British Prime Minister Winston Churchill gave one of the best definitions of the failure of socialism. He said the following: “Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy. Its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.”
Cuba in the 1950s was a prosperous nation under free market capitalism
I grew up in Cuba during the 1950s, a nation that was among the most prosperous in Latin America under free market capitalism. The Cuban peso had the same value as the dollar and there was no inflation. During this period, Cuba had a trade surplus and, for this reason, had no exchange control, unlike the rest of the Latin American nations.
One could go to a bank until 1958 and exchange unlimited pesos into dollars on a one-to-one basis. There was no black market to acquire dollars. In 1950, Cuba established a central bank. The banking system was soon after expanded with the creation of the Agricultural and Industrial Development Bank (BANFAIC). With these two banks and with the assistance of national and foreign banks all over the island, the credit system expanded, which is required for economic development and growth.
If you were an honest businessperson, banks granted you loans with no collateral. My father was a respected cattleman in Camagüey and he would get unlimited loans, only on the basis of his word and signature. My father would sell or buy cattle from other honest cattlemen on the basis of verbal transactions without writing contracts. Over the years, my father purchased cattle from the King Ranch in Texas and sent my brother and I to four summer camps and then to boarding schools in the United States. We came to Miami on vacation every year and purchased clothes and other items exchanging pesos to dollars on a one-to-one basis.
During my childhood, I would go alone or with other children everywhere without adult supervision in my hometown of Camagüey since there was little crime in the streets. I took a public bus for 5 cents to go to my Catholic school, Colegio Champagnat, or to the movies and drove my bicycle everywhere. Schools were safe and had no security guards even though people carried guns and rifles. There were no drugs like cocaine or heroin, or even marihuana, anywhere in Cuba in the 1950s. Looking back on my childhood, my friends and I truly lived in Camelot!
As the revolution against President Fulgencio Batista intensified in the late 1950s everything changed for the worst. There were student strikes in Havana, Santiago de Cuba, Camagüey, and other major cities. Bombs exploded and university students fought police officers especially in Havana. But even during this period, the economy did not deteriorate.
Cuba was one of the most advanced and successful countries in Latin America. Cuba’s capital, Havana, was a beautiful and dynamic city. The island was the largest producer and exporter of sugar in the world.
Cuba has many important minerals. Cuba’s nickel reserve ranked among the largest in the world. Cuba was the largest producer of chromite in the Americas, second in manganese, and fourth of copper. The island started to industrialize in the 1930s and 1940s. By 1958, there were many small factories and the majority of the sugar mills were owned by Cubans.
Meat and meat products were produced prior to 1959 to provide for the nation and even export to Venezuela. Cubans consumed more meat per person than Americans in the United States. My father had a large cattle ranch in Camagüey and sold cattle and milk. Meat was inexpensive. The land in the island is fertile with abundant rivers and rainfall.
Many Spaniards and other Europeans moved to Cuba prior to 1959 in search of a better life and to establish businesses. There were many Americans who lived in Cuba during this time.
Cuba’s transportation system was the best developed in Latin America. Railroads connected the cities and were used to transport sugar to the ports. There were excellent domestic and international airports. In 1958, José Martí airport in Havana was one of the best in the Western Hemisphere. The city of Havana and other cities in the island had excellent harbor facilities, docks, and warehouses.
The public schools and the University of Havana had no tuition. There were many private schools and the private Catholic University of St. Thomas in Havana. There were few schools in the rural areas.
On November 29, 2016, Hans Bader wrote an article titled “Castro Made Cuba Backward” that was published by CNSNews.com. Bader stated the following: “Castro made life much more primitive for the average Cuban. He took a country that was once a beacon of hope and prosperity in Latin America and impoverished it. People who claim Cuba was backward by international standards when Castro seized power in 1959 are either ignorant of history or trying to excuse Castro’s role in making it as backward as it is today.”
