Obama and the 10 Planks of Communism

[ontheyslay]

I've talked to people that claim Obama is transitioning the USA to a communist society, and they claim that Obama is following the 10 Planks of the Communist Manifesto. Apparently Obama is doing the bolded planks.

1. Abolition of private property and rent
2. Heavy Income Tax
3. Abolition of inheritance
4. Confiscation of property belonging to 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 means of communication and transport
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production brought under command and ownership of the state
8.Equal liability of all to labor.
9. Recombination of agriculture and industry, disestablishment of distinction between town and country
10. Free Education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labor, by combining education with means of production (colleges, votech's, etc)

Do you think Obama is taking us to a Communist Society? If not, how so?

[Unregistered]

1. Abolition of private property and rent
2. Heavy Income Tax
3. Abolition of inheritance

apparently they're speaking of some different Obama, not the one who is currently president of the USA.

4. Confiscation of property belonging to emigrants and rebels

That sounds more like Hitler. If you call that communism I am not a communist, neither was Marx.

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 means of communication and transport
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production brought under command and ownership of the state
8.Equal liability of all to labor.
9. Recombination of agriculture and industry, disestablishment of distinction between town and country
10. Free Education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labor, by combining education with means of production (colleges, votech's, etc)

i give up. they're spouting nonsense spiced with terms from marxist theory and utter bs they just made up to cook up even greater nonsense. If they want to propagate Obama to socialists they shoud atleast have looked up what socialism is about.

Where did you get that text?

[Tatarin]

The short answer is no. While Obama may be somewhat progressive after 30 years of Reaganites, he will not create a socialist society in the USA. The ruling class will not let him do so. In worst case, they would just remove him.


2. Heavy Income Tax

Which is not something "communist".


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

Since the state does not exist in communism, I find it difficult. Besides, after getting rid of private property, this point is pretty useless.


6. Centralization of means of communication and transport

Sounds awfully a lot like the current system, with big corporations owning our communications. Centralization is also not a sign of "things going communist".


10. Free Education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labor, by combining education with means of production (colleges, votech's, etc)

Free education is always great, but as the last points, is not a sign of socialism getting created by Obama. Sometimes the state has to go in in order to stop the capitalist system from devouring itself, as we can see with the current crisis.


Do you think Obama is taking us to a Communist Society? If not, how so?

Obama is, and will never, take "us" into a "Communist Society". Sure, one could always dream that he secretly reads Marx and Lenin and stuff, creating a secret underground army which will wrest private property relations.

However, Obama is not the deciding factor here. Not only must his whole administration go along with all points, they must convince the police, military and intelligence apparatus of the USA also, not to mention the great majority of the American people. And even then, there is risk of other powers (perhaps China or Russia?) to go in and try to re-establish capitalism (during the revolution) as happened in the early days of Soviet Russia.

Capitalism can never be voted out, it has to be smashed like a little insect.

[Outinleftfield]

The 10 planks of the Commmunist Manifesto sounds like something that could be achieved through elections. Notice it advocates the state do many things but never says anything about changing the structure of the state, so theoretically it could be a bourgeois state that makes these reforms. Makes Marx sound reformist. Then he did advocate that even though revolution would eventually be necessary that reforms did have value.

Never really got number 4. Emmigrants can't own property? As long as they're still paying their taxes why would it be a problem?

[Shin Honyong]

Maybe I misread the Manifesto, but there aren't any "Ten Planks" of Communism and the list was just a series of policies Marx thought the workers would enact immediately during the transition phase. He even states it might vary from place to place.

[ZeroNowhere]

Maybe I misread the Manifesto, but there aren't any "Ten Planks" of Communism and the list was just a series of policies Marx thought the workers would enact immediately during the transition phase.
More or less, yes. I wrote a bit on that here (http://theinnermountingflame.blogspot.com/2009/09/state-machinery-ten-planks-and-paris.html).

[un_person]

No way Obama is taking us to a communist society. Anyone ever voted into office by the current system would never change it. And maybe I have a fake copy of the Communist Manifesto, because mine doesn't mention anything about Ten Planks either.

[NecroCommie]

2. Heavy Income Tax

Whoever wrote these planks manitpulated them to fit their views. The original and more progressive version stated explicitly: Heavily progressive taxation. It is in no way the same thing as heavy income tax. Even so, obama barely scores just a few planks, since we communists want the changes a lot more dramatic than Obama's reforms. Not only that, but the planks themselves were outdated even according to Marx himself, and staring at some theoretic planks in general does not serve the relativist nature of communist philosophy.

All in all, whoever claims Obama is communist because of the planks have not truly understood what the planks are for.


EDIT: What kind of versions you dudes have on the manifesto? The version I read did have a chapter on ten "vague guidelines" of the communist movement. Call them planks or rules or whatevah!

