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Russian thinker and author Fyodor Dostoyevsky offered the following
take on socialism: “The future kingdom of socialism will be a terrible
tyranny of criminals and murderers. It will throw humanity into a true
hell of spiritual suffering and poverty.”
By Dr. David Noebel
March 27, 2009
In retrospect, we might discover that 1883 was a most significant
year. We’re familiar with 1848 giving us The Communist Manifesto and
1859 giving us The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or
the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. But 1883
gave us three portentous happenings. These seemingly unrelated
happenings turned history toward socialism.
1. Karl Marx died on March 14, 1883, and was buried in Highgate
Cemetery in London, England. The assumption that Communism died with
him was logical since only six people attended his funeral. But the
truth is that it had not yet begun its murderous journey through the
20th century.
2. John Maynard Keynes was born on June 5, 1883, in Cambridge,
England. His political, economic, and moral influence continues to
affect every American.
3. The Fabian Socialist Society was an offshoot of The Fellowship of
the New Life, which was born in October 1883 in London, England.
Today’s financial events illustrate that America is not exempt from
being led toward socialism. Predictions differ, depending on one’s
perspective, as to whether this will be a socialistic paradise or a
socialistic hell. Time will tell. In the meantime, we’d do well to
listen to warnings from the past.
Russian thinker and author Fyodor Dostoyevsky offered the following
take on socialism: “The future kingdom of socialism will be a terrible
tyranny of criminals and murderers. It will throw humanity into a true
hell of spiritual suffering and poverty.”
Socialist George Bernard Shaw added: “You would be forcibly fed,
clothed, lodged, taught, and employed whether you liked it or not. If
it were discovered that you had not character and industry enough to be
worth all this trouble, you might possibly be executed in a kindly
manner.”
That’s probably why Margaret Thatcher added that the “problem with
socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.”
Today, we can link the U. S. House of Representatives—and its
radical, progressive, socialistic societies and caucuses— directly to
Karl Marx through Keynes and the Fabians.
Before identifying many of the House members caught up in the
socialist web, however, let’s first identify the major economic dogma
of the early socialists.
Socialism is the economic system of both the Marxist-Leninist
worldview and the Fabian Society worldview. John Maynard Keynes was a
member of the British Fabian Society, whose American counterparts were
the Intercollegiate Socialist Society and the League for Industrial
Democracy. Their American voices were centered in the ideas of Norman
Thomas and John Dewey among others. Dewey, you may remember, was an
early signatory of The Humanist Manifesto (1933) and its atheistic,
socialist gospel.
Socialists are united in their desire to see capitalism destroyed,
either forcefully or gradually, and most would rejoice if Christianity
were destroyed along with it. Socialists and liberals generally see in
Christians “an infallible marker of mental retardation.” (Claremont
Review of Books, Winter 2008/09, p. 6)
The Christian worldview endorses sound or hard money, fiscal
responsibility, saving for a rainy day, deferred gratification, paying
off monthly credit card bills, living within one’s means, etc.
Keynesian economics, by contrast, argues for consumption, extravagance,
and not providing for the future, arguing that “the great vice is
saving, thrift, and financial prudence.” (Keynes At Harvard, p. 63)
Keynesians love huge national spending, debt, and high
inflation—anathema to Christians and conservatives.
Socialists see capitalism as an evil economic system founded on the
concepts of profit, individualism, private property, private business,
freedom to buy and sell products and services, etc. Indeed, a working
definition of capitalism is “the peaceful and free exchange of goods
and services without theft, fraud, and breech of contract.” Capitalism
is tailored to individual initiative rather than groupthink or
community initiative. Nearly all inventions that have furthered the
capitalistic enterprise and blessed humanity in the process have been
the result of individual initiative rather than committee, group, or
government activity.
Marx advanced the socialist cause by calling for social or public
ownership of property and the abolition of private property. He
believed that people were best suited to work on state farms, public
parks, nationalized banks, or the government bureaucracy rather than
for private employers, who would certainly take advantage of their
employees, causing them both social and economic harm. Marx was an
economic leech on fellow communist Engels, who supported him with his
capitalistic father’s monies.
George Bernard Shaw represented the Fabian point of view by calling
for “the socialization of the means of production, distribution, and
exchange” to bring about an equal distribution of goods and services to
all members of society and to make the State “the ALL of social
well-being.” The State “subsumes all economic life of the nation.”
In other words, socialism is an economic system that downplays the
individual in favor of the group, social order, or the State. It is a
system in which the State directs the economic activity of the social
order through central planning and by placing economic activity under
the jurisdiction of the State. Socialism is also known as collectivism
or Statism and, to Marx, Communism.
Today, we call this economic system “interventionism” or Keynesism.
Interventionism is a kind of socialism or communism, but without the
destruction of the bourgeoisie (which were slaughtered by the millions
by Soviet and Chinese communists). Today’s Fabians/Progressives/
Radicals allow their capitalist enemies to create wealth, but acquire
it by taxing them instead of slaughtering them (Marx’s “reign of
terrorism on the bourgeoisie”). They are then free to distribute the
wealth among the economically disadvantaged, the intellectual elites,
and the superior governing classes.
Such (re)distribution of wealth ensures the favorable vote of the
masses being fed, entertained, housed (with sub-prime loans) and
doctored. ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now)
and socialism fit hand-in-glove just as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac fit
Barney Frank, Maxine Waters, and Chris Dodd to a “T.”
Most Americans are totally unaware that the U.S. House of
Representatives crawls with a large, well-organized assembly of
socialist organizations. These organizations are dedicated to (a)
bringing about the destruction of the capitalist economic system
(portrayed as greedy, conservative, religious, and/or filthy rich) and
(b) slowly but surely bringing production, education, food, and health
care under the complete control and regulation of the federal
government.
A prime example of this governmental takeover is the carbon tax
currently under discussion. It would punish business and industry’s use
of gas and oil products (which according to Al Gore will warm the
planet by one degree over the next 100 years) by “allowing] the federal
government to ‘control every aspect of our economy,’ according to
Christopher Horner of the Competitive Enterprise Institute” (The Weekly
Standard, March 16, 2009, p. 17).
The legislators involved in this socialistic undertaking belong to
one or more radical House organizations: the Progressive Democrats of
America (6 House members), the Congressional Progressive Caucus (74
House members), the Congressional Black Caucus (43 House members), and
the Democratic Socialists of America.
Incidentally, the Democratic Socialists of America do not identify
their House members since they consider all members of the
Congressional Progressive Caucus part of their membership due to the
fact that “they both shared operative social democratic politics.” The
most prominent national member of DSA is AFL-CIO President John J.
Sweeney, who could well be the most powerful influence in the House of
Representatives. And for the record, the Chairwoman of the
Congressional Black Caucus is Congressional Progressive Caucus member
Barbara Lee (CA-9). The interconnections between all these
socialist-based organizations is staggering.
These organizations and their members quite literally comprise a
Socialist Red Army within the very contours of the House of
Representatives. According to the Wikipedia article on the
organization, “The Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) is the single
largest partisan caucus in the United States House of Representatives
and works together to advance progressive [socialist] issues and
causes. The CPC was founded in 1991 by independent [socialist]
Congressman Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who remains a member as Senator.
[The CPC] represents about a third of the House Democratic Caucus. Of
the twenty standing committees of the House, eleven are chaired by
members of the CPC.”
When the CPC claimed 64 members in 2006 (now 74 and gaining), the
leftist publication The Nation boasted, “The largest ideological caucus
in the new House Democratic majority will be the Congressional
Progressive Caucus, with a membership that includes New York’s Charles
Rangel, Michigan’s John Conyers, Massachusetts’s Barney Frank and at
least half the incoming chairs of House standing committees” (The
Nation, November 12,2006).
These current eleven chairs are CPC members:
- George Miller
(CA-9)—Chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee;
- Henry
Waxman (CA-30)—Chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce;
- Bob
Filner (CA-51)—Chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee;
- Barney
Frank (MA-4)—Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee;
- John
Conyers (MI-14)—Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee;
- Bennie
Thompson (MS-2)—Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee;
- Nydia Velazquez (NY-12)—Chairwoman of the House Small Business
Committee;
- Charles Rangel (NY-15)—Chairman of the House Ways and Means
Committee;
- Louise Slaughter (N Y-28)—Chairwoman of the House Rules
Committee;
- Bob Brady (PA-1)—Chairman of the House Administration
Committee; and
- Edward J. Markey (MA-7)—Select Committee on Energy
Independence and Global Warming.
As of February 20,2009, the Co-Chairs of the CPC are Raul M.
Grijalva (AZ-7) and Lynn Woolsey (CA-6). The Vice Chairs are Diane
Watson (CA-33), Sheila Jackson-Lee (TX-18), Mazie Hirono (HI-2), and
Dennis Kucinich (OH-10). Incidentally, the CPC website was “hosted by
the Democratic Socialists of America” until 1999, a group affiliated
with the Socialist International which was founded by Karl Marx,
Saint-Simon, and Fourier!
The Commission for a Sustainable World Society is one of the
Socialist International’s sub-organizations. Until President Obama
picked Carol M. Browner as his global warming czar, Browner was a
member in good standing of the Socialist International. Upon her
appointment, her name and biography were removed from its website
“though a photo of her speaking June 30 to the group’s congress in
Greece was still available” (The Washington Times, January 12,2009, p.
1). We can expect Browner to manipulate and push for every piece of
socialist legislation to advance the defeat of capitalism and the
imposition of more government on the American people. Oil, natural gas,
coal, and nuclear energy represent capitalism, and we can expect
Congressional socialists to do everything in their legislative power to
thwart their discovery, drilling, usage, and distribution. Socialists
promote wind(mill) power because they know it alone cannot meet the
energy needs of a capitalist economy and will, therefore, hasten the
death of capitalism.
Browner will enjoy a great deal of support from the newly appointed
Secretary of Labor, Hilda Solis, who is also a member of the
Congressional Progressive Caucus. And when Browner needs further help,
she can rely on the committee chairs, co-chairs, and vice chairs listed
above to assist her in using the global warming/climate change scare to
bring the United States of America into a socialistic world governing
body. She can also count on former CPC member Nancy Pelosi (who is
already manifesting dictatorial tendencies) to drive the socialist
agenda as fast as humanly possible. Pelosi’s San Francisco district
(CA-8) is synonymous with socialism/ progressivism/
collectivism/statism/leftism/radicalism that in turn are synonymous
with scientific socialism/communism/ Marxism/Leninism/Maoism.
We have yet to address the ideological role played by John Maynard
Keynes in the demise of American capitalism and Christian influence.
Anyone with a Christian, conservative bent fears the reality that the
United States is falling headlong off the cliff into socialism and all
that this will entail. It is no secret that the radical left is both
anti-capitalist and anti-Christian. Marx would be, no doubt ecstatic,
realizing that his life’s work of dethroning God and destroying
capitalism are about to be accomplished.
Zygmund Dobbs conducted the research for Keynes at Harvard
(KeynesatHarvard.org) and summarizes the political, moral, and economic
slant of Keynes and his friends at Cambridge University: “Singing the
Red Flag, the highborn sons of the British upper-class lay on the
carpeted floor spinning out socialist schemes in homosexual
intermissions….The attitude in such gatherings was anti-establishmentarian. To them the older generation was horribly out of
date, even superfluous. The capitalist system was declared obsolete and
revolution was proclaimed as the only solution. Christianity was
pronounced an enemy force, and the worst sort of depravities were
eulogized as ‘that love which passes all Christian understanding.’
Chief of this ring of homosexual revolutionaries was John Maynard
Keynes…Keynes was characterized by his male sweetheart, Lytton
Strachey, as ‘a liberal and a sodomite, an atheist and a statistician.’
His particular depravity was the sexual abuse of little boys.”
