There is no link or connection between "democracy" and "capitalism"

There is a deeply held common sense notion that democracy=capitalism, capitalism=democracy. There is also a corollary notion that socialism=totalitarianism. In reality, there is no relation between capitalism and democracy. Capitalism and socialism are economic systems, while democracy and totalitarianism are systems of government.

It is entirely possible, and is in fact common, to have totalitarian states with capitalist economies. These are often fascist, repressive countries with military dictators that are supported by the US. Conversely, it is possible, and common, to have democratic countries with socialist economic systems. Most advanced industrialized nations were social democracies or could be said to have democratic socialist governments.

This conflation of capitalism and democracy, and the automatic association of socialism with totalitarian communism, is a large part of people's adherence to right-wing politics and their belief that progressive reforms would be "anti-democratic".

for the thought police

I used to think that Capitalism = Democracy.

and a nice guide to them (the capitalist dictators) here: http://home.iprimus.com.au/korob/fdtcards/Cards_Index.html

Aren't both built on the freedom of ideas? Progress is supposedly made when you make the different ideas or products compete.

Capitalism is based on competition... and competition often breeds progress. You analyze your options and pick out the best car.

Same thing with democracy... you analyze your options and pick the best one.

Both are based on freedom of ideas.

EDIT: Don't get me wrong, I'd love socialized medical support and stuff like that. I think Canada's socialism strikes a good balance of freedom with government.

never happens

Cooperation not competition is the way. The Market as God? No thanks. it is easy to see how awful capitalism is. Most of the world is capitalist. Most of the people are impoverished. Most of the resources are used up. Most of the habitat is in a degraded state. Capitalism privatizes the "benefits" while socializing the burdens. It is a PRISON and a SLAVE STATE.

We bail out the banks. We encourage private investment in various areas that business would not go without us. The costs are entirely socialized. Without that capitalism would go no where.

All one really has to do is look at the places where the closest thing to pure capitalism has been tried. Usually this is some third world country that had to undergo IMF "structural reforms". Privatize everything and allow no government intervention in the markets. Without fail these places are total basket cases.

Only the manors arent just land now. They are financial empires owning land, organizations, industries, factories, ideas, chemicals, etc.

And if you want access to a means to sustain your life, you have to sell yourself to them in exchange for access to the things they own. And if you want a family and an attempt at happiness and comfort you have to basically committ the better part of your life to furthering someones financial empire, perhaps you can even retire and buy your freedom.

Its no different than them letting us farm thier land to feed ourselves in exchange for a portion of what we grow. If we did that wed call ourselves serfs and fool ourselves with catholicism. Instead we call ourselves consumers and fool ourselves with the myth of the free market.

That's quite something there K-W. Brilliant.

:toast:

greed, and, in the modern world, an unequivocal blasphemy against the values preached so vehemently by Christ in the Christian Gospels; modern world, because Christian socialism no longer requires revolution - and in that respect, the US, I'm afraid, does not yet belong to the modern world.

It is an axiom of the Roman Catholic Church's social doctrine that capital was made for man, not man for capital.

First, an economic system where there are no rules doesn't exist anywhere in the world.
Second, actually the vast vast majority of advances have come through publicly funded research and project not market forces. This includes computers, communications technologies, aeronautics, biomedical, etc etc etc. Basically all of the big stuff. Entrepreneurship works well to kind of tweak the stuff and ad to it once the publicly funded research has produced it but it simply can't afford to do the big research with all its costs and inevitable failures.
Third, in markets it is one dollar one vote, in a democracy it is one person one vote. There is a huge huge difference. It leads to the parody of the golden rule. He with the gold makes the rules ;-) So actually markets are extremely undemocratic and favor those with resources to begin with.

Capitalism is how business is conducted. The primary opposition to capitalism is Communism, where everything is owned by the government.
Socialist states, such as Sweden, are also capitalist. Companies are privately owned and financed. They just get taxed and regulated their fair share to support the society of Sweden.
Sweden is Democratic because they vote to select their leaders and make their laws. Sweden is Socialist because they choose to require the government to provide for the needs of all the people. In countries with large percentages of the people freely voting, Socialism is the likely outcome.
And Sweden is Capitalist because they allow for private ownership of businesses.
A country can be all three.
America is also Capitalistic, Democratic, and has socialist programs such as; Medicare, OSHA, Medicaid, Amtrak, Social Security, the FAA, Welfare, Unemployment Insurance, and other programs for the general good.
Democracy, Capitalism, and Socialism are not exclusive of each other. We do need to regulate, (or socialize), businesses or they would eventually evolve into a situation where all wealth would become concentrated in the hands of just a very few people. That situation leads to its own set of problems.

