The Foundations of Democratic Socialism Must Be Repudiated

In my last post, A Criminal Wins in NYC, I wrote:

As to why so many supposed “Americans” can turn to an ideology so diametrically opposed to Americanism, and what can be done to stop it, that is a discussion for another time.

Well, this is the time.

From CNN’s Democratic socialism, according to Zohran Mamdani

There’s a fair amount of confusion and fear generated in the US by the term “socialist,” which is associated with repressive societies like Communist China, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, USSR, North Korea or Cuba.

Communism, as expressed in “The Communist Manifesto,” supports the idea that there will be a class war in which private property and the means of production are seized for the public good. Think “Animal Farm.”

Democratic socialism does not support the notion of a class war and instead pursues socialist goals through democratic means.

“And,” Mamdani says, “I think ultimately, the definition for me of why I call myself a democratic socialist is the words of Dr. [Martin Luther] King decades ago. He said, call it democracy or call it democratic socialism. There must be a better distribution of wealth for all of god’s children in this country.” [sic]

Note that Mamdani does not repudiate the idea that “private property and the means of production are seized for the public good.” A government that can seize the means of production—all businesses, land, jobs, investments, etc.—is a totalitarian state. He just thinks that it should be done by “democratic means.” Does it matter? No. Whether by violent class war or “peaceful” elections, tyranny is still tyranny. But what principles justify such a criminal system? Yes, socialism attracts the seekers of the unearned, the envious, the powerlusters, the haters of the good. Those types have always existed. But what enabling factors bring these scoundrels into power?

Equality

Democracy

Altruism

Equality is unnatural. Human life is fundamentally individual. Each of us billions of people are unique, and so in a free society individual outcomes and conditions will naturally vary widely. Inequality is the iron law of human nature. When you hear economic inequality being presented as a problem for the government to “solve,” you are encountering a rebellion against nature itself. Thus, to get any kind of equality of outcome or condition, such as  “a better distribution of wealth,” the state must have totalitarian power over everyone’s lives, work, earnings and wealth. Note the precision of the Founding Fathers: The Declaration of Independence does not say “All men are equal.” It says “All men are CREATED equal”—meaning only at birth, equally free TO PURSUE their own values, goals, fortunes and happiness based on the rights to life and liberty, and to own whatever they achieve. But socialists believe life conditions, not individual rights, must be equal. There is no value in such equalities of outcome—which contradicts human nature—and no justice. If socialists are to be stopped, it is this version of equality that must be challenged and repudiated, because such a violation of natural law can only be imposed by at the point of ba gun.

Democracy is a manifestation of totalitarianism. It holds that elected officials can do whatever they please with everyone's lives and properties and for whatever goals they deem desirable. But do not confuse Democracy as a social system with the democratic process. in a free society like America’s, elections decide on political leaders, but the government’s powers are limited to protecting individual rights, and thus everyone’s freedom and properties are protected from schemes such as Mamdani’s. America is a constitutionally limited Republic with a democratic PROCESS, not a Democracy. If the Mamdanis and his ilk are to be stopped, it is Democracy that must be challenged and repudiated. 

Altruism is the moral theory that every individual is duty-bound to self-sacrificially serve the needs of others before himself. That morality is the heart, the soul, and the justification of socialism. That’s why it’s called SOCIALism; you owe your life to the collective, not to yourself. Capitalism is based on the opposite, the morality of rational self-interest, which holds that the individual has a moral right to make his own life the best it can be as long as he respects the same moral rights of others. This is the meaning of the most individualist political phrase ever, the inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. To its glory, that is the heart and soul of Capitalism.

Politically, the difference between Socialism and Capitalism is the difference between a totalitarian state and a free, rights-protecting government—in other words, between a Communist China, USSR, North Korea or Cuba, and a United States of America. To protect a free America from a Socialist America, be it Communist or Mamdani-style Democratic Socialist, it is Equality, Democracy, and Altruism that we must recognize as evil, and thoroughly repudiate.

If you think I am overstating Mamdani’s danger, then here’s more.

From Reason’s  Mamdani Teaming Up With Lina Khan Paints a Grim Picture of What's To Come

During his victory speech, Mamdani—a democratic socialist—opined that there's "no problem too large for government to solve, and no concern too small for it to care about."

That's a disturbingly totalitarian view of the role of the state.

Indeed. That mindset puts every aspect of our lives in the crosshairs of our government. The Washington Post elaborates in Zohran Mamdani drops the mask

The mayor-elect divides New Yorkers into two groups: the oppressed and their oppressors.

A new era of class warfare has begun in New York, and no one is more excited than Generalissimo Zohran Mamdani. Witness the mayor-elect’s change of character since his Tuesday election victory.

Mamdani ran an upbeat campaign, with a nice-guy demeanor and perpetual smile papering over a long history of divisive and demagogic statements. New Yorkers periodically checking in on politics could understandably believe that he simply wanted to bring the city together and make it more affordable. That interpretation became much harder after his victory speech.

Across 23 angry minutes laced with identity politics and seething with resentment, Mamdani abandoned his cool disposition and made clear that his view of politics isn’t about unity. It isn’t about letting people build better lives for themselves. It is about identifying class enemies — from landlords who take advantage of tenants to “the bosses” who exploit workers — and then crushing them. His goal is not to increase wealth but to dole it out to favored groups. The word “growth” didn’t appear in the speech, but President Donald Trump garnered eight mentions.

People’s lives, in Mamdani’s world, can be improved only by government: “We will prove that there is no problem too large for government to solve, and no concern too small for it to care about.” The crowd cheered, of course, but a thinking person might wonder whether it’s good for the institution that has a monopoly on violence to insist that nothing is beyond its purview.

Mamdani says he’s not a Marxist. But this is pure Marxism

Now, here’s more from CNN’s Democratic socialism, according to Zohran Mamdani

Mamdani quoted the most famous American socialist, Eugene Debs, in his acceptance speech Tuesday night and talked about doing more for “working people” as opposed to the rich.

It’s worth reading a bit more from Debs’ remarks.

DEBS: I believe, Your Honor, in common with all Socialists, that this nation ought to own and control its own industries. I believe, as all Socialists do, that all things that are jointly needed and used ought to be jointly owned — that industry, the basis of our social life, instead of being the private property of a few and operated for their enrichment, ought to be the common property of all, democratically administered in the interest of all…

I am opposing a social order in which it is possible for one man who does absolutely nothing that is useful to amass a fortune of hundreds of millions of dollars, while millions of men and women who work all the days of their lives secure barely enough for a wretched existence.

Given that Capitalist fortunes are made by brilliant entrepreneurs providing values to millions and millions of average consumers—the people who work the jobs created by the talented fortune builders—it’s shocking that Debbs and his ilk are not radicals for Capitalism. But of course, common to all socialists is envy, powerlust, and hatred of productive achievers. They don’t give a damn about the “millions of men and women who work all the days of their lives.”

It’s that notion of seizing the means of production to which Mamdani’s fiercest critics have pointed. In comments he made on a recorded session for student activists with Young Democratic Socialists of America in 2021, he said that was the “end goal” of socialists like him.

The “end goal”—totalitarianism. This is Marxism. This is Communism. This is Zohran Mamdani. This is what is taking hold in America, under the brand Democratic Socialism.

I rest my case.

Related Reading:

The Passion of Socialists by Craig Biddle

Democratic Socialism: The Left Escalates America’s Journey to Totalitarianism

Socialism vs. Welfare Statism: Why These Terms Matter

Democratic Socialism: The Rise of the Pigs

Socialism's Totalitarian Nature Cannot Be Obscured by 'Democratic Socialism'

Democracy Fundamentalism vs. Americanism

A Socialist Confirms that the Basics of ‘True’ Socialism is Totalitarianism

The Myth of the Ill-Informed, Well-Intentioned Socialist

What is Capitalism? By Ayn Rand

A Criminal Wins in NYC

A criminal won the mayoralty race in NYC. 

Why do I say “criminal?” A while back I read 2 books, The Communistic Societies of the United States by Charles Nordhoff and History of American Socialisms by John Humphrey Noyes. Both were published in the 1870s by authors who documented the many socialist enclaves established across the young 19th Century USA by traveling around and living within them and getting first-hand experience. The CORE PREMISE that defined these socialisms is that they were VOLUNTARY. Then Karl Marx weaponized the young socialist movement, turning it into a violent political movement that sought control of government to force totalitarian Socialist control over society. This new Marxian Socialism—POLITICAL Socialism—can only be described as criminal, seeking to impose control and ownership over everyone’s wealth, work, and lives by government force. Can anyone tell me how Zohran Mamdani’s agenda of “free” stuff and “abolishing billionaires” is any different from that? He’s basically declaring that your wealth is his to seize and distribute.

