Chapter 4 – The Spread of Socialism
Making anything artificially affordable means making it easier to waste.
--Thomas Sowell 1 In the beginning of my search into the history of socialist concepts and organizations I discovered a large amount of written material here in the US. This included names of familiar politicians and organizations, which were prominently in the news early after World War II during my high school and college days.
The figures of penetration of the subtle and masked goals of the Socialism movement are widely disseminated, but through it all stands out the simple concept illustrated by the distinct statement of Ludwig von Mises regarding the conflict of systems: “The real problem is whether or not socialism should supplant the market economy.”2 It is surprising that so many people, several of whom have achieved high positions in politics, business, labor, and entertainment have succumbed to the sugary, superficial tenets of the Socialism idea and have worked hard to subvert the system of Capitalism.
An early example was Horace Greeley (1811-1872) who founded The New York Tribune. At the time he was said to be the most influential newspaperman of his century. He was a devotee of the Frenchman, François Marie Charles Fourier , who wrote about an imaginary Utopian society based on “scientific” order. Greeley wrote editorials in favor of Fourier’s “laws and mechanisms of social order.” Although, Fourier never did cite any example or experience with his Utopian society as evidence to support his position, it sounded good. At first it also sounded good to Greeley’s managing editor, Charles A. Dana. Von Mises points out on page 80 of his Planned Chaos that, “in the field of purposive human action and social relations no experiments can be made. But the experience with social sciences is historical experience.” In 1848, Greeley sent Dana to London to recruit a man to become his European correspondent for the Tribune. That man was Karl Marx who with Friedrich Engels had written The Communist Manifesto. Marx subsequently wrote over 500 editorials in favor of Socialism for Greeley’s newspaper.
Charles Dana, Horace Greeley’s earlier executive editor, later left the Tribune. He had observed the miraculous Industrial Revolution unfold in America, which took place through the spontaneous association of people in commerce, with no central planning, no federal regulatory code, and no income tax. In spite of his important newspaper position, Dana had to follow his observations honestly. He had become convinced that Socialism was the “farce” that James Madison had warned would beset a people should information necessary for self-governance be withheld.
Hello, media and public institutions of higher learning! Marx’s writing took Socialism from Fourier’s farming and rural perspective into the Industrial Age with his (Marx’s) own vision of history as a struggle between the bourgeoisie (the privileged, or middle class) and the proletariat (the disadvantaged, or working class). He argued for ten reforms to create a “just society” and claimed further that these conclusions were arrived at “scientifically,” which meant that his word was above dispute. But Marx, like Fourier, never used any testing or the scientific method, which method had been given definition, substance, and corroboration by England’s Isaac Newton. Marx also never cited any example of the successful use of Socialism. That ‘testing’ of his belief system actually came later in the seventy-year Soviet Union debacle but not soon enough to expose to Marx the error of his conclusions. Still, Horace Greeley was certain that the ideas of Fourier and Marx were valid “social science.” This discussion of Horace Greeley is based of the description of his devotion to socialism by Dr. Edward R. Annis.3 Of the ten measures to revise society advocated by Karl Marx 4, five are the most coercive and controlling. They are:
1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all right of inheritance.
4. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state.
5. Free education for all children in public schools.
How many of the above five of Marx’s objectives do we struggle with today? Amazing how commonplace so many of the socialist inroads have become and how accepting of them we now are! Although outright state ownership or nationalization of industries and the abolition of private property have been defeated so far in Congress, the federal and State tax structures are enormous burdens to all businesses both small and large.
A graphic example of State burdens is found in the State of California.
In the years 2000 to 2003 alone, the manufacturing job loss was over 230,000, and many businesses have fled the State because of rising disability insurance and workers compensation payments imposed by the State legislature. The governor and his Democratic legislature added 150,000 more government jobs during that short three-and- one half year time and proceeded to turn a $12 billion surplus into a $38 billion deficit, which is rising rapidly.
5 In fact, this was so flagrant that the people finally reacted and held a recall election of the governor and elected a new one, but the ‘liberal’ legislature remains.
