The Persistent Influence of Bad Ideas

The Persistent Influence of Bad Ideas

Sometimes books, and the ideas they contain, have a much longer-lasting impact than anyone would expect or realize. Long after the book itself has been forgotten and languishes unread in the reserve stacks of libraries or on the shelves of secondhand-book dealers, the ideas it puts forward continue to influence people and the way they see and understand the world and current events. In such cases the effect on people’s thinking is all the more profound for the ideas are no longer associated with a particular author or viewpoint. Instead they have achieved the hallowed status of “common sense,” or things that everybody knows to be the case—even when they are not. One of the historian’s most important roles is to uncover such hidden influences and, very often, to show how they are mistaken. Bad ideas have a long life and often outlive their originators.

One classic example is a book first published in 1902. This was Imperialism: A Study, by J. A. Hobson. Although this book is often referred to by scholars, it is almost never read nowadays. But its main ideas continue to have a powerful effect on current debate. The author, John Atkinson Hobson, was one of the most important figures in the “New Liberalism,” which between 1890 and 1914 brought about a transformation of the British Liberal Party, moving away from the limited-government, classical liberalism of Gladstone and Cobden to the social liberalism of Keynes and Beveridge. Hobson and the other New Liberals were closely associated with the Progressives in the United States, such as Herbert Croly, who over the same period brought about a transformation of the structure of American politics and a change in the Democratic Party similar to that of the British Liberal Party. Hobson wrote extensively on economic issues, but his unorthodox ideas prevented his obtaining an academic position. So he made a living through political journalism. What he and his intellectual allies did was to take classical-liberal ideas and arguments, and recast them in ways that often changed their content considerably while not totally abandoning them. Imperialism was an example of this.

The context for this work was the great revival of imperialism in the latter part of the nineteenth century. During the first two-thirds of the century imperialism had been out of fashion as a deliberate policy. The general view was that colonies were a waste of resources and that wars to acquire them were not only foolish but immoral. This view, shared even by people who later became identified with empire, such as Benjamin Disraeli, derived primarily from the arguments made by a series of classical-liberal thinkers, from Adam Smith onwards. Its definitive version was put forward by the British classical liberal Herbert Spencer. He argued that all human societies could be divided into two types, the military and the industrial. The military kind, historically predominant, was marked by social hierarchy and the rule of classes that derived their position from the use of force.

By contrast the industrial society, which had appeared in modern times, featured social relations based on free association and trade. Empire, meaning the rule of one people by another, was one of the central elements of the military type of social organization. For Spencer and other classical liberals, the growth of modern capitalism and the increasing interconnection of the peoples of the world by trade and the division of labor (globalization as we now say) necessarily implied the disappearance of empires. A revival of imperialism could only be retrograde. Moreover, it was economically foolish and counterproductive, as wealth was created by trade, not imperial rule and force—a point made by Smith.

Until about the 1870s these ideas were generally accepted, but the last three decades of the nineteenth century saw the rebirth of imperialism in both theory and practice. In 1884 the Berlin Conference divided Africa among the European powers. The years 1899 to 1902 saw the Boer War, with Britain seeking to conquer the Boer Republics and gain control of South Africa’s minerals and diamonds.
Most dramatic was the change in attitude and policy in the United States. From 1776 onwards most Americans saw their country as inevitably and naturally opposed to empire and colonialism. In the 1890s, however, people such as Theodore Roosevelt argued that America should join the quest for empire. This found effect in the Spanish-American War of 1898 and the subsequent bloody conquest of the Philippines. By 1902 it also seemed that the United States, along with the European powers and Japan, was going to take part in a competition to dismember China. At this time imperialism was rightly associated with the “progressive” side of politics and with those who wanted to expand the role of government (such as Roosevelt), while the remaining classical liberals opposed it. In the United States most of the opposition to the new imperialism came from this direction and involved such figures as Mark Twain, Andrew Carnegie, and former presidents Benjamin Harrison and Grover Cleveland. The clearest reiteration of the classic individualist argument against imperialism was made by William Graham Sumner in his trenchant essay “The Conquest of the United States by Spain.”

So in 1902 the division of opinion seemed clear cut. One side stood for limited government, free trade, capitalism, and individualism, and was opposed to empire. The other favored empire and argued for expanded government, protectionism, socialism or interventionism, and collectivism.
Hobson’s book changed all this. His central belief, almost an idée fixe, was underconsumptionism. He thought that in a capitalist system an unequal division of wealth and income leads to excessive saving by the rich and lack of consumption by the poor. As a result, the system does not function effectively because there is a chronic insufficiency of demand and much production cannot be consumed. This means that a modern economy needs government intervention and redistribution to right matters.

A Free-Trader
Hobson, however, favored free trade and was strongly opposed to imperialism, and his book combined these two elements. He argued, in the classical-liberal vein, that imperialism, besides being morally wrong, did not benefit the majority even in the imperial nation. Instead, it only benefited a small corrupt, predatory, and unproductive class. However, he identified this class not with the holders of political power (as Spencer and Sumner did) but with capitalists, above all finance capitalists (explicitly identified with Jews in several passages of Imperialism). His thesis was that imperialism was driven by the economic interests of finance capitalists, above all by the need to find investment outlets for capital that could not be invested at home. This argument was seriously flawed, not least because the bulk of British overseas investment was not in the empire but in the United States and Europe. Despite much criticism, Hobson brought out a virtually unchanged second edition in 1938, but he admitted in his autobiography that he no longer thought imperialism had a primarily economic motive, seeing it rather as driven by desire for power.

However, by that time the message of his work had become common wisdom. This was partly because Lenin had effectively adopted Hobson’s argument in his own Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism and so made it orthodoxy for most of the Marxist left. In the United States, Hobson’s analysis was successful on its own and became widely accepted by the 1920s. Today, Hobson is forgotten by most people, but his ideas live on. Above all, he established what has now become a commonplace, that capitalism and imperialism are intimately connected, with the one growing out of the other. Authors such as Naomi Klein see the process of “globalization” as involving the spread of neo-imperialism. Instead of correctly seeing the growth of trade, exchange, and economic integration as being diametrically opposed to imperialism, these authors see them as allied.

What makes this particularly tragic is the way the last 15 years have seen the cause of empire once again become respectable, not least among the advocates of the “Third Way.” Bad ideas, like the ones that Hobson produced, obscure our understanding of what is at stake and what the real issues are.
Find a Portuguese translation of this article here.

Stephen Davies

Stephen Davies is a program officer at the Institute for Humane Studies and the education director at the Institute for Economics Affairs in London.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

"May we be so fortunate as to suffer 8 more years of Obama"...A Rejoinder.

May we be so fortunate as to suffer 8 more years of Obama - A Rejoinder.

I keep seeing an article circulating entitled: 8 years of suffering under Barack Obama: Fair enough. Let’s take a look...by Teri Carter.

