Kenneth D. Gartrell

Yesterday I read a recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, written by Stanford Economist Michael Boskin, with great interest.

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB121728762442091427-lMyQjAxMDI4MTI3OTIyODk3Wj.html

I appreciate his valuable analysis, and his willingness to speak out against the tax-related costs of the Obama economic policies, but I also have a strong impression that he could have (and should have) been more critical of Obamanomics in broader rhetorical terms. His analysis shows not only a stunning set of statistics, but reflects what has to be one of the single most confiscatory set of policy proposals ever seen in American mainstream politics.

I understand that it is always wise to position such commentary in the least offensive way possible, but at the same time, I find the threats to our progress and our personal freedoms proposed in the Obama economic agenda “horrifying.” I urge all economists, consequently, to be more demanding in their criticism of the Obama agenda. It would seem, generally, that such extreme proposals could not be converted to law in the absence of some great social upheaval, but the political enthusiasm for central elements of the policy proposals are sufficient as to be real, and it appears that John McCain and his campaign are far too inept, or far too limited, in economics to take a meaningful stand against the radical agenda being proposed by Obamaism and its supporters.

Obamanomics is Communism by all objective standards.

I am hard at work on a lengthy essay, leading to a small book, wherein I impartially and analytically demonstrate to objective readers that Obamanomics is an obvious form of Marxism, with all the essential ingredients of Communism. In short, when carried out fully, it is my thesis that the Obama agenda is not just a burdensome short-term tax and budgetary issue, but is also far more dangerous to our long-term future than is popularly understood — even among the most critical opponents as of today.

Understanding that my view could be construed as a radical and reactionary observation, I feel a certain professional temerity in making such public statements. I, nevertheless, did not start with this conclusion. I arrived at its objective by a process of exploration and deductive reasoning. At first, simply curious about the range of specific Obama policy proposals, I proceeded as any good economist and accountant. I began to look into the facts at the detailed level, similar to that exhibited in Boskin’s own analysis. As I considered issue after issue, I began to see a familiar pattern that I remembered well from the days when I engaged in the formal study of Marxism as well as the Soviet and Chinese Communist systems.

In the various Obama doctrines and proposals, I first found a consistently radical and unwavering distrust in markets and capitalism. Then I discovered a consistent rhetoric of materialism – a desire to appeal directly to the immediate material interest of prospective voters. The deeper I then went into the details, the more I began to see the familiar characteristics of Marxism. After further examination, my provisional conclusion was finally cemented as I evaluated and tested the existence of a pervasive labor theory of value in all aspects of the Obama policy agenda.

I have always understood Communism to be an actual set of strategies designed to accelerate and conclude the establishment of a ruling government, based on the ideas of Marxism. As I examined the Obama proposals, I found broad application of an agenda of class warfare – the universal element in all Communist movements. As I moved further, I found example after example of proposals which would enhance the central planning role of the Federal Government, with overall intent on directing a breathtaking expansion of potentially coercive powers over an array of individual decisions. Finally, imbedded, without exception, in every single policy proposal was a call for collective action and collective interest. In no case does any Obama proposal place even a token of emphasis on personal self interest, personal choice or personal ingenuity. Everything is about the collective viewpoint and with every conceivable effort to discourage self-actualization and individuality.

In my analysis of the public proposals and writings of Barack Obama and his surrogates, as well as a study of the stated economic views of those who have influenced and supported him to this point in his political career, I can find no indications of any degree of open-mindedness concerning free enterprise and free markets. I am left without doubt that there is no other more accurate way to describe Obamaism but as Marxism and Communism.

How can this be?

My general impression (based on having been for more than 45 years a serious scholar of political economics) is that relatively few people today have a genuine understanding of Marxism and Communism. They simply do not know what it is and what it stands for, apart from some vague inference about a few politically oppressive former enemies standing against the military interests of the United States. Linked to that, of course, is also some vague sense that labels such as Marxist or Communist are just political charges against someone which casts them in the light of a traitor or enemy – often it is suspected that the person making such proclamations does so unfairly and purely for the reason of diminishing otherwise loyal opposition – in short “Red Baiting.”

In a sense, we are through the looking glass, and operate in a world where it is impolitic to even make an accurate assessment that any particular person or idea is inherently Marxist or Communist. Yet, how are we to know and judge the full range of costs and consequences of a policy proposal if we cannot adequately describe the generic ideas and the overall known consequences of the related policy prescriptions? We would not tolerate the sale of drugs that are generally harmful to the public health, even though they might benefit a certain group of individuals. So, why are we so willing to put forward economics prescriptions with broadly negative expected long-term consequences?

It is shocking that there is such widespread dullness to the fact that is it the underlying economic viewpoint which leads Marxism and Communism to its failures and to its oppressive conduct – often with great cost in human life, lost freedoms and declining economic prosperity.
Our dullness on this point seems to persist, because the number of serious people systematically engaged in the comparative study of Marxism and Capitalism today has clearly declined from a high level of interest in the 1960s. The debate on the pointed and fundamental differences in the two systems, accordingly, has been quelled by history, and, ironically, the very success of the far more adaptive economic engines of free and open markets has further made us callous to the facts. Even though there should today be no doubt of the ultimate virtues and superiority of a capital market system, the process of dialectical materialism that Marx believed was underlying all history does in fact continue as we stand now, with one of the greatest internal threats to our basic freedom and prosperity in national history.