In this country the manifestation of those who believe in, and push to increase, central (bureaucratic) control translates into the idea of “big government.” In practice this results in large confiscations of earned capital and reserves through taxation. This has taken place as the result of the English Fabians’ permeation and gradualness and support of a welfare state. In other words, it has been the gradual but insidious penetration and manipulation of government by those who would impose their socialist philosophy on all citizens by stealth. What better example do we have than the vast expansion of the federal government in the 1930s with the creation of the vast network of public works and welfare programs supported by taxes siphoned out of the economy?
It is only conjectural now what a different economical picture might have developed had the protective tariffs and welfare state of the 1930s not been created. Beyond Roosevelt’s New Deal programs, further expansion of government occurred under President Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s, backed by the socialist president of the AFL-CIO Union, Walter Reuther. Further expansion of government is still continuing, but it slowed under President Reagan.
The known US Government infiltration by socialists in the 1930s and ‘40s originally took place by many who were sympathetic to the interests of the communist Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), and they influenced and supported the interventionist policies of the Roosevelt regime. We now know that many were USSR-paid Soviet spies.* Socialist believers from the British Labour Party who supported the ‘ideal social system of the soviets’ likewise permeated the British Parliament. There are still many in the US government who today by their declarations and actions demonstrate that they are even yet sympathetic to the ‘liberal’ tenets of Socialism.
Why is there such a love affair with the fantasy of Socialism (in spite of its failure in every instance tried) including the failed “Communist Utopia” of the Soviet Union? That this mindset persists among so many intellectuals of Western democratic countries is a genuine perplexity. The real world embodiment of that socialist Utopia, the USSR, killed at least 20 million of its own citizens, and in the rest of the world the other combined socialist governments killed nearly 100 million more. The crime of those millions of victims of the dream of ‘social justice’ was their refusal to go along with that ‘dream’. What a deliberately misled and fraudulent ‘justice!’ * Revealed in the Venona Project released on July 11, 1995 by the US Government.
The author, Martin Amis6 wanted to call attention to just what an “insanely cruel monster” Joseph Vissionarovich Stalin was. Amis stated, “The dictatorship of the proletariat was a lie; Union was a lie, and Soviet was a lie. And Socialist was a lie. Comrade was a lie. The revolution was a lie.” How many intellectuals believed and spread this lie and thereby colluded in the enslavement, death, and generalized social misery of hundreds of millions of Socialism’s citizens? Martin Amis’s answer is, “The overwhelming majority of intellectuals everywhere.” (Italics mine) Ludwig von Mises7 describes the self-evaluations of academic people who by-and-large believe they are under-compensated for their intellectual value. Dr. von Mises provided part of the answer to the why of the ‘intellectual’ negative portrayal of Capitalism, but since this anti- Capitalism portrayal is so widespread, there has to be more. And there is.
If those intellectuals who believe themselves so valuable are so dissatisfied, they should work in open and positive ways to improve their lot from their lesser economic positions, rather than to try to demean, degrade, and impugn the obviously superior and moral system of Capitalism. Probably most do not even recognize consciously the true reason for their antagonism. Thomas Sowell8 in his book, The Vision Of The Anointed, adds another dimension to the question of the why of the intellectual disgust with Capitalism and the importance of the individual in the United States.
The following is a recent example of a central despot’s dictatorial (central) control in the year of 2002. Zimbabwe, Africa was experiencing a growing famine because of the central-controlling dictator, Robert Mugabe, and his violent suppression of any entrepreneurial food productivity and of food imports. Hundreds of thousands of people starved. Mugabe ordered confiscation of white people’s properties and farms. The awarding of those farming properties to his family members and political cronies was coincidental to the destruction of the production of the food capabilities of the farmers displaced. Of course, most of those recipi ents of the stolen properties had little to no experience with farming; so another factor for famine was introduced. Is there a cheer for central control?
Socialist Tactics Infiltration of the institutions of public education has been a highly successful activity for propagating the false message of Socialism.