Bader explained the description of pre-Castro Cuba by the progressive economist Brad DeLong who stated the following: “The hideously depressing thing is that Cuba under Batista—Cuba in 1957—was a developed country. Cuba in 1957 had lower infant mortality than France, Belgium, West Germany, Israel, Japan, Austria, Italy, Spain, and Portugal. Cuba in 1957 had doctors and nurses: as many doctors and nurses per capita as the Netherlands, and more than Britain or Finland. Cuba in 1957 had as many vehicles per capita as Uruguay, Italy, or Portugal. Cuba in 1957 had 45 TVs per 1000 people–fifth highest in the world… Thus I don’t understand lefties who talk about the achievements of the Cuban Revolution [as having provided] ‘… better health care, housing, and
education.’”
Bader reported that according to Reason Magazine, Cuba in the late 1950s was quite advanced by world standards: “In 1959, Cuba had 128.6 doctors and dentists per 100,000 inhabitants, placing it 22nd globally—that is, ahead of France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Finland. In infant mortality tables, Cuba ranked one of the best in the world, with 5.8 deaths per 100,000 babies, compared to 9.5 per 100,000 in the United States. In 1958, Cuba’s adult literacy rate was 80%, higher than that of its colonial grandfather in Spain, and the country possessed one of the most highly-regarded university systems in the Western hemisphere.”
By 1958, Cuba ranked fifth in the hemisphere in per capita income, third in life expectancy, second in per capita ownership of automobiles and telephones, and first in the number of television sets per inhabitant. The literacy rate, 80%, was the fourth highest in Latin America. Of course, there was poverty in Cuba but much less than in other nations in Latin America.
Cuba was ranked 11th in the world in the number of doctors per capita. In fact, there were more doctors per capita in the island than in the United States. In 1958, there were many HMOs in Cuba where for 5 pesos a month a person had medical care, medicines and hospitalization. Medical doctors and nurses had modest salaries, thus healthcare was less expensive than in the United States. Many private clinics and hospitals provided services for the poor.
Cuba’s income distribution compared favorably with that of other Latin American societies. A thriving middle class held the promise of prosperity and social mobility. The one weakness of the Cuban economy was the over dependency on sugar. From 1949 to 1958, approximately 30% of the GNP was generated by the sugar industry. Sugar accounted for 85% of the exports.
Jaime Suchlicki in his book, Cuba from Columbus to Castro and Beyond (2002), explained that in the 1950s, 75% of the Cuban imports came from the United States and 65% of the exports were to the United States. The U.S. gave the sugar exports from Cuba a large quota and preferential prices higher than the world price of sugar.
Millions of Americans and individuals from other nations came to Cuba as tourists. The U.S. dollar and coins circulated in the island along with the Cuban currency.
By 1958, the Cuban economy was at the take-off stage as defined by the economist Walter Rostow. According to Rostow, the pre-conditions to Take-off” were the following:
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- External demand for raw materials initiates economic change.
- Development of more productive, commercial agriculture and cash crops not consumed by producers and/or largely exported.
- Widespread and enhanced investment in changes to the physical environment to expand production (i.e. irrigation, canals, ports).
- Increasing spread of technology and advances in existing technologies.
- Changing social structure, with previous social equilibrium now in flux
- Individual social mobility begins.
- Development of national identity and shared economic interests.
The Take-off stage conditions were as follows:
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- Urbanization increases, industrialization proceeds, technological breakthroughs occur.
- “Secondary” (goods-producing) sector expands and ratio of secondary vs. primary sectors in the economy shifts quickly towards secondary.
- Textiles and apparel are usually the first “take-off” industry, as happened in Great Britain’s classic Industrial Revolution.
- An Example of the Take-off phase is the Agriculture (Green) Revolution in the 1960s.
Fidel Castro destroyed the economy of Cuba and started severe repression
The prosperous economy crashed when Fidel Castro came to power in 1959 and imposed socialism in the island. With socialism came poverty, misery, and oppression and the establishment of a mass-murdering bloody regime.
On May 17, 1959, the first Agrarian Reform Law was passed confiscating ranches and farms larger than 3,300 acres with the fake promised of paying with government bonds. On June 28, 1960, Cuban bloody dictator Fidel Castro confiscated the American oil companies and its refineries.
In the following months, all private properties were confiscated. By the end of 1960, all domestic and foreign property was stolen by the regime. Over $1 billion properties from U.S. nationals and corporations were confiscated.
