The Ten Planks of the  Communist Manifesto 1848 by Karl Heinrich Marx

How "Marxist" Has  the United States  Become?

1. Abolition of private property in land and application of all rents of land to public purpose.

 2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.

 3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.

 4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.

 5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.

6. Centralization of the means of communication and transportation 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 obligation of all to work.  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 government schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc. etc.

 So, is the U.S. a "free country" today?  Hardly!  Not compared to what it once was.  Yet, very few Americans today challenge these Marxist institutions, and there are virtually no politicians calling for their repeal or even gradual phase-out.    While the United States of America may still have more freedoms than most other countries, we have nonetheless lost many crucial liberties and have accepted the major socialist attacks on freedom and private property as normal parts of our way of life.  The nation, whose founders included such individualists as Thomas Jefferson, George Mason, James Madison, John Adams and Patrick Henry, has gradually turned away from the principles of individual rights, limited constitutional government, private property, and free markets and instead we increasingly have embraced the failed ideas and nostrums of socialism and fascism.  We should hang our heads in shame for having allowed this to happen.

But, it is not too late to reverse these pernicious burdens and instead enact pro-freedom reforms to put our nation back on track again. It can be done.

In some ways the Left has a head start over us on the pro-freedom Right.  The enemies of American freedom do admittedly dominate the entertainment industry, television news media, and academia -- but we have the tremendous strategic advantage that reality (including man's nature) is on our side; so, unlike the socialists and "liberals" (welfare-state fascists), we are not in the position of having to advocate a system which constantly tries to "make water to go uphill" -- or force human beings into a rigid utopian staitjacket based on the whims of some clique of central planning bureaucrats.  We know that individual freedom for peaceful people within a constitutional republic works in practice; our country's history demonstrates that.  The piecemeal abandonment of those principles and institutions which once made America great has proved to be a a dead-end road to failure.  That is why I tend to be a long-term optimist even though things often look pretty glum in the meantime.  Just as Prohibition was eventually repealed, I feel encouraged that such key statist achievements as the income tax, government schools, fiat money/central banking (the Federal Reserve), "environmentalist" regulations, property forfeiture laws, and other Marxist planks and leftist institutions can be rolled back and repealed altogether, although it may take several decades.

Those who would carry forward the ideas and principles of self-ownership, private property, free markets, laissez faire, the rule of law, and constitutionalism which informed America's founders must become more active on the key ideological battle fronts.  We need more influence not just in politics, but in areas of entertainment, academia, journalism, think tanks, churches (we need our own individualist Walter Rauschenbushes), literature, art, and other venues of expression and activism.

Marxism and socialism have proved to be colossal failures all over the world.  As Frederic Bastiat wrote in his classic The Law  just prior to his death, "let us now try liberty"!