Are You a Marxist? We Know the Uniparty Is All-in

Karl Marx lived in exile with his wife and children in London for decades, where he collaborated with German thinker Friedrich Engels, publish his writings, and researchied in the reading room of the British Museum.

His best-known titles are the 1848 pamphlet The Communist Manifesto and the three-volume Das Kapital (1867–1883).

The Communist Manifesto, originally the Manifesto of the Communist Party (German: Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei), is an 1848 pamphlet prepared by German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

Commissioned by the Communist League and originally published in London just as the Revolutions of 1848 began to erupt, the Manifesto was later recognised as one of the world’s most influential political documents. It presents an analytical approach to the class struggle (historical and then-present) and the conflicts of capitalism and the capitalist mode of production, rather than a prediction of communism‘s potential future forms.

The Communist Manifesto  summarises Marx and Engels’ theories concerning the nature of society and politics, namely that in their own words “[t]he history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles”. It also briefly features their ideas for how the capitalist society of the time would eventually be replaced by socialism. In the last paragraph of the Manifesto, the authors call for a “forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions”, which served as a call for communist revolutions around the world.

“Proletarians and Communists”, the second section, starts by stating the relationship of conscious communists to the rest of the working class. The communists’ party will not oppose other working-class parties, but unlike them, it will express the general will and defend the common interests of the world’s proletariat as a whole, independent of all nationalities. The section goes on to defend communism from various objections, including claims that it advocates communal prostitution or disincentivises people from working.

In Chapter 2, Marx and Engels outline a set of short-term demands, the implementation of which would result in the precursor to a stateless and classless society:

Here are the 10 “Planks” and the extent they’ve been implemented in the United States.

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
   • The Sixteenth Amendment (Amendment XVI) to the United States Constitution allows Congress to levy an income tax without apportioning it among the states on the basis of population. It was passed by Congress in 1909 in response to the 1895 Supreme Court case of Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Co.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
   • There’s is no federal inheritance tax, but inherited assets are taxed on residents of six states: Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, Nebraska, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania..
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.
   • The Federal Reserve Act was passed by the 63rd United States Congress and signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson on December 23, 1913. The law created the Federal Reserve System, the central banking system of the United States.
   • The Federal Reserve System, consisting of twelve regional Federal Reserve Banks jointly responsible for managing the country’s money supply, making loans and providing oversight to banks, and serving as a lender of last resort.
6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
   • The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdiction over the areas of broadband access, fair competition, radio frequency use, media responsibility, public safety, and homeland security.
   • The FCC was formed by the Communications Act of 1934 to replace the radio regulation functions of the Federal Radio Commission. The FCC took over wire communication regulation from the Interstate Commerce Commission. The FCC’s mandated jurisdiction covers the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and the territories of the United States. The FCC also provides varied degrees of cooperation, oversight, and leadership for similar communications bodies in other countries of North America. The FCC is funded entirely by regulatory fees.
   • The United States Department of Transportation (USDOT or DOT) is a federal Cabinet department of the U.S. government concerned with transportation. It was established by the Department of Transportation Act of Congress on October 15, 1966, and began operation on April 1, 1967. The Secretary of Transportation is the head of DOT.
   • The department’s mission is “to develop and coordinate policies that will provide an efficient and economical national transportation system, with due regard for need, the environment, and the national defense.”
   • The idea of having a federal department of transportation was first proposed by former President Woodrow Wilson in 1921–22, and includes the following administrations:
     • Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)
     • Federal Highway Administration (FHWA)
     • Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA)
     • Federal Railroad Administration (FRA)
     • Federal Transit Administration (FTA)
     • Maritime Administration (MARAD)
     • National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)
     • Office of Inspector General (OIG)
     • Office of the Secretary of Transportation (OST)
     • Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA)
     • Saint Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation (SLSDC)
     • John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center
     • Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS)
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.
    • The United States Department of Education (ED or DoEd) (also referred to as the ED for (the) Education Department) is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government. It began operating on May 4, 1980, having been created after the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare was split into the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services by the Department of Education Organization Act, which President Jimmy Carter signed into law on October 17, 1979.
    • The Department of Education is administered by the United States secretary of education. It has under 4,000 employees (2018) and an annual budget of $68 billion (2016). The 2019 Budget also supports $129.8 billion in new postsecondary grants, loans, and work-study assistance to help an estimated 11.5 million students and their families pay for college.
    • Student loans are a form of Federal financial aid used to help students access higher education. Student loan debt in the United States has grown rapidly since 2006. The debt was ~$1.6 trillion in 2019 which was ~7.5% of 2019 GDP.
    • Loans usually must be repaid, in contrast to other forms of financial aid such as scholarships, which never have to be repaid, and grants, which rarely have to be repaid. Research indicates the increased usage of student loans has been a significant factor in college cost increases.
    • US leaders have acknowledged the rise in student loan debt as a crisis. Former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos said that Federal Student Aid’s portfolio “is nearly 10 percent of our nation’s debt.” Approximately 45 million people have student loan debt. In 2018, the average borrower owed $37,172 at the time of graduation, an increase of $20,000 from 2005.
    • The default rate for borrowers who didn’t complete their degree is three times as high as the rate for those who did. A 2018 Brookings Institution study projected that “nearly 40 percent of students who took out loans in 2004 may default by 2023.