The upper and middle classes were wiped out. Many Cuban patriots began to plot and rebel against the totalitarian system. Many Cubans fought in the underground in the cities and others in the mountains. Eventually, they were defeated in part as a result of the immense military assistance provided by the Soviet Union to the tyrannical Cuban communist regime.
From 1959 to 2019, over 300,000 men, women, and children were sent to prison for many years and tens of thousands were shot without any due process of law. Two million went to exile, mostly to the United States. Thousands have died trying to cross the Straits of Florida in small boats and rafts.
My brother, several cousins, friends, and I, at age 17, tried to overthrow the bloody socialist regime in Cuba. We participated in the Bay of Pigs invasion on April 17, 1961. One of my cousin died at age 19 in a B-26 that was shot down. Sadly, we were defeated due to many mistakes made by the Kennedy administration. About 1,200 members of the Assault Brigade 2506 were captured and sent to prison, where we were tortured for two years until the Kennedy administration negotiated with the regime and we were released.
Under socialism, Cuba became a merciless totalitarian state. Its military and secret police continue to assassinate, beat up, and arrest peaceful opponents and systematically suppress the Cuban people’s legitimate aspirations for freedom, self-determination, and prosperity. Cuba became a center of terrorism and exported communism to Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Bolivia. The Cuban regime has intervened in many nations in Latin America, Europe, Africa, and Asia and is a strong enemy of the United States.
Currently, the Castro regime has an Occupation Army in Venezuela and intelligence agents to prop up the imploding Maduro dictatorship and its violent efforts to crush the legitimate demands for freedom and democracy of the Venezuelan people. Dictator Nicolás Maduro follows orders from Cuban dictator Raúl Castro and is protected by over 400 Cuban soldier bodyguards. Venezuela has virtually become a colony of Cuba.
Suchlicki pointed out that in February 1960, the regime created a Central Planning Board modeling Eastern European communist nations. Suchlicki stated that “The transformation of the prosperous private enterprise free market capitalism to a centralized state-control command economy resulted in chaos, inefficiency, and increased poverty and misery.” Currently, the standard of living in Cuba is one of the lowest in Latin America as it is also in Venezuela and Nicaragua.
By 1961, there were severe food shortages as private farms and cattle ranches were stolen from the owners. Those regime officials were disorganized, incompetent, and did not know how to manage the confiscated properties. Cuba, for many years, and specially now, is having severe shortages of water, electricity, medicine, and food.
The infrastructure is crumbling all over Cuba. People are once again eating dogs and cats and desperately trying to leave the island.
Severe food rationing stated in 1961 and has continued until today. Cuba has depended on massive assistance from the Soviet Union until that nation disintegrated due its inefficient socialist economic system. Cuba entered for several years in, what was known as, a Special Period of immense food, water, and electricity shortages.
Fidel Castro helped Hugo Chávez take over Venezuela.
The Cuban bloody regime led by the bloody tyrant Fidel Castro helped the communist Hugo Chávez come to power in Venezuela. Immediately after, Venezuela began sending large amounts of free oil and providing other economic assistance to the island. However, socialism brought chaos and immense poverty in Venezuela. Currently, Venezuela is bankrupt and is sending less and less free oil to Cuba.
Venezuela was the most prosperous nation in Latin America when it had a free market capitalism system. When dictator Hugo Chávez took over and implanted socialism, similar to Cuba, its economy collapse.
People in Venezuela are starving, drinking polluted water, eating what they find garbage cans, and dying from lack of medicines. Over four million people have left Venezuela creating immense problems for Colombia, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, and other nations. As in Cuba, socialism in Venezuela has brought death, misery, poverty, and lots of repression.
In a socialist economy, economic decisions are not left to free markets or decided by private entrepreneurs. Instead, the regime, which controls the resources of the economy, decides the what, when, and how of the production of goods. Centralized planning is an absolute failure.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
The Soviet Union created a stamp to commemorate the 100-year anniversary of the publication of the Communist Manifesto.
Two unknown Germans, Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Friedrich Engels (1820-1895), wrote the Communist Manifesto in 1848. These two authors are currently revered by communists in the world. The first sentence of their revolutionary book said that “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.”
This doctrine of class struggle is the central idea of Marxism. According to Marx and Engels, the cause of the class struggle, is the ownership of private property that gives power to certain people. Private property is an instrument of oppression since allows a small number of people, who own property, to impose their will on those who do not have property.