Teri Carter goes on to prove how the 8 years of Obama was not as bad as many think, and was actually quite good. This cannot stand :)

The article first points out that the Dow tripled under Obama. The stock market only partly explains things. Don't forget that Zimbabwe, while suffering from inflation at 231 million percent, also had a great stock market at the same time. People are forced into the stock market when they lose confidence in the dollar. This was also the time of the birth of bitcoin, a digital alternative to the dollar that grew popular as people lost faith in government fiat currency.

Also: "Soaring stock market prices are not a result of increased productivity or innovation — they are a symptom of central bank fueled asset inflation and corporate debt. In fact, since 2008, corporate debt has doubled. Almost 100 percent of all corporate issued debt has been used to buy back stocks and prop up equity prices. This bears repeating. Almost none of America’s recently issued corporate debt has gone toward investing in plant and equipment, increasing the workforce, research and development, or expanding operations in any meaningful way." ~Yonathan Amselem

Next the article points out that Obama saved the auto industry with bailouts of which they were paid back with interest.

That's not exactly true. What Obama saved was the United Autoworkers Union. Obama didn't care about all those workers in the numerous dealerships he closed down. He didn't care about the countless Americans who lost their warranties. He certain't didn't care about the tens of thousands of (non-union) workers that supplied parts to GM that lost their jobs. Also, taxpayers spent a total of $79.7 billion on the auto bailouts, but received only $63.1 billion back, which makes for a total loss of $16.6 billion.

She also states that Obama set a record 73 straight months of private-sector job growth.

What Obama did, with Obamacare, was set a cap for employers at 50 employees or less, and to reduce work hours to 30 hours or less. As a result, one good full-time was replaced with 2 or more part time jobs...and there you have the growth. Many lousy jobs were created to replace the good full time jobs. Additionally, labor participation dropped to historic lows with a record of about 95 million Americans not in the labor force. Also, Obama's GDP growth was the worst since the Great Depression. He was the first president EVER to not reach 3% GDP growth.

As for the Affordable Care Act, it destroyed my health benefits. I am now forced to pay for a policy that is utterly useless to me. In fact, I now have to pay more out of pocket WITH a healthcare plan than without. I now avoid doctors and clinics even when I need them. Many others are suffering even more. In fact, as reported in the Washington Post, life expectancy fell for the first time in decades under Obama. What an absolute travesty.

Welfare spending is not down. Food stamp recipients increased by over 10 million under Obama. A number we should not be seeing if the economy was really great. Historically low home ownership rates, a rise in tent cities and a rise in middle-aged male suicides, which happened under Obama, is also something you should expect with a really bad economy. Homelessness for veterans may have decreased, but it increased for others (and there are still homeless vets out there). This doesn't even factor in the growth of adult children still living with their parents. This is something you expect under an anemic economy. At some point you have to ask why there has been great support for Trump from working-class Americans? If most Americans really thought they were better off today than in January 2009, Hillary would be president right now.

Obama did indeed sign The Lilly Ledbetter Act, an act based on an economic fallacy. Even his own White House had a "gender pay-gap".

The fact that Obama reduced the federal deficit from 9.8 percent of GDP in 2009 to 3.2 percent in 2016 only obscures the fact that he spent an enormous amount of money in the early years. The deficit was still higher than the average of the past 60 years. Let's not forget that Obama spent more money than anyone else in the history of the world. This will end badly one day.

Obama did order the hit on Obama. His administration also helped depose Gaddafi's Syria, which destabilized the Middle East and created ISIS and the migrant crisis...and the world is now a much more dangerous place because of it.

And yes, Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. A prize that was given to him at the outset of his presidency when he accomplished nothing but getting elected. It was a prize given to a leader who was at war for the entire duration of his presidency. As Penn Jillette mentioned a few years ago: “The only difference between Obama and Bush is that Obama is killing more people. He’s about double the numbers now. Can you imagine if McCain had won and did precisely what Obama has done, with every speech and every political maneuver overseas? There’d be riots in the streets about the people we’re killing. And yet because it’s Obama, and he’s better looking and better at reading the teleprompter, we let him get away with it.” President Obama even bragged to his aides that he’s “really good at killing people,” during discussions about drone strikes, according to Mark Halperin and John Heilemann's book: Double Down.

Also, under Obama race relations in America had degenerated and was dragged back 50 years. Any progress that was made in this area over the decades was stripped away by Obama, who fueled racism in order to disguise a bad economy, which then produced home-grown racist terrorist groups and anti-Free Speech groups. That's right, under Obama, free speech no longer became a cherished ideal, but instead became something that needed to be quelled by any means necessary. Additionally, the Obamas had their official portraits painted by Kehinde Wiley, a racist who previously painted empowered black women beheading whites. This is all you need to know about how Obama views race.

After eight long years of obfuscations, lies and propaganda, it's time to call Obama exactly what he is.

Worst.President.Ever                           

-Heinz Schmitz

Removing Statues of Violent Bigots? Start with Che Guevara

Rosario is Argentina's second oldest city. Located by the Paraná river, it is the home of hard-working people, a busy port, the national flag memorial, and the country's bitterest football rivalry between Rosario Central and Newell's Old Boys.

It is also the birthplace of Ernesto “Ché” Guevara.

In the last fifteen years or so, coincidentally with the rise of leftist populism in Argentina and the rest of South America, there have been plenty of tributes to the figure of “Ché.” All of these tributes are state-financed, one way or another. The most prominent is a 13-foot high statue placed in a public square.

Fundación Bases has its main headquarters in Rosario. Teaming up with the Naumann Foundation, we decided to launch a campaign to remove all the state tributes to “Ché” Guevara. We knew this would generate controversy but, honestly, we didn't expect the level of reaction that has occurred.

About the Man
So, who was this “Ché” Guevara? Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, globally known as “Ché”, came from an aristocratic, though impoverished, family. He studied medicine and when he was about to finish university he took an initiatory trip across Latin America. In some of the places he visited he saw harsh realities and even exploitation. This part of his life made it to the big screen, starred by then Latin sensation Gael García Bernal.

Ché quickly became known for his ruthlessness and violence.


Nonetheless, he wasn't a communist yet. As Juan José Sebreli explains, he was more of the adventurous type, looking for a cause, whatever cause this might be. In fact, he was planning to go to Europe when he met the Castro brothers in Mexico in 1955. He joined them and become a revolutionary for the “liberation” of Cuba.

Under the command of Fidel Castro, “Ché” achieved his only military victory. All his other revolutionary adventures were disastrous and eventually got him killed. However, during the Cuban struggle, he quickly became known for his ruthlessness and violence. He executed many, both during the conflict and after the revolutionaries got into power. He not only precisely described how he blew some poor bastard's brains out but also acknowledged at the United Nations General Assembly that his government executed many and would continue executing as long as it was “necessary.”

He was also responsible for the opening of the first Cuban concentration camp – where homosexuals and Christians were tortured and re-educated.

What is more, he believed hate was the most powerful force and was an admirer of Joseph Stalin.
As central banker, he basically destroyed the Cuban peso.


