ILLUSIONS, HALF-TRUTHS AND MASKS. Keywords: Hegel, Marx, Nietzche, Michael Novak, Max Weber, Heritage Foundation, Free-Will, Religion, morality, Maimonides

2020 Map of the Heritage Foundation's
ECONOMIC FREEDOM INDEX
In 25 years, the USA has dropped from No.6 to No.26

 

ILLUSIONS, HALF-TRUTHS AND MASKS

A meditation about the new rise of communism in America

By Xuan Quen Santos

PART  VI

“IF THERE IS NO GOD, ALL IS PERMITTED”

Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1891) in

“The Brothers Karamazov”

Life is about choices.

“Life is about choices, and economics is about how incentives affect those choices and shape our lives. Choices about education, how we spend and invest, what we do in the workplace, and many other personal decisions will influence our well being and quality of life. Moreover, the choices we make as voters and citizens affect the laws or “rules of the game”, and these rules exert an enormous impact on our freedoms and prosperity. To choose intelligently, both for ourselves and for society generally, we must understand some basic principles about how people choose, what motivates their actions, and how their actions influence their personal welfare and that of others. Thus, economics is about human decision making, the analysis of the forces underlying choice, and the implications with regard to how societies work.” With this paragraph my friends Jim Gwartney and Rick Stroup introduced their 2005 book “Common Sense Economics”, which they wrote with their associates Dwight Lee and Tawni Ferrarini. It is an excellent, easy to read overview of the economic principles that matter to us every day, which they apply to specific examples to show the way to personal prosperity and what to look for in government policy.

Can we get by without having to choose?

A generally accepted definition of economics was initially formulated by Lionel Robbins (1898-1984) in his book "Nature and significance of Economic Science" (1932). It reads: "Economics is the science which studies human behavior as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses". It refers only to persons, concentrates on their behavior when choices are being made, always towards a purpose and facing limited options at a particular time and place. It does not describe the process or how it happens. Robins further explains: "This theory emphasizes the ‘correct’ assessment of moral facts, in which the goals of minimizing harm and maximizing well-being serve as the two aims of morality. It is ultimately a theory of rational decision-making; people observe the world, determine if their facts match their overall moral code, then make moral judgments. This model probably matches how many people think about their own moral stances; reasonable, fact-based, and most importantly, correct." In another segment he added: ""Scarcity of means to satisfy ends of varying importance is an almost ubiquitous condition of human behavior”.

How did Robbins end up speaking about morality if he was defining economics? Most people associate economics with activities of production, money matters, banking and taxes, and usually involve government. At the root of all economic matters are the decisions people make. What is not realized by many is that we follow the same process for all moral behavior, whether it has anything to do with economics or not.

What Robbins concludes is that how we think about mundane decisions, such as which toothpaste or soap to buy, is the same as how we make decisions we consider important, such as what to study for a career path, whom to marry, for whom we vote at election time, or where to live. We also choose between sin and virtue, between following the rules or breaking them. It is how we decide to follow our moral compass or not. We generally know when we have made a bad choice. It usually happens when we realize that the consequences or our action are not the positive outcome we had expected.

Economics is generally viewed today as part of the behavioral sciences. Robbins was opposed to this bundling. The reason marks an important divide originated in the question: Does “free will” exist? Similar, but not exactly equivalent are the terms “self-determination”, “autonomy”, freedom and liberty. Biologists, naturalists, evolutionists, and most schools of psychology and psychiatry today fall under the Positivist or scientistic view that invariably has a materialistic concept of human behavior. Thus, we are bundled with the rest of the animal kingdom, just a notch above a rock. Human behavior, like animal behavior, is seen as driven by the environment, DNA, instincts, evolution, neurobiology, and other external causes, none of which are controlled by the subject. We are said to respond to pre-determined conditions, like a robot that has been programmed. Autonomy, self-determination, and free will are not recognized as intrinsic and distinctive of the human person. Marxism has this concept of people as one of its foundations. The ideal Marxist state, supposedly created by science, is what counts. The proletariat, like worker and nurse ants, are only good for labor and perpetuation of the anthill. Marxists were never clear as to which ants would get to be queen or security guards and why.