The current state of our intellectual neglect of basic issues, such as labor theories of value versus utility theories of value, or the virtues of impersonal exchange in open markets versus central planning, strikes me as a failure in intellectual and democratic vigilance. More than any other time in the last 30 years, we have to worry today about the truth in Churchill’s admonition that “those who ignore the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it.” We can understand, based on the centrally planned and directed decline in our general educational system, why the average citizen knows little about mathematics, economics, statistics and other subjects which help make common sense of the discovered natural laws of economics. But, what is most difficult to understand is why the leading minds in economics are unable to communicate to the public convincingly that the re-emerging risks of setbacks from hard-won freedoms and prosperity obtained by the death in combat of millions, as well the death in confinement of many more millions of economic victims, are real and imminent.

Because of our neglect and lack of teaching, we are dangerously close to seeing the rise to power of an assault on individual choice and freedom unprecedented in American history.

What would Reagan think?

When Ronald Reagan decried the Berlin Wall and admonished Gorbachev to “tear down that wall” he was speaking not only of a wall in Berlin, but also of the whole pattern of social abuse which had pervaded Russia, East Germany, Ukraine and other nations of Eastern Europe. He was speaking not just about the physical incarceration of half of the unwilling German society, he was speaking about the elimination of the greatest scourge in human history, namely organized political and economic persecution in the name of democracy and economic efficiency – in short, Marxist Communism and/or its fascist equivalent.

All classical liberals such as Reagan agree that Hayek, building on the traditional philosophy of classical liberalism, has warned us that the perils of central planning and control are a by-product of the unnatural disruption of free markets and inherent human cooperation. Yet, it may in fact be the case that the actual fall of the Soviet Union and the liberalization of China have encouraged us to let down our guard.

Due to the reduced threat of armed conflict over the competing forms social organization, we have left alone the dysfunctional internal remnants of Marxist ideology and Communist philosophy. We, therefore, have few intellectual tools with which to assess the basic economic flaws in the kind of extremist and anti-progressive agenda put forward by the Obama campaign on behalf of the many single issue militants who make up the Obama coalition on the left.

In fact, it is my belief that Barack Obama himself has relatively little understanding of the basic economic origins or implications of his own proposals. Unlike the philosophy of Ronald Reagan, for example, there is no fundamental socio-economic schema to the Obama agenda. It appears rather to be a kind of quilt of ideas that have been cobbled together to appeal to certain but varying constituencies that can collectively make up an electoral majority. You can think of it all as synthetic Communism. It does not originate from an actual subscription to a party or formal set of written ideals, but rather it is the general consequence of building a political coalition for the sole purpose of wresting power.

To me it is stunning that we can be marching so rapidly on the “Road to Serfdom” as we appear. While Boskin and others are right to point to the impact Obamanomics has on our pocketbooks in the short-run, I am far more concerned in general that economists are not outraged by the implied long-term assault on our overall way of life and our freedoms.

What is the true cost of Obamanomics?

In my opinion, there are no good reasons to temper the criticism of the Obama agenda. Far from being “progressive” the agenda is backwards, regressive and in basic ways it promises only repressive laws and policies for the future. I see no reason to be restrained in criticism of the Obama agenda. We must remember that the bad theories and the foolish ideas which have arisen from Marxism and Communism in the 20th Century world experience were the cause of historically obvious wholesale social failures, including severe declines in prosperity and freedoms — to say nothing of the massive genocide and misery that were obtained along with it.

It may seem, superficially, that it is alarmist to proclaim that such abuses to basic Constitutional Rights may arise from the Obama agenda. But, I would say simply — look around to see that, in Oregon, already one way the state seeks to control its medical insurance obligations is by legalizing and supporting adult euthanasia for terminal patients the state wishes not to support for life extending therapy. Yet, another observation is to take into account the vast number of unborn black fetuses that have been destroyed, at least partly in order to limit the cost of national welfare programs.

I do not think that, when such a massive array of obviously Marxist/Communistic ideas is being thrust into our political discourse, we can or should ignore the fact that when the Soviets or the Chinese could not produce from their economic approach an income which was sufficient for the population, they found it more economical to engage in genocide to reduce the demands on, and threats to, the oligarchy the system had created to carry out the agenda of “central planning.” These things are not fanciful imaginings — they happened for real — and for the very reasons for the failure of the kind of economic systems that are a natural consequence of the type of good faith and heartfelt agenda that are presented in Obamanomics.

While I do not wish in any way to convey a sense of panic or paranoia, I do believe that the threats to our way of life are real and upon us. I would like to think that common sense will prevail and that my concerns are misplaced. However, the more I observe in the public discourse, and the deeper I observe in the causes for our insensitivity to the consequences of the kinds of proposals in the Obama economic programs, the more I believe the only way out is to much more aggressively speak out in favor of stemming the political tide of Marxism and Communism within American politics. This can and should be done at the level of political discourse and electoral decisions. Yet the general public cannot have the information or understanding needed to make the productive and liberating choices unless we economists are clearer about what is at stake and what the consequences are. We simply have to be clearer in explaining to the public that it is not just a matter of money — people must recognize that political efforts to do things, like propping up oil prices to regulate oil consumption, have severe consequences for both our freedom and our economic efficiency.