As a public official, he was president of Cuba's central bank and minister of industry. In both roles, he failed miserably. As central banker, he basically destroyed the Cuban peso – which for many decades had been at parity with the US dollar. As industry planner, his administration was so chaotic that they even bought snow removal machines for a Caribbean country like Cuba.

The regime “Ché” helped established in Cuba is one of the most authoritarian in the world. Since the triumph of the revolution in 1959, more than 10,000 have been killed, 80,000 have died at sea trying to escape the island, and 1.5 million have had to forcefully migrate.

Remove All Tributes to 'Ché'
With all this in mind, Fundación Bases launched the campaign “Remove all tributes to 'Ché' Guevara.” We are asking the city government to eliminate the plethora of state tributes that have mushroomed in the last fifteen years.

We know it will be difficult to achieve this because the same politicians who started this “Ché” industry are still in power. But we also know we are starting a conversation and a necessary debate.
He has done nothing for Argentina. In fact, he only lived in Rosario until the age of one.


We want kids who wear “Ché” T-Shirts to know that he's not an article of fashion but a cold killing machine. Wearing a T-Shirt with his face is the same as wearing one with Stalin, Mao or Hitler.
Moreover, we want to explain to the people in our city that this “Ché” cult is a falsification of history. The local authorities who have raised him to the level of pagan saint neglect to mention his well-documented crimes but also that he has done nothing for Argentina. In fact, he only lived in Rosario until the age of one.

What Fundación Bases stands for is classical liberalism. And classical liberalism is the anti-Ché. We believe in cooperation between individuals and nations, free trade, and peace. As our Executive Director Franco López put it in an interview with Colombian media, “we are for human rights for everybody, regardless of their political ideology.”

Many Friends and Some Foes
Immediately after being launched, the campaign picked up the attention of local media. And in July Jack Aldwinckle wrote a half-page article in The Economist.

After the article, media attention skyrocketed. From then on, basically, all major newspapers, radios shows, and TV channels in the country have covered the campaign. For example, in “La Nación” – the most traditional nation-wide newspaper in Argentina – our article was the most read of the day.
And that's not all. We also caught the attention of international media like “La Razón” (Spain), “El Mercurio” (Chile), “El Comercio” (Perú), “Radio Marti” (Miami), just to name a few.

Definitely, one the campaign’s highlights is the help we have received by like-minded institutions and people. Great guys like Bob Murphy, Gustavo Lazzari, Javier Milei, Steve Horwitz, Roberto Cachanosky, Marcelo Duclos. And also think tanks like Libertad y Progreso, Atlas Network, Austrian Economics Center, Independent Institute, Relial, Mises Hispano, Instituto Juan de Mariana, and so on.

The general public reaction towards our campaign has been spectacular. Our posts on social media are highly retweeted and shared. Roughly 65 percent of the social media comments have been in favor of our view. What's more, our online petition has received thousands of signatures.

Of course, it would have been impossible to escape some leftist hysterical reactions. We have been called all names you can imagine, from “neoliberals” to “neonazis.”

We have received death threats and some very sick wishes. For instance, a commenter on Facebook called for the arrival of a communist dictatorship to make us all disappear.
“Ché” Guevara could not have said it better.

Federico N. Fernández

Federico N. Fernández is the Senior Research Fellow of Austrian Economics Center and Vice president of Fundación Bases.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

Socialism is a Religion by the Rev. John Ming 1907

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Socialism a Religion by the Rev. John J. Ming 1907

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Socialism is not only opposed to Christianity, but as a materialistic theory shatters all religious belief to its very foundation. We should, therefore, expect that were it ever to gain ascendency, religion would be buried never to rise again, and we should expect this all the more, as its extinction in the future commonwealth has been repeatedly predicted by the highest authorities. But here we are sorely puzzled. No sooner have socialists professed their anti-religious views before the whole world than they assure us that socialism is in need of a religion, nay, is a religion itself, and even the sublimest and most perfect religion. Such assurances, impossible as they seem to be, have been given by several writers in the clearest and most positive terms.

Ladoff says:
"Socialism of to-day is sorely in need of a church with a great religious prophet at its head." [The Passing of Capitalism, p. 45]

Bax affirms:
"Socialism brings back religion from heaven to earth, which was its original sphere." [Religion of Socialism, p. 52]

Peter Burrowes terms socialism the religion of humanity.

"Granting 'the cause' of religion to be found once for all in the cause of the world's workers, socialism becomes with all its developments the religion of humanity."

Still clearer is the statement of Herron:

"Essentially, socialism is a religion, the religion of life and for which the world long waited."

"In its essence socialism is a religion; it stands for the harmonious relating of the whole of man; it stands for a vast and collective fulfilling of the law of love. As the socialist movement grows, its religious forces will come forth from the furnace of consuming experience." [Why I Am a Socialist. Chicago 1900. p. 27]

How shall we look on these and other like assertions? Are we to understand that those who made them retract what they maintain elsewhere and are converted from ungodliness to religiousness? Or do they consciously or unconsciously entangle themselves in inextricable contradictions?

No such interpretations are necessary to solve this perplexing riddle. We need only bear in mind that among the socialist writers "religion" has two quite different meanings. Hence, according as it is taken in the one or the other sense, it may at the same time, though not under the same conception, be accepted or rejected by them. It is first and obviously conceived as belief in a God, the Supreme Being, and as worship of the Creator of the universe. Religion in this sense is held by all consistent socialists in utter abomination. But it is taken also as a social and ethical theory; and as such it is deemed necessary for, and even identical with, socialism.

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Both Ladoff and Bax apprise us of this twofold conception they have of religion. The former says:

"Religion may be considered as composed of two principal disciplines. One of these disciplines is the ontological and presents some theory of the non ego, the not ourselves, the outward world at large, its origin, existence, and future and the mutual relations between this world at large and men. The other discipline is ethical and moral. It embraces some theory about social institutions and contains rules and regulations of human conduct corresponding to this theory. The first discipline of religion—the ontological or cosmological—is at present supplanted by scientific philosophy."

"The second discipline of religion, its ethical part, is still of great vital importance as a social power, modifying and regulating human interrelations and consociations for better or worse, according to conditions. Science has not yet succeeded so far in supplanting entirely the subjective, intuitional, emotional, and imaginative elements of religion by results of objective reasoning and impartial observation and investigation."

"It is therefore clear that religion may be of great assistance to secular Socialism, by arousing the human passion for righteousness, by appealing to race instincts and noble emotions, by directing the imagination to a grand vista of human bliss and happiness, of heroic deeds, of self-sacrifice and martyrdom, of fame and glory and immortality."

A Church and religion with this end in view, he adds, were recommended by Huxley, whom he calls the greatest scientist of the past century.

In like manner Bax characterizes the kind of religion which socialism disavows and the kind which it adopts.