[Dimentio]

I've talked to people that claim Obama is transitioning the USA to a communist society, and they claim that Obama is following the 10 Planks of the Communist Manifesto. Apparently Obama is doing the bolded planks.

1. Abolition of private property and rent
2. Heavy Income Tax
3. Abolition of inheritance
4. Confiscation of property belonging to 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 means of communication and transport
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production brought under command and ownership of the state
8.Equal liability of all to labor.
9. Recombination of agriculture and industry, disestablishment of distinction between town and country
10. Free Education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labor, by combining education with means of production (colleges, votech's, etc)

Do you think Obama is taking us to a Communist Society? If not, how so?

Hahaha... all those points in bold are already implemented in most western nations since the early 20th century. What is so evil about free education in public schools for all children?

[ZeroNowhere]

Hahaha... all those points in bold are already implemented in most western nations since the early 20th century. What is so evil about free education in public schools for all children?
It means that every child has to go to public school.

[NecroCommie]

It means that every child has to go to public school.
No, it means that you have the possibility of going to the public school. You can use other school too, but they might cost.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Whoever wrote these planks manitpulated them to fit their views. The original and more progressive version stated explicitly: Heavily progressive taxation. It is in no way the same thing as heavy income tax. Even so, obama barely scores just a few planks, since we communists want the changes a lot more dramatic than Obama's reforms. Not only that, but the planks themselves were outdated even according to Marx himself, and staring at some theoretic planks in general does not serve the relativist nature of communist philosophy.

All in all, whoever claims Obama is communist because of the planks have not truly understood what the planks are for.

EDIT: What kind of versions you dudes have on the manifesto? The version I read did have a chapter on ten "vague guidelines" of the communist movement. Call them planks or rules or whatevah!

Something like the tax regime of FDR would indeed qualify as "heavily progressive taxation," and nothing less.


1. Abolition of private property and rent

That's "abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes." This first point wasn't a generic statement against private property in general.

[bailey_187]

4. Confiscation of property belonging to emigrants and rebels

That sounds more like Hitler. If you call that communism I am not a communist, neither was Marx.


An emigrant is someone who leaves the country, an immigrant is the opposite.

Marx is saying that if the bourgeoisie try to emigrate, take their property

[Durruti's Ghost]

It's worth pointing out that even when Marx still thought the ten planks were an accurate representation of some measures a workers' state might take, they were meant to be policies of the workers' state, not the bourgeois state. Centralization of industries X, Y, and Z into the hands of the bourgeois state is just another form of capitalism--perhaps a less brutal form of capitalism, but capitalism nonetheless.

[Die Neue Zeit]

At this early point in their political career (not to mention the relative youthness of capitalism), neither Marx nor Engels knew about the varying degrees of programmatic demands.

There are those demands that could be painlessly implemented by the bourgeoisie, on their own initiative, for the sake of morality and [bourgeois] social justice. (2, 10)

There are those demands that could be implemented by radical elements of the bourgeoisie, on their own initiative, against feudal remnants and modern-day rentier pervasiveness. (1, 3, 4, 6)

There are those demands that could be implemented by the bourgeoisie reluctantly, as a result of being pressured by subordinate classes or in an attempt to pre-empt grassroots class struggle. (5, 7)

Then there are those demands that simply cannot be implemented at all by the bourgeoisie, because they either transfer ruling-class power to a subordinate class or go against the very logical of capital itself (and not just its bourgeois and petit-bourgeois agents). (8, 9)

[heiss93]

This is an example of what the OP is talking about, although I've seen it on the net BEFORE 2008, and all the laws are pre-Obama
and another here: http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/keller5.html

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

How "Marxist" Has
the United States
Become?


Although Marx advocated the use of any means, especially including violent revolution, to bring about socialist dictatorship, he suggested ten political goals for developed countries such as the United States. How far has the United States -- traditionally the bastion of freedom, free markets, and private property -- gone down the Marxist road to fulfill these socialist aims? You be the judge. The following are Marx's ten planks from his Communist Manifesto.

