I had a bad cold/flu over the Christmas holiday and so had some down time to do some reading. For reasons I don’t recall, I skimmed through Das Kapital (which is about economic capital, not political capitals). I spent more time than I should have reading the Communist Manifesto. I am very troubled by Marx’s view of human behavior (and the economics and nations we see coming out of selfish capitalism).
Marx saw human interaction on the large scale as being about class struggle. From the dawn of time, human society has had the bourgeoisie with all of the accumulated wealth, lording it over the proletariat, who live at a subsistence level. If the proletariat accept their lot, then this is a stable arrangement. Capitalism is about the capitalists buying labor from the proletariat and then selling it at a much higher price — they make money for your work — whose the taker now?
Thomas Hobbes — he of “nasty, brutish, and short” fame was one of the first political philosophers. He realized that there wasn’t necessarily a divine order of government by royalty and peasants. Rather, the people themselves could create laws and systems and organizational bodies who would act for improving the common good. This idea had also been worked out by Plato.
There is a joke one occasionally sees on Facebook that is attributed to any one of a number of rakish individuals that goes along the lines of: religion is what keeps the poor people from killing all the rich people. Well, government, democratically elected, with checks and balances, abiding by the rule of law — government can also fulfill that role. And it can fulfill an equally important role of keeping the rich people from utterly exploiting the poor people. So here I am going to go out on a limb and say America was great when the government functioned well to keep the rich and poor from killing each other by instead providing an environment where a robust middle class could emerge and thrive.
Below the fold: what is the government’s main weapon in saving rich and poor from each other?
This was accomplished, essentially, by redistributing wealth. That very concept can make some heads explode. But if great income and great wealth are obtained by buying someone’s labor cheaply and selling it more expensively — it is nice for you to be compensated for that, but there has to be a limit. A progressive income tax — and a progressive capital gains tax — in some sense redistributed the wealth from the capitalist takers back to worker makers.
So here is the situation. Class struggle — a few (very few) capitalists, bourgeoisie, the one percent, whatever you want to call them — exploiting the other 99%. The government has been the equalizer, keeps the wealth flowing around rather than accumulating in the hands of the few. The government is the buffer between us and them. Now, the 1% want the government out of way so that they can own everything. Going in that direction never ends well (cf Hobbes and “nasty, brutish, and short”). And they can’t just get rid of the government in a country that is wedded to the rule of law as we are. And the 1% can’t have much effect on any election given their small numbers. But, they can convince the other 99% that government is the problem. That government are the badguys. That we need to get rid of the government. This is exactly what is happening with Trump. His followers really do feel that the government is the bad guy making them poor — rather than the 1% behind the curtain pulling their strings. And he has assembled a cabinet that is hostile to their own agencies. So we have a situation where the high-level administration of the government wants to essentially destroy the government — all so it won’t stand in the way of the 1% completely exploiting the rest of us.
The bad guys in this case are the 1% and we need to get the government back in the business of protecting us from them.
I am not sure how do this. The Rs are for all intents and purposes brainwashed. Changing their minds to embrace progressive values and to realize who the real enemy is is something we have to be thoughtful and diligent about.
I don’t believe in violence so I am reticent about drawing from the Communist Manifesto, but there are important non-ideological principles there that would be agreeable to anyone even slightly left — and in fact agree closely with the social doctrine of the Catholic Church. For example
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, &c, &c.
We do need to rise up — non-violently (at least until there are no other options). We need to bring our (metaphorical) brothers and sisters back from the twisted view that the government is per se bad. And then we need to unite. This is the only way I see to make our government functional and for all of us — that is, to make America great.