"In what sense socialism is not religious will now be clear. It utterly despises the 'other world' with all its stage properties. That is, the present objects of religion. In what sense it is not irreligious will be also, I think, tolerably clear. It brings back religion from heaven to earth, which, as we have sought to show, was its original sphere. It looks beyond the present moment or the present individual life, though not, indeed, to another world, but to another and a higher life in this world. It is in the hope and the struggle for this higher social life, ever-widening, ever-intensifying, whose ultimate possibilities are beyond the power of language to express or thought to conceive, that the Socialist finds his ideal, his religion."

Herron similarly conceives socialism as a religion when he says that "it stands for a vast and collective fulfilling of the law of love."

Joseph Dietzgen maintains that socialism takes the place of the old religion, and, because it performs its office in a higher and pre-eminent sense, is the only true religion. In his sermons on the "Religion of Socialism" we find some explanations, which complete the views set forth by Bax and Ladoff.

"Religion has since time immemorial been so much cared for and hallowed, that even those minds who have given up the belief in a personal God, in a supreme protector of mankind, still adhere to some sort of religion. Let us for the sake of those conservatives use the old word for the new thing. This is not only a concession made to prejudice, in order the more easily to overcome it, but it is also justified by the thing itself."

Dietzgen marks out salvation as the first object of religion.

"All religions have this in common, that they strive for the salvation of suffering humanity, and to lead it up to the good, the beautiful, the righteous, and the divine. Well, social democracy is all the more the true religion as it strives for the very same end, not in a fantastic way, not by praying and fasting, wishing and sighing, but in a manner positive and active, real and true, by the social organization of manual and mental work."

"Work is the name of the new redeemer."

"We deal here with the salvation of mankind in the truest sense of the word. If there be anything holy, here we stand before the holy of holiest. . . . It is real, positive salvation of the whole civilized humanity. This salvation was neither invented nor revealed; it has grown out of the accumulated labor of history. It consists in the wealth of today which arose glorious and dazzling in the light of science, out of the darkness of barbarism, out of the oppression, superstition, and misery of the people, out of human flesh and blood, to save humanity. This wealth, in all its palpable reality, is the solid foundation of hope for social democracy."

"In the secrets which we have wrung from Nature; in the magic formulas by which we force her to do our wishes and to yield her bounties without any painful work on our part; in the constantly increasing improvement of the methods of production —in this, I say, consists the wealth which can accomplish what no redeemer ever could." [Philosophical Essays, pp. 93-95]

Besides salvation religion has for its object systematic thought.

"Religion is primitive philosophy. ... I called religion philosophy, because it claims not only to redeem us, with the help of gods, and by praying and whining, from the earthly miseries, but also to lend a systematic frame to our thinking. The universal significance of religion for uncultured tribes is founded on the universal need for a systematic knowledge of the world. Just as we generally have a practical need for the dominion over the things of the world, so do we generally have a theoretical need for a systematic view of life."

"Yet it is not sufficient to dethrone the phantastic and religious system of life; it is necessary to put a new system, a rational one, in its stead. And that only the socialist can accomplish."

"In place of religion social democracy puts a systematic conception of the universe."

"According to the religious systems God is the final cause."

"International social democracy is proud to know the 'final cause' on which everything rests, and to possess a scientific basis for everything and a 'systematic philosophy.'"

"This philosophy finds its 'final cause' in the real conditions."

"Therefore we are able to mold consciously and with systematic consistency our notions of justice and liberty after our material needs, that is the needs of the proletariat, of the masses."

Religion thus conceived does not interfere with the abolition of the worship of a personal God, but fully harmonizes with the most pronounced atheism. Thus the riddle of socialism as a religion seems to be satisfactorily solved.

This brand-new conception of religion as proposed by socialist writers still presents a difficulty, which peremptorily demands an explanation. Religion, of whatever kind, also as defined and adopted by socialists, implies a supreme being, to which it refers men and in subordination to which they find their happiness, their true life, their highest perfection. But where in all materialistic philosophy is there a being to which man could be subordinated, man who is autonomous and "made god after his own image"? Socialist philosophers have not failed to give us an answer.

E. Untermann writes:

"'Ni Dieu, ni maitre.' The united human mind, lifted to world control by the proletarian revolution, will become the natural 'god' of the universe and make itself master of a self-controlled universe, whose highest product it is." [The World's Revolutions. p. 170]

Long before Untermann wrote these lines, J. Dietzgen had defined humanity or civilized society as the only true and eternal sanctuary and as the supreme being in which socialists believe.

"The saints and the sanctuaries, the religious and the worldly ones, must disappear in order that the only eternal and true sanctuary, humanity or mankind, may live." [Philosophical Essays. p. 105]

"Civilized human society is the supreme being in which we believe, on its transformation to socialism we build our hope. Such a humanity will make love a reality, of which the religious enthusiasts have been only dreaming."

Fundamentally, the two writers are at one. As they put it, not individual man is the supreme being, for he is still dependent on his social and physical environment, but human society; and not human society in its initial stage, but society fully developed in knowledge and so far advanced in power as to be able to master and control the universe. Accordingly, the supreme being is not the first cause, the creator of the world, but the world's highest product and ultimate evolution. Nor has it as yet real existence. At present it is only an ideal which ought to inspire men with the highest moral sentiments, a final cause, an end which is to be achieved by their co-operation and which, vice versa, when attained, will bring complete happiness.

Whatever system refers men to humanity as their supreme being and ultimate end is usually called humanitarianism. Socialism, therefore, conceived as a religion, is humanitarian in the strict and proper sense. So it is, in fact, termed by socialist writers, and as such it is represented by them in glowing and enthusiastic descriptions.

Bax writes:

"Socialism has well been described as a new conception of the world presenting itself in industry as co-operative communism, in politics as international republicanism, in religion as atheistic humanitarianism, by which is meant the recognition of social progress as our being's highest end and aim. ... As the religion of slave industry was paganism, as the religion of serfage was Catholic Christianity, or sacerdotalism, as the religion of capitalism is Protestant Christianity, or biblical dogma, so the religion of collective and co-operative industry is humanism, which is another name for socialism."

Ladoff is yet clearer:

"Socialism is sorely in need of a moral or religious force. But such a religious force must be and is gradually being developed in a thoroughly rationalistic idealism, full of vigor and faith in the inherent nobility and great future of the human race here on our mother earth, in a self-sacrificing passion for social-economic justice in human society; in a tender sympathy with all downtrodden and dispossessed children of labor; in a hatred of all evil and wrong in human interrelations; in an arduous desire for a nobler, higher, and more truly human culture. Such a religion of a divine humanity, moving onward and onward on the high road of physical and spiritual perfection, is the religion of socialism."

