Professor Emeritus Michael Walzer paraphrased Marx’s description of the socialist citizen (from The German Ideology): “Imagine the day in the life of a socialist citizen. He hunts in the morning, fishes in the afternoon, rears cattle in the evening, and plays the critic after dinner. Yet he is neither hunter, nor fisherman, nor shepherd, nor critic; tomorrow he may select another set of activities, just as he pleases.”
The envisioned
socialist citizen in America will engage in “participatory democracy.” In theory,
a participatory democracy’s citizens would have individual participation in
political decisions and would make policies that would affect their lives
directly and there would be no elected representatives making such decisions.
The
socialist republic I grew up in had this type of participatory democracy in
place. People in good standing with the Communist Party could make pre-determined
suggestions during union meetings but the Party had the ultimate decision-making
power. The rest of the population, who were not members of the Communist Party
had no input in the decision-making process. The Party tried to keep membership
selective to about ten percent of the population.
Was this
socialist society a “self-governing community of equals?” No, citizens were
only equal in their poverty, neediness, misery, and lack of human rights and
freedoms. They could not do as they pleased and be what Marx called “social men
and women, organizing and planning their own fulfillment in spontaneous
activity.” They were serfs to the all-powerful state ruled by the Party.
Often academic
and philosophical theories, even those well intentioned, diverge greatly from the
reality of implementing such theories. Other times dangerous philosophies can
cause misery and death to millions around the globe. Such was the power of Karl
Marx’s ideas.
Self-government
takes a lot of time, self-control, and is very demanding, if it is implemented
correctly, socialists argue.
“The idea of
citizenship on the left has always been overwhelming, suggesting a positive
frenzy of activity and often involving the repression of all feelings except
political ones.”
Jean Jacques
Rousseau (1712-1778), a socialist, considered the father of modern left-wing, had
disparaged the worth of one’s private life. As the main philosopher of the
French Revolution, he attacked private property and “declared the government’s
goal should be to provide freedom, equality, and justice.” The idea that
government can provide freedom is contemptible.
Citizen must
be, above all, “dutiful,” placing “common good, the success of the
movement, the safety of the community, above their own delight or well-being, always.”
Such “virtuous”
citizens could be produced by rote indoctrination, transformation, or rigorous instruction/brainwashing.
Rousseau
suggested the creation of the “virtuous” citizen through an “authoritarian
family, a rigid sexual code, censorship of the arts, sumptuary laws, mutual
surveillance, and the systematic indoctrination of children.”
Sumptuary
laws refer to limiting private spending on food and personal items. I am familiar
with this form of socialist oppression as the dear leader always rationed our
food, issued rationing cards, punished food hoarding and black marketeers, and
passed laws that decreed how many calories per day people engaged in various
professions could consume, and how much they could weigh.
Socialism is
coercive, forcing its citizens to “volunteer” for action and to labor on weekends
for the public good in addition to their jobs in factories or offices wherever
they are deemed to further the political or economic socialist cause.
Students are
exploited and forced to work with no pay for weeks during the crop harvest season
and the crop planting season.
Citizens living
in a socialist state are forced to donate time and energy to the socialist
cause and the “participatory democracy” in which they are just warm bodies for political
optics, filling the auditoriums or the dear leader’s parade grounds. It is “popular
participation” but not voluntary – it is demanded by the state and driven by
the fear of punishment.
Walzer wrote
that “participatory democracy means the sharing of power among the [socialist] activists.
Socialism means the rule of the people with the most evenings to spare.” If citizens”
do not govern themselves, they will, willy-nilly, be governed by their activist
fellows.” Who were these activist fellows of the 20th century who
ruled behind the Soviet ideology with an iron fist? They were “full-timers,
militants, and professionals.” (p. 310)
The
militants, in Walzer’s opinion, represent themselves. So, in a future socialist
society, he recommends that participatory democracy must be paralleled by
representative democracy.
Why was the
rest of the socialist society I grew up in suppressed by the militant
apparatchiks/activists on the Communist Party payroll? The main reason was that
none of the citizens were armed (guns were the first things confiscated by
activist goons, followed by private property) while the Communist Party engaged
a huge and well-paid military, a large cadre of informers, a large police force,
security police, and economic police. Nobody could make one wrong step without the state
knowing about it. And they did it without the help of high tech.
People stayed
away from the Communist Party membership ranks because they were not committed
to the cause they saw daily as a big, blatant lie, they were morally beaten,
economically beaten, starved, and deathly afraid.
Citizens
created undergrounds to bypass the oppressive world of the Socialist/Communist
Party ideology. They learned coping skills to avoid the socialist apparatchik
tyranny in which freedom of speech and assembly were deadly.
Today, three
decades since the “fall” of socialism/communism in Eastern Europe, citizens
have regained their freedom of speech and assembly but sadly now nobody listens
to them, especially politicians.
The press repeats
the same globalist lies to their people thus colluding with corrupt politicians
in their efforts to install a new world order, socialism on such a grander
scale that Marx and Stalin would be shocked.
From my friend Carmel in Mississippi:
ReplyDelete"I imagine those days of your life, long, long ago, were so traumatic that they'll never fade for you to write so descriptively about living under the thumb of Communism. I'm glad you are an American and taught so many others to be smarter Americans."