It's why America has fought against monopolies, against bribery of public officials, for fair labor representation and against excessive and unjust taxation.

When the rich are in power behind the scenes it doesn't matter what you call the type of government that caters to it.

Abuse of power can and has happened in every type of government in existence. The great thing about Democracy is the checks and balances we had to keep that abuse from destroying things.

The great thing about capitilism was that the little guy had a chance to become a self made millionaire by being willing to work long and hard, take the risks and keep at it until he was bust or over the top.

The biggest problem with the rich running the world is that they don't really believe their actions hurt others. If bushit signs a law that causes death and destruction, he can't see it, no matter how much evidence anyone puts in his face. Someone who has always had enough and then some and has never really had to work in order to survive just doesn't get it.

The model of a market is not a model of freedom in any way shape or form. It is a model of a very controlled and hierarchical system. There is nothing free about a market.

Unrestrained Capitalism HATES competition. The goal of Capitalism is to OWN the market by killing your competition....like Wal-Mart. In early markets there may be some incentive for quality as a sales gimmick, but in a mature market, competition is an illusion. As the ultimate Winner(s) emerge, quality will diminish, prices (collusion & fixxing) will rise, and upstart competition will be squashed economically and politically.


Who makes a higher quality gasoline, Shell or Exxon?
Who makes cheaper gasoline, Shell or Exxon?

Without regulation, Capitalism is a failed economic system. (SEE: US History 1845-1920)

No both are not built on freedom of ideas. Democracy is people governing themselves. You could have a democracy with very little freedom of ideas, as long as the people govern themselves, it is a democracy. Capitalism is not built on a freedom of ideas, it is a structure of economy where productive property is owned or controlled by private indidvuals and firms who direct production and participate in mercantile trade and hire workers to extract profit from the process of production. Once again, freedom of ideas need not be present.

Capitalism is not based on competition. Capitalism is based on the private ownership of the economy for the purposes of creating and reinvesting capital to drive the economy. Competition is involved in capitalism, but competition is involved in pretty much everything human beings do it is certainly not a defining part of the system.

Democracy is also not based on competition. It is the concept of self rule.

You are doing exactly the wrong thing this thread is about. You are generalizing and simplifying things until youve blurred everything together and democracy and capitalism are just one big vague blurr of freedom to you when neither capitalism nor democracy are inherently related to freddom. Tyranical democracy and tyranical capitalism are both more than possible.

That's part of the ideology. In fact, capitalism depends on government intervention to succeed. That's why emerging capitalist states like high tariffs to protect domestic industry. That's also why we have a $400 billion defense budget. It feeds the high tech sector.

To the extent that there is any competition, it is secondary to the state intervention in favor of capital formation. Without that, capitalism could not survive. It could, however, survive without competition. That's what cartels are about, for example.

It sort of works (if it is severely regulated) with republicanism or representative democracy.

Capitalism is just an economic model. It's not a government model. Democracy is a governmental model whereby the citizens have a participatory role irregardless of the economic model.

when it's so very true. We've just been conditioned to link the two. It's fun to step "out side the box" sometimes. ;)

David Korten does a great job of reframing the whole capitaism =
democracy issue in his book "The Post Corporate World" and proposes that as the oil runs out and the corporate reality crumbles that it will be replaced by decentralized interconnected localized economies that are both independent and interdependent and that are modeled on biological communities living organisms which are by nature both self organizing and efficient. Korten sees both capitalism and socialism as being inefficient extremist systems based on liNewtonian mechanics. He feels an entirely new and organically modelled economic system is called for.

Here's an article he wrote in Yes Magazine that summaries some of his ideas

http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=1004
First the hyped capitalist story of the elite
This will free the market to put people to work, eliminate poverty, get money in people’s pockets to buy the goods and services of their choice from private providers, create the wealth necessary to protect the environment, and provide people with better services at a cheaper price. Even though the rich may get richer, everyone gains.