Marx considered religion to be the “opium” of the people. He believed that capitalism was a corrupt system that brought misery and oppression and that the working class needed to destroy capitalism. Of course, this interpretation of history is not valid. Communists following Max and Engels have killed at least 100 million people and sent to prison tens of millions.
No private property was allowed under the new Marxist society. Religion and family ties needed to be eradicated. Hostility towards religion, Judeo Christian values, morality, tradition, and the family unit are common to all communist and socialist regimes. Thus, socialists in the United States today are attacking Christianity like never before by calling Christians racists, homophobes, sexists, and Islamophobics.
Eugene Victor Debs and John Reed
Eugene Victor “Gene” Debs was born on November 5, 1855 and died on October 20, 1926. He was an American union leader and one of the founding members of the Industrial Workers of the World. Debs founded the Socialist Party of America in 1901.
Eugene Debs ran five times for president as the candidate of the Socialist Party of America. Through his presidential candidacies, as well as his work with labor movements, Debs eventually became one of the best-known socialist living in the United States. Debs was convicted under the Espionage Act of 1917 and sentenced to a term of 10 years. Republican President Warren G. Harding commuted his sentence in December 1921.
Eugene Debs stated the following: “Those Russian comrades of ours have made greater sacrifices, have suffered more, and have shed more heroic blood than any like number of men and women anywhere on Earth. They have laid the foundation of the first real democracy that ever drew the breath of life in this world.” In a 1918 speech in Canton, Ohio, Debs reaffirmed his solidarity with Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky, despite clear evidence of their destruction of Russia and the tens of thousands of people they killed.
John Reed was born on October 22, 1887 in Portland, Oregon and died on October 19, 1920 in Moscow, Russia. In 1919, the Communist Party USA was founded by John Reed and other socialists from the Communist Labor Party.
John Reed wrote Ten Days That Shook the World, an account of the November 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, when Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, and the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia. Reed was indicted for treason in the United States, fled to the Soviet Union, and died of typhus.
Reed was buried with other Bolshevik heroes beside the Kremlin Wall. He is one of three Americans buried there. The other two were labor organizer Bill Haywood and Charles Ruthenburg, both of whom also founded of the Communist Party USA.
The rise of socialism in the United States
John Fund wrote an article called “the Rise of America’s Socialism” that was published in Newsmax magazine in May 2019. He explained about the resurgence of socialism in America and traced its origins of socialism to 1747 when the Shakers founded communal groups. Fund explained the development of socialism in the United States. He pointed out that in 1876, the Socialist Labor Party was founded to represent the trade union workers. In 1901, the Socialist Party of America was founded by Eugene V. Debs who ran for president five times.
Fund wrote that in 1917, the day after the United States entered World War I, the Socialist Party of America called it “a crime against the people of the United States and began anti-draft rallies.” In 1919, the U.S. Communist Party was founded by John Reed and other socialists from the Communist Labor Party. In 1960, the Students for a Democratic Society was founded. This communist organization denounced economic inequality and organized nationwide protests against the Vietnam War during the 1960s.
Fund said that in 1982, the Democratic Socialists of America was founded by writer and political activist Michael Harrington with an initial membership of 6,000. It has expanded and soon became the largest socialist organization in America. On August 5, 2018, the Gallop poll reported that 57% of Democrats have a “positive view” of socialism. On February 7, 2019, Marxist Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a former New York City bartender, and socialist Democratic Senator Ed Markey from Massachussets, co-sponsor the Green New Deal at a cost of up to $93 trillion in 10 years. The Green New Deal, if implemented, would wreck the economy.
John Fund stated that “Seemingly overnight, massive government intervention, free social programs, and skyrocketing trillion-dollar deficits have become to some Democrats, at least, as American as apple pie.” It is sad that not a few but many Democrats like socialism!
British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said that “socialism works until the governments run out other people’s money.”
During the State of the Union address on February 9, 2019, President Donald J. Trump stated the following: “America will never be a socialist country. America was founded on liberty and independence, and not government coercion, domination, and control. We were born free, and we will stay free”.
