A few weeks ago I mentioned the nationalization of the banks by the US government to a Democratic colleague of mine. He balked, “That’s not nationalization! They are not controlling the banks, only owning part of them!” I didn’t buy it then, since it is absurd to own without controlling, but now the issue is beyond question. The US government is assuming the power to take over failing institutions. I guess they already “had the power” to take over banks, now they are broadening that power. Again, it is time to revisit the ten measures that Marx said would be taken by the rising proletariat in order to overthrow the capitalist system:
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. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
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.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to labour. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equable distribution of the population
over the country.
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.
Bank nationalization? See item #5 above. We get closer to #5 every day.
What other items have we got covered? #2 is well underway and sure to increase under Obama. #3 is sure to increase under Obama through increased estate taxes. #6 is already well underway, but the “stimulus” should move us further toward “goal” here. #1, 7 and #8 are down the road a bit maybe. #9 is not relevant–they actually want us all in the cities so the earth doesn’t have to be polluted with our presence as much. And of course #10 was accomplished more than a century ago.
So there you have it, we have covered more than half of the items. I’d say we are on the road, wouldn’t you?
I think it is worth revisting the rest of my original post on this topic as well, with special attention to Bakunin’s thoughts (emphasis mine):
Marx believed that this tyranny of the state was only temporary:
When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organise itself as a class, if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class.
In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.
That last scentence actually sounds a bit like libertarianism, though I am not sure what he meant by the last clause, “the condition…” But don’t be fooled, the tyranny of the State does not go away, as we have seen in Russia, China, and in every other Communist country. No, rather it is as Bakunin warned. Read it carefully and tell me you don’t already see it in our America:
But in the People’s State of Marx there will be, we are told, no privileged class at all. All will be equal, not only from the juridical and political point of view but also from the economic point of view. At least this is what is promised, though I very much doubt whether that promise could ever be kept. There will therefore no longer be any privileged class, but there will be a government and, note this well, an extremely complex government. This government will not content itself with administering and governing the masses politically, as all governments do today. It will also administer the masses economically, concentrating in the hands of the State the production and division of wealth, the cultivation of land, the establishment and development of factories, the organization and direction of commerce, and finally the application of capital to production by the only banker – the State. All that will demand an immense knowledge and many heads “overflowing with brains” in this government. It will be the reign of scientific intelligence, the most aristocratic, despotic, arrogant, and elitist of all regimes. There will be a new class, a new hierarchy of real and counterfeit scientists and scholars, and the world will be divided into a minority ruling in the name of knowledge, and an immense ignorant majority. And then, woe unto the mass of ignorant ones!
- Critique of Economic Determinism and Historical Materialism, by Mikhail Bakunin
Woe, indeed.
And can you believe how much Bakunin’s description sounds like the direction of the European and U.S. governments today? Administering the masses “economically”, administration by a “hierarchy of scholars”: Think bank bail outs. Administration by a scientific elite: Think global warming. Think stimulus and car czars.
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