Communism

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Should Education Be Compulsory?

August 18, 2010 in Education by Greg | 2 comments

In 1971, Murray Rothbard pointed out some of the pitfalls of compulsory education. Although he felt “a course where one teacher instructs one pupil is clearly by far the best type of course” he pointed out:

What then shall we say of laws imposing compulsory schooling on every child? These laws are endemic in the Western world. In those places where private schools are allowed, they must ail meet standards of instruction imposed by the government. Yet the injustice of imposing any standards of instruction should be clear. Some children are duller and should be instructed at a slower pace; the bright children require a rapid pace to develop their faculties. Furthermore, many children are very apt in one subject and very dull in another. They should certainly be permitted to develop themselves in their best subjects and to drop the poor ones. Whatever the standards that the government imposes for instruction, injustice is done to all – to the dullards who cannot absorb any instruction, to those with different sets of aptitudes in different subjects, to the bright children whose minds would like to be off and winging in more advanced courses but who must wait until the dullards are hounded once again. Similarly, any pace that the teacher sets in class wreaks an injustice on almost all; on the dull who cannot keep up, and on the bright who lose interest and precious chances to develop their great potential.¹

He continued,

The key issue in the entire discussion is simply this: shall the parent or the State be the overseer of the child? . . . From an infancy of complete dependence and subjection to adults, the child must grow up gradually to the status of an independent adult. The question is under whose guidance, and virtual “ownership” the child should be: his parents’ or the State’s? There is no third, or middle, ground in this issue. Some party must control, and no one suggests that some individual third party have authority to seize the child and rear it.

Should Education Be Compulsory? »»

Education, Free & Compulsory. Center for Independent Education, 1971.↩

Idle Rich or Idle Poor

March 16, 2010 in Religion by Greg | 8 comments

“A Reader’s” comment last week on the post Is Healthcare a Right? reminded me of the following excerpt from Hugh W. Nibley’s classic essay “Work We Must, But the Lunch is Free”. In this article, Dr. Nibley discusses the modern distinction of the idle poor versus the ancient teaching that the “idle rich shall not eat the bread of the laboring poor, as they always have.”

We begin, as in the other scriptures, with the basic principle that everything we have is a free gift from God: “The earth [is] my very handiwork, and all things therein are mine;… and behold this is the way that I, the Lord, have decreed to provide for my saints” (D&C 104:14, 16). That does not mince matters but gets right down to business. He wants us all equal, “that the poor shall be exalted, in that the rich are made low” (D&C 104:16). And he wants to make us co–workers in the project, which is all for our benefit: “It is expedient that I, the Lord, should make every man accountable, as a steward over earthly blessings, which I have made and prepared for my creatures” (D&C 104:13). He wants all his creatures to enjoy his bounty, with never a mention of who is worthy or deserving–as ever, the only principle of distribution is that of need: “You are to be equal, or in other words, you are to have equal claims on the properties for… your stewardships, every man according to his wants and his needs, inasmuch as his wants are just” (D&C 82:17). That limitation on wants is important, since one often wants what one should not have; a want is “justified” only when it is a true need, and as we have seen, our real needs are few…”food and raiment,” mansions and yachts not included. In introducing this particular revelation, the Lord repeats for the third time what he has said in the grove: “The anger of God kindleth against the inhabitants of the earth; and none doeth good, for all have gone out of the way” (D&C 82:6). And always the same reason is given for that anger, that men withhold God’s gifts from each other in a power–game, and that this is the prevailing evil of the age.

How do we distribute it then? “I have given unto the children of men to be agents unto themselves” (D&C 104:17). You are perfectly free to make all the money you can; just as you are perfectly free to break any one of the Ten Commandments, as millions do every day, though God has forbidden it, as he has forbidden seeking for riches. But your behavior once you have entered a covenant with God will be judged by the standards which he sets: “Therefore, if any man shall take of the abundance which I have made and impart not his portion, according to the law of my gospel, unto the poor and the needy, he shall, with the wicked, lift up his eyes in hell, being in torment” (D&C 104:18). A clear reference to the rich man who fed Lazarus the beggar with crumbs (Luke 16:23).

Idle Rich or Idle Poor »»

Secret Government

January 19, 2010 in Communism by Greg | 1 comment

The Secret Government: The Constitution in Crisis is a 1987 Public Broadcasting Service video documentary with Bill Moyers following the Iran-Contra affair – ostensibly, an effort to prevent the spread of communism in the Western Hemisphere.¹ According to Mr. Moyers,

The Secret Government is an interlocking network of official functionaries, spies, mercenaries, ex-generals, profiteers and superpatriots, who, for a variety of motives, operate outside the legitimate institutions of government. Presidents have turned to them when they can’t win the support of the Congress or the people, creating that unsupervised power so feared by the framers of our Constitution.