1. Abolition of private property and the application of all rent to public purpose.
The courts have interpreted the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (1868) to give the government far more "eminent domain" power than was originally intended, Under the rubric of "eminent domain" and various zoning regulations, land use regulations by the Bureau of Land Managementproperty taxes, and "environmental" excuses, private property rights have become very diluted and private property in landis, vehicles, and other forms are seized almost every day in this country under the "forfeiture" provisions of the RICO statutes and the so-called War on Drugs..
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
The 16th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, 1913 (which some scholars maintain was never properly ratified), and various State income taxes, established this major Marxist coup in the United States many decades ago. These taxes continue to drain the lifeblood out of the American economy and greatly reduce the accumulation of desperately needed capital for future growth, business starts, job creation, and salary increases.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance
Another Marxian attack on private property rights is in the form of Federal & State estate taxes and other inheritance taxes, which have abolished or at least greatly diluted the right of private property owners to determine the disposition and distribution of their estates upon their death. Instead, government bureaucrats get their greedy hands involved .
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels
We call it government seizures, tax liens, "forfeiture" Public "law" 99-570 (1986); Executive order 11490, sections 1205, 2002 which gives private land to the Department of Urban Development; the imprisonment of "terrorists" and those who speak out or write against the "government" (1997 Crime/Terrorist Bill); or the IRS confiscation of property without due process.
5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.
The Federal Reserve System, created by the Federal Reserve Act of Congress in 1913, is indeed such a "national bank" and it politically manipulates interest rates and holds a monopoly on legal counterfeiting in the United States. This is exactly what Marx had in mind and completely fulfills this plank, another major socialist objective. Yet, most Americans naively believe the U.S. of A. is far from a Marcxist or socialist nation.
6. Centralization of the means of communication and transportation in the hands of the State
In the U.S., communication and transportation are controlled and regulated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) established by the Communications Act of 1934 and the Department of Transportation and the Interstate Commerce Commission (established by Congress in 1887), and the Federal Aviation Administration as well as Executive orders 11490, 10999 -- not to mention various state bureaucracies and regulations. There is also the federal postal monopoly, AMTRAK and CONRAIL -- outright socialist (government-owned) enterprises. Instead of free-market private enteprrise in these important industries, these fields in America are semi-cartelized through the government's regulatory-industiral complex.
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.
We call it corporate capacity, The Desert Entry Act and The Department of Agriculture. As well as the Department of Commerce and Labor, Department of Interior, the Evironmental Protection Agency, Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Reclamation, Bureau of Mines, National Park Service, and the IRS control of business through corporate regulations.
8. Equal liablity of all to labor. Establishment of Industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
We call it the Social Security Administration and The Department of Labor. The National debt and inflation caused by the communal bank has caused the need for a two "income" family. Woman in the workplace since the 1920's, the 19th amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, assorted Socialist Unions, affirmative action, the Federal Public Works Program and of course Executive order 11000. And I almost forgot...The Equal Rights Amendment means that women should do all work that men do including the military and since passage it would make women subject to the draft.
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.
We call it the Planning Reorganization Act of 1949 , zoning (Title 17 1910-1990) and Super Corporate Farms, as well as Executive orders 11647, 11731 (ten regions) and Public "law" 89-136.
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.
People are being taxed to support what we call 'public' schools, which train the young to work for the communal debt system. We also call it the Department of Education, the NEA and Outcome Based "Education" .

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"!

[heiss93]

Here are the 10 planks in context
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm
We have seen above, that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy.
The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible.
Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionising the mode of production.
These measures will, of course, be different in different countries.
Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable.
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 rights 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 work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace 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.
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.

[KarlMarx1989]

Barack Obama is turning the US into what Sweden is, not toward communism. In fact, being like Sweden would make it harder to convert to even Socialism.

However, at the same time he is taking christian-America away from the direction of Fascism; which would be why all of the conservatives are freaking out.

[Würzel]

Barack Obama is turning the US into what Sweden is, not toward communism. In fact, being like Sweden would make it harder to convert to even Socialism.

However, at the same time he is taking christian-America away from the direction of Fascism; which would be why all of the conservatives are freaking out.

What Barack Obama is attempting to do is nothing like they have in Sweden; that's quite blatant oversimplification. In terms of western democracy and liberal politics, Sweden and the United States are pretty much two extremes, and both are at the moment basically drifting towards the center instead of the other extreme; indeed both, the American liberal left and the Scandinavian liberal right are basically daydreaming about the state of affairs in the western Europe!

[bailey_187]

Barack Obama is turning the US into what Sweden is, not toward communism. In fact, being like Sweden would make it harder to convert to even Socialism.


Not really. If it "goes like Sweden" the trade union movement will be stronger in the US. Better insurance of conditions for workers can make them bolder when challenging employers. If you know that going on strike will cost u your job, your house through not paying your mortgage and healthcare you are less likely to.

When Britain was "like Sweden" in the 70s, we were nearer to (not that near) a Socialist revolution. Apparently people like Tony Cliff used to say the revolution will be here in 12 months or something.

[Manifesto]

Where did you get that text?
Seems to me like only number two is wrong at least on Wikipedia or in my Communist Manifesto.

[punisa]

No way Obama is taking us to a communist society. Anyone ever voted into office by the current system would never change it. And maybe I have a fake copy of the Communist Manifesto, because mine doesn't mention anything about Ten Planks either.

I've read it several time, nothing of that in there. As I remember Adolf Hitler had some certain points (not sure if there were 10).
Only other known guy who tried to bring 10 points upon people is Moses :laugh: