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When are we ever going to learn anything that our grownups taught us? You know, like the wisdom that a stitch in time saves nine. Next time you lose a button you might remember that. How about that insightful piece of wisdom for judging people we once heard about, called the Duck Test. It tells you how to determine the true nature of someone who seems to be masked in the camouflage of an Aesopian language. The Duck Test is a form of inductive reasoning. As Wikipedia explains it, "The test implies that a person can identify an unknown subject by observing that subject's habitual characteristics. It is sometimes used to counter abstruse arguments that something is not what it appears to be."
So: If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it must be a duck. Really.
Yes, really. Just because it's funny doesn't stop it from being true. Now it really gets interesting when this form of logic is applied to politics in general and politicians in particular. Take for instance the catchy code words that are splashed across our newspaper headlines these days. My favorite today is "Income Inequality". The Cincinnati Enquirer had a full-page story on this today but of course, like most liberal newspapers they didn't offer any Duck Test to identify the true origin of the idea. Their story was all about the disturbing fact that the rich have more money than the poor and that isn't fair and what we must do to rectify the injustice. Shades of income redistribution.
How about thinking for a moment about an older version of this same idea about "Income Inequality": “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs”. The new version of Income Inequality is being marketed by Barack Hussein Obama who, as a young man, was mentored for 8 years by Frank Marshal Davis, a card carrying member of the Communist Party. The older version of that saying comes from the father of modern day communism, Karl Marx; and those who espouse it today are called Marxists. So if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it must be a duck. But don't bother reminding your newspaper editors about this. They probably already know that Obama is a Marxist but they don't want the public in on the secret.
My name is Nelson Abdullah and I am Oldironsides.
It would help if Obama actually used Marxist terminology or, better yet, took actions based on Marxist thought. He's had 5 years so far and he still hasn't nationalized the banks and the means of production. He doesn't even use words like "means of production," "proletariat," "bourgeoise," or "dialectical historical materialism." The most "socialist" things he's done are the bailouts of private banks and auto companies to make sure they can stay private and ObamCare, which is really a massive giveaway to private insurance companies. No one would be happier than me if Obama were a Marxist, but you're just going to have to face facts that he isn't. Either that, or accept that "Marxist" doesn't mean what you think it means.
ReplyDeleteSo you don't think the talk about "Income Inequity" isn't going to lead to "share the wealth"? You don't think ObamaCare isn't leading to a Single Payer System of socialized medicine? You don't think what he did over at General Motors - handing 1/3 of the company to the union workers and putting them on the board of directors wasn't nationalizing? What do you want him to do to convince you, fly the hammer and sickle flag?
DeleteNo, I don't think that talk about "income inequity" isn't going to lead to "share the wealth." There has been talk about "income inequity" for women and African-Americans for decades and nothing has been done about that, so why do you think anything will come of these talking points?
DeleteMore importantly, though, a single-payer socialized health care system is not "Marxist" - unless you think Western Europe and the former British Empire are all Marxist states in which case I must again say that "Marxist" doesn't mean what you think it means.
As for General Motors, please note that GM has paid back its federal investment and is no longer under any government control. "Nationalization" to me would mean that the government takes complete control of the means of production and retains it indefinitely. Also, if you're really going to be a Marxist revolutionary, you would want to expand that control to the entirety of the productive forces not just one or two corporations (CONT)
Marxism is a philosophy of history and economics and a political praxis based on that philosophy. It is based on two main principles: 1) the universe is a single internally related and interconnected totality and change occurs as a result of contradictions between forces within the same system and 2) material and economic relations, being the foundation of all human life, have a greater and more determinative influence on history than any other aspects of civilization and influence the rest of human society more than they are influenced in return.
DeleteMarxist political praxis, based on that philosophy, identifies the primary contradictions in the economic and social relations that undergird civilization - the contradictions between private ownership and social labor, between private profit and socialized risk, between authoritarian workplaces and democratic political institutions, etc. - and determines that the best course of action is to resolve those contradictions: social ownership of the means of production to balance social labor; social profit to balance socialized risk, democracy in production to balance democracy in politics.
We can't know what Obama believes, but we can see his actions. He clearly believes in private property and private profit for large corporations. He clearly believes that money buys access to political power and that the more money you have, the more influence you deserve in government. He could have fought to nationalize the health care industry, putting private insurers out of business. Instead, he adopted a system that guarantees that big private insurance corporations will stay in business because people are forced to buy from them or pay a fine.
What would Obama need to do to prove himself a Marxist to me? He would need to walk the walk as well as talk the talk. He would need to propose the nationalize of, at the very least, all resource development, agricultural, communications, and transportation industries. He would need to liquid the private banks and put all credit in the hands of the federal government - not the Federal Reserve, the GOVERNMENT. He would need to cancel all private debts and abolish inheritance laws. There's a whole list of things in the Communist Manifesto that provide a blueprint for new socialist states.
If Obama is a Marxist, he's a really, really bad one.
With the exception of a little semantics there is little difference between Marxist and Socialist and Great Britain and the other European nations are mostly Socialist. And they don't call Socialized Medicine "Socialized" for nothing.
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