The documentary traces the history of the secret government to the National Security Act of 1947 which was signed into law by President Harry S. Truman. It “realigned and reorganized the U.S. Armed Forces, foreign policy, and Intelligence Community apparatus in the aftermath of World War II.”²

Although originally intended to be only an “intelligence-gathering” organization, under the auspices of this act the CIA quickly became an “operational and at times a policy-making arm of the Government.”³ According to the documentary “a secret report [was] prepared for the White House in 1954 by a group of distinguished citizens headed by former president Herbert Hoover”:

It is now clear that we are facing an implacable enemy whose avowed objective is world domination. There are no rules in such a game. Hitherto accepted norms of human conduct do not apply. If the United States is to survive, longstanding American concepts of fair play must be reconsidered. We must learn to subvert, sabotage, and destroy our enemies by more clever, more sophisticated, more effective methods than those used against us.

Secret Government »»

See Wolf, Julie. “The Iran-Contra Affair”. PBS. 18 Jan 2010 for background on this event.↩
“National Security Act of 1947”. Wikipedia. 17 Jan 2010.↩
Truman, Harry S. “Limit CIA Role to Intelligence”. 22 Dec 1963. Washington Post. 17 Jan 2010. See also, McGovern, Ray. “Break the CIA into Two”. Consortium News. 17 Jan 2010.↩

Introduction to Notes on Socialism

January 10, 2010 in Socialism by Greg | 6 comments

Part 1 of 11 in the series Notes on Socialism

The following is an introduction to the series of notes on socialism. Its companion series is Socialism vs Capitalism and if possible, should be read together to get an understanding of these two competing political economic theories.

This series began as an investigation into the roots of modern socialism. Many trace its “origins in the French Revolution of 1789 and the changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution.”¹ In fact, the term “socialism” is often “attributed to Pierre Leroux in 1834, who called socialism ‘the doctrine which would not give up any of the principles of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity of the French Revolution of 1789.’”²

The Law of Consecration and Socialism Compared

From a religious perspective, socialism is of interest to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints because it bears some similarities with various attempts by the Church to implement the “law of consecration”. For example,

The Lord revealed several purposes for the law of consecration: to bring the Church to stand independent of all other institutions (D&C 78:14); to strengthen Zion, adorning her in beautiful garments, as a bride prepared and worthy of the bridegroom (D&C 33:17; 58:11; 65:3; 82:14, 18; etc.); and to prepare the Saints for a place in the Celestial Kingdom (D&C 78:7).

Commenting on this subject, President John Taylor stated that consecration is a celestial law and, when observed, its adherents become a celestial people (JD 17:177-81). Thus, men and women today can become like as those of Enoch’s day, “of one heart and one mind,…with no poor among them” (Moses 7:18). Orson Pratt, an early apostle, observed that if the Lord’s people aspire to the Celestial Kingdom, they must begin to learn the order of life that is there (JD 2:102-103).³

Since Zion designates both a place of gathering⁴ and an ideal society where “the pure in heart” live in harmony⁵, it bears many resemblances to utopian societies – real and imagined – of the past.⁶

Continuing, John A. Widtsoe, an apostle, explained how the law of consecration was implemented in the early Church:

Introduction to Notes on Socialism »»

“History of Socialism”. Wikipedia. 9 Jan 2009.↩
“Socialism”. Wikipedia. 9 Jan 2009.↩
Hirschi, Frank W. “Law of Consecration”. 1992. Encyclopedia of Mormonism. 9 Jan 2009.↩
See the post the Redemption of Zion.↩
Sorensen, A. Don. “Zion”. 1992. Encyclopedia of Mormonism. 9 Jan 2009.↩
Nibley, Hugh W. “The Utopians.” Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship. 9 Jan 2009.↩

First Presidency Letter to U.S. Treasury in 1941

November 20, 2009 in Socialism by Greg | 13 comments

Tonight I came across Connor Boyack’s post that contains the full text of a First Presidency letter to the United States Treasury in 1941. This is one of those rare posts which deserve to be read top to bottom, given its length. Here is how it begins:

For several years I have been citing a quote in various posts, emails, discussions, and other settings, allegedly from the First Presidency in 1941. This quote is both potent and largely unprecedented, and its implications are especially interesting.

The quote is as follows:

The Church as a Church does not believe in war and yet since its organization whenever war has come we have done our part … we do thoroughly believe in building up our home defenses to the maximum extent necessary, but we do not believe that aggression should be carried on in the name and under the false cloak of defense. We therefore look with sorrowing eyes at the present use to which a great part of the funds being raised by taxes and by borrowing is being put … We believe that our real threat comes from within and not from without, and it comes from the underlying spirit common to Naziism, Fascism, and Communism, namely, the spirit which would array class against class, which would set up a socialistic state of some sort, which would rob the people of the liberties which we possess under the Constitution, and would set up such a reign of terror as exists now in many parts of Europe. . . .¹