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The Root of Socialism is Cowardice, by Frederick Millar 1907

The Root of Socialism is Cowardice by Frederick Millar

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The root of socialism is cowardice. Here is the real source of the whole movement. It is the whine and the dream of the weakling’s base fear of rivalry, of competition. It is the duty of real men to circumvent and defeat, by war if necessary, by invasion if necessary, by conquest if necessary, by extermination if necessary, the despicable effeminacy of creatures unworthy of the name of men, because they fear to carry on the competitive struggle in which the true life of manhood consists. The socialist movement is popular because it appeals to these numerous creatures; panders to their baseness; promises them what they would be ashamed to desire or seek if they were men; and fools them to the top of their bent, while it misleads them into the pit of destruction. But who among the leaders of their political parties has the manliness to tell them the truth about this matter?

That the animating spirits of this movement fear to carry on the struggle for existence in its highest form—that they fear, in other words, the commercial and industrial competition which necessarily must exist, in so far as freedom exists—is about as certain as any fact concerning the minds of others can be; and it may be proved by their own teachings. And yet these people want us to believe that they are prepared, if parliamentary means fail them, to head a violent revolution to carry out their schemes. “Peaceably if possible, forcibly if necessary,” are the words used. It is absolutely certain that they are not prepared to do anything of the kind. Persons who cannot stomach commercial and industrial competition would not stomach lead and cold steel. They would not stomach anything that placed their precious skins in danger. Fear of competition in its commercial and industrial form necessarily means fear of it in its more deadly shapes. In seeking to abolish competition these agitators reveal their true character, and prove that, however good they may be at barking, they are not likely to do much biting if danger is about. If parliamentary means fail them, all means will fail them, for they have nothing else, and never will have anything else.

Yes, you will doubtless say, but socialism is gaining ground in England, is coming more and more into favour with the masses, and whatever becomes popular with them cannot be a bad thing. We do not dispute the growing popularity of the movement. We only point out that England is not the world—that even the whole of Europe is not the world—that America is not the world. Survival in the struggle for existence is not, and cannot be, for those peoples who are afraid of the struggle itself. Slothful love of ease and fear of rivalry will, sooner or later, deservedly go down before whatever is animated by a manlier spirit. Rotten principles will destroy millions as surely as they will destroy units. The time required may be longer, but there are reckoning days for nations and empires as well as for individuals. When crowds go wrong there are means in existence for dealing with them. Democracy does not rule the process of the suns. We can conceive of a democracy animated by sound principles and noble aims, but it does not exist in this country to-day. This process makes for the victory of the best and the overthrow of the worst, let massed ignorance vote as it may, let its flattering misleaders promise what they may, let the dreams of both be as rosy as they may. Realities will disturb them rudely.

It is not so much the form as the spirit of socialism, or, rather its want of spirit, which disgusts one. Its note is always the note of baseness, of unworthy dread of individual freedom, which it is ready to sacrifice to any extent for the sake of collective insurance in everlasting food, etc., with beer and skittles thrown in, which it promises to all without being in a position to keep its word. It is ever the cry of the laziness that wants to have everything done for it by others, and that abhors having to exert itself to do anything for itself. Socialism is the cry of adult babyhood for public nurses and public pap-bottles.

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Government is to do everything for the lazy socialist without charging him anything for it! In fact, its numerous functionaries, its vast armies of inspectors, and inspectors of inspectors, and inspectors of inspectors of inspectors; its crowds of officials of all kinds, swarming everywhere like locusts to eat the people out of house and home, are to live and work, on the dreamer’s theory, without consuming anything at all; so that the socialist may be able to obtain everything he wants free, absolutely free! For how else is this model of altruism to have so much gratuitously done for him? Even the functionaries of a socialist State could not live on nothing. They will not be workers of miracles, and even those who profess to perform such wonders seldom appear to be able to do the miracle of living for long without eating; and many of them are very costly beggars, until they become still more costly robbers and spiritual despots.

In this place it will be useful to clear away a misunderstanding. When the need for the struggle for existence, for the survival of the fittest and for the disappearance of their opposites, is insisted upon, the inference is sometimes drawn that those who insist on this need affirm by implication that nothing whatever should under any circumstances be done by the strong to soften the lot of the weak. Such an inference, however, is not warranted. There is room for love in the service of reason. Love is not the highest, but it comes near to the highest in proportion as it serves the highest. But the ideal of reason is strength, the greatest possible activity of mind and body for the greatest possible number of persons for the longest possible time. Towards this ideal the love that is guided by reason will ever work; and the love that is not guided by reason had better not exist. So long as the help which strength gives voluntarily to weakness—gives without governmental or collective compulsion in any shape or form—is not of such a character as to enable and encourage mental, moral, or physical weakness to multiply and extend itself in the country and in the world, but is of such a character as to lessen the mischief to which it ministers, no harm is done to society considered as a continuing succession of generations, and posterity is not injured by so wisely-governed a form of benevolence. But benevolence greatly needs to be wisely governed if it is to avoid sinning against the light of science, the only means of salvation, social and individual alike, and the only light of man. The essential thing is that there shall be a steady advancement towards reason’s ideal. The essential thing is that every kind of mental, moral, and physical inefficiency shall steadily grow less rather than more.

This brings us to another point. A violent, sudden, and wholesale destruction of the weak by the strong, which is sometimes said by socialists and communists to be the logic of the individualist position, would promote no steady improvement. It would produce only reaction, the natural fruit of violence and haste. Consequently it would only be less of a curse to its country, and to the world at large, than the blind, irrational sentimentalism now working so much evil in our midst by thoughtlessly providing facilities for, and encouraging the multiplication of, all forms of inefficiency; thus spreading the very mischief to which it ministers, and which it is the endeavour of all rational minds to steadily and surely remove.

When we urge that socialism is bad, we do not want it to be understood that we are contending that the system under which we are now living, which is largely socialistic, and a great part of the evil in which is, to a considerable extent, due to its socialistic laws and institutions, is the best of all possible systems for all possible time. On the contrary, we say, reform the present system in the direction of justice; of equal, even-handed justice, without class favour, and without class partiality; of justice for each and justice for all. This will mean getting rid of most, if not all, of its socialism. We do not say that human intelligence allied with political power will never devise better laws and institutions than those we have now to put up with. We do not oppose any change which is really for the better for this or subsequent generations. But socialism, or rather a larger dose of it, is not a change for the better; it is a change for the worse, as the facts about it clearly demonstrate. Whatever else the good and lasting system of the future may be, it will assuredly not be socialism. It will be a system in which there is far greater scope for healthy and bracing competition than exists now, as well as far greater security for the private property which such competition requires. In short, it will be an individualist system. Those are the best laws, those are the best institutions, which lead men to put forth their best faculties of mind and body to the uttermost, without injury to their health and without injustice to each other. This is a position of reason, which is that of men prepared to take the risks of personal freedom, instead of embracing collective slavery and then looking to the State to dry-nurse and molly-coddle them into adult babyhood.