Kafka's Metamorphosis and The Trial (1915)
Anxiety and oppression

 The birth of psychology as a discipline was contemporaneous to Marx, and also a German by-product of the times. For Marx, what drives human behavior is the ceaseless struggle to satisfy material needs. Like animals, driven by food, sex and shelter. Since needs have to be material in his scheme, this is the same that is applicable to an ant, a roach, or a rat. It is no wonder that Kafka’s nightmares under the Austro-Hungarian despotism and the chaos of WW I were about becoming a roach, or a victim of the bureaucratic state in the post-war socialist Germany. The idea that people are disposable is a logical conclusion of the materialistic view of the human being, that is, the human ant or human roach; never a person with identity and self-determination.

The influence of this line of thinking is quite prevalent today. Many states offices of District Attorneys, and many courts, are filled with believers that the culprits are just product of circumstances out of their control, and thus victims and not perpetrators, therefore innocent because they are not responsible for their behavior. Most of what used to be considered mental illness is now just a natural life style. Psychiatric hospitals are rare, and the jails and prisons have revolving doors. This trend, under the name of Restorative Justice, easily excuses criminal behavior and has turned upside-down the systems of jurisprudence, criminal law, policing and prisons. It should not be a surprise that violence and street crime have increased. For supporters of Marxism, it is easy to excuse the behavior of “the victims of economic oppression” when they commit acts of terrorism, vandalism, thievery, looting, even killing. There is no moral code possible as the foundation of a peaceful social order when these ideas are prevalent. The excuse of “the snake made me do it” is used to blame society, schools, parents, the internet, the media, movies, video games, liquor, the pharma companies, guns, etc.

A vintage cartoon commemorates 
the Monkey Trial

The American lawyer Clarence Darrow (1857-1938) is famous for his defense in the historic Scopes "Monkey Trial” of 1925. He represented a teacher that had been barred from teaching about the theory of evolution. He was a well known atheist progressive that did not believe in capital punishment and shared the ideas about criminal behavior described before. As reported by one of his biographers, in a matter unrelated to the mentioned trial, he said: “All people are product of two things, and two things only – their heredity and the environment. And they act in accordance with the heredity which they took from all the past, and for which they are in no wise responsible”. His opponent was Williams Jennings Bryan, also a lawyer who was a presidential candidate and a well known orator. The trial became a debate between religious beliefs and scientific speculation and about who controls public education. Much of the debate has continued. In popular culture, the “Monkey Trial” comes close to the Galileo case that is always misrepresented to favor science and ridicule religion.

Can we get by without having to choose? The answer is no. Economic behavior and its process in the social order – the market with all its complexities – would not exist. Whatever takes its place would be un-economic or anti-economic. The institutions of justice, law and a representative government that emanates from the rights of the people would not exist. Whatever takes their place would not be just and would not secure the rights of the people; it would be unjust and destructive of those rights. The fundamental rules of behavior that bind the social order – morality – would not exist. Without it, we regress to the ancient past to join the rest of the animal kingdom in the jungle.

Isn’t that what Marxism in any of its forms has created wherever it has been tried? Does it not cause destruction of wealth and of the prosperity-creation processes that liberty brings? Does its imposition not require unjust and arbitrary systems of violence and abuse? Aren’t countries under it in decadence and hopelessness? Inspired by the words of Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679): “Life in the Marxist state of nature is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”.

                Not all religions are the same. A quick review of the meaning of the word religion will prove a maze of rabbit holes for its current multiple meanings and ambiguous considerations, in itself a symptom of our relativistic times. Since my focus is on the ideas of Karl Marx, I will limit my use of the word in its simplest origin and in what may have influenced Marx in terms of what he understood as religion.

The word religion came as a Latin concept into the early proto-English language of the XII century describing the experiences of the Middle Ages. It referred to the bond that keeps together monastic orders. Thus, it is a strong community’s shared belief in God. It was inherited from the writings of St. Augustine, derived originally from religio from re (again) and ligare (to bind or connect). Marx’s religious experience was initially in the Jewish faith, coming from an educated rabbinic family on both sides. His father, who was already influenced by Voltaire, converted the family to Lutheranism. Why would a descendant of generations of rabbis suddenly enter the Lutheran Church? Marx’s father was a successful lawyer when the Prussian government legally required membership in the state church in order to practice. When Karl was fifteen, he went through the classes that led to his confirmation in the Lutheran Church. He left for university two years later. Karl married a young Lutheran member of the lower nobility, but neither he nor his own family ever practiced a religion. It is easy to conclude that his views were shaped not only by the Jewish and Lutheran religious traditions, and their differences, but also by the conflict of the conversion forced by the coercive power of the state.

In previous entries I have discussed how Hegel’s dialectic method influenced Marx’s. There is also a specific connection that centers on religion. Hegel had lectured extensively on the topic using his method to analyze the major religions of the world from the idealistic perspective. In more than one way Marx’s non-religious views are a response. In Hegel’s “Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion” (1832) his classification is a manifestation of his philosophy. He believed that religions reflect human history as a vast dialectical movement toward the realization of freedom. In his writings he uses the term “the self-realization of Spirit” trying to avoid the words “self-determination” and also include a metaphysical dimension. He proposed that religions fall into three great divisions, corresponding with the stages of the dialectical progression. At the lowest level of development are the religions of nature, or religions based principally upon the immediate consciousness deriving from sensory experience. They include animism, magic; ancient religions of China and India plus Buddhism, that represent a division of consciousness within itself; and others, such as the religions of ancient Persia, Syria, and Egypt, which form a transition to the next stage. At an intermediate level are the religions of spiritual individuality, such as Judaism (the religion of sublimity), ancient Greece (the religion of beauty), and ancient Roman (the religion of utility). At the highest stage is absolute religion, or the religion of complete spirituality, which Hegel identified with Christianity. The progression thus proceeds from human experience immersed in nature and functioning only at the level of sensual consciousness, to human beings becoming conscious of themselves in their individuality as distinct from nature, and beyond that to a grand awareness of unity with the Absolute Spirit. It is easy to detect the effort not to use the word God.

The Zoroastrian Faravahar features a winged disc with an old man holding a ring. The wings symbolize divine protection and the ring represents the importance of making good choices in life. 

Many criticisms have been offered of Hegel’s classification. He made no room for Islam, at the present time, the second most numerous religion with 1.9 billion people around the world. The progression from one stage to the next is not confirmed by history. Some of the religions mentioned have disappeared, but others, like the ancient Persian Zoroastrianism is still practiced, even in the United States. Animism and magical beliefs are prevalent among isolated indigenous people in America and in many tribes in Africa. I personally do not see the separation between Judaism and Christianity in the essential beliefs included by Hegel. It may very well be an intentional omission caused by the growing animosity in Prussia towards Jews. The Old Testament of the Christian faiths is nothing more than the Torah of the Five Books of the Law, and a collection of writings by historians, leaders, theologians, writers and scribes of the ancient Jewish culture.

It is not my purpose to discuss Hegel’s classification, but his conclusion is important to consider: Christianity is the highest development in the history of religion because only in Christianity is human freedom realized. He defines human freedom as having an inward sphere of rationality, which is able to recognize and give its consent to the external sphere of, for example, traditions and morality. In summary, we are conscious of the implications of our actions, we can choose, we can judge, and we recognize there is a part of us that recognizes this unity with an order that is superior and external to us. This may be called free-will, self-determination, or freedom. Of course, multiple interpretations of a single word can create divergence of views.

The Catholic First Communion, choosing to accept the faith.

Once the previous Hegelian concept is understood, a more thorough review of Christianity would point to its own diversity. Different guidance by one religious leader, different interpretation of one word, different translation of one scripture has opened avenues to develop the negation of free-will within Christianity, and within Judaism. Denying our free-will leads to predestination, and that leads to fatalism and inaction. Various sects derived from Calvinism hold such belief. There is an entire conference of Baptist Churches that label themselves as “Free-Will Baptists”, as opposed to others. Evangelical churches that believe in the literal interpretation of the Bible tend to negate free-will. Otherwise, free-will is an essential belief among practicing Christians and Jews. The recognition of this ability to choose or free-will is the basis for a formal ritual of acceptance. Jews celebrate Bat Mitzvah for girls of twelve and Bar Mitzvah for boys of thirteen. Catholics celebrate First Communion and Confirmation after baptism. Most other Christian churches celebrate baptism after the age of reason. After the atrocities of the Middle Ages, the Crusades and the European Wars on Religion, Christian Canon Law recognizes that conversion cannot be forced.