It appears that the aim of the gradual infiltration of the US education system and the achievement of transforming the spirit of individualism and Capitalism has been in large part ‘won,’ judging by the deliberate changes taught in the public schools away from the philosophy of individualism and the history of the successful system of Capitalism. Who could have predicted that the ‘relativism’ of morals and history now propagated by ‘liberals’ could have such far-reaching and negative effects upon the citizenry and the policy making of those now in government?
In an earlier chapter, I discussed the gradualism of infiltration of the socialistic mechanism into the democratic governments of both Britain and the United States, as promulgated by Sidney Webb and George Bernard Shaw. They believed, and I suspect that many supporters of government intervention still believe, that gradual application of government interference is the best method of achieving full Socialism.
But many interventionists are not full socialists. They hold that the establishment of a mixed economy would “improve” Capitalism by a system of permanent management. They undertake to restrain and to regulate free enterprise by government interference with business and by labor unionism. Miscalculation and misunderstanding of true free enterprise is reflected in that erroneous assumption. The tragedy of that idea is that it is so widely accepted. Whether the perpetrators are succeeding by design or merely by sincere belief does not alter the outcome. Nonetheless, in the words of Ludwig von Mises9: “All methods of interventionism are doomed to failure.” There are other tactics that are notorious but not always recognized as collectivist methods. For instance, the socialist– ‘liberals’ [Or is it ‘liberal’-socialists?] attack proponents of capitalistic successes and programs by hurling all manner of class-envy invectives at Capitalism: “It helps the rich; it ignores the poor and the homeless!” This and variations on the theme are their constant thrust, whether it is against tax reduction, ‘protection’ of forests, environmentalist antagonism against oil drilling, opposing nuclear reactors, or support of programs to improve the welfare infrastructure of the country in order to obtain their objectives of influence and power.
When have you heard the ‘liberals’ engage in open and factual discussion for the concepts they espouse? For whatever reason they oppose Capitalism, it is an undeniable fact that this country owes its present wealth and high standard of living to Capitalism’s productivity. Who in this country, outside the homeless, lives without running water, a bathroom, and a stove? When I say “everyone under capitalism benefits,” I mean to point out that we have in this country the richest ‘poor’ in the world.
The “race-card” is another favorite tool used by the ‘liberals.’ By its use, the target of the offensive accusation (an individual or organization) is put on the defensive and usually has to try hard to deny it or at least demonstrate that he, she, or an organization is not biased. This dilutes the very objective of the debate, and the ‘liberal’ thus avoids the necessity of proposing positive ideas and discussion.
The most recent example is the unfortunate Senator Trent Lott.
For making an ‘offhand’ but offensive “racist” statement at the 100th birthday dinner honoring Senator Strom Thurmond, Senator Lott was made to apologize multiple times and then make reassuring statements to show that he was not racist. But those statements included agreement with embodied positions held by the Democrats, such as being for affirmative action. The Republicans could hardly have their majority leader espousing positions opposite to their own, so a new majority leader was chosen.
“Race-baiting” is effective because of the large numbers of people in the targeted minorities. The blacks, the Hispanics, and the Jews are favorite objects. The Irish, the Japanese, the Germans, and the American Indians in the past have been the objects of derision. To exploit and keep negative race feelings alive is, to say the least, derogatory and divisive, which is contrary to the unifying idea of “I am an American."
"Hyphenated Americans” is a perpetuating concept of dividing, not uniting. Terms like, African- American, Mexican-American, Hispanic- American, and Native-American, for example, imply a double loyalty. It separates groups away from each other. One seldom hears, Korean-American, Irish-American, Chinese- American, Japanese-American or Scandinavian-American for those who have obtained their citizenship from those origins. US people in England or Germany, who for some reason decide to become citizens there, do not refer to themselves as American- English or American-German.
Other tactics are opposition and criticism, besides the stealthy infiltration of schools for indoctrination and altered history teaching.