If you have ever read the manifesto of The Democratic Socialists of America (the DSA), you would see that it is thoroughly Marxist. It advocates “worker control of the means of production,” which means government seizure of all privately held properties—the businesses, land, savings accounts, etc., of "the owning class"—and putting their earned wealth under government ownership, to be distributed according to bureaucratic edict. Zohran Mamdani, the new NYC mayor, has advocated just such policies of abolishing private property. Unlike wishy-washy “socialists” like Sanders and AOC—which the DSA does NOT endorse—Zohran Mamdani is the real thing.

Mamdani is a self-described Democratic Socialist—a CRIMINAL SOCIALIST. Unlike the voluntary socialisms described by Nordhoff and Noyes—which were perfectly consistent with a free society—Zamdani, like all Marxian Socialists, seeks to impose his socialist values on everyone regardless of their individual approvals. That’s why he’s in politics. He is a totalitarian. Never mind that he was elected. Tyranny is tyranny, whether imposed by coup d’etat, as in Cuba, or by vote, as in Venezuela. 

The danger of Mamdani is not so much in what he may impose on NYC. He likely will not get much of his stated agenda done. After all, he only won 50.4% of the vote, a bare majority, and against a corrupt Democrat at that. The danger is in that he will legitimize and normalize Democratic Socialism, a radical Left fringe movement, into American society. 

As to why so many supposed “Americans” can turn to an ideology so diametrically opposed to Americanism, and what can be done to stop it, that is a discussion for another time. For now, a dangerous precedent has been set for the long term. Modern Socialism—MARXIAN Socialism—is from beginning to end a criminal enterprise. It is literally organized crime rising out of the underworld to rule a nation. It begins with theft and it ends with murder. That’s what Mamdani’s voters injected into American politics. Given the destructive, bloody history of Marxism over the past 100+ years, to be a socialist today is an unforgivable sin. Ignorance is no excuse. There are no innocent socialists.

Related Reading:

Criminal Socialism vs. a Free Society

Socialism's Totalitarian Nature Cannot Be Obscured by 'Democratic Socialism'

Socialism vs. Welfare Statism: Why These Terms Matter

My Facebook Post

Related Viewing:

Why Marxism? with Dr. C Bradley Thompson

Why We Should Celebrate Columbus Day

Columbus Day has become controversial. Critics, mostly on the Left, point to Christopher Columbus's brutal treatment of New World natives and support for slavery, which they claim override his exploratory achievements that set in motion the train of events that led to the Enlightenment and ultimately the birth of America. Which holds sway; Columbus's undeniable bad aspects or his positives, which led to the such monumental turning points such as the abolition of slavery throughout most of the world?

History is messy. There are very few total heroes or total villains. Historical context is crucial, and the ultimate evaluation of any achievement must be weighed against this context and the totality of the person. On balance, from a humanitarian perspective, was Columbus a positive or negative force in the overall sweep of history?

Count me on the positive side. As my tribute to Christopher Columbus on this, his day, I present selected excerpts from selected articles by other writers:

Columbus Day Celebrates Western Civilization By Thomas Bowden

On October 12, 1492, Christopher Columbus discovered the New World.

We need not evade or excuse Columbus’s flaws--his religious zealotry, his enslavement and oppression of natives--to recognize that he made history by finding new territory for a civilization that would soon show mankind how to overcome the age-old scourges of slavery, war, and forced religious conversion.

On Columbus Day, we celebrate the civilization whose philosophers and mathematicians, men such as Aristotle, Archimedes, and Euclid, displaced otherworldly mysticism by discovering the laws of logic and mathematical relationships, demonstrating to mankind that reality is a single realm accessible to human understanding.

On Columbus Day, we celebrate the civilization whose scientists, men such as Galileo, Newton, Darwin, and Einstein, banished primitive superstitions by discovering natural laws through the scientific method, demonstrating to mankind that the universe is both knowable and predictable.