Then Korten reframes it


Reality: The story has a compelling coherence and logic until subjected to critical examination. It assumes for example that that wealth and prosperity are defined solely by the goods and services available for purchase. It takes no account of many of the essentials of healthy and prosperous communities, such as clean air and water, trust, job security, safe neighborhoods, well maintained streets, loving homes, and much else beyond the means of markets to produce. In the words of WalMart it promises “Everyday low prices” for the things it offers for sale, encouraging us to define ourselves solely as consumers of those goods the market offers and to overlook the destruction of communities, families, and individual lives that are real costs of low WalMart prices. The workers whose living wage jobs have been destroyed by a WalMart economy are left with no choice other than to seek the lowest price. As a society, however, we can well afford to pay a bit more for our market goods to provide workers a living wage, leave our children a healthy planet, and preserve the local independent farms and businesses that are the backbone of healthy communities and a vibrant democracy.

Furthermore, many of the things that economists count as contributions to economic growth actually devalue the quality of our lives and ultimately result in high hidden costs, which ironically are then counted as though they were positive contributions. For example, sales of tobacco, guns, and video games to children, the fees of divorce lawyers, costs of security guards and devices, weapons sales, and payments for the treatment of cancers caused by environmental pollution, tobacco, and food contaminated with pesticide residues. Costs counted as growth have become so great that many countries are experiencing a decline in real well-being even as what economists measure as economic growth continues to rise.

"market failures". Microeconomists consider these costs when debating and designing policy. In cases such as pollution laws and "sin taxes" these are taken into account.

"market failures". Microeconomists consider these costs when debating and designing policy. In cases such as pollution laws and "sin taxes" these are taken into account.

The metric everyone looks at is GDP growth. The waste that the author was talking about is included in that GDP figure. The fact that "market failures" are acknowledged by economists does not mean that they are given their due presence in the metrics that are used.

that the GDP is not a perfect measure. I believe that he is implying that the problem is that people don't take this into account regarding progress. He also forgets to add things such as the pollution controls being much stronger then they have in the past even with the efforts being made to relax them.

When international comparisons are made the GDP figure is the one cited. Granted, many recognize that the GDP has limitations as a metric, but it is still the standard metric. Using another metric for quality of life that takes into account "market failures" explicitly would reveal a different picture with respect to living standards -- most likely with the U.S. dropping a few notches. As it stands U.S. economic policy-makers are not held accountable for measures that reduce quality of life but increase GDP.

The GDP (and GNP) give a simple value that is not subjective and is easy to understand. The GDP is able to be compared with other countries or past performance. It is also easy to divide the GDP into parts of the economy and acquire information about the effects of various things on individual sectors.

How should the economic policy makers be held responsible? Should they be held responsible by the voters or by some sort of system?

Any measure is likely to have some level of subjectivity built-in. The measure of real GDP is highly dependent on the measure of inflation and the measure of inflation in turn is highly subjective.

For one, before the mid-90's the GDP deflator measured with a fixed basket of goods, but now a adjustments are made to account for the so-called "substitution effect". This means that subjective judgments must be made in determining what constitutes a substitute, and how much of what would otherwise be considered a price increase to the effect. More critically, the inflation metric is subject to quality adjustments, so that for example much of the the price rise in a vast assortment of goods such as autos and computers has been deducted from the inflation measure. How do they decide how much to deduct? Various techniques are employed depending on the product and the nation doing the calculation but ultimately it comes down to subjective judgments.

There are plenty of other accounting issues in GDP that are not at all straightforward, and any replacement metric that takes into account pollution and such would unfortunately have similar problems. In my opinion reliance on a single metric, however convenient it might be to point to a number, is not the best way to hold economic judgments to account. Multiple metrics, preferably more straightforward than GDP, should be taken into consideration.

when comparing the GDP of one nation to another but most of these points are still relevant. It goes without saying that the adjustments were made to improve the shortcomings of the measure. The pace of the change in technology recently has brought some of these practices into question. However, as it stands any measure that is based on consumption or production have at least these same problems. Designing a measurement that is more representative of the "big picture" adds complications and greater subjectivity. How do you asses the value of damages done to the environment? GDP provides information that is a good starting point when concerned with the ability of a nation to produce and production is an important part of the overall health of the economy. I do not know of a measure that is both simpler and more useful. I too agree that more then one measurement should be used to determine the strength of the economy, however GDP provides us a good starting point in this analysis.

Corporate boards who work for the extremely wealthy make most of the policy decisions in our economy. Some are made by politicians who are beholden to the very same people and the people appointed by those politicians.

Microeconomists produce analysis and models for these people so that they can make decisions based on thier own percieved self interests.

In theory, you're right. But, the microecon thought process pervades macroeconomic policy making.