But an economic and social gospel based upon fear of rivalry, fear of competition, fear of being killed with work, fear of paternal and maternal duties and responsibilities—fear, in short, of everything that makes a man a man or a woman a woman—cannot be entertained seriously by men who have any respect for themselves, or any desire for the lasting good of their species. Socialism is damned because it seeks to do by political means what cannot be done by such means. It would raise the poor, but no class in this world is really benefited without a change in its character as well as in its material circumstances; and no class in this world can be really elevated to a higher plane of mental, moral, and physical life without the constant exercise of personal economy, thrift, industry, valour, continence, and the other virtues. Nor is it desirable that the state of things should be otherwise. Outward prosperity that corresponds to no inward worth, to no nobility of mind and action, is a vain and empty thing. A good mind is the only good for itself, and other things are good just in so far as they make for it.

Those who seek to help the poor by taking from the rich merely because they are rich, only sink the poor lower in their own self-respect and in the respect of the rest of the world. They produce paupers, but not men. Those who seek to help the poor by relieving them of their duties and responsibilities as parents, only debase and enslave them. They produce loose, vicious, careless, shallow, idle characters, but not men, not women. They will sink their protégés low enough if they are but allowed to do so. This is why, far more in the interests of the poor than in those of the rich, the deadly poison of socialism, wherever it is found, and under whatever disguise it is sought to be concealed, ought to be not merely opposed, but utterly, completely, and for ever destroyed.

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Why Do So Many Intellectuals Oppose Capitalism?

Why Do So Many Intellectuals Oppose Capitalism?

Following the valuable advice of co-blogger David Henderson, I've gotten my hands on Milton Friedman on Freedom, a new collection edited by the Hoover Institution. The book will surprise all of us who never properly appreciated the insights and wisdom of Friedman's political thinking. His own peculiar blend of classical liberalism comes out all the more as subtle and relevant.


Among the several chapters, I did particularly enjoy a 1974 interview with Reason magazine. Friedman was then interviewed by the editorial trio (Tibor Machan, Joe Cobb, Ralph Raico), who were challenging him from what they considered a more consistent libertarian position.
The interview is rich and interesting in many ways. Friedman defends a negative income tax and school vouchers as "devices for enabling the free market to play a larger role." He admits that the work of E.G. West made him revisit his own rationale for compulsory education (but not to abandon vouchers as a practical policy proposal), and he discusses inflation and the gold standard.
Friedman also speaks on a matter which has likewise been pondered by many of his contemporaries: why intellectuals oppose capitalism.

To these questions, some have replied that the main reason is resentment (intellectuals expect more recognition from the market society than they actually get); some have pointed out that self-interest drives the phenomenon (intellectuals preach government controls and regulation because they'll be the controllers and regulators); some have taken the charitable view that intellectuals do not understand what the market really is about (as they cherish "projects" and the market is instead an unplanned order).

Friedman rejects the resentment view and proposes a version of the self-interest thesis by looking at the demand-side, so to speak. And it shows – behind the veil of his civility – very little consideration for the tastes of his fellow intellectuals for complex arguments, which seems to me quite a criticism.
Here's the passage:

REASON: Perhaps we can go back to your comment about intellectuals. What do you think of the thesis put forth by von Mises and Schoeck, that envy motivates many contemporary intellectuals' opposition to the free market?

FRIEDMAN: Well, I don't think we'll get very far by interpreting the intellectuals' motivation. Their critical attitudes might be attributed to personal resentment and envy but I would say that a more fruitful direction, or a more fundamental one, is that intellectuals are people with something to sell. So the question becomes, what is there a better market for? I think a major reason why intellectuals tend to move towards collectivism is that the collectivist answer is a simple one. If there's something wrong pass a law and do something about it. If there's something wrong it's because of some no-good bum, some devil, evil and wicked – that's a very simple story to tell. You don't have to be very smart to write it and you don't have to be very smart to accept it. On the other hand, the individualistic or libertarian argument is a sophisticated and subtle one. If there's something wrong with society, if there's a real social evil, maybe you will make better progress by letting people voluntarily try to eliminate the evil. Therefore, I think, there is in advance a tendency for intellectuals to be attracted to sell the collectivist idea.
REASON: It's paradoxical but people might then say that you are attributing to the collectivist intellectual a better feeling for the market. 

FRIEDMAN: Of course. But while there's a bigger market for Fords than there is for American Motors products, there is a market for the American Motors products. In the same way, there's a bigger market for collectivist ideology than there is for individualist ideology. The thing that really baffles me is that the fraction of intellectuals who are collectivists is, I think, even larger than would be justified by the market.

Reprinted from Library of Economics and Liberty.

Alberto Mingardi

Alberto Mingardi is Director General of Istituto Bruno Leoni, Italy’s free-market think tank.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

Socialism is Hatred of Religion By John Joseph Ming 1908

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Socialism is Hatred of Religion By John Joseph Ming 1908

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Were socialism merely a theory taught in schools, it might in practical life be reconcilable with religious toleration. But it is not only a theory, but a movement, to which the theory imparts light and direction, life and energy. The doctrinal tenets, therefore, must be spread among the rank and file of the socialists and be instilled into their minds. Hence the circulation of the works of Marx and Engels and their interpreters among the educated, hence the spreading of numerous pamphlets and of periodical literature to popularize the socialist doctrine and bring it home to working men as well as women. From this connection between the socialist theory and the socialist movement an anti-religious attitude follows as a necessary consequence. What else than hatred and contempt of religion can result from the scornful denial of the existence of God so often repeated, from the derision of the divine worship resounding everywhere in socialist literature? Let us hear some utterances that come from the mouths both of masters and pupils and are heard in all countries on both sides of the ocean.

The following are sayings of Marx:

Religion is an "absurd sentiment," "a fantastical degradation of human nature."

"Man makes religion, not religion man."

"Religion is the sentiment of a heartless world as it is the spirit of spiritless conditions." "It is the opium of the people."

"Religion is only an illusory sun, which revolves around man as long as man fails to revolve around himself."

"Religion is the self-consciousness of a human being that has either not yet found itself or again lost itself."

It has recently been maintained by J. Spargo that Marx opposed professional atheism. In the "International Socialist Review," March 1908, Spargo grants him to be an agnostic. But the above quotations, verified by Cathrein and Untermann, show hatred and contempt for all religion so intense that they can not be interpreted merely as agnosticism, but must be taken for positive atheism.

Engels expresses his contempt for religion in almost the same terms as Marx. In his criticism of the socialist platform he demanded that the labor party declare its intention "of delivering men's conscience from the specter of religion."

In his "Anti-Duehring" he writes:

"Religion is nothing but the fantastic reflection in the brains of men of those powers by whom their daily existence is dominated, a reflection in which the natural forces assume supernatural forms."

In a letter of 1890 published in the "Leipziger Volkszeitung" he maintains that the higher ideologies of religion, philosophy, etc., still in vogue are prehistorical and traditional, consisting of what we nowadays term nonsense, gradually to exterminate which and to replace with new but ever less absurd nonsense is the task of science.

E. Untermann quotes him as saying:

"Man lost in religion his own nature, divested himself of his manhood. Now that religion has lost its hold on the human mind through historical development, man becomes aware of the void in him and of his lack of support. There is no other salvation for him, if he wishes to regain his manhood, than to thoroughly overcome all religious ideas and return sincerely, not to 'God' but to himself."