These tactics are followed by personal vituperative attacks on anyone with different views. In State universities the political bias against conservatives in the hiring process amounts to an illegal political patronage operation, and campus funds available for political activities are inequitably distributed to student groups with leftwing agendas (approximately 50 to 1).10 It is no accident that the system of Capitalism is the driving force of the success of the United States, which is based upon the freedom of individuals to interact freely in exchanges of goods and services and in forming associations and organizations. The founders of this country established a capitalist nation. “Democracy is inextricably linked with capitalism.”11 Organized Socialism But let us get back to the beginning of today’s organized Socialism.
In 1883, a group of socialist doctrinaires in England founded a society titled the Fellowship of the New Life. The earliest organizers at first were earnest do-gooders who wanted to cultivate their own moral perfection, but they soon concluded that it would be more productive to work for the transformation of political institutions. Later to join were mostly wealthy heirs, writers, and intellectuals who extended their influence far beyond their small group. The British Labour Party first received political direction from them. These members soon chose another name for their organization, the Fabian Society, derived from Quintus Fabius Maximus (275-203 B.C.). Quintus Fabius was a Roman statesman and general who harassed Hannibal’s army by stealth and guerrilla warfare without risking a pitched battle. The Fabian Society has used stealth ever since, and it is their mode of operating.
Because of their acceptance of gradualism, they chose the tortoise as their symbol. George Bernard Shaw and his lawyer friend, Sidney Webb, were among the most influential of the early Fabians. Webb, an executive director of the Fabian Society before the turn of the century, wrote the organization’s first and most enduring propaganda tract, Facts of Socialism. Living off his wife’s inheritance, Webb and his wife devoted themselves to the Fabian goal of transforming Great Britain into a socialist society. They were responsible for the reorganization of the British educational system, and their poverty proposals formed the basis of the welfare state.
Webb was neither an historian nor an economist, but he wrote two highly influential volumes: The History of Trade Unionism, and Industrial Democracy. And in order to establish socialistic theories as “social science” he founded the London School of Economics to educate future world leaders. Former U.S. President, John F.
Kennedy was a student there.
The London School of Economics has not remained solely an institution to promote socialist interpretations of economics. On May 9, 2002, at the libertarian Cato Institute’s 25th Anniversary gala12, the first recipient of Cato’s major new award: the Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty, was awarded posthumously to Lord Peter Bauer, Professor of Economics, from the London School of Economics. Professor Bauer, 86, died just one week prior to that event. He was one of the past century’s great champions of human dignity and freedom and the pursuit of happiness. He argued for “trade, not aid.” He propounded that the real answer to poverty lies in giving people the freedom to choose how to spend their own energy and resources, not in subsidies or state planning. He and his free-market associates set an agenda that provides at least a “fighting chance” for genuine global prosperity and peace.
Sidney Webb further initiated the Fabian program of “permeation,” which meant infiltration of all major political parties to make certain that socialist programs would be enacted no matter what party was in power. G. Bernard Shaw13 explained the tactic of permeation as “accepting, instead of trying to supersede, the existing political organization which it intended to permeate with the Socialist conception of human society.” He wrote also of the need for “gradualism” in accomplishing the aims of socialism.
Gradualism is nothing more than the concept of Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto, in which he stated, “The state should wrest, by degrees all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state.”14 It was to wrest also the wealth from the hands of the bourgeoisie. Step by step, bit-by-bit, little by little, the process should continue until the bourgeoisie no longer have any property at all.
The Fabians have used the Marxian mechanism well. Today, collectivism has reappeared in new forms like environmentalism and the assertion of ethnic or other ‘group rights.’ The cult of political correctness (pc) threatens free speech. The subtle and slow infiltration of these ideas into our schools and discussions has happened so gradually that somehow citizens of today, with the present welfare status, have become conditioned to accept these intrusions as routine without understanding what they are losing.
Isn’t it interesting and significant that there is no push for the reverse, that is, to infiltrate Socialism by stealth and “permeation” to change it little by little and bit-by-bit until everyone possesses property. In all reality, there is no need to subvert a bad institution in order to overcome its corrupt basis; exposition of it is sufWHY ficient. Truth and accurate history speak for themselves. Nevertheless, the ‘liberal’ educational institutions in this country could use a permeation of higher concepts of individualism and the actual history of our country’s founding.