The John Birch Society defends free market capitalism and denounces globalists
The John Birch Society magazine New American had a special report on socialism on its September 2, 2019 issue with excellent articles. Dennis Behreandt wrote an article called “The Failure of the Command Economy” in this issue of New American. He explained that the fundamental nature of socialism is command and control since it wants to take away economic decisions out of the marketplace and placed them in the hands of bureaucratic planners. Since these bureaucrats have imperfect knowledge of the market, they make terrible decisions that bring shortages and chaos.
Behreandt pointed out that planners under socialism “cannot tolerate dissent, as dissent breeds resistance.” Aggressive socialist regimes, such as the ones in China, North Korea, Venezuela, and Cuba, have used executions, imprisonment, concentration camps, and extensive surveillance of citizens. All these socialist regimes commit very many abuses human and social rights.
China’s socialist regime under dictator Xi Jinping has established the first digital dictatorship in the world. Millions of cameras spy 1.35 billion Chinese and the internet has firewalls to control what is said or published. China has stated that by 2020 all of its citizens will be subjected to a social credit system. Those who criticize the regime, receive traffic tickets, arrived late to work, or violate any law will be severely punished with a low score. As a result, these citizens will not be allowed to have good jobs, attend great schools or universities, travel outside the nation, or even allow having pets at home.
Worse China is exporting its digital dictatorship to many countries particularly in Africa. Nations that adopt this evil system in order to exercise rigid control of its citizens will also be spied forever by China.
China has placed more than one million Uighur Muslims in concentration camps to be re-educated with communist loyalties. Christians are not given good jobs and are often imprisoned. Members of the Falun Gong spiritual sect are considered enemies and are killed and their organs removed. In Cuba, before patriots were shot on the wall most of their blood was removed from their bodies to be sold abroad. These Cubans often could not even stand before the firing squad.
Dennis Behreandt ended his article by stating the following: “To be comfortable, happy, successful, and prosperous requires a nation to be free. By contrast socialism offers oppression, hunger, and misery. Don’t fall for it. Choose freedom instead.”
Kurt Williamsen and Steve Byas wrote an article called “Saving America with Socialism?” in the same issue of New American. They explained that the debt of federal government in 2019 is $22 trillion. In 2018, the government paid over $523 billion on interest on the debt. Williamsen and Byas described that all the entitlement programs were unsustainable. Social Security and Medicare have unfunded liabilities that would mean very high taxes or reduced benefits in the near future.
Williamsen and Byas said that, according to the trustees, Social Security benefits will have to be reduced by 25% by 2034 or the payroll tax will have to be increased. Medicare will run out of funds by 2026. The premiums paid by the beneficiaries will cover only 25% of the cost of the program.
Another very serious problem is the public pensions. Williamsen and Byas explained that Moody’s Investors Services estimated that public pensions are underfunded by $4.4 trillion. The crisis is the result of federal, state and local governments not setting aside funds for the promised pensions for public employees. Chicago alone has more than $62 billion of unfunded pensions.
When states and local government run out of funds, they will ask the federal government to bail them out. However, the federal government not only has serious problems with Social Security and Medicare but also with the pensions for federal employees, including the military.
The federal government needs to set aside $80 billion a year to fund military pensions. The unfunded pension for the rest of the federal employees is estimated to rise to $834.8 billion in 2025, according to Investopedia.
Other federal programs are losing billions each year. The U.S. Postal Services, despite not having to pay taxes, had a loss in 2018 of $3.9 billion. It has lost money for 12 consecutive years. The National Flood Insurance Program had to be bailed out by Congress by $16 billion in 2017 and now needs an additional $20.5 billion.
Williamsen and Byas wrote that despite the current unfunded liabilities of local, state, and federal programs and the growing deficit of the federal government, the socialist Democrats running for president in 2020 want more expenditures that the nation simply cannot afford. These Democratic presidential candidates, with the exception of Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, are fighting each other to see who can give away more “free things” that taxpayers could never be able to pay.
Socialists and Marxist Democratic presidential candidates want, among other things, to pay for free college tuition, cancel all college student loans, Medicare for all or single payer including for illegal immigrants (abolishing all private medical insurance), give slavery reparations, implement the Green New Deal, paid family leave, pay for sex changing operations, have open borders, sanctuary cities and states, etc. These socialist new programs, if implemented, will bankrupt the nation and devastate the lives of Americans as it is happening in Venezuela now with hyperinflation, hunger, and misery.
