts children on a career track in the early grades. Fortunately, many alert parents perceive its true objectives—indoctrination into the socio-economic class chosen by the social engineers—and have rejected it.

As in the Soviet Union, it is illegal in the United States for teachers in public schools to teach students that the Declaration of Independence is really true. Students can be taught that people used to believe it, but not that it really is true for all time and all men.

Summary: Without firing a shot or electing even one candidate to Congress, Marxism has become the de facto law of the land in America. The difference between today’s America and Karl Marx’s dream, is that we Americans are allowed to PRETEND we own our property—by putting our names on contracts. And none of us is forced to learn Russian.

Otherwise, Marx would be delighted to know that his Manifesto has been embraced by the hated capitalists. Actually, we have more “Marxism” than Marx called for. His Manifesto said nothing about Social Security, SSI, Medicare, enviro regulations, discrimination/sexual harassment/disabilities/family leave/affirmative action rules, or gun registration.

Originally written by Don Hull

The United States of America was founded as a Libertarian nation. Every American was assumed the freedom to govern himself. Government existed only to protect our existing natural rights to life, liberty and property, not to assign us new rights or take away old rights and sell them back to us.
But over time, social reformers and power seekers have pushed through legislation that has reshaped America into a Socialist Democracy, now sliding towards a Fascist Dictatorship. Political, economic and personal decisions are made for us by a self-appointed elite through regulations and Executive Orders and by our neighbors through majority vote. Individual self-rule is almost gone. (Want to paint your house? Just make sure it is the correct shade of beige.)
We just “won” a 44-year-long “Cold War” with Soviet Communism, one of the world’s most severe authoritarian regimes. We’re told that “Democracy defeated Communism.” But, did it? What did the Communists want?
To find the answers, we need to look no further than The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx’s 1848 outline “to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeois, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state.” (i.e., to make politicians and bureaucrats the “ruling class.”)
The Manifesto consisted of 10 main articles. Here they are, in no particular order, with their status in America today in the year 2000:
• A heavy progressive or graduated income tax:	Fully implemented since 1913. Forty three States have since added their own. The total weight of income taxes today approaches 40%—even more than extracted from serfs in the Middle Ages. The typical American household now pays more in taxes than for food, clothing, and shelter COMBINED.
• Abolition of all right of inheritance:	Fully implemented. The “right” has been abolished, but the “amount” remains variable. If the “amount” is small enough, the heirs can keep it all. But at certain levels, death taxes kick-in which lets the state take as much as 55%, even though the estate may consist entirely of after-tax monies. Thousands of heirs each year are forced to sell their inheritance to satisfy the tax collector.
• Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes:	Heavily implemented. Although private property is not “outlawed,” per se, it is heavily regulated by, and can be seized for nonviolent behavior such as; violations of zoning laws, environmental and endangered species laws, licensing laws, tax laws, gun laws and drug laws. You don't own your property, you merely "rent" it. Failure to pay your tax-rent or obey other landlord regulations will get you evicted.
	The Uniform Building code guidelines, followed by most City governments, actually state that every alteration on one’s own home “requires a permit unless specifically exempted.” This is the old 19th Century Prussian philosophy that “anything not expressly permitted is forbidden.”
	The 3 largest categories of property we own—a business, house, or car, even your bank account—can be seized for mere paperwork “crimes.” Genuinely private property—property that you can use any way you see fit with no government interference—is confined to the little things, your shoes and sox, shirt and underwear and probably, your teeth. Everything else is up for grabs.
• Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels:	Heavily implemented. Wealthy Americans who “emigrate” to foreign tax havens or who acquire foreign passports are subject to special plunder. “Rebels” include people who resist compliance with intrusive government paperwork such as licenses and permits, drug laws, gun registration, currency reporting laws, income taxes and more. The USA is the earth’s only government that taxes its citizens’ income earned outside its borders.
• Centralization of credit in the hands of the state by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly:	Fully implemented by the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. Today, banks are agents of the state who co-operate freely with orders or commands from government agencies to freeze or seize your bank account—from the IRS to the child support grabbers at Social Services. Interest rates are dictated and controlled by the Federal Reserve Board.
• Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state:	Heavily implemented through a wide variety of regulations and tariffs.
	The FCC and ICC, have given control of telephone, telegraph, TV, and radio to the government while maintaining the fiction of “private” ownership. A private entrepreneur cannot create, buy or sell a TV/radio station without first getting permission from the FCC.