Fabian penetration in Great Britain was appreciably successful in 1923-1924 under Prime Minister James Ramsay MacDonald, himself a member of the Fabian Society, by achieving recognition and trade support of the Soviet Union. Further, under the coalition and conservative governments that followed, much of the socialist agenda was realized in national health insurance, welfare, centralized economic planning, monopolization of broadcasting under the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), and a push for the nationalizing of some of Britain’s industry.
After the difficult years of World War II, Winston Churchill warned his countrymen about the “unrealistic promises of the radical socialists in the Labour Party .” Nevertheless, the Labour Party was voted in, and it embarked on immediate wholesale nationalization of industry – and, most tragically, the socialization of the healthcare system.
Socialization was supposed to bring an end to labor unrest, but instead, it brought more strikes. It promised to bring postwar prosperity, but instead, it brought decline and despair. In fact by 1949, the ‘British Empire’ unraveled, and the country was in an economic crisis that required the Labour government to impose an “austerity” program because productivity had declined so far that rationing had to be instituted. I personally experienced that austerity when I left Germany in December of 1952 and traveled to England. I could not purchase even a bag of peanuts in London, although at that time peanuts were readily available in Berlin, Germany.
By 1952, the tremendous economic failure of the Soviet Union was not universally recognized. The USSR would last another thirty-seven years before its economic structure would completely disintegrate. Only then would its utter bankruptcy be fully recognized worldwide by more than the few visitors who were permitted inside. It had kept its power, not by the intrinsic growth and prosperity that originally were promised, but by the force of guns and murder, the elimination of all opposition.
Economic decline under Socialism occurred faster in England, but still the understanding of its failing has not penetrated the intellectuals in the United States to this day. They believe ‘theoretically’ that the system is good, just that the leaders corrupted it; e.g., Stalin, Castro, and Mao Zedong (Tse-Tung), etc.
It isn’t the bad leaders that have caused Socialism to fail. It is the system itself that fails. The system of Socialism is not good. It suppresses individuality, incentive, entrepreneurial endeavor, and inventiveness; and above all, it suppresses the creation and ownership of private property. These are absolutely important to the growth of wealth and prosperity for any nation.
Organized Socialism in the United States So much for a summary of British Socialism! What about the establishment of the Fabians’ system in the US? Shortly after the turn of the 20th century, a Fabian sister organization was founded in New York named the Intercollegiate Socialist Society (ISS).
Not long after, it became the League for Industrial Democracy (LID), taking the name from Sidney Webb’s writing, Industrial Democracy. Early founders of the LID were intellectuals, including author, Jack London and attorney, Clarence Darrow.15 By 1948, probably the best-known socialist was six-time Socialist Party candidate for President, Norman Thomas. He functioned as associate editor of the socialist publication, The Nation, and he was a founder of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
There were many subversive organizations, but regardless of the good intentions of most members, they were controlled from the Kremlin, which became easy to prove. Thomas and many gullible do-gooders and clergy prior to World War II rallied behind causes to benefit what they perceived to be the consummate Utopian society, the Soviet Union. Those confused and misguided sympathizers began to call themselves “liberals,” but the communists called them “useful innocents.” When one hears disagreement from people about the types of cases that the ACLU chooses to defend, I would only remind them about the tenets of the organization’s founder, the socialist, Norman Thomas. Those complaining citizens must understand and remember the ACLU’s socialist origin and agenda. I can readily comprehend (though not accept) its basis of approach to contest and impede “the injustices of the capitalist system.” I must admit they are clever in using the terms of our justice system with subtle twists to serve their socialist (‘liberal’) aims. This fits the fundamental socialist concept that an individual’s rights are subservient to the state.
But with comparison to our system based on guarantees of personal liberty, the questions emerge: Why did Socialism originate in the first place? And, why do its supporters detest so much of the US institutions and seek to subvert and eliminate them?
The McCarthy hearings in the 1950s were doggedly misrepresented and maligned by the ‘liberals’ in government and the media.