That's one of the reasons why we're in the state we're in. Corporations do depend on microeconomic theory, and they should. But, the greater scope of macroeconomics and, of course, the scale of the system itself, is far too large to apply microeconomic theory.

For instance, have you ever considered the concept of "supply-side" economics. It is an attempt to force fit a microeconomic concept into a massively diverse and enormously complex macroeconomy. Yet, we've been hearing about that for 30 years!

The short range, piece at a time, X relates to Y, thinking that works spectacularly well in microanalysis is almost useless in macroeconomics.

That's one reason why i disagree with almost 90% of other economists and econometric analysts! They simply don't think broadly enough, and don't model in enough dimensions, and don't consider the interactive aspects of a system at near chaos.
The Professor

I tend to doubt it. Microecon doesn't offer much guidance to the individual business.

You have to relax some of the neoclassical assumptions (especially the one about perfect information).

The best book I have read on profit sharing was written by a Harvard professor.

for the other. For democracy to be successful there has to be a high degree of education, equality and freedom of press which is generally not seen in a capitalistic system. Capitalism its self also thrives off of education and some degree of equality.

Capitalism could not exist if we were equal, because it requires that there be a stratification of economic opportunity in order for some people to accumulate capital to feul reinvestment.

Capitalism doesnt thrive off education either. Sometimes education of particular people is profitable, often it isnt. It is never profitable to educate everyone.

perfect competition and that works to improve the market in certain instances. The capitalism that Adam Smith wrote theorized about does not and cannot stabilize. (I should say that by equality I am referring to equality of opportunity and not equality in salaries, though equality in opportunity will generally bring the salaries closer together.

There certainly have been many right-wing capitalist dictatorships. But there is a clear link between republic as a form of government and capitalism. If you look at the emergence of republics, they accompanied the rise of capitalism (as defined in Orthodox Marxist terms, by mode of production). Liberalism, as the political corollary of capitalism, exalts individualism and the concept of natural rights. Foundational texts include Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations, our own Declaration of Independence and Constitution, as well as the Rights of Man. Representative government and capitalism emerged in tandem. They replaced the colonial system and its mercantilist economy.

Fast forward 200 years, right-wing capitalist dictatorships have proliferated in recent decades. Capitalism, in fact, may now stand as an obstacle to full democracy. Corporate interests dominate over the rights of the individual and the people as a whole. Democracy, perhaps unrealistically, imagines rule by the people. Capitalism facilities the concentration of wealth, and thus power, in the hands of the few.

Just another example of two ideas mashed together until they lose any real meaning.

Capitalism cannot exist without a republican government, because if the same people who own the production own the government it is simply a tributary system.

In capitalism a destinct governmental organization enforces a set of rules that create the parameters for the capitalist system. Namely contracts and the conceptualization of ownership.

Your post is far from convincing because it ignores history. You look at the present as a snap shot in time and consider nothing about how the political and economic systems emerged. There is nothing remarkable or novel about the point I made. It is standard, survey level fare.

My point was not that liberalism and capitalism are the same, rather than liberalism is the political ideology that accompanied and legitimated the emergence of international capitalism. Do you dispute that liberalism emerged from the Enlightenment and the Age of Revolution? Do you dispute that the French Revolution, American Revolution, and Spanish American wars of Independence were expressions of liberal ideology? These movements were part of the crisis of the colonial system that brought about the emergence of capitalism and it's political corollary, liberalism. Capitalism, if we used the orthodox definition tied to means of production rather than Worlds Systems understanding, develops at precisely this same time. Adam Smith's _The Wealth of Nations_ is but one of a number of foundational texts important to both liberalism and capitalism.

Any number of histories of that period will demonstrate the relationship between liberalism and capitalism. Two that come immediately to mind are: Thomas Holt, _The Problem of Freedom: Race, Labor, and Politics in Jamaica_; and Emilia Viotti da Costa, _The Brazilian Empire: Myths and Histories_; there are several others.

A simple entry from _A Dictionary of World History_ (Oxford University Press) makes the relationship with capitalism clear:

"Liberalism A political outlook attaching supreme importance to safeguarding the freedom of the individual within society. Liberal ideas first took shape in the struggle for religious toleration in the 16th and 17th centuries. The liberal view was that religion was a private matter; it was not the business of the state to enforce a particular creed. This later developed into a more general doctrine of the limited and constitutional state, whose boundaries were set by the natural rights of the individual (for instance in the political thought of LOCKE). Around 1800 liberalism became associated with the doctrines of the free market and reducing the role of the state in the economic sphere. This tendency was reversed later in the 19th century with the arrival of ‘New Liberalism’, committed to social reform and welfare legislation. In contemporary debate both schools of thought are represented. Liberals unite in upholding the importance of personal liberty in the face of encroachment by the state, leading to demands for constitutional government, civil rights, and the protection of privacy."

