With the election of Zohran
Mamdani as New York’s new and first communist mayor, we might well wonder what
this could involve. Bearing in mind that
his powers are not absolute and that he will have considerable challenges, we
can nevertheless expect that he will do what he can to accomplish some of the
aims of communism. In his inaugural
speech as mayor on 1 January, 2025, he stated, ‘We will replace the frigidity
of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism’.
In The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels discuss what
is necessary to establish communism and what changes communism intends to instigate.
I will summarise what it hopes to change
(in my own enumeration of ten characteristics of communism) and then simply
quote from the Manifesto how it plans
to achieve the change (also ten points).
This essay looks at chapter II of the Manifesto.
First, communism intends to
abolish class distinctions by abolishing the bourgeois class or capitalist
middle and upper class. This would leave
the proletariat or working class.
Second, communism has to do with
the proletariat everywhere, not just in a particular nation. Communism is a universal movement bearing the
causes of the working class. It expects
that countries and nationality will eventually cease, and therefore the exploitation
of one nation by another and wars between nations. When the proletariat replace the bourgeoisie,
national differences will disappear.
Third, communism intends to
abolish bourgeois private property. The
proletariat will wrest all capital belonging to the bourgeoisie. The Manifesto
specifically says that the intention is not to abolish the little property
owned by workers but that of the bourgeoisie.
The wage-labourer of capitalism does not create property for himself
because his wages are so low.
Collectively, wage earners create capital for individuals, not for the
wage earners as a whole. Communism hopes
to abolish bourgeois individuality, independence, and free trade.
Fourth, then, communism
intends to do away with selling and buying.
Fifth, it intends to do away
with the middle class owner of property.
Sixth, connecting capital to
the family, communism intends to do away with the family. It alleges that parents exploit their
children and husbands their wives for production.
Seventh, in destroying the
family, communism intends to replace home education with social education. This is not simply public education but is state control of education. The State will raise children in the way that it wants them to go.
Eighth, with the change to
communism, human consciousness will also change. Thus, people’s religious and philosophical
views and their ideologies will change. While stating this as a natural outcome from the other changes, this point also involves the power of the State to control how people think and what they believe.
Ninth, the means of
production will be centralised and be in the hands of the State. Essentially, the State will control the economy.
Tenth, for this radical
change to take place, the proletariat will have to organise as a political
force, sweep away the power of the bourgeoisie and its antagonisms, and ultimately
do away with its own, temporary class supremacy. This will involve violence--and history has shown just how murderous communism is in any state where it has been tried. The end goal is for politics to give way to an association
‘in which the free development of each is the condition for free development of
all’.
To effect these radical
changes, communism will gradually pursue the following:[1]
1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all right of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
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 labour. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equable distribution of the population 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....
Mayor Mamdani will likely
see the flight of businessmen and businesses from New York, as well as wealthy
persons who wish to protect their wealth from a communist government. Middle class property owners should also see
the effects of a communist attempt to appropriate their property ownership,
such as renters. We do not expect to see
the murders and confiscation of property of early Soviet communism, when the
wealthy or middle class property owners (kulaks) were obliterated in order to
form collective farms, but Mamdani does intend to replace ‘frigid individualism’
with ‘warm collectivism’.
The attack on the family is
well underway in America without needing communism, but Mamdani’s plan to offer
free child care is not only a generous gift to people who need help (at the
expense of the public) but a possible step for the state to take away parental
oversight of children.
As with all socialist plans,
only a heavy taxation and centalised control can accomplish its aims. Big government, the disappearance of individualism,
property owernership, religious rights, free thinking, etc. are on notice. Add to this Mamdani’s public softness toward
concerns about antisemitism in New York and his own Islamic convictions, and a
thoroughly un-American experiment is about to unfold in America’s number one
city.
Some
Related Articles on Bible and Mission:
Scripture
and the Socio-Political Systems of Communism, Socialism, and Capitalism
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