Williamsen and Byas concluded their article by stating the following: “When listening to socialists talk about all the new spending plans they have, you just have to remember one thing: Promises that are made without the money to pay for them are no promises at all. Instead of more socialism, wouldn’t the country be better off with less?”
Charles Scaliger wrote an article titled “Socialism Explained” in New American. He stated that communism, socialism, and progressivism have one thing in common, “the belief that the role of government is to plan, manage, control, and regulate all aspects of human activity, since personal liberty cannot be trusted to promote social order.”
Scaliger explained that modern socialism began as a rejection of Western Christian civilization. The primary objective of socialism is “to destroy the social and moral fabric of society, using economic control as a major tool.” “Socialism by its very nature is intolerant and hateful,” said Scaliger.
One of the misconceptions of socialism is that it brings equality by spreading the wealth. In reality, before the wealth can be redistributed, it must be taken from someone.
In socialist nations like Cuba and Venezuela, the ruling Mafia consists of millionaires and billionaires while the rest of the people are very poor and oppressed. Forbes magazine reported that Fidel Castro was one of the richest men in the planet. In China and Russia today, the great majority of the richest people are the former communists. Socialism never brings equality because those in power take everything for themselves.
Scaliger concluded his article by observing that socialism is a totalitarian system completely at odds with individual liberty and free market capitalism. Scaliger stated the following: “All the miraculous progress of the modern world is the result of capitalism, of risk-taking and innovation, not central planning…And it has been capitalism, not socialism, that, by incentivizing progress in medicine, food production, transportation, information technology, and so on, that has immeasurably improved standards of living everywhere in the world, leading to drastic increases in the quality of living for an overwhelming majority of people.”
It is alarming that due to communist and radical liberal infiltration in the Democratic Party, mainstream media, unions, schools, and universities have been brainwashing so many students and individuals to believe that socialism is better than free market capitalism.
The new socialist Democratic Party
Senator Elizabeth Warren and Senator Bernie Sanders are both Marxists.
Sadly, the once center-left Democratic Party has evolved into a socialist, pro-Islamic, and pro-infanticide party. Two 2020 Democratic Party presidential candidates are Marxists, Senator Elizabeth Warren and Senator Bernie Sanders. The rest are socialists. Senator Sanders is and has always been a communist. He has refused to call the bloody tyrant from Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, a dictator. He has said that the late mass-murderer Fidel Castro has totally transformed Cuba for the better. He called dictator Daniel Ortega from Nicaragua “an impressive guy.”
Deep State/Shadow Government operatives and globalists of the New World Order want a world socialist government under the United Nations but controlled by them. It is for this reason that these evil individuals have tried so hard to destroy President Donald Trump because he is a nationalist and want America First.
In socialist nations, private property is not respected. Once private property is not respected for rich people, it would not be respected for anyone. The Democratic presidential candidate for 2020 Marxist Senator Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts has two damaging proposals. One is the tax on wealth and the other one is her bill on Accountable Capitalism Act. Both are a direct attack on private property and capitalism as we know it and, as such, are communist proposals. Her tax on wealth would apply to the very rich but if you attack the private property of the rich, eventually, as in Cuba, it will impact everyone.
Senator Warren proposed bill Accountable Capitalism Act that would force corporations that have a billion in revenue to obtain a federal charter, as opposed to the current system of state charters. These large corporations would have to serve not the shareholders, who are the owners, but the workforce, customers, the local and global environment, and community and societal factors.
Forty percent of the Board of Directors would have to be employees, who would mean the union bosses. And who would monitor the Accountable Capitalism Act, if Congress approves it and a socialist president sign it? The socialist bureaucrats in the federal agencies, of course! This bill, if enacted into law, would be a very damaging restructuring of capitalism
Encouraged by the Roundtable, a group of 181 large corporations CEOs, approval of a document called Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation, which deals with social responsibilities to stakeholders ahead of shareholders, Senator Warren wrote a letter to JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon and other CEOs in late September, 2019. Senator Warren, in her letter, denounced corporate profits, dividends, and stock buybacks that, as she said, leave workers behind. The radical Senator Warren stated in her letter the following: “If you, and the other 181 corporate executives who signed the Statement on the Purpose of Corporation, plan to live up to the promises you made, I expect that you will endorse and wholeheartedly support the reforms laid out in the Accountable Capitalism Act to meet the principles you endorse.”
