When Did We Become Marxists?
By Michael Carl, CPoMA Co-Chairman and
President of The Greenwood Institute for Christian Scholars

            A couple of days ago I did a radio interview, offering my observations of President Bush’s State of the Union address.  Even though I disagreed with much of what the president had to say, I at first accepted his remarks as par for the course from this president.

            A week before, I received an email from the leader of Canada’s Christian Heritage Party, Ron Gray.  Mr. Gray observed that all of Canada’s national parties now adhere to a Marxist social perspective (Gray, 2007).

However, about a third of the way through the discussion on President Bush’s remarks, the speech’s content, together with Mr. Gray’s observation, helped fashion a very troubling reality:  The United States has also become a Marxist nation. 

That may seem a bit over the top to most of you, but hear me out.

            In their revolutionary treatise, The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels assert that a person’s identity is primarily defined by his or her social class.   Marx and Engels so drastically simplified the human psyche that in their analysis, God’s most precious children derive our meaning through our economic status.  In fact, the Marxist perspective on the entire scope of human history is one of class struggle.  Take this quote from The Manifesto:  “In the earlier epochs of history, we find almost everywhere a complicated arrangement of society into various orders, a manifold gradation of social rank” (Marx and Engels, 1848/1964, p. 58).  “A manifold gradation of social rank,” Marx and Engels conclude.

            A few lines later, they claim that, “The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms.  It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones.”

            In the next paragraph, the duo continues:  “Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinct feature: it has simplified class antagonisms.  Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other -- bourgeoisie and proletariat” (Marx and Engels, 1848/1964, p. 58-59).

            This pair of radical German political theorists is telling the world that human beings primarily relate acrimoniously through a constant clash between rich and poor. Marx and Engels make this view clear when they write, “Hitherto, every form of society has been based, as we have already seen, on the antagonism of oppressing and oppressed classes” (Marx and Engels, 1848/1964, p. 77).

How does this relate to President Bush’s 2007 State of the Union Address?

            The two major parties have adopted a similar view of humankind.  To both the Republicans and Democrats, we are all essentially economic animals, and both “major” parties depend on class rivalries.  Furthermore, both parties now practically work from the premise that our value comes only from whether the economy is in good shape and whether the government is doing enough to provide for its citizens.

            If you have any doubts about the standardization of these views, look at Bush’s comments on Social Security and Medicare:  “Finally, to keep this economy strong we must take on the challenge of entitlements. Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid are commitments of conscience - and so it is our duty to keep them permanently sound.”

            The strength of our economy depends on government-funded and managed retirement and health programs.

            After his comments on education that we will address in a moment, he went on to the supposed health insurance crisis:  “A future of hope and opportunity requires that all our citizens have affordable and available healthcare. When it comes to healthcare, government has an obligation to care for the elderly, the disabled, and poor children.”

            In the next paragraph, Bush continues with this idea:  “States that make basic private health insurance available to all their citizens should receive federal funds to help them provide this coverage to the poor and the sick. I have asked the Secretary of Health and Human Services to work with Congress to take existing federal funds and use them to create "Affordable Choices" grants. These grants would give our Nation's governors more money and more flexibility to get private health insurance to those most in need.”

            Consider the presuppositions from which the president is working.  We have no hope for a bright future unless everyone has some form of government guaranteed health insurance.  Furthermore, it’s the federal government’s responsibility to guarantee this provision.

Again, the focus is economic and Bush’s desire is for the government to, “level the playing field,” for all Americans. 

            In between Social Security and Medicare and the health insurance commentary was the president’s master plan to further the cause of our Brave New World through public education:  “Five years ago, we rose above partisan differences to pass the No Child Left Behind Act - preserving local control, raising standards in public schools, and holding those schools accountable for results.”

            To understand what this really means, think in terms of increasing federal control of education.  In a pattern eerily reminiscent of Orwellian Newspeak, in one sentence the president claimed his No Child Left Behind initiative returned more control to the local districts while imposing stricter federal controls.  Is it realistically possible to give more control to the local systems while the un-Constitutional Department of Education imposes more federal regulations?