	“Transport”—airlines, trucking, buses, taxis, deliveries—is “permit-ed,” supervised, monitored, and taxed by the DOT, NHTSA, ATC, FAA, EPA, DOE, DMV, FEMA, DEA, OSHA, and Labor Departments, among others.
	Government is continually trying to increase its power in this area by regulating and/or taxing the Internet.
• Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state:	Heavily implemented. American governments at all levels—federal, state and municipal—are heavily involved in the ownership, production, management and delivery of goods and services to consumers, all of which compete with private industries. Some are protected monopolies, with competitors outlawed altogether. (Lotteries, water and power companies, and everyone’s favorite example of incompetence and inefficiency...the Post Office.)
	Government is involved in Power Generation (TVA, nuclear and electric plants), Retailing (military PXs and Commissaries), Construction (roads and bridges), Entertainment (national parks, convention centers, athletic stadiums, USO), Broadcasting (NPR radio, PBS-TV, USIA, cable), Transportation (Amtrak, airports, air traffic control, buses), Medical Care (hospitals, ambulance services, clinics, Medicare, Medicaid, HFCA) Security Services (CIA, FBI, police and fire departments), Food Service (school lunches), Agriculture and Forestry (grazing lands, water, timber), Education (K-12 schools, colleges, universities, libraries), Communications (post office, publishing), Charity (welfare, social services), Housing (public housing projects), Insurance (FEMA, Social Security, SSI, USDA), Book-making and Gambling (lotteries and casinos).
	Worst of all, Government is involved in Organized Crime. The IRS, FTB, and Board of Equalization take money from wage earners by force. If citizens resist, the IRS, et al, are authorized to use even MORE force to collect EVEN MORE money.
• The bringing into cultivation of waste lands and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan:	Partially implemented. Since only 2% of our population raises enough food for all of us and still has 30% left over for export, it appears that America’s agricultural policies are a resounding success. Yet American farms are heavily monitored and supervised by government Central Planners. Farmers are told how many acres of each crop to plant. Soil conservation methods are dictated and, most peculiar of all, farmers get paid NOT to grow SOME crops or are subsidized to grow OTHERS. The USDA is paying farmers NOT to grow ANYTHING on over 50 million acres of cropland—greater than the land area of the state of Wisconsin.
• Equal obligation of all to labor. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.	Although the U.S. welfare state pays people for NOT working, the concept that the STATE OWNS OUR LABOR is fully implemented with minimum wage laws, living wage ordinances, licensing and permit laws, discrimination and sexual harassment, health and safety and child labor laws, income taxes, forced contributions to Social Security, Medicare, and more.
	Even seatbelt laws, helmet laws, airbag laws, mandatory car insurance, anti-smoking/drinking laws, truancy laws, and drug laws tell us that the state considers it owns our bodies so has the right to tell us how to behave.
• Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries:	Partially implemented through “public/private partnerships” between government and industry. Government subsidizes agricultural and industrial products that it thinks is good for us. “Marketing orders” of fruit and dairy products, subsidies for sugar, and even tobacco farmers, and manufacture of electric cars, are some examples of this category.
• Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of child factory labor; combination of education with industrial production.	Fully implemented. Since 1918, every K-12 kid in America has been expected to attend the “free” government school. Refusal to accept this marvelous gift from the social engineers can result in fines and jail time. For both the kids and parents.
	Child factory labor has been mostly abolished with restrictions on teenage hiring. Now the opposite has happened. Ambitious teens find it difficult to get jobs unless their parents own the business. Famous mega-achievers of the past, such as Thomas Edison, Eddie Rickenbacker, Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie—who began their working lives as young teens—would find success more difficult to achieve today.
	The “combination of education with industrial production” concept is fulfilled by the School-to-Work program which puts children on a career track in the early grades. Fortunately, many alert parents perceive its true objectives—indoctrination into the socio-economic class chosen by the social engineers—and have rejected it.
	As in the Soviet Union, it is illegal in the United States for teachers in public schools to teach students that the Declaration of Independence is really true. Students can be taught that people *used to believe it*, but not that it really is true for all time and all men.
Summary: Without firing a shot or electing even one candidate to Congress, Marxism has become the de facto law of the land in America.	The difference between today’s America and Karl Marx’s dream, is that we Americans are allowed to PRETEND we own our property—by putting our names on contracts. And none of us is forced to learn Russian.
	Otherwise, Marx would be delighted to know that his Manifesto has been embraced by the hated capitalists. Actually, we have more “Marxism” than Marx called for. His Manifesto said nothing about Social Security, SSI, Medicare, enviro regulations, discrimination/sexual harassment/disabilities/family leave/affirmative action rules, or gun registration.