Suppose, when Marx had looked about for a name to give to his program to transition capitalism to communism he had selected "scientific capitalism" instead of scientific socialism? Would all this furor that socialism leads to communism have existed; I wonder if we would have spent the last 100 years or so dreading capitalism? Marx gave us another good one and we were even afraid to read and learn how stupid the whole communistic set up or we would be afraid of being labeled a communist. I remember taking a college course on comparative economic practices and I kept one textbook covered so the title with Marx could not be seen. Students were not above accusing one of being a communist if they carried a textbook about Marx and communism to class.
After the 1917 revolution the USSR dropped the scientific-socialist thing pretty quick, and then dropped the whole communist program, it didn't work-except to frighten. Can anyone name a country that made Marxian communism work?
It isn't the name, it's the system people live under. Call it whatever you want, I want to minimize what the state takes from me to redistribute to others and pet projects.
We were not formed as a socialist country, capitalism made us number one and moving away from it is lowering quality of life and freedom for most of us. Putting a happy face on socialism to sell to the masses isn't going to improve our economy.
It doesn't matter how the nation was formed, the socialists are on the winning track - we see this everywhere in the West. When the socialist ideal isn't popular with the people who hold true to the idea which formed the nation, then liberals/socialist just import a new people and give them a vote.
It's no surprise that the Democrats are gaining strength since the 70s with the tens of millions of poor people raised on socialist ideals that they've forced us to import.
It's no surprise that the Democrats are gaining strength since the 70s with the tens of millions of poor people brought about by the Great American Socialist...Ronald Reagan.
Reagan: The Great American Socialist
There is no doubt that President Obama's economic measures, passed and proposed, will raise tax rates on the richest Americans to pay for increased government funding of health care, green energy and education. So the new president is indeed a redistributionist, but so was Ronald Reagan, except that Obama's plans will transfer wealth from the rich to the poor, whereas Reagan's bills transferred wealth from the poor and the middle class to the opulent. In fact, Obama's measures are puny, whereas Reagan's were massive. If the Democrat is a "small" socialist, Reagan was the Great American Socialist.
Let's go back to the early 1980's. In 1981, Reagan signed a law that sharply reduced the income tax for the wealthiest Americans and corporations. The president asserted his program would create jobs, purge inflation and, get this, trim the budget deficit. However, following the tax cut, the deficit soared from 2.5 percent of GDP to over 6 percent, alarming financial markets, sending interest rates sky high, and culminating in the worst recession since the 1930's.
Soon the president realized he needed new revenues to trim the deficit, bring down interest rates and improve his chances for reelection. He would not rescind the income tax cut, but other taxes were acceptable. In 1982, taxes were raised on gasoline and cigarettes, but the deficit hardly budged. In 1983, the president signed the biggest tax rise on payrolls, promising to create a surplus in the Social Security system, while knowing all along that the new revenue would be used to finance the deficit.
The retirement system was looted from the first day the Social Security surplus came into being, because the legislation itself gave the president a free hand to spend the surplus in any way he liked. Thus began a massive transfer of wealth from the poor and the middle class, especially the self-employed small businessman, to the wealthy. The self-employment tax jumped as much as 66 percent.
In 1986, Reagan slashed the top tax rate further. His redistributionist obsession led to a perversity in the law. The wealthiest faced a 28 percent tax rate, while those with lower incomes faced a 33 percent rate; in addition, the bottom rate climbed from 11 percent to 15 percent. For the first time in history, the top rate fell and the bottom rate rose simultaneously. Even unemployment compensation was not spared. The jobless had to pay income tax on their benefits. A year later, the man who would not spare unemployment compensation from taxation called for a cut in the capital gains tax. Thus, Reagan was a staunch socialist, totally committed to his cause of wealth redistribution towards the affluent.
How much wealth transfer has occurred through Reagan's policies? At least $3 trillion.
The Social Security hike generated over $2 trillion in surplus between 1984 and 2007, and if it had been properly invested, say, in AAA corporate bonds it could have earned another trillion by now. At present, the fund is empty, because it has been used up to finance the federal deficits resulting from frequent cuts in income tax rates. If this is not redistribution of wealth from the poor to the rich, what else is?
Thus, Reagan was the first Republican socialist - and a great one, because his wealth transfer occurred on a massive scale. His accomplishment dwarfs even FDR's, and if today the small businessman suffers a crippling tax burden, he must thank Reagan the redistributionist. However, FDR took pains to help the poor, while Reagan took pains to help the wealthiest like himself.
Reagan's measures were similar to those that the Republicans adopted during the 1920's, which were followed by the catastrophic Depression. More recently, such policies were mimicked by President George W. Bush and they are about to plunge the world into a depression as well. Ironically, the Reagan-style socialism or wealth redistribution is about to destroy monopoly capitalism, the very system that he wanted to preserve and enrich.
Wake up America and elect leaders with a heart - not those who would tax your unemployment benefits and cut the capital gains tax.
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