by Joe Siano
Alexander Hamilton would be proud of today’s
United States.
The German economist Wilhelm Röpke dispensed
with the labels of “conservative” and “liberal” as their meaning varied from
place to place, from era to era. Röpke
preferred the more precise terms of “centrist / centralizer” versus “decentrist
/ decentralizer”.
Centrists advocate for the centralization of
power in an economy, a nation and the world.
Decentralists assert the benefits of free markets and dispersed decision
making. Having lived through Nazim and
next door to Communism, Röpke understood that human liberty was an essential
condition for peace, progress, and prosperity.
But Hamilton won out. The centralizers are in control. Now it is true that not every centralizer is
necessarily a Marxist. However, the
thesis of this blog is that both major American political
parties have Karl Marx’ chromosomes in their gene pool.
This is Cliff Notes version of the story.
Hamilton was centralizer. At the Constitutional Convention, he argued for
a much stronger central government than the approved document provided. Though Hamilton was perhaps the Constitution’s most ardent pitchman, he understood that it was a Swiss Cheese
construction with plenty of holes and wiggle room for future mischief..
Hamilton’s party was called the
Federalists, an irony, because these “Federalists” shied away from a loose
confederation on sovereign states in favor a single nation, anchored in DC with
the “states” serving as mere administrative districts. In time, he pretty much got
his way.
In The Progressive Era,
Rothbard points out that:
Throughout the
19th century …. The Federalists …and after them the Whigs and
then the Republicans, were the party of statism: of Big Government, public
works, a large public debt, government subsidies to industry, protective
tariffs, opposition to aliens and immigrants, and of cheap money and government
control of banking (through a central bank”
These
Republicans were the “progressive” party of their era looking to
create a new heaven on earth, the “the party of great moral ideas”. The used “the
State to compel personal morality: through a drive for Prohibition, Sunday blue
laws, or a desire to outlaw the Masons as a secret society”.
It should be not
surprising that this party of big government, that was committed human improvement
through social engineering, would embrace with the nascent European socialist
movement and its leading exponent, Karl Marx.
As it turns out
this same Karl Marx became a “ a prolific
contributor to the New York Daily Tribune, the most
influential Republican newspaper of the 1850s.”
Throughout the 1850s and into the early ‘60s Marx contributed:
“with some
help from his friend Engels — over five hundred articles for
the Tribune. Hundreds of these pieces were published under Marx’s name,
but eighty-four appeared as unsigned editorials. He wrote on a global range of
topics, sometimes occupying two or three pages of a sixteen-page newspaper.”
The record shows that Marx corresponded with President Abraham Lincoln and his influence is evident in Lincoln’s December 1861 Message to Congress;
“Lincoln criticized the ‘effort to place capital on an equal footing with, if not above, labor in the structure of government.’ Instead, he insisted, “labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor . . . Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.’ “
And it’s not like this is any new revelation. The Washington Post reports:
“When the
socialist orator and frequent presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs made a
campaign stop in Springfield, Ill., in 1908, he told the crowd, ‘The Republican
Party was once red. Lincoln was a revolutionary.’
It was also
noted by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. In February 1968…
‘It is worth
noting,’ King said, ‘that Abraham Lincoln warmly welcomed the support of Karl
Marx during the Civil War and corresponded with him freely.’ “
The Republican
Party continued as America’s progressive party through most of the 19th Century while the
Democrats were the voice small government, free markets and sound money. That began to change with William Jennings Bryan who steered the Dems in a new populist direction.
In the early 20th
Century Republican Presidents Teddy
Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover were activist, big government, social engineers. These Republican Progressives created an elitist
cartel of Big Government, Big Business, Big Banking, Big Academia and Big Labor
to steer the ship of the nation, culture and economy. This was the onset of James Burnham’s ManagerialRevolution – the corporatist, deep-state alliance the governs America today.
