One of the most enduring creations of the English language is the Declaration of Independence, posted on July 4, 1776. It is a polemic masterpiece justifying revolution. “A candid world” is informed that the “political bands” uniting America and England are “dissolved” due to a “history of repeated injuries and usurpations” that were evidence of “an absolute tyranny.” The great legacy of the American Revolution is the recognition of rights: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Protection of these rights is the essence and purpose of American government. At least it should be.
Liberty is embodied in the First Amendment of the Constitution which ensures freedom of religion, speech, and the press, peaceful assembly, and the right of the people to petition their government to voice their grievances. Americans are free to acquire and disseminate knowledge, establish facts, and develop ideas so they may freely pursue the life they choose.
This stands in contrast to the socialist movement, which can trace its roots to the French Revolution. The motto of France, “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité” (liberty, equality, fraternity), exhibits a similar sentiment, but the concept of fraternity, or brotherhood, doesn’t exist in the Declaration. There is significant tension between the competing ideas. American government was established to protect individual liberty, not the brotherhood of man.
Socialism is a complex construct. Karl Marx and a litany of disciples and acolytes devoted countless hours to propagate millions of pages of confusing propositions, instructions, manifestos, plans, and propaganda to support a theory that has meant many things to many people. The foundation, which is to say the shifting sand, of Marxism is the theories of dialectical materialism and historical materialism. The simplified premise is that human history is the result of the struggles of people obtaining and consuming material. History is an evolutionary progression of primitive communism, slavery, feudalism, capitalism, socialism, all culminating in utopian communism. Marx predicted that humanity’s struggles would cease when society operated according to his communist credo: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.”
From time to time, there is confusion regarding the words socialism and communism. Communism is associated with the dictators of Soviet Russia or China, whereas socialism is perceived as a kinder socioeconomic scheme. Don’t be fooled. Socialism and communism are different sides of the same coin. According to Marx, communism is the utopian conclusion of the human struggle for material. It has never been achieved. Nations that branded themselves as communist, like the Soviet Union, China, and numerous other socialist experiments, are examples of the failures of socialism.
For those who consider China a successful communist state, consider for a moment its sordid history. Chairman Mao envisioned China as an agrarian society. China, like Soviet Russia, collectivized agriculture, with the predictable result of famine and the starvation of at least forty-five million people. Mao, like Stalin, insisted on purity of thought and unleashed the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) to ensure that his policies were accepted. Anyone who objected was “rehabilitated” or murdered. The path to communism is stained with blood, imprisonment, and misery.
China changed direction in 1982 under Deng Xiaoping. China had emerged from its revolution as a feudal state determined to make the “great leap forward” to communist utopia, only to achieve failure and the death of millions of its citizens. To alleviate these failures, Deng injected capitalism into China’s economy by offering cheap labor for Western capital. Private property was allowed, huge apartment buildings were constructed, factories were assembled, and modern industrial process were delivered to the country by Western manufacturers. The result has been the success that only capitalism can provide, masked with the purity of thought that socialism demands. The Chinese people are better off financially but are denied the blessings of liberty.