As I said, a very basic relationship, available to anyone sitting through a history survey of the period. (It would not help to provide the link because it is subscription only. You could access it through any library with a reasonable electronic reference collection.)

Capitalism has indeed existed without republican or representative government in many parts of the world: Chile under Pinochet, Brazil from 1964-85 (remember these economic "miracles"?); Argentina's military dictatorship of the late 70s and early 80s; Cuba for several decades before Castro, and dictatorships throughout Central America for much of the 20th century, to name a few. These were governments supported, financed, and applauded by the United States because they promoted a savage form of free market capitalism that benefited the few at the expense of the many. You may imagine a theoretical link between capitalism and representative government, but such theories ignore the circumstances of recent political history.

Capitalism has nothing to do with freedom of the individual. Capitalism relates to a certain economic structure by which private individuals(and unlike liberalism this applies to the minority of individuals) accumulate profit an reinvest this profit in production that they extract more profit from. It is this cycle of reinvestment that defines capitalism and it has NOTHING to do with personal freedom. Some people in capitalism are exceptionally free, many are extremely limited by the system.

I dont care if liberalism and capitalism have run into each other historically and if people have blurred them together in their heads, that is neither here nor there. They are two seperate and entirely destinct philosophies.

When did I say representative government, perhaps you should do a better job of reading my posts before incorrectly calling me out. A republic need not be represntative.

The point, which you missed, is that capitalism requires a public and private sector. A republic is one of the more common ways to achieve this. Technically you could have a capitalism in any system, as long as the government allowed for a semi-autonomous private sector and supplied the neccessary conditions for capitalist economic growth, but I dont think I need to explain why a republic is more condusive to this than a totalitarian state.

That describes Amerika today.

I believe that Amerika is an Oligarchy.

has ALWAYS been concentrated in the hands of just a vew few people, even in Communist systems.

People mistake the US for having a capitalist system. The proper name for what the US has is bureacratic corporatism, where the government works hand in hand with huge corporations to regulate the economy.

this question should be relatively easy to answer.

Does my personal freedom extend to my own economic activity and plans?

Assume I make rope. In other words, if I make a profit and decide to reinvest it in my own rope-making business, can the government forbid me to do so, telling me that there's already enough rope on the market, or somebody else is starting to compete and needs and edge, or dictating that I invest in another business because there's no dreidle makers in town or the government suddenly needs hijabs?

You don't care what history demonstrates? You don't care what Smith and a host of Enlightenment political economists wrote? You will invent your own ideas. I provided substantiated analysis with sources for you to examine the matter further. You could also simply look in a World History textbook for the period, or glance through some encyclopedias. But of course you will maintain your own ideas
because you "don't care if liberalism and capitalism have run into each other historically and if people have blurred them together in their heads, that is neither here nor there. They are two seperate and entirely destinct philosophies." You quite willfully have decided to remain informed on the subject.


Your post: " Capitalism cannot exist without a republican government, because if the same people who own the production own the government it is simply a tributary system."

My post said representative or republican government. Republics are representative in one form or another. Evidently you are not only oblivious to history, you have no idea what you yourself write.

Your argument is extremely weak. You provide only your own obstinate assertions and nothing that approaches evidence. Wait...are you sure you don't work in the White House?

'capitalism' is the new kid on the block

I would use the term 'free enterprise', for owning
the work of your own hands,
'capital' is really a taxation issue.

although they like to say they are communist for some reason.

between being state-run and relying on private enterprise. All "capitalist" countries are state-run to some extent, but the role of the state in China is still more pervasive than most.

South Korea and Taiwan were capitalist before they were democratic. But the forces of opennness (international trade, openness to new ideas/products/systems) that modern capitalism requires gives rise to democratic forces, IMO.

The opportunities for democracy in Singapore and China are based on their capitalist economies.

It's no accident that some of the world's worst dictatorships (North Korea, Cuba) are socialist.

..are also "socialist".

So what's your REAL point?