On Columbus Day, we celebrate the civilization whose political geniuses, men such as John Locke and the Founding Fathers, defined the principles by which bloody tribal warfare, religious strife, and, ultimately, slavery could be eradicated by constitutional republics devoted to protecting life, liberty, property, and the selfish pursuit of individual happiness.

On Columbus Day, we celebrate the civilization whose entrepreneurs, men such as Rockefeller, Ford, and Gates, transformed an inhospitable wilderness populated by frightened savages into a wealthy nation of self-confident producers served by highways, power plants, computers, and thousands of other life-enhancing products.

On Columbus Day, in sum, we celebrate Western civilization as history’s greatest cultural achievement. What better reason could there be for a holiday?

In another op-ed on Fox News.com, Let's Take Back Columbus Day, Bowden said this:

We’ve been taught that Columbus opened the way for rapacious European settlers to unleash a stream of horrors on a virgin continent: slavery, racism, warfare, epidemic, and the cruel oppression of Indians.

This modern view of Columbus represents an unjust attack upon both our country and the civilization that made it possible. Western civilization did not originate slavery, racism, warfare, or disease--but with America as its exemplar, that civilization created the antidotes. How? By means of a set of core ideas that set Western civilization apart from all others: reason and individualism.

Excerpts from an op-ed in Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, October 10, 2008, Columbus was a hero [No longer available online]

By Dimitri Vassilaros

Christopher Columbus could not have discovered a better spokesman than Thomas A. Bowden.

The accomplishments of Columbus should speak for themselves. But thanks to political correctness, the moronic multicultural mob keeps talking them down. Mr. Bowden has been speaking passionately and forcefully about Columbus for years.

"My ancestors were savages," says Bowden matter-of-factly. Everyone can say the same, depending on how far back one is willing to look at lineage. "It's nothing racial or ethnic; it's historical fact."

"Columbus critics have a disguised criticism of Western civilization because Europeans replaced Stone Age Indians. They believe that this continent would have been better off without Europeans, that industrial civilization is an evil that is to be lamented and regretted.

"That is the real criticism of Columbus. I reject it completely."

Indians typically were widely scattered Stone Age tribes, he says. "They had little agriculture and lived in poverty, fear, ignorance and superstition. They had no concept of government, ownership or private property rights.

"Slavery was perfectly common.

Well, didn't Indians at least live in harmony with nature?

"No," says Bowden. "Man should not live in harmony with nature in the sense of simply keeping it pristine. We live by impacting the environment. The environment has no intrinsic value. Our civilization is more in harmony with nature by making it serve our ends."

Well, what about all the land supposedly stolen from the Indians by European settlers?

Indians did not own the vast reaches of land that they traveled on, Bowden says. Ownership of land is deserved, he says. By that, he means a settler can acquire property rights by making the land more valuable by, say, digging it up for farming. Or to build his homestead or business.

Columbus essentially was an explorer and discoverer bringing Western civilization's cures, science and technology, he says. The philosophical legal process was another gift the Europeans gave to the Indians, he says. "Indians got all that for free."

Columbus' critics should fall down on their knees and thank the Founding Fathers for creating a nation based on the moral principle of the individual's right to life, liberty and, Bowden stresses, the selfish pursuit of happiness.

"It's the only nation that came about in such a way. Anyone who has humanity's interest at heart should love America," he says.

Excerpts from Man's Best Came With Columbus—Michael S. Berliner

Did Columbus “discover” America? Yes, in every important respect. This does not mean that no human eye had been cast on America before Columbus arrived. It does mean that Columbus brought America to the attention of the civilized world, i.e., the developing scientific civilizations of Western Europe. The result, ultimately, was the United States of America. It was Columbus’s discovery for Western Europe that led to the influx of ideas and people on which this nation was founded and on which it still rests. The opening of America brought the ideas and achievements of Aristotle, Galileo, Newton, and the thousands of thinkers, writers, and inventors who followed. What they replaced was a way of life dominated by fatalism, passivity, superstition, and magic.