Notice the part “I expect” from someone who is not president, yet clearly was intimidating the Roundtable CEOs. It was a mistake for the Roundtable CEOs to approve such a document. These powerful executives needed to pay attention to the obligations of businesses in a free society.
On October 7, 2019, the Wall Street Journal wrote an editorial titled “King Warren of the Roundtable.” It said the Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation approved by the CEOs of the Roundtable is not what Senator Warren wrote in her bill. The editorial pointed to an essay written by the economist Milton Friedman in 1970 regarding executives who give speeches about corporations and their social responsibilities.
The editorial stated the following regarding the essay: “This may gain kudos in the short run. But it helps to strengthen the already prevalent view that the pursuit of profits is wicked and immoral and must be controlled by external forces. Once this view is widely believed, the result won’t be control by social conscience or pontificating executives, but by the iron fist of government bureaucrats.” The editorial concluded by saying that “The only way to defeat this threat is to defend the morality of free markets and the moral and fiduciary duty of corporations to their shareholder owners.”
Brian Riedl wrote an article titled “Money to Burn: What it Would Cost if Democratic Candidates Kept all the Spending Promises They Have Made” that was published by the Washington Examiner magazine on September 24, 2019. He explained that the current federal debt of $22.5 trillion as currently projected by 2019 will be $38 trillion.
Several socialist Democratic presidential candidates have failed to tell the truth to Americans about the unprecedented unfunded promises. Socialist proposals of these candidates are fiscally irresponsible as are their relentless unfair criticisms of the richest 1% of the taxpayers, who earn 19% of income while paying 30% of the federal taxes.
Brian Riedl explained the proposal of Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont to spend in 2020-2029 will cost an additional $60-$85 trillion. During this ten-year period, the cost of the fiscally irresponsible socialist proposals by Sanders is as follows: Medicare for All $30-40 trillion; Climate Change $16.2 trillion; Free College and Loan Forgiveness $3 trillion; Social Security Expansion $2 trillion; Guaranteed Employment $7-20 trillion; Housing $2 trillion; Infrastructure $1 trillion; and other smaller proposal $1 trillion. This $60-$85 trillion would be added to the $38 trillion on the current federal debt.
The crazy proposals of other Democratic presidential candidate will cost an additional $38-$48 trillion. Riedl concluded his article by stating the following: The truth is, Democratic proposals would quickly push total government spending (federal, state, and local) past 50% of GDP—exceeding Sweden, Norway, and most of Europe…If America wants to spend like Europe, it must tax like Europe, which means socking the middle class with large payroll and valued added taxes…These candidates cannot publicly acknowledge the middle class taxes their plans would require. The sticker shock would be politically fatal. So they continue to promise socialism funded on the backs of the wealthy.”
Ten Reasons to Reject Socialism
On April 6, 2016, the Tradition, Family, and Property Student Action published an article titled “Ten Reasons to Reject Socialism” that was published in their website. It serves as a summary why socialism needs to be rejected in any nation in the world. These are the reasons:
1. Socialism and communism are the same ideology.
Communism is but an extreme form of socialism. From the ideological standpoint, there is no substantial difference between the two. In fact, the communist Soviet Union called itself the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1922-1991) and communist China, Cuba and Vietnam define themselves as socialist nations.
2. Socialism violates personal freedom
Socialism seeks to eliminate “injustice” by transferring rights and responsibilities from individuals and families to the State. In the process, socialism actually creates injustice. It destroys true liberty: the freedom to decide all matters that lie within our own competence and to follow the course shown by our reason, within the laws of morality, including the dictates of justice and charity.
3. Socialism violates human nature
Socialism is anti-natural. It destroys personal initiative–a fruit of our intellect and free will–and replaces it with State control. It tends to totalitarianism, with its government and police repression, wherever it is implemented.