Bebel, repeating a saying of the frivolous poet Heine, leaves "Heaven to the angels and the sparrows." From his numerous utterances breathing intense contempt for God and religion we quote the following:

"It is not the gods that create man; it is man who turns the gods into God."

"In the image of himself (man) he creates Him (God), not the opposite way."

"Monotheism has also suffered changes. It has dissolved into pantheism that embraces and permeates the universe; ... it volatilizes day by day. Natural science reduced to myth the dogma of the creation in six days; astronomy, mathematics, physics, have converted heaven into a structure of air."

"Morality and ethics have nothing to do with organized religion. The contrary is asserted only by weak-minded people or hypocrites."

Liebknecht writes in the "Berliner Volksblatt," 1890, n. 281:

"We may peacefully take our stand upon the ground of socialism, and thus conquer the stupidity of the masses in so far as this stupidity reveals itself in religious forms and dogmas."

J. G. Brooks in his "Social Unrest" remarks: "A single passage from Liebknecht's paper ('Der Volkstaat') in 1875 stands fairly for opinions that may be quoted from twenty authoritative sources:

"'It is our duty as socialists to root out the faith in God with all our zeal, nor is one worthy of the name who does not consecrate himself to the spread of atheism.'"

James Leatham, an English socialist, says in the preface to his "Socialism and Character" (1899):

"Faith, properly so called, is dead. The belief in God with all it implies is now without a raison d'etre. The original conception of God has everywhere been that of a Creator, a great Master Workman of the Universe, who made it and who sustains it. But the idea of creation is now given up. The conception of a universe beginning to be out of nothing is found, even by Roman Catholic theologians(?), to be unthinkable, and they now speak of God and the universe as 'coexistent entities.'"

"Nor is the conception of God, the Sustainer, any longer an intellectual necessity, as it was when men could not account for the phenomena of Nature in terms of the natural. There is nothing left for the deity to do."

Robert Blatchford, the famous English socialist and agnostic, writes:

"The greatest curse of humanity is ignorance; religion, being based on authority, is naturally opposed to knowledge."

To present the views also of American socialists let us first quote from two ex-ministers of the Gospel: G. D. Herron, ex-minister of the Congregational Church and ex-professor of Applied Christianity; and from William Thurston Brown, formerly pastor of the Plymouth Church in Rochester, N. Y., both now prominent leaders in the Socialist Party.

G. D. Herron, in a lecture on the "Co-operative Life" delivered in the Chicago Temple, and printed in "Socialist Spirit" January, 1903, tells his audience:

"All religions the world has ever seen have been imposed for the purpose of preventing the operation of the collective will. They have been mere philosophies of submission, aiming at the subjection of the people. The world has therefore only advanced as the collective will has found halting expression in successive revolutions made against these imposed dogmas, both the church and the state. Thus humanity can hope to advance only as it forsakes all reliance upon any resources outside the common life. The common life and its common aims, aspirations, and efforts must be its own saviour. He makes even now its own heaven and its own hell."

W. T. Brown is quoted as saying in a sermon:

"The truth is, as all thinking men are aware, we have no such thing as intellectual honesty in the sphere of religion. We have made religion a department of human thought and action in which moral principles do not figure. We have not even succeeded in getting a conception of God that has any moral quality. The deity men pray to and exhibit in theological systems is not a moral being. He does not act in accord with principles, but at his own caprice or to meet unforeseen emergencies."

To these unmistakable utterances of the two ex-ministers we add a clause from E. Untermann's profession of faith in the "Appeal to Reason," February 21, 1903:

"Religious dogma is a survival of the childhood of the race, when man bowed in fear and superstition to the unknown forces of nature and endowed them with human names and qualities. The Manitou of the North American Indian, the Zeus of the Greek, the Jupiter of the Roman, the Jehovah of the Jew and the God of the modern Christian, are all the result of the same feeling of impotence in the face of the elements of nature. They bear the same visible marks of the human hand, and clearly testify to the fact that God was made in the image of man, and not man in the image of any God. They are fit subjects in the romantic and ignorant imagination of undeveloped races or of the children of more advanced nations. They are nothing but the heroes of fairy tales by which nations testify to their religious feelings. Up to a certain state of mental development, they perform a useful service, by keeping a dim light of higher aims burning in the minds of men. But the mature minds of deeper thinkers do not find any rest nor any inspiration in those idols, and demand a new and better foundation for their march toward godhood."

Intense, indeed, is the hatred and contempt of religion expressed in the foregoing quotations. But these embittered sentiments do not spring merely from the individual views of socialist writers. No, they are the necessary outcome of socialism under both its aspect as a materialistic system of philosophy and an economic and political movement.

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Dickens Knew Taxes Started the French Revolution

Dickens Knew Taxes Started the French Revolution

Charles Dickens’s novel A Tale of Two Cities is one of his most romantic love stories, but it's also one of his most applicable. The beautiful saga of young people in love is framed by the developing and breaking of the first French Revolution. In telling their story, Dickens describes the rumblings of the early discontent, the growing sense of realization that life did not need to be as dark as it was, the sense of agitation rolling over the country, the torrent of passionate violence raining on anyone marked, and the crash of the guillotine over and over.

Yes, the Revolution was about politics and religion and envy and many other things. But the spark was much more primal: hunger.

That storm isn't the applicable part, but its cause is. (That Revolution was only partially successful, by the way. All the old problems kept coming up, even after many more revolutions over the span of decades. That part, at least, it still applicable.)

Whether you've read A Tale of Two Cities or not, you know the French Revolution happened because the people were sick and tired of being sick and tired. They were fed up with being forced into poverty by selfish laws enacted by both national and local governments, living literally in the shadows of glittering, gilded palaces. Yes, the Revolution was about politics and religion and envy and many other things. But the spark was much more primal: hunger. Hunger based not on famine, but on the financial inability to provide food, because their money went to the building and upkeep of the palaces in whose shadows they lived.

In Chapter 8 of Book 2, Dickens describes the local French lord Monsieur the Marquis driving through one of the villages under his jurisdiction to get to his chalet on the other side, just a few years before the Revolution:

The village had its one poor street, with its poor brewery, poor tannery, poor tavern, poor stable-yard for relays of post-horses, poor fountain, all usual poor appointments. It had its poor people too. All its people were poor, and many of them were sitting at their doors, shredding spare onions and the like for supper, while many were at the fountain, washing leaves, and grasses, and any such small yieldings of the earth that could be eaten. Expressive sips of what made them poor, were not wanting; the tax for the state, the tax for the church, the tax for the lord, tax local and tax general, were to be paid here and to be paid there, according to solemn inscription in the little village, until the wonder was, that there was any village left unswallowed.