Just as we have a collectivized government highway system to build roads and highways for our capitalist private or publicly owned companies to carry their goods across by truck we need a national collective health care system supported by tax dollars.

The natural nature of man is individual/private and collective/public. Human beings are not exclusively only one; we are both.

In America we alrady have public collective systems paid for with tax dollars that support our capitalist business system. We have public education, city and state police systems. Public educational systems. All government services are collectivized systems that support our capitalist business system. We have a collective retirement system already.

In order to compete with countries that have cheap labor cost and reduce the cost of health care cost per employee America needs a national collectivized health care system. Even if our wages and salary are higher than other countries we can at least reduce the overhead cost of health care to employers with a national collective health care system to take the burden of health care from capitalist business to tax supported public/collective. Our capitalist business are packing up and going to Mexico, China and India or outsourcing labor to reduct the labor cost.

In a sense the word "socialism" is just another word for "collective." The natural collective side of human nature. When ever human beings can not do something individually we get together in collectives to do things that are "good for all" or "good for the general well bing of all." That's just plain human nature. Now to say we can not have a collective national health care system to reduce the overhead cost to our capitalist system so we all can have a better chance at a job and our jobs don't have to be outsourced, because it is "collectivism" is absurd.

The cold war against communism gave the natural instinct in human beings to "collectivize" a bad name. But we need to rethink our terms and in light of the reality of our already collectivized government public services.

Our collective, public, government services "supports" our private capitalist system. That's the true American reality.

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

I'm so sick of that bit of illogic. In fact, true communism would be the ultimate democracy.

It does drive me nuts when wingnuts equate liberals with socialists, capitalism with freedom, etc. In reality, IMO, a socialist system can also allow capitalism. A capitalist system can also be communist, and I think that's where we're heading. Our lives are controlled by corporations which share power with government -- we have little choice with regard to what we will do in life unless we make great lifestyle sacrifices, are geniuses, or something abnormal. People should, no question, decide what they want to do, with only minor limitations based on society's survival needs. Business leaders make us think we need to do things THEIR way in order to world to keep turning, but they are only motivated by greed.

I discuss some of these issues at the following webpage: http://www.bopsecrets.org/PS/joyrev1.htm

"To begin with the political aspect, roughly speaking we can distinguish five degrees of 'government':

(1) Unrestricted freedom
(2) Direct democracy
____ a) consensus
____ b) majority rule
(3) Delegate democracy
(4) Representative democracy
(5) Overt minority dictatorship

The present society oscillates between (4) and (5), i.e. between overt minority rule and covert minority rule camouflaged by a façade of token democracy. A liberated society would eliminate (4) and (5) and would progressively reduce the need for (2) and (3).

. . .

Economic organization can be looked at from the angle of work:

(1) Totally voluntary
(2) Cooperative (collective self-management)
(3) Forced and exploitive
____ a) overt (slave labor)
____ b) disguised (wage labor)

And from the angle of distribution:

(1) True communism (totally free accessibility)
(2) True socialism (collective ownership and regulation)
(3) Capitalism (private and/or state ownership)

Though it’s possible for goods or services produced by wage labor to be given away, or for those produced by volunteer or cooperative labor to be turned into commodities for sale, for the most part these levels of work and distribution tend to correspond with each other. The present society is predominately (3): the forced production and consumption of commodities. A liberated society would eliminate (3) and as far as possible reduce (2) in favor of (1).

:toast:

in the neocon lexicon, for the obvious reason that both are absolutely inimical to their own political aspirations, policies and practices.

However, since both are essentially popular, rather than elitist, the far right was, of course, never able to vilify and repudiate either. That left them only one recourse: the Big Lie - an impossibility to others, but a ruse routinely adopted by them, in the face of total failure.

Of course, the likes of Stalin and many other other Communist leaders were, in reality, themselves, extreme right wingers. They certainly wouldn't all have like to have claimed a Christian ethos, but like their far-right counterparts, were more than a little anxious to call themselves democratic. I would classify China (still today, to some extent) and Cuba, exemplary exceptions. Because the noblest ideals of the natural man, unaided by grace, cannot survive and flourish for long.

What is needed are true, Gospel-based Christian societies - where the high status classes of our societies are not viewed as the Christian ideal, but rather those lower down the worldly pecking order, who are satisfied with an ample sufficency of this world's goods; and particularly contented, if it means that others will not go without, because they deny themselves ever-increasing luxury.

that democracy = capitalism. MSM and American history textbooks imply it all over the place.