4. Socialism violates private propertySocialism calls for “redistributing the wealth” by taking from the “rich” to give to the poor. It imposes taxes that punish those who have been able to take greater advantage of their productive talents, capacity to work or thrift. It uses taxation to promote economic and social egalitarianism, a goal that will be fully achieved, according to The Communist Manifesto, with the “abolition of private property.”
5. Socialism opposes traditional marriage
Socialism sees no moral reason for people to restrict sex to marriage, that is, to an indissoluble union between a man and a woman. Furthermore, socialism undermines private property, which Friedrich Engels, founder of modern socialism and communism along with Karl Marx, saw as the foundation of traditional marriage
6. Socialism opposes parental rights in education
Socialism has the State, and not parents, control the education of children. Almost from birth, children are to be handed over to public institutions, where they will be taught what the State wants, regardless of parental views. Evolution must be taught. School prayer must be forbidden.
7. Socialism promotes radical equality
A supposed absolute equality among men is the fundamental assumption of socialism. Therefore, it sees any inequality as unjust in itself. Private employers are quickly portrayed as “exploiters” whose profits really belong to their employees. As a consequence, they rule out the system of wage earning.
8. Socialism promotes atheism
Belief in God, who unlike us is infinite, omnipotent and omniscient, clashes head-on with the principle of absolute equality. Socialism therefore rejects the spiritual, claiming that only matter exists. God, the soul, and the next life are illusions according to socialism.
9. Socialism promotes relativism
For socialism there are no absolute truths or revealed morals that establish standards of conduct that apply to everyone, everywhere, and always. Everything evolves, including right and wrong, good and evil. There is no place for the Ten Commandments, neither in the private mind nor in the public square.
10. Socialism mocks religion
According to Karl Marx, religion is “the opium of the people.” Lenin, founder of the Soviet Union, agreed: “Religion is opium for the people. Religion is a sort of spiritual booze in which the slaves of capital drown their human image, their demand for a life more or less worthy of man.”
President Donald J. Trump defends free market capitalism
When President Donald J. Trump says that the United States will never be a socialist nation, those of us, who lived or fought against socialism in our native countries, applaud. We know how terrible and destructive socialism is to liberty and freedom. With God’s help, America will never be a socialist nation and will continue to be a beacon of freedom to the world or a shining city in the hill.
However, to keep America free everyone must educate others, particularly the young people, on the evils of socialism. We must elect people to the White House and to Congress who are supporters of free market capitalism.
President Ronald Reagan stated the following: “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.”
Conclusion
Socialism is a totalitarian system completely at odds with individual liberty, freedom of opportunity, and free market capitalism. Socialism seeks to destroy the social and moral fabric of society and by its very nature is intolerant and hateful. Socialism brings misery, oppression, and greater inequality. Socialism undermines responsibility and encourages dependence. Once imposed, socialism is almost impossible to undo.
A Gallup poll done shortly before July 4, 2019 indicated that the share of our citizens who felt “extremely proud” to be Americans was the lowest in the Gallup poll’s 18-year history. It was 47%, compared with 70 % in 2003. Another poll done by WSJ/NBC showed that the younger Americans are, the less likely to say that patriotism is a “very important “value.
Schools should be doing more to teach students America’s great heritage of liberty and to be proud to be an American. Many years ago, I taught a high school government and economics course that included a textbook called Democracy and Communism Theory and Action in the Miami-Dade County Public Schools in Florida.
Sadly, the teaching about socialism and communism was discarded in Florida. Thus many young people lack basic knowledge regarding the terrible command and control socialist economy. We need to teach about the superiority of the free market capitalist economy over the command and control socialist economy. And then hire teachers and college professors who are not socialists.
We are at war with radical socialists and communists In America who want to take God and our freedom and liberty away. They want to destroy our Constitution and free market economy. They want to divide and oppress us. They want to take our precious sovereignty and place America under a one-world government under the corrupt United Nations but controlled by globalists of the New World Order. If any of the Democratic presidential candidates win the White House, our greatest nation in the planet will cease to be what it is today.
We need to fight hard to preserve the greatest and most generous country in the face of the planet, the United States of America, with our religious liberty, Judeo Christian values, and our Constitutional Republic.
We need to say this will not happen in our watch. And this is a war that we shall win with the help of Almighty God!
