Donald Trump, who has demonstrated neither interest in nor aptitude for knowing and understanding world history, has seized on the word “communism” as a favorite pejorative to define many of his most prominent political enemies.
He insists in countless email messages that, “Known Communists, like U.S. Members of Congress Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, have taken over the Democrat Party with a Communist Agenda!”
In various social media messages, Trump has proclaimed, “The decision facing all Americans could not be more clear. We have a choice between communism and common sense. … As long as I’m in the White House, the United States is not going communist in any way, shape or form. We’ll stop it. We’re going to stop it. Stop this nonsense.”
AOC has responded in her own email broadside, with the rebuttal that, “Fox News and the right wing would have you believe that my American values are something out of the Communist Manifesto. But I don’t believe in healthcare, labor, and human dignity because I’m an extremist. I believe these things because I was a waitress. Because I’ve worked double shifts to keep the lights on. Because I did lose a parent to cancer and I saw my mom open the hospital bill a couple of days later. Because on my worst day, I know what it feels like to feel left behind. I don’t want any of us to live like this anymore. We deserve better.”
There are various veins of rich irony running through Trump’s revival of the Red Scare, not the least of which is his very public embrace of three international autocrats, two of whom – Chinese dictator Xi Jinping and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un – are self-proclaimed communists, and the third – Vladimir Putin – is a former communist and unabashed murderous dictator and warmonger.
Communism – a classless society with no private property and state ownership of the means of production – is, of course, a mythological belief system. It has never existed in any organized social context beyond (perhaps) the size of a small village. And it never will. Countries that claim to be communist are, without exception, one-party/one-person dictatorships.
Capitalism, on the other hand, rules the planet, producing more food than can be eaten while some people don’t get enough to eat, more things than most of us need though some people can’t get what they actually need, and enormous amounts of excess wealth, although only a comparative few get to enjoy it.
Pure capitalism embraces the survival of the fittest, fastest, strongest, smartest, luckiest, greediest or best-connected. Capitalism is highly competitive and to the winners go the spoils. Pure capitalism is exhilarating and terrifying, gratifying and empowering, exploiting and dehumanizing, redemptive and destructive. Capitalism doesn’t necessarily have a soul.
But pure capitalism doesn’t exist in most capitalist countries because most of them have some forms and degrees of state control. That control can regulate tax structures to benefit some companies and industries (hello oil depletion allowance, which actually applies to most extractive minerals and standing timber, the complexity of which makes the head spin) but not others, and can regulate who gets to do what on public land and water with what kind of tax consequence.
The applications and manipulations of state control over business and extractive industries in the United States have given rise to the cynical observation that, in this country, there is socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor.
The clearest explanation for this attitude is the radically unequal distribution of wealth in America, where according to the fact-checking website Snopes, as of late 2022, the country’s 735 billionaires collectively possessed more wealth than the bottom half of all U.S. households. The top one percent of wealth holders had a collective total of $43.45 trillion. Americans, Snopes reports, have the highest income inequality in the “rich world.”
Wealth commonly includes the values of homes, automobiles, personal valuables, businesses, savings and investments. And according to Federal Reserve data, the bottom 50 percent of wealth owners experienced no net wealth growth since 1989, while the top one-percent have had their wealth grow by close to 300 percent in the same period.
Which brings us to Jesus.
According to the National Association of Evangelicals, we’ve got some important giving to do. Their website explains:
“The Bible condemns gross disparities in opportunity and outcome that cause suffering and perpetuate poverty. God wants people to have access to productive resources, so they can care for their economic needs and contribute to their community. For example, children need a high-quality education in order to fully develop their God-given talents. Access to proper nutrition, shelter and health care are also important ingredients in helping people transcend poverty.
“Our social safety net must aim to provide opportunity and restore people to self-sufficiency. Adequate funding for food, shelter and health care should be maintained so that those who cannot care for their families and themselves receive the support they need. We urge Christians who work in the political realm to shape wise laws pertaining to the creation of wealth, wages, education, taxation, immigration, consumer protection and health care that will protect those trapped in poverty and empower them to improve their circumstances.”
To which we can only add, AMEN!
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