Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Happily Working Her Way Down Karl Marx's Checklist

Karl Marx

I don't want to spend more time then is warranted covering Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez but there are some things that libertarians need to know about her and the aggressive direction she is attempting to take things.

In The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx listed 10 items that would be required to advance toward a communist society. It was a checklist.

He wrote:

The first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class, to win the battle of democracy...

Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property and other conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionising the mode of production. 

These measures will of course be different in different countries. 

Nevertheless, in the most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable.

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 rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all immigrants and rebels.
5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of the National Bank with the 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; to bring into cultivation of waste land, in the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8.  Equal liability of all to labor. 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 equitable distribution of the population over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc.

By my count, AOC, who has been in Congress less than a month, is already promoting five items on Marx's checklist.

Check off number 2. She has called for a progressive marginal tax of 70% for those earning over $10 million.

Check off number 10. She has called for the modern version of free public schools by calling for free college education for all.

Check off number 7 and 9. Her aggressive support of the "Green New Deal" is a step in this direction.

From the "Green New Deal" plan:

The right to employment through a Full Employment Program that will create 25 million jobs by implementing a nationally funded, but locally controlled direct employment initiative replacing unemployment offices with local employment offices offering public sector jobs which are "stored" in job banks in order to take up any slack in private sector employment...

Local communities will use a process of broad stakeholder input and democratic decisionmaking to fairly implement these programs... 

Invest in green business by providing grants and low-interest loans to grow green businesses and cooperatives, with an emphasis on small, locally-based companies that keep the wealth created by local labor circulating in the community rather than being drained off to enrich absentee investors.

And most interesting, I think we also have to check off number 5.

Her sudden statement that she wants to explore "the development of public & postal banking," is certainly a step in the direction of a national bank that does a complete end-around Wall Street's control of the Federal Reserve.

To be sure, other lefties have called for much of the same, but she has the skill to get focus on these type of measures. It is quite shocking, for example, the amount of supportthere is for her call for a 70% progressive tax and that she is polling at levels close to President Tump.

She will have her hands full with all of the above on Marx's checklist but I suspect she will make a run at 8 and 3 on the checklist in the not too distant future.

Fortunately, there is a check to this madness in the form of a Republican-controlled Senate, for now, but late Wednesday, she was already trolling Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell.

He’s not in the cloak room
He’s not in the Capitol
He’s not in the Russel building
He’s not on the floor of the Senate

And 800,000 people still don’t have their paychecks - so #WheresMitch? https://t.co/x3qOfC113M

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) January 17, 2019

We have a very promotion savvy dangerous Marxist-Leninist on our hands.

-RW