            The type of irony or contradiction employed by the president powerfully reflects the slogans of the Party in George Orwell’s 1984.  If you don’t recall them, they were, “War is peace.  Freedom is slavery.  Ignorance is strength,” (Orwell, 1949, p. 16).  To observe Bush’s masterful use of this technique, simply try to clearly reason through the contradiction between “…preserving local control, raising standards in public schools, and holding those schools accountable for results.”  

            Marx and Engels spoke of the rise of the Proletariat, the lower social classes that would eventually overwhelm the bourgeoisie.  Marx and Engels write, “We have seen above, that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy” (Marx and Engels, 1848/1964, p. 93). 

            Is it possible that the president’s misguided policy proposals about illegal
immigration are a fulfillment of this Marxian ideal?  Consider the president’s comments about illegal immigration and our borders.  After he spoke about securing our borders, he added this little detail:  “Yet even with all these steps, we cannot fully secure the border unless we take pressure off the border - and that requires a temporary worker program.”

            To properly view this proposal, we have to filter it through the Marx and Engels’ philosophical lenses.  Marx and Engels spoke of the growing political power of the proletariat.  “We have seen above that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle for democracy” (Marx and Engels, 1848/1964, p. 93). 

            The idea of further allowing in greater numbers the free entrance of those who take the bulk of the lower-paying, working class jobs is consummately in line with Marx and Engels’ theory of the proletariat eventually achieving greater political power.  The familiar claim to justify allowing illegal immigration to continue, aided by a “guest worker” program (amnesty) is that, “They do the jobs that no one else will do”.  This claim is widespread.  The number of “blogs” featuring someone making this statement is plentiful (Amy Wellborn’s Blog, 2007).

Even so, if this continued flow of lower-end, working class immigrants continues, a permanent “underclass” of non-English-speaking people will tip the balance in the American population.  Like it or not, many of the illegal immigrants are from Spanish speaking countries.  If this trend is allowed to continue unhindered, the Latino dream of a reconquista of the United States will eventually succeed.

            Now we have to ask:  When did this shift from the traditional American view of self-reliance and Judeo-Christian principles to a Marxist world view take place?

            Did it happen when Abraham Lincoln’s government legitimised the federal income tax to raise war revenue (Brands, 2006, p 108)?

            Did our nation’s precipitous leap into class warfare as advocated by socialist Robert M. LaFollette play a role (Chace, 2004, p. 102)?  As we noted at the beginning, Marx saw the world as one of constant class struggle.  LaFollette was simply echoing that idea in his campaign for governor of Wisconsin.

            Was the shift to Marxist thought in a more mature state in the election of 1912 when Socialist Eugene V. Debs received over 900-thousand votes, almost a million, for president (Chace, 2004, p. 238; CBS News, 2003)?

            Did it happen when Woodrow Wilson prepared America for its intervention in World War I by doubling the size of the federal government from 500-thousand to over one million non-military employees in twenty months (CBS News, 2003)?

Or was it when Woodrow Wilson legitimized a centralized national bank with the passage of the Federal Reserve Act (Chace, 2004, p. 244)?  No one should doubt that the Federal Reserve System’s control over the nation’s money supply is a sign of the increasing power of the United States government.

Or, was it the permanent imposition of an income tax by Woodrow Wilson (Diner, 1998, p. 224)?  Not coincidentally, the income tax was a vital component of Marx and Engels’ revolutionary plan in The Communist Manifesto (Marx and Engels, 1848/1964, p. 94).

            Did it happen when President Franklin Roosevelt fashioned his own intervention-ist governmental policies after the economic theories espoused by John Maynard Keynes in his work The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money (Johnson, 1999, p. 729)?

            Or, did we take a further leap into a permanent embrace of Marxist philosophy when New York Times writer Walter Duranty knowingly wrote a series of fabricated articles that promoted the fiction that Stalin had created a “worker’s paradise” (Charen, 2003, p. 87-88)?

When Richard Nixon declared to the world in a televised speech, “We are all Keynesians now”, was he further enshrining our transition to Marxist philosophy (Dalke, 2006)?

            Was the leap into a Marxist world view complete in the 1990s when Americans seemed to no longer care about President Clinton’s immoral behavior (Bennett, 1998, pp. 12-16)?  A lack of concern over marital fidelity further fulfills Marxist dogma.  Marx and Engels wrote negatively about the bourgeois institution of marriage and advocated free love (Marx and Engels, 1848/1964, p. 86-89).