There is a movement to replace Columbus Day with something called Indigenous Peoples Day, which is "a holiday that celebrates and honors the Native Americans and commemorates their shared history and culture." "Native Americans" are no more native or indigenous than anyone else born in America. Their ancestors may have arrived in North America before others' ancestors. But so what? No race of people actually emerged in North America. By all accounts so far, human life first evolved in Africa, before spreading around the globe. That said, if anyone wants to celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day, fine. But why replace Columbus Day? American Indian tribes had practices that were at least as vicious as Columbus, including wars of conquest and plunder, slavery, torture among each other and the slaughter of innocent settlers including women and children. But just as American Indians may have done some good things worth commemorating, so did Columbus, in spades. It's the good of Columbus that we celebrate, not the bad. Celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day, if you like. But there's no reason for either/or. Celebrate both.

Happy Columbus Day

Related Video:

Progressive or Oppressive? Balancing the History of Manifest Destiny -- A panel discussion with Tom Clavin, Stephen Hicks Ph.D., John Prevas in Progressive or Oppressive? Balancing the History of Manifest Destiny.


Related Reading:

The enemies of Christopher Columbus—Thomas A. Bowden

Opposing Views:

On Christopher Columbus, the Far Left Is Correct—Bryan Caplan

Trump's policies are fascism

 QUORA: "What term do you think best describes Trump's attempts to control the U.S. economy — state capitalism, fascist capitalism, or is there another term?"

My answer:

Neither “state capitalism” nor “fascist capitalism.” Both are logically invalid terms because Capitalism by definition means the absence of government interference into—or control of—the economy (i.e. the separation of economics and state). Trump’s policies are, in fact, straight-up socialism of the fascist, as opposed to the Communist, variety.

Related Reading:

QUORA: ‘Is fascism a form of capitalism?’

The Capitalist Manifesto by Andrew Bernstein

Socialism vs. Welfare Statism: Why These Terms Matter

QUORA: ‘Fascism was not opposed to private property or capitalism, so how can it be described as Marxist or socialist?’

A is A, and Socialism by any Other Name...

Pope Francis, the Anti-Capitalist Marxist, is Dead—Good Riddance

 Pope Francis, the Anti-Capitalist Marxist, is Dead—Good Riddance

Pope Francis, the arch enemy of property rights and individualism*, and thus Capitalism, freedom, and prosperity, is dead. I’m tempted to say good riddance, except that the Vatican will likely appoint another Marxian Communist. Why? Because Francis merely reiterated the Catholic Church’s long-held teachings. 

But why would the Church hold to its hostility to a social system that has established the conditions for people to work their way out from poverty? Can Francis really be ignorant of the available facts, empirical evidence, basic economics, or philosophical underpinnings of Capitalism, or of the disastrous history of Capitalism’s antipode in practice, collectivism? 

I think not. The Catholic Church, as an institution, has a vested interest in poverty. When the Church ruled for centuries, what we now call the Dark and Middle Ages, poverty reigned, by design. It is only with the arrival of modern capitalism that general living standards exploded. Over the past 250 years, the Church had a front row seat to observe the rising prosperity, backed up by mountains of literature explaining the theoretical and empirical economic causes of the prosperity. How can any Pope deny these facts? Can the learned leader of an institution that has been around for 2000 years and has seen it all really be so ignorant of the reality of free market economics and the bloody record of collectivism? No. So why Francis’ trade against Capitalism? Easy. “The poor” is the Catholic Church's base. Poverty and Church power are linked.

More fundamentally, poverty and Church morals are linked. If handouts to the poor trumps property rights, then the unearned trumps the earned. If poverty is the standard of morality, where does a social system that diminishes poverty based on individual self-determination leave the Catholic Church? Obsolete. The Church doesn’t care about people who work their way up from poverty. They only care about moving the wealth from those who do to those who don’t. The standard of Catholic moral teaching is self-sacrificial giving. If the ranks of those in need are shrinking, who’s left to give to? Who’s left to be the “champion” of? Poverty, not prosperity, is the Church’s moral standard. Given Capitalism’s record in practice, where does that leave the centuries of Church moral teaching about giving to the poor? 