The crash of
1929 was Hoover’s Waterloo. An engineer
by training and a tinkerer by inclination, Hoover implemented a wide array of
stimulus and corrective programs to avoid long-term economic collapse. They failed. His reputation as a laissez-faire president is unwarranted.
Franklin
Roosevelt replaced Hoover but his policies stayed the course. Roosevelt followed the Hoover blueprint and
upped the ante again and again with similar unsuccess.
With FDR's election and the implementation of the New Deal, America now had two major
statist/corporatist parties. None represented the Classical Liberal
ideals of the Founders – limited government, low taxes, free markets and sound
money.
We are all aware
of the Democrat Party’s love affair with Marxism from Henry Wallace and Alger Hiss up through Bernie, Angela Davis,
the SDS, BLM and AOC. The Roosevelt administration fawned over “Uncle Joe” Stalin – one of
history’s great mass murderers. No need to dwell on this.
But where is the
Republican link? Just because they are
rooted in Progressivism and are Centralizers does not automatically make them Marxist.
Let’s shift
scenes to Mother Russia near the end of World War I.
The Kaiser sneaks Vladimir Lenin into Russia into Russia to foment
revolution, as Lenin is pledged to ending hostilities with Germany. The Bolshevik Revolution succeeds, and Lenin governs
Russia.
Lenin dies in
1924. An intra-party power struggle
ensues. Stalin prevails. His chief rival, Leon Troksky, is exiled.
In exile, Trotsky
was an active writer, an advocate for an international /globalist socialist
order led by an elite cadre of intellectuals, for permanent revolution and an opponent
of the Stalinist regime. His disciples, the Trotskyists, in the United States found a home in the Democratic
Party along with other socialists.
Disillusioned
with the brutality of Stalinism, the Trotskyites drifted away from the
Democrats who still romanticized the Soviet Regime. The movement’s leaders included Irving Kristol
and Norman Podhoretz. These are the Neo-Cons.
Although they were
disillusioned by Soviet Communism, the Neo-Cons remained Marxist Utopians. Their new goal was one-world under global, liberal
democratic governance.
Neo-Cons are
dogged Centralizers, with scant difference from their Democratic cousins. Like all Marxists and Utopians, they believe
in the coercive power of Big Brother to realize their globalist agenda. They put their faith in:
·
The collective above the individual
·
Elitist governance and corporatism
·
Permanent revolution – permanent war and nation
building
·
Totalitarian intrusion in personal social issues
· Control of all economic engines including fiscal
and monetary levers, fiat currency and a disregard to for public debt
By the 1980’s the Neo-Con’s ascended
into the top ranks of the Republican Party including “conservative” academia,
think tanks and punditry.
American voters hoped
that a Trump presidency might “drain the swamp’ of these heinous DC
insiders. It is debatable if he was
sincere or not. Nonetheless, he lacked the human capital devoted to the cause of peace
and unobtrusive government. Prior to his election, it appears that his personal political network consisted of the local hacks an hooligans who green-lighted his sundry construction projects. Thus he had
to relay on the Neo-Con Republican Establishment to staff his Administration. Thus, he failed.
Perhaps a Ron Paul or Pat
Buchanan might have done better with their ready network of highly qualified and
like-minded thinkers.
In the U.S,.the Neo-Con Trotskyites along
with the along with their Democratic cohorts replaced the Politburo with
a Corporate, Academic and Media elite to oversee the state, commerce, and
culture.
Theses bloodsuckers have blessed us with the Surveillance State,
lawless bureaucratic governance, administrative courts, unpayable debts, worthless money, an unsustainable global
empire, militarized police and U.S. Troops on the ground in American cities.
They have turned Americans against each other to deflect attention from their own failings.
But now their schemes are unraveling, They are cornered and their fangs
are bared.
This is what out two mainstream
Marxist parties have wrought and I’m having nothing to do with them. Please join me by opting out of voting for any Centralizing
party or demagogue.
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Half the people are drowned and the other half are swimming in the wrong direction."
- Paul Simon
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