The evidence of Clinton’s behavior as a fulfillment of this Marxian concept is plentiful.  A CNN Poll in December, 1998 found that Clinton’s poll numbers went up in the wake of his impeachment (CNN Poll, 1998).  Indeed, there were calls to “move on” and pleas to forget about the president’s conduct as long as the economy was good.  There was a chorus shouting about the neglect of “the people’s business” (Booth, 1999) as if the character of the occupant of the White House no longer mattered.

            How does Bush’s address fit into the gradual decline towards Marxism as the accepted philosophy?  Bush may be regarded as one of the final steps in the Marxists’ conquest of America.         

Indeed, this gradual shift in perspective itself fulfills one of Marx and Engels’ prime forecasts:  “The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees…” (Marx and Engels, 1848/1964, p. 93).  The key words here are “wrest, by degrees,” indicating that the Marxists view themselves as martyrs in a long ideological war. 

Marx and Engels further emphasized the gradual nature of the project with the phrase, “…in the course of the movement…” (Marx and Engels, 1848/1964, p. 93).  The words unmistakably communicate a vital portion of Marxist dogma.  Marxists so strongly believe in the importance of their task that they’re committed to a long-term strategy of conquest.  If anyone needs any proof about the patience with which the Marxists have approached their conquest of the United States, simply review the incremental steps listed above.

Whether we’ve drifted to the point of no return in this country is hopefully a debatable point.  However, be advised that the hard-core Marxists are still committed to a world-wide revolution.  Marx and Engels expressed the idea clearly when they wrote, “The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains.  They have a world to win” (Marx and Engels, 1848/1964, p. 136).

Indeed, the proletariat has a world to win.  Unless Americans awaken to the reality that their country is dangerously close to being irretrievably lost ideologically, an adjusted version of Nixon’s observation will be tragically accurate:  “We’re all Marxists now.”

References

All Politics (1998).  Poll:  Clinton’s approval rating up in wake of impeachment.  CNN.com (December 20, 1998).  Retrieved 30 January 2007 from, http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1998/12/20/impeachment.poll/ .    

Bennett, William J. (1998).  The Death of Outrage.  New York:  A Touchstone Book, a division of Simon and Schuster.

Booth, William (1999).  At trial’s end, time at last for the people’s business.  The Washington Post, A-29.  (February 13, 1999).  Retrieved on 30 January 2007 from,http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washingtonpost/access/38935381.html .

Brands, H. W. (2006).  The Money Men.  New York:  W. W. Norton & Company.

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Cantor, Norman & Cantor, Mindy (1997).  The American century:  Varieties of culture in Modern times.  New York:  Harper Perennial, a division of Harper Collins. 

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Chace, James (2004).  1912:  Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft and Debs—The election that changed the country.  New York:  Simon and Schuster, Inc.

Charen, Mona (2003).  Useful Idiots.  Washington, D.C.:  Regnery Publishing Company.

Dalke, Anne (2006).  2005-2006 Brown Bag Discussion of “Rethinking Science Education (Center for Science in Society, Bryn Mawr College).  Retrieved 28 January 2007, from http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/local/scisoc/brownbag/brownbag0506/-schram.html. 

Diner, Steven (1998).  A very different age:  Americans of the Progressive Era.  New York:  Hill and Wang, a division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Gray, Ron (2007).  Two important questions about the CHP answered.  CHP Speaks Out, (January 16, 2007).  Retrieved 27 January 2007 from www.chp.ca .  

Johnson, Paul (1999).  A history of the American people.  New York:  Harper Perennial, a division of Harper Collins Publishers.

Marx, K. & Engels, F. (1848/1964).  The Communist Manifesto.  New York:  Pocket Books, a division of Simon and Schuster, Inc.

Orwell, George (1949/1977).  1984.  New York:  A Signet Classic, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group, Inc. 

Reader Comment (2007).  Open book:  Caldwell rocking.  Amy Wellborn’s Blog.  Retrieved 30 January 2007, from http://amywelborn.typepad.com/openbook/2006/08/caldwell_rockin.html .