Francis is the latest in a line of anti-Capitalist Catholic Popes. His demotion of property rights is not new. When Francis says  “the right to private property can only be considered a secondary natural right, derived from the principle of the universal destination of created goods (Fratelli Tutti),” he is reiterating Pope Paul VI in his 1967 Encyclical Populorum Progressio who advanced the totalitarian principle that the “public authorities” must coercively ensure that “created goods should flow fairly to all,” emphasizing that  “All other rights, whatever they may be, including the rights of property and free trade, are to be subordinated to this principle.” Francis is clear that this is not just moral teachings, but must be legally enforced:

The right to private property can only be considered a secondary natural right, derived from the principle of the universal destination of created goods. This has concrete consequences that ought to be reflected in the workings of society. Yet it often happens that secondary rights displace primary and overriding rights, in practice making them irrelevant. [my emphasis]

The record of these principles is a record of grinding economic collapse, crushing tyranny, and rivers of blood. How could any champion of the poor subscribe to them? Because the Pope does not want to “help” the “underprivileged people.” He wants to preserve their misery and expand their ranks**. Poverty is virtue, and the most virtuous act one can perform is to take a vow of poverty. That’s why the Church hates capitalism. That’s why Pope after Pope condemns Capitalism. We can explain how Capitalism works until we’re blue in the face. It doesn’t matter to the Church, and never has. Why? Because it’s not whether Capitalism works or how it works. The problem is that it works--works to facilitate man’s escape from poverty. 

And they’re smart. No, Francis doesn’t attack Capitalism directly. He just attacks “unfettered Capitalism.” He just attacks Capitalism’s Heart and Soul. He attacks capitalism at its root--profit-seeking, property rights, free trade, individualism, and the ethics of rational self-interest. 

Francis is not ignorant. He’s a Marxist (“the principle of the universal destination of created goods,” or, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need”) and a communist (“[W]e need to think of ourselves more and more as a single family dwelling in a common home.”) and an altruist (“[I]f one person lacks what is necessary to live with dignity, it is because another person is detaining it.”). Francis knows exactly what he is saying. And he means it. Francis and the Church are not misguided souls. They are Capitalism’s—and thus the poor’s—arch enemies as much as Communism is. This fact must be explicitly acknowledged by Capitalism’s champions. 

* [“Individualism does not make us more free, more equal, more fraternal. The mere sum of individual interests is not capable of generating a better world for the whole human family. Nor can it save us from the many ills that are now increasingly globalized. Radical individualism is a virus that is extremely difficult to eliminate, for it is clever. It makes us believe that everything consists in giving free rein to our own ambitions, as if by pursuing ever greater ambitions and creating safety nets we would somehow be serving the common good.”—FRATELLI TUTTI, P. 105. Note Francis’s disdain for “safety nets” as any kind of solution. Clearly, he’s not satisfied with mixed economy welfare statism. What’s the alternative? Full blown totalitarian socialism.]

** [C. Brad Thompson concurs: “Christian empathy and guilt are also wrapped in a curious paradox: if alleviating poverty and suffering are the goals of Christian ethics and if capitalism (the system based on self-interest) is the economic system that makes that possible, what then is left of the Christian ethic if the ethic of self-interest and capitalism eliminates poverty and much suffering? There would then be no need for the Jesus’s moral teaching. It would seem then that Jesus’s moral teaching is thus stuck between a moral rock and a political hard place. Capitalism reduces poverty and thus reduces the need for the Christian ethic, while socialism increases poverty and thus incentivizes and fulfills the Christian teaching.” 

Related Reading:

Jesus and the Philosophy of Selflessness by C. Bradley Thompson for The Redneck Intellectual

Pope Francis’s Anti-Capitalism is No Misunderstanding

Catholic Social Doctrine is both Socialist and Statist

How the Catholic Church Paved the Way for the Birth Control Mandate

Pope Francis’s Embrace of Anti-Fossil Fuel Agenda Follows From Church’s Anti-Capitalism

The Illegitimacy of Pope Francis's “Legitimate Redistribution” of Wealth—Natalie Ogle for The Objective Standard

Pope Francis: Prosperity, Liberty, and Climate Change are the Common Enemy

Pope Francis’s ‘Authority’ Stems From The Church’s Authoritarian Self-Image

Climate Alarmism and the Catholic Church; Faith-Based Allies in the War on Prosperity

The Tragedy of Theology: How Religion Caused and Extended the Dark Ages: A Critique of Rodney Stark’s The Victory of Reason by Andrew Bernstein for The Objective Standard

The Pope's Reaffirmation