Keynes, like Marx, had a fixation that should have been a clue to
his character. Marx practiced phrenology (the study of bumps on one’s
head), and Keynes practiced chirognomy (the study of people’s hands).
After studying the hands of Charles Darwin’s brother, Sir George,
Keynes remarked, “His hands certainly looked as if they might be
descended from an ape.”
Overall, Keynes despised free or private enterprise, considered
homosexuality superior to heterosexuality, sought to replace the gold
standard with fiat paper money which was more easily produced by
government printing presses, did not believe in the family unit,
despised “savings” as a stumbling block against the march of socialism,
called on the state to control the number of children per family.
The Keynesian economic formula fits all totalitarianisms, including
Fascism, Nazism, and Communism. Sir Oswald Mosley, for example, was a
Fascist leader and a member of the Fabian Society. Lauchlin Currie, a
prominent Keynesian advocate, was a Soviet spy and an economic aide to
F.D.R. Joan Robinson, a Marxist economist, assisted Keynes in some of
his economic writings, arguing, “the differences between Marx and
Keynes are only verbal.” (Keynes At Harvard, p. 68; also see Mark
Skousen, The Making of Modern Economics, p. 433)
Keynes also had a strong relationship with the notorious Soviet spy
Harry Dexter White. Keynes considered White to be “the central figure
in the Keynesian manipulations in the United States.” Harry Dexter
White just happened to be the Assistant to the Secretary of the U.S.
Treasury. Even after White was exposed as a Soviet spy, Keynesians to
this day “see nothing wrong in White’s Soviet role,” a “typical . . .
attitude of Fabian socialist elements toward the whole coterie of spies
and Fifth Amendment communists in the United States” (Keynes At
Harvard, p. 83).
It was Keynes himself who admitted that by “a continuous process of
inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an
important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method, they
not only confiscate, but confiscate arbitrarily: and while the process
impoverishes many, it actually enriches some [e.g., Al Gore]. The
process engages all of the hidden forces of economic law on the side of
destruction, and does it in a manner that not one man in a million can
diagnose.”
Thus it is astounding that Larry Summers, head of President Obama’s
National Economic Council and former president of Harvard University,
when asked by Charlie Rose “what idea, what person has most influenced
your thinking on how to deal with this [financial] mess?” without
hesitation answered “Keynes.”
Following the economic advice of Keynes (huge government spending,
debt, and inflation) is kissing the American capitalist system
goodnight! His advice is what every socialist would give, even though
clear-thinking, common sense Americans know that excessive debt and
excessive spending are the main ingredients that created this current
financial mess (with the help of Congressional Progressives like Barney
Frank hatching socialist schemes in the House of Representatives).
When Whittaker Chambers took up his sling and aimed his rock at
Communism, he admitted that he hit “something else.” What he hit “was
the forces of that great socialist revolution, which, in the name of
liberalism, spasmodically, incompletely, somewhat formlessly, but
always in the same direction, has been inching its ice cap over the
nation for two decades.”
That inching is fast becoming a rout with national and international
socialists alike thinking their best opportunity to strike a deathblow
to the greatest, freest economic system in all of human history is now.
Because capitalism has raised more human beings out of poverty than
all other economic systems combined, we should remember the wisdom of
Robert Heilbroner, a former Marxist economist who changed his position
before the fall of the Berlin Wall: “The Soviet Union, China, and
Eastern Europe have given us the clearest possible proof that
capitalism organizes the material affairs of humankind more
satisfactorily than socialism: that however inequitably or
irresponsibly the marketplace may distribute goods, it does so better
than the queues of a planned economy; however mindless the culture of
commercialism, it is more attractive than state moralism; and however
deceptive the ideology of a business civilization, it is more
believable than that of a socialist one.”
Little wonder that Winston Churchill painted socialism as a
philosophy of failure, a creed of ignorance, and a gospel of envy whose
inherent virtue “is the equal sharing of misery.”
About the author:
Dr. David Noebel is founder and president of Summit Ministries and a best-selling author. He is recognized as an expert on worldview analysis and the decline of morality and spirituality in Western Civilization.
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