Ironically, France still has fairly high taxes.
Most of us aren't being taxed to starvation, but we're certainly living with far less capital than we're earning. Income tax is discussed the most, but all those other small taxes like sales, restaurant, alcohol, gas, and tariffs add up. And they tend to snowball: many of us live in places with a city sales tax, a city income tax, a toll on commonly used roads, and more. It’s one thing if we’re seeing this money put to good use, but I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s still dealing with potholes and bad street lighting in spite of my tax money. In fact, judging by my own experience at least, the states with higher taxes have the worst roads, and the states with lower taxes have the best roads.
Today our taxes have names like "Federal Income Tax" and "State Sales Tax" instead of "State Representative's Paycheck" and "Muh Roads."

Think of everything you'd be capable of doing, seeing, building, investing in, or donating to if you kept 100 or even 95 percent of your earnings, rather than the mere 75 or 60 percent you are now. You could do a lot, couldn't you? If they had kept their earnings, the 18th century French could’ve eaten. If you kept your earnings, you could open a restaurant to feed today’s hungry.

We have enough checks and balances now to keep taxes from having names like “State Representative’s Paycheck,” “Upkeep for the Governor's Mansion,” “Building a Fancy but Unnecessary Building So the Mayor Looks Good to the Competition,” and, way down at the bottom, “Muh Roads.”

Instead, today these names are hidden under the bulk names of “Federal Income Tax,” “State Income Tax,” “State Sales Tax,” “City Sales Tax,” “Property Tax,” and dozens of others, which is both a blessing and a curse. It means we don't have to risk heightening our blood pressure to dangerous levels every time we see our taxes broken down, but it also means we don't realize what our money is being spent on. We live assuming that we are paying these taxes, sometimes unknown to us in the first place, as the price for living in society, the price for those roads, albeit cracked, and those street lights, albeit burned out.

Perhaps if our taxes were clear to us as it was to the French revolutionaries, we'd insist more strongly (though still peaceably, of course) on tax cuts, and increasing standard deductions, and, ideally, tax elimination. Guillotines unnecessary.

Eileen L. Wittig

Eileen Wittig is an Associate Editor and author of the Lazy Millennial column at FEE. You can follow the Lazy Millennial Twitter here.

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

Excerpts from Yuri Maltzev's Book "Requiem for Marx"

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Yuri Maltzev's Requiem for Marx is a wonderful and engaging book edited by Yuri Maltzev who worked as an Economist for Gorbachev. Here are some fascinating excerpts:

The failure of socialism in Russia, and the enormous suffering and hardship of people in all socialist countries, is a powerful warning against socialism, statism, and interventionism in
the West. "We should all be thankful to the Soviets," says Paul Craig Roberts, "because they have proved conclusively that socialism doesn't work. No one can say they didn't have enough
power or enough bureaucracy or enough planners or they didn't go far enough."

If only.

A young man from a peasant family I knew had heard that market activity was legal, and decided to raise a pig to sell in the market. For six months, this hopeful entrepreneur devoted his time and money to caring for it and feeding it, hoping he would earn twice his money back by selling it. Never was a man so happy as when he took the pig to market one morning. That night I found him drunk and depressed. He was not a drinker, so I asked him what happened. When he arrived at the market, a health inspector immediately chopped off a third of the pig. The inspector said he was looking for worms. Then the police came and picked the best part of it, and left without even saying thank you. He had to pay bribes to the officials in charge of the market to get a space to sell what was left. And he had to sell the meat at state prices. By the end of the day, he earned barely enough to buy one bottle of vodka, which he had just finished drinking. This was Gorbachev's new market in a nutshell.

..................................

Western academics and media pundits found his support for socialism charming, if a little outdated. But the people who lived under the system felt differently. They knew socialism had proven itself the most destructive ideology in human history-responsible for untold millions of deaths. For those populations onto whom socialism had been imposed, it had impoverished them, wiped out their cultural heritage, and in many cases, resulted in massive bloodshed.

..................................

The sad legacy of Marxism is the mind set of certain people, both in the East and West, who believe that the state can cure all economic ills and bring about social justice. Yet a return to
central management under whatever label is not the solution, but neither is the status quo. What is needed in the former Soviet Union and Soviet-client states is a wholesale repudiation of the legacy of Marx. In the United States, too, Marx's ideas influenced a generation of reformers during the Progressive Era (out of which came modern central banking and the progressive income tax), the New Deal, the Great Society, and continues to infect departments of literature and sociology in major universities. Remarkable even after the fall of Soviet and East European social regimes, Marxism has not lost all its academic cache.

..................................

The greatest irony regarding the massive amount of published attention that is squandered on Karl Marx is this: Engels was the indispensable partner in the history of Communism, not Marx. Engels was ahead of Marx conceptually from the beginning, although he was two years younger. He became a communist a year before Marx did. He became interested in the economic conditions of industrial civilization before Marx did; his Condition of the Working Class in England was the book that in 1845 converted Marx to the theory of the economic foundations of the revolution. There is at least a reasonable suspicion that he and Marx together worked out the idea of the materialist conception of history, although Marx is usually given credit for the discovery. Joseph Schumpeter, after dutifully doffing his intellectual cap to Marx's greater "depth of comprehension and analytic power," then observes that "In those years Engels was certainly farther along, as an economist, than
was Marx." Engels co-authored The German Ideology. He co-authored the Communist Manifesto (1848). He ghost wrote many of Marx's journalism pieces to help earn him some extra money. He had a lively writing style and the ability to turn a phrase. He also knew how to make and keep money. Marx possessed neither skill.

..................................

Karl Marx's life serves as testimony to the failure of bad ideas. The only people who still take his ideas seriously are bourgeois intellectuals, heretical middle-class pastors, and power-seekers who want to become tyrants for life-the kind of people Marx despised, that is, people very much like himself. On the bourgeois dole for his entire life, he spent his days criticizing the very economic structure which permitted him his leisure time: capitalism....Had bourgeois London not given him a place to hide and work-we would never have heard of this third-rate materialist philosopher and fourth-rate classical economist.

..................................

Karl Marx was the foremost hater and most incessant whiner in the history of Western Civilization. He was a spoiled, over-educated brat who never grew up; he just grew more shrill as he grew older. His lifelong hatred and whining have led to the deaths (so far) of perhaps a hundred million people, depending on how many people perished under Mao's tyranny. We will probably never know.

..................................

Wilhelm Windelband devoted only two brief bibliographical entries and part of one paragraph to Marx and Engels in his 1901 History of Philosophy. The fact is, Marx had very little influence prior
to 1917, especially in the United States. Had it not been for Lenin, references to Marx would be limited to a series of obscure footnotes, rather than a library of books.

..................................

Marx emphatically rejected those utopian socialists who sought to arrive at communism through a gradual and evolutionary process, through a steady advancement of the good. Instead, Marx harked back to the apocalyptics, the post-millennial coercive German and Dutch Anabaptists of the sixteenth century, to the millennial sects during the English Civil War, and to the various groups of pre-millennial Christians who foresaw a bloody Armageddon at the last days, before the millennium could be established.

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