Unforeseen Contingencies

Our contemporary left in America and the rest of the developed world is effectively communist.  For all their claims to be proponents of the Scandinavian welfare state, the preponderance of evidence suggests otherwise.  Today's left is working for some variant of Marxism.  Proponents of liberty and free markets need to wake up and understand what we're fighting, and take this seriously.  There are still many who do not.  As an example, here's a 2016 piece by David Azerrad, formerly of the Heritage Foundation, arguing that today's left isn't really socialist, that the left understands central planning doesn't work and really just wants a big welfare state, with government regulating sectors such as health care, energy, and transportation... the sorts of things Lenin called "the commanding heights" of the economy.  In this view, today's "democratic socialists" have no interest in replacing the market, they just want Scandinavian levels of social services.  Unfortunately, that's just not true.

Let's begin with a couple of high profile, popular leftist celebrities, Alexandra Ocasio Cortez and Greta Thunberg.  Ocasio Cortez has publicly stated (during a PBS interview) that capitalism is a passing phase, it "will not always exist in the world." Her Green New Deal shows she means that.  Similarly, according to Greta Thunberg "the climate crisis is not just about the environment. It is a crisis of human rights, of justice, and of political will. Colonial, racist, and patriarchal systems of oppression have created and fueled it. We need to dismantle them all."  If you don't understand they are talking about dismantling capitalism and replacing it with socialism (we know, dear UC readers, you do understand, this is merely a rhetorical flourish), here's Saikat Chakrabarti, Ocasio Cortez' former chief of staff and handler, explaining that the Green New Deal is first of all a plan to completely change the entire economy.  "The interesting thing about the Green New Deal, is it wasn’t originally a climate thing at all.  Do you guys think of it as a climate thing?” Because we really think of it as a how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing".  Cooperative public ownership, redistribution to eliminate inequality, and "social justice" are the objectives.

Consider, next, the Democratic Socialists of America.  This organization was founded by Trotskyite Michael Harrington, a man who spent his entire life as a communist or fellow traveler.  (Marxists argue among themselves who was really a Marxist; these doctrinal quibbles are not important for our purposes.)  The DSA promotes the notion that "to achieve a more just society, many structures of our government and economy must be radically transformed through greater economic and social democracy..."  DSA also tells us "Social ownership could take many forms, such as worker-owned cooperatives or publicly owned enterprises managed by workers and consumer representatives. Democratic socialists favor as much decentralization as possible. While the large concentrations of capital in industries such as energy and steel may necessitate some form of state ownership, many consumer-goods industries might be best run as cooperatives."  In other words, they really do intend to take the "commanding heights."

Or consider this from the DSA: "Socialism doesn't only mean nationalization of key industries. There will be many forms of socialist ownership: public ownership at many different levels from national to state to municipalities, private ownership of small businesses, joint ownership of cooperatives, and other mixed economy forms that best fit production and social needs. And of course every individual will privately own his or her personal possessions and property."

Oops, "typo."  That last is from the Party Program of CPUSA (Communist Party of the United States of America).  "Socialism would bring social ownership to the commanding heights of the economythe major industrial firms, the transnational corporations, banks and other financial institutions, the energy industry, much of the national distribution system, and the health care systemand run them as public utilities, with publicly elected boards, responsible to and for the public good, and for long-term economic and environmental sustainability. Public programs for free health care, free education through the college level, combating illiteracy, ending malnutrition, and guaranteeing jobs would be built." (Errors, including spacing, sic).

CPUSA's program is indistinguishable from that of DSA, and it's what the rockstars of the left have called for publicly (Comrade Bernie included).  It's even what Azerrad describes, although he seems not to understand that it's socialism.  It's also the platform of Justice Democrats.

This isn't about building a bigger "safety net" or increasing "entitlements."  It's about dismantling private ownership of the means of production and the market system, and substituting "democratic" control. This is the stuff Marx and Engels promoted. Correspondingly, today's leftists have no commitment at all to protecting the rights of those of us who disagree, hence their seething hatred of opponents, whom they indiscriminately label Nazis and racists.  Don't doubt they are capable of purging those who oppose them; their system requires it.  They have a vision for how the entire society is to be constructed.  It requires conformity.

It's vitally important that we recognize that today's left really is socialist, and stop them.  They must never rule.