May 14
To Joe Carter and his blogpost on tyranny and how younger people have forgotten about the tyranny of Communist regimes. His comments about that were made in reviewing a book by Yale professor Timothy Snyder. This appeared in the Acton blog.
Carter rarely provides a balanced view of an issue. And he fails to disappoint here. For in talking about tyranny, Carter not only presents a brief accounting of communist tyranny, he avoids mentioning the context of communist tyranny or the tyranny that has sprung in Capitalist economic systems.
If we want to talk about Soviet Union Communism, then we need to mention the tyranny of the Tzars which preceded the Russian Revolution. We also need to remember the strong criticisms that were made by fellow Marxists of Lenin's hijacking of the Russian Revolution. If we want to talk about the repression of people that is so much a part of Cuba's political system, we need to remember not just the US supported but corrupt and tyrannical Batista regime that preceded Castro's revolution, we also need to mention the American military attacks on civilian targets that pushed Castro into the arms of Khrushchev and the constant American attempts to assassinate Castro. If we want to talk about Nicaragua and the Sandinistas, we must first talk about the US supported tyrannical Somoza regime and the US supported terrorism that took place after the Sandinistas took power.
There are exceptions. The Nicaragua revolution didn't lead to tyranny in the 1980s despite its beginnings. In fact, it led to a democracy. And Chavez's rising to power was not the result of a revolution against tyranny. But his reign not only repeated the same economic mistakes made by previous Venezuelan regimes, he never followed through on the first and most vital tenet of Marxist Socialism--the implementation of a proletariat dictatorship. That dictatorship includes democratic processes but those processes are restricted to the proletariat.
Nor does Carter mention how left-leaning regimes that were arising from democratic processes were overthrown and replaced with dictators who were friendly to American business interests. In fact, before Cuba's Batista became the corrupt tyrant he ended up being, when he initiated workers' rights in Cuba, the US would try to correct him.
Finally, Carter fails to recognize the success of the most Marxist government in the world. For if redistributing power to the proletariat is the first and foundational tenet of Marxism, then Germany's codetermination laws where democratically elected workers are made members of a business's executive board qualifies as being the most Marxist system. Its codetermination laws have not produced a proletariat dictatorship, and yet by redistributing some power to the proletariat, Germany's system is perhaps the closest attempt we have ever seen of Marxist Socialism.
Carter's view of tyranny suffers from partial blindness. For he either is unable or refuses to see the tyranny that has been promoted by his own side, his own tribe. And he fails to see context in the tyrannies he rightfully mentions.
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To Joe Carter and his article on how we benefit from Billionaires. The family that owns Walmart is focused on in making that case. This was published in the Acton blog.
There are two problems with Carter's article here. The first problem rests with the incomplete data on Walmart provided by his source material (see https://mises.org/wire/billionaires-arent-quite-rich-we-think-they-are ). For as the writer of that article relied solely on Walmart's own report, other information provides disturbing or contradictory information.
The disturbing information not included by the report used by the article referenced is the actual state of Walmart Employees. For one thing, Walmart relies on anywhere between $5 to $7 Billion of government assistance for low-wage employees to subsidize its payroll. (see http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/walmart-government-subsidies-study#51652 ). We should also note that around half of its workforce consists of part-time workers whereas the average percentage of part-time workers in the the kind of business Walmart is involved is 30% (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-walmart-workers-idUSKCN1IQ295 ).
In addition, there seems to be some misinformation that comes from the sources that the referred article used. For it was reported in the article Carter cited that the family that owns the majority of shares of Walmart only earned 0.02% (or 0.0002 *) of the Walmart's 2018 $514 Billion dollars in sales. But other sources report a far greater share going to the family that owns it. For according to the article, the family that owns Walmart would have garnered only 0.0002 * $514,000,000,000 in sales which equals $102,800,000. However with the NASDAQ report showing that the dividend payment for 2018 was around $2.08 per share and with Walmart's proxy statement reporting that the family owning Walmart owns 1,508,965,874 shares, that family's cut from Walmart in shares alone is over $3 Billion (see https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/02/19/does-walton-family-earn-more-minute-than-walmart-workers-year/?utm_term=.0eb7f8a63db1 ). And that doesn't include the family's other sources of income from Walmart which puts their earnings between $3-$5 Billion for one year (see https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-19/walton-family-fortune-increases-3-3-billion-on-walmart-earnings ).
The problem with Carter's source is that it provided a one-sided research regarding the income and welfare of Walmart's workers as well as easily disputable claims on the cut that the family that owns Walmart receives.
But there is a second problem with Carter's article. That is a problem with consistency. We are told time and again by conservatives like Joe Carter that the consolidation of power is dangerous for the rest of us. Here, Carter and others refer to the consolidation of government power. But what about the consolidation of power in the private sector? Isn't the consolidation of power there just as threatening? After all, in a capitalist economy that claims that relies on democratic processes, power follows wealth. And thus the consolidation of wealth leads to the consolidation of power--even political power in the private sector. And if we need any more verification of that point, then realize that some have already reclassified America as an oligarchy (see https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746 ).
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