Yet the investigations made the American citizens aware of the totalitarian nature and expansionist thrust of the Soviet Union.
The people became alarmed at the extent of subversive activity of the socialist elements in the United States Government, and finally, the magnitude of the subversion was revealed. It all lived up to the indirect and gradual approach of the British Fabians’ namesake, Fabius Maximus.
Prior to “McCarthyism” the scheme of permeation resulted in the formation of the Union for Democratic Action (UDA) in 1941.
This was the first openly socialist organization to distinguish itself apart from other socialist groups, which had communist members.
The UDA publicly ‘disavowed’ communism, but that disclaimer was only verbal, not actual. Its primary focus was to pressure Congress and the Administration to assure the security of the Soviet Union. After suffering losses in 1947 to the ‘conservative’ Republicans, Walter Reuther, the then president of the AFLCIO and a well-known socialist, changed the UDA name to Americans for Democratic Action (ADA). The leaders of this renamed socialist organization remained the same, and their beliefs did not change. Nonetheless, in order to gain wider support, they avowed publicly “to reject any association with communists or sympathizers with communists.” Simply by that statement, they would become ‘born-again’ patriots. Ah, the masterful stealth of those earlier socialist leaders! Dr. Edward R. Annis16 reported that in The Partisan Review (1947) the socialist history professor, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., at Harvard, wrote the embodiment of the Fabian doctrine of gradualness that characterized the ADA platform thrust upon John Kennedy’s administration; namely, “If socialism is to preserve democracy, (italics mine) it must be brought about step by step in a way which will not disrupt the fabric of custom . . . the transition must be piecemeal; it must be parliamentary; it must respect civil liberties and the due process of law.” Dr. Annis quoted further: The Harvard socialist, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. and Walter Reuther were closely associated during the early stage of the Americans for Democratic Action. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. once prophesied of Reuther: “Walter Reuther, the extraordinary able and intelligent leader of the United Auto Workers, may well become . . . . . the most powerful man in American politics.
And as Schlesinger continued in that Partisan Review article: “Socialism, then, appears quite practicable within this frame of reference, as a long-term proposition. …The active agents in effecting the transition will probably be, not the working class, but some combination of lawyers, business and labor managers, politicians and intellectuals, in the manner of the first New Deal, or of the Labor government in Britain.” It happened as Schlesinger (not Marx) predicted and is still happening.
Walter Reuther was basically motivated by power, as are all those seeking to infuse socialist mechanisms into the governmental influence and control over people and their freedoms. Now I am beginning fully to understand the motivation to undermine gradually the citizens’ individual control of their own personal destinies as guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. Dr. Edward R. Annis17 wrote, “In a personal letter to me (Dr. Annis), that . . . was affirmed to me by Senator Dirksen who told me that Reuther* was probably the most powerful man in American Politics.” No matter the method the ‘liberals’ use to instigate their agenda, it is motivated by the thrust for POWER.
David Horowitz18 reported that the 1960s radical activists in returning to the Democratic ranks in the early 1970s assumed the less threatening cover labels of “liberal," "progressive,” and “populist.” Though the socialist Progressive Party had bolted the Democratic Party in the 1930s, the members returned again in 1972 during the presidential campaign of former Progressive Party activist, George McGovern.
The ADA members assumed the label “liberal,” and it stuck. But the word liberal derives originally from the Latin term liber, which means free. A more misapplied label could hardly be found for their collective philosophy. Subservience to the state is anything but free, but the word liberal has a positive connotation, which leads to the borrowing of the word and its dishonest application by those who would mislead unknowing but sincere people.
Can leopards change their spots? Is it a coincidence that today’s Democratic Party embodies so many of the original tenets of the Fabian Socialists?19 According to David Horowitz,20 “The Left has achieved success in transforming the lexicon of American politics. Following the failure of the revolutionary projects in the 1960s, the radicals of that time became ‘liberals’ and established university speech codes and other forms of censorship in the 1980s.” To be in positions of power is their objective. As Sea