Fred Schnaubelt

Socialism by any other name is still socialism      San Diego Transcript  Oct. 27th, 2011

"People before profits," the signs read. "Debt is slavery," "Don’t mess with our Social Security," "I’m 84 and mad as hell," "Millionaires and billionaires must pay their fair share," "Down with capitalism," "The banks got theirs, now it’s our turn," "We’re the 99 percent," "Banks beware — 99 percent to 1 percent is very bad odds."

No wonder Bank of America investor Warren Buffett and others say they want to pay higher taxes. Last time we saw something similar was the 1970 burning of three California branches of Bank of America.

Occupy Wall Street and the San Diego offspring I met in Coronado last week were not the least bit threatening. They’re simply scared. Heck, I’m scared, scared for the future of my country. There’s hardly an industry that doesn’t receive some sort of government largesse in order to empower politicians. An abuse on which all sides can agree.

While most occupiers seem to be partying, it’s the trust fund babies, offspring of the rich mating with "red diaper babies," who should concern us. Revolutions don’t spring from the bottom but the top. Bill Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn, Jane Fonda, Herbert Marcuse, George Pillsbury, Che Guevara, Peggy Rockefeller, Friedrich Engels, Peggy Guggenheim, Mao Zedong and Karl Marx — self-proclaimed revolutionaries all — were born to rich or well-to-do families.

It’s no surprise that some Democrat leaders are kindred spirits because seven of the 10 richest members of Congress are Democrats and, unknown to the occupiers, the Democratic Party has long replaced Republicans as the party of the “rich.” New York banks and Wall Street always give more to Democrats, from Goldman Sachs’ former CEO Jon Corzine to today’s CEO, Lloyd Blankfein, and also JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon, Bernie Madoff, as well as recently convicted hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam, a 98 percent Democrat donor.
 http://www.businessinsider.com/the-top-10-wealthiest-members-of-congress-and-how-they-made-their-fortunes-2011-8

 Marx popularized “From each according to ability to each according to need,” which in the United States we shortened to “progressive taxation.” In other words, Marxism without Marx. In practice, this means the top 3 percent pays more than the other 97 percent in income taxes according to the Internal Revenue Service.

The reason more millionaires contribute to Democrats than Republicans is that Democrats, in exchange for votes, “promise” the 99 percent that they’ll raise taxes on the “rich,” while in exchange for campaign contributions, “promise” the rich tax loopholes. Sad to say that Republicans also support loopholes. When it comes to loopholes there’s no gridlock. Never forget two principles of politics: “Watch what they do, not what they say” and “All political power comes from what you do to — or for someone.”

Listening to Occupy Wall Street, their college professors must be proud. By inculcating George Orwell’s “Newspeak,” they have destroyed their students’ ability to think, reason and speak in complete sentences. Redefining socialism as capitalism doesn’t make it so. Beloved by so many Democrats, liberals and professors, socialism by any other name is still socialism.

Democratic Socialists of America’s website, former home of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, states, “We could recreate the economy and society that existed between 1947 and 1973 when marginal tax rates on the wealthy and excess profits taxes on corporations ranged between 50% and 90 percent.”

The Progressive Caucus, home to 80 Democrats in Congress, proudly lists names at its website.
 http://cpc.grijalva.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=71§iontree=2,71

 "The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism, but under the name of liberalism they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program until one day America will be a socialist nation without ever knowing how it happened," said Norman Thomas, 1936 presidential candidate on the socialist ticket.
http://www.socialdemocratsusa.org/

 Margaret Thatcher presciently noted that it takes a lot of capitalism to pay for all the socialism politicians adore. The biggest problem with socialism, she said, is you eventually run out of other people’s money. Today, we see Athens, London, Frankfurt and Rome running out of other people’s money as they reap the whirlwind of unfunded promises.

Clearly the “down with capitalism” crowd is unaware that it’s the incredible productivity of capitalism that makes it possible for them to goof around and sponge off the 90 percent of the employed working class. Rebel if they must, but they should be rebelling against their professors for not teaching them that, in addition to a college degree, they need to develop the skills for which today's businesses are begging. In an economy with unlimited wants there are unlimited jobs — at wages consumers are willing to pay incorporated within the products and services they buy.

You’d think with so many occupiers sporting college educations they’d have absorbed a little common sense from their non-radical professors. You’d think, claiming they want an economic democracy, they’d realize they already have the best one ever conceived. They get to vote every day with every penny they spend. Occupiers are "the people before profits," and it is profits that signal what “the people” want. Businesses disregarding consumer wants go bankrupt. You’d think when “the people” buy their cars, laptops, iPhones and iPads and use Facebook and Twitter, they’d know it’s the profits of sellers that make the inventors/creators/manufacturers wealthy.

 Through their buying or not buying, they make rich men poor and poor men rich. The strong and able succeed under all governments, but only under capitalism do they get rich by serving consumers as consumers wish to be served, whereas in politics “the people” only get to vote every two, four or six years and the government determines who succeeds and gets rich.

Occupiers have a list of demands that includes a guaranteed livable wage (why should only brain surgeons make $1,000 per hour?); free education (naturally); universal health care with private insurers banned; ending fossil fuels (live like people did 500 years ago); a trillion dollars for ecological restoration (is that all?); outlawing all credit reporting agencies, and debt forgiveness of commercial loans, home mortgages, home equity loans, credit card debt, student loans and personal loans now. (Wow!)

Milton Friedman opined, "Socialism has proved no more efficient (in America) than abroad.”

The more socialism is embraced, even as millions around the globe incorrectly confuse socialism with capitalism, we see greater discontent, putting the United States in danger of becoming Greece, France, England or Italy. Riots are popping up everywhere, amazingly with identical professionally printed signs in every country. Peaceful, voluntary free enterprise (capitalism properly understood) is the only moral economic system ever devised.

 If we see our boat leaking and don’t rush to the pumps, rioting Philistines will be upon us before we know it.

                        Schnaubelt, president of Citizens for Private Property Rights, has been a commercial real estate broker
                        for 40 years and was a San Diego city councilman from 1977 to 1981.

                            Fred Schnaubelt, 2728 Adams Ave, S.D. 92116 (619) 280-2082

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