Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, then a congressional candidate, speaks at a rally in Boston against the confirmation of now Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Brian Snyder / Reuters file
Barbara Roslyn Rubin – The National Democratic Socialist Party Another Communist Manifesto
Here in America, the Republicans like to talk about ‘values’ and the Democrats, ‘compassion’. Our present-day confusions of politics with morality requires a return to an understanding that human values exist independently of most political platforms. Other than the Middle East, where theocracies either thrive or survive, morality in most countries is largely taught about as having either ‘humanist’ or ‘religious’ origins. Therefore, any claim of a particular economic or political system being ‘natural’ to a group, is highly unlikely.
‘Natural laws’ remain a by-product of the size of a population and the ease of food production in that climate. Natural law is far from today’s reality where three-quarters of the world’s population may expect to develop cancer and respiratory disorders plague those relegated to the burning of wood and coal for fuel. Medical care is the ‘lion’s share’ of the national debt plaguing America today.
When we examine morality in political terms, we need to review the original legal frames constructed by the founders of those groups. Socialism was supposed to be the great leveler after a well-founded fear of communism developed during the reign of terror by Lenin’s version of Russia. However, when we review the National Socialist German Workers (Nazi) Party, its policies were founded on fears generated by defeat. The defeat had been accepted by the Germans until economic burdens, inherent in ongoing blockades and the Treaty of Versaille, exploded into economic terrorism through the collapse of Wall Street in 1929. Unfortunately, people will share their last meal of potatoes and whiskey, yet kill over money. Rather than restructuring its debt or placing repayments on hold, Germany resurrected the Nazi platform it had laughed at in 1920.
This platform spoke of communal welfare in Marxist terms while being openly fascist in the granting of an infinite power of life and death to its’ government. This design for Germans was largely formulated by outsiders living in South America and other areas harboring former nationals of WWI Germany . The platform may be read here-
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/
This Yale publication describes the platform of the National Socialist German Workers Party, circa 1920. The terms are virtually indistinguishable from communism. Socialism is designed to utilize ‘overages’, distributing excess goods and/or income (via taxes) to provide a safety net to the population. Some of this ‘net’ is available to all in the construction of public schools, a military force and the hiring of public servants. A portion of the net is preserved for the needy indigent and elderly-infirm through pensions for civil service employees and health care for the poor and disabled.
Starvation in America during the depression years was addressed via distribution centers for donated foodstuffs and coupons, (food stamps), for use in stores. The back doors of depression-era households served as another voluntary distribution ‘center’ for many needy individuals of the 30’s without any hint of regulation being required. Transients were often fed while on the road by the local populace in private. The remaining needs were performed by job creations under federal auspices. The U.S.A. felt the investments would show returns many times in excess of the expenditures.
The rights of individuals appear to be inherent within both socialism and capitalism, given the former’s aim of group support for the unfortunate and the latter’s ability to generate goods and capital – the insurance against misfortune. Any society with public schools and a water/sewer system, created without sacrificing the entirety of the group’s resources or forcing servitude, may rightly be called ‘socialist’. The degree of socialism merely varies from country to country.
Through free-market capitalism, a safety net is available via more avenues than individual tax returns. High personal taxation largely destroys discretionary funds for the personal use of each citizen and is unnecessary when corporate taxes are also available to a treasury. However, businesses regulate their degree of contribution towards the ‘safety net’ by basing themselves in regions where taxation is regarded as reasonable. After all, why contribute twice through both your business and your earnings when you likely live outside of your zoned businesses or operate in more than a single region.
The Nazi Party (circa 1920) documented an entirely different form of government despite the misleading terms of Nationalism and Socialism. Tempting the defeated German nationals with a description of the basis for their present unity – that of hard-working Christians sharing a bond of ‘blood’ — membership became viewed in the preferred form of a blond, blue-eyed population. The description precluded the physiognomy of more deprived groups like Gypsies, Russians and Japanese communists. These white communists would have ‘more’ than their small, darker neighbors. An intent to expand German land ownership to the east and west would ensure control of excellent, arable lands and forests for lumber to satisfy a growing population. The water was plentiful. Prosperity would thrive without seeming to disagree with the Marxism of Lenin’s day, redefined by Stalin.
End of political argument and threats of insurgency by foreigners!
Apart from this view of the third Riech’s right to unlimited lands, communism peers out of every other portion of the platform as well. Mandatory work with a guaranteed job for each person was a goal. Should insufficient jobs exist, ‘aliens’ like the Poles would be evicted. Minorities would be unrepresented in government and be ineligible to hold office. Jewish persons were explicitly forbidden to ever compete for food or work with a German. This established a permanent migrant status to all Jewish persons as per our earlier status in Europe during the Middle Ages. This, too, satisfied the Communists who had long noted the different status of the Jews on their travel papers and passports. Refuseniks in modern Russia described their papers as limiting potential, requiring excellence in achievement to earn tolerance from the government.
Communist assurances of sufficient food/sustenance were promised with the plan that all immigrants entering Germany after 1914 would be subject to deportation. Hence, democracy ceases to exist in this vision of Democratic Socialism. With socialism rendered available to only a particular portion of the nation, we return to a vision of communism in a commune the size of the borders of a soon-to-expand Germany.
Socialism does not eliminate private property or inheritance. The Nazi platform demanded that only income generated from work might be accumulated by a citizen. That left a great deal of potential loss in terms of the sale of property or inflation-related changes in the value of certain goods and services. Expropriation of agricultural lands had already guaranteed the starvation of millions under Lenin. This was also demanded by the Nazis and likely meant to offset the starvation caused by military blockades of ports during and after WWI. Conflicting demands for nationalization of businesses warred with an insistence that large businesses be ‘communalized’ for small traders, the first appearance of that ‘c’ word (for communism) applied in this manifesto.
Obviously, upper mobility was desired through the demand for a ‘middle class’, at the same time citizens were relegated to a lifetime of labor. That was perhaps aimed at guaranteeing easement from manual labor in the largely intellectual European group deemed worthy to fill leadership positions. Still, the government maintained an absolute right to take both property and businesses from citizens. The plan guaranteed the death penalty for any real or imagined infraction of harm to the population – including violations of censorship deemed needful by the government.
Those threatened by encroaching communism often retreat to the false promises of national socialism like the Golden Dawn party in the Greek parliament. However, there is no evidence that national socialism differs significantly from communism. Most modern nations have some degree of socialism recognizing mutual needs for protection (a military) and compulsory education requiring a group expenditure towards shared ends. This in no way interferes with capitalism, the safety valve of independent groups that place limits upon governmental power through the vote, the power of selective investment and the rights to hold property or emigrate.
Emigration options may have unforeseen powers to alter the political landscape forever. Should the framework of nations become important again, nationals may learn the wisdom of having the children of citizens study for entry into that status upon reaching adulthood. Otherwise, ‘resident worker status’ limits the demands of the non-citizen upon the group while full citizens remain motivated to protect and enlarge the ‘house’ along original lines of intent. Resident rights have been proposed as a potential solution to the problems posed by ‘refugee states’.
We need to realize that morality isn’t the province of any government but a matter of nation builders realizing the full potential of human possibilities. Those must be extended as far as the impact might reach. Towards that end, I am presently engaged in the writing of a three-year class for high school students in the making of moral judgments.