Reading the Torah in Hebrew at Bar Mitzvah 
the passage to moral responsibility as a young adult

The acknowledgement that we have free-will and are responsible for our actions is the essence of human dignity. It is what makes us a person, not just an animal of the human species. Our ability to choose, our freedom of choice is the essential requirement of all economic behavior. It is also what makes us moral, what allows us to opt between good and evil, between virtue and sin. It would follow, if Hegel’s identification of Christianity is correct, that Christians make better economic choices. Societies where Christian values, including its moral code, have attained over time a higher standard of living than others.

Max Weber, one of the founders of modern sociology

This conclusion has been the subject of three books that are benchmarks in studying the impact of how the religious foundations of our Judeo-Christian institutions and traditions have impacted the quality of life and well being of different nations. German sociologist Max Weber (1864-1920) wrote “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism” in 1905. It was not available in English until 1930. Focused on the German experience, he refutes some of Marx’s ideas by connecting the work ethic with the moral traditions of religion, and the resulting benefits in well-being.

Theologian Michael Novak, Ambassador to the UN Human Rights Commission,
President Ronald Reagan and Ambassador to the UN Jeanne Kirkpatrick in 1988

My American friend Michael Novak (1933-2017) wrote “The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism” in 1982. After studying to become a Catholic priest, he left the Jesuit seminary in Rome to continue his studies in philosophy at Harvard. He taught at Stanford for many years and served as United States Ambassador to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights during the Reagan administration. We met for the first time in 1993 for a round-table discussion of the Earth-shattering Papal Encyclical Letter “Centesimus Annus” (1991). Saint John Paul II wrote it as a refutation to Marxist ideas and an invitation to the people just liberated (1989-1991) from Soviet domination to look at the free market with hope and confidence. In an interview with an Italian newspaper in 1989, the Polish union leader Lech Walesa, had said: “Nobody has previously taken the road that leads from socialism to capitalism. And we are setting to do just that…after having gone through a long period of socialism”.  Novak expands the initial narrow focus of Weber and looks into a world-view of the impact of Christian morality and progress. By his own admission, between some of his limited exposure to the world in the 1970s, he was still calling himself a social-democrat. His extensive work and travels with the UN Human Rights Commission, and the Reagan Revolution, were eye opening experiences. By the time we met, he had become an exponent of a theology of capitalism, the free market.

Saint John Paul II and President Ronald Reagan
Taking a stroll in the Vatican Gardens 

The third book is “The Poverty of Nations” (2013) written by one economist and one preacher. Barry Asmus is professor in economics with decades of experience bringing his science to solve problems and formulate policies. Wayne Grudem is  theology professor with decades demonstrating how a detailed analysis of the teachings of the Bible can apply to everyday situations. Their purpose is clearly stated: “The goal of this book is to provide a sustainable solution to poverty in the poor nations of the world, a solution based both on economic history and the teachings of the Bible”. The book provides a handbook for missionaries, policy-makers, diplomats, and international do-gooders as to what to do and what not to do. It reviews failed and successful economic ideas, and the moral values that generated them. It also makes use of the Index of Economic Freedom in the World, published annually since 1995 by the Heritage Foundation. The index measures twelve categories of data available from international and independent institutions for about 180 countries. The direction in which a country is moving -more free or less free- results from comparing the annual reports in a progression. It is no surprise to some of us that, in general, countries associated with the Judeo-Christian Western values have more economic freedom that others, resulting in higher standards of living. I was a participant for a decade with other economists and political analysts in the technical discussions that led to the index. The project was generated as a result of a question posed to Milton Friedman as to whether economic freedom could be measured. In the year 2000, the USA was ranked No. 6 in the world. Since then, in 2025, the US has dropped precipitously to 26. Is it not time to correct the course?

Lech Walesa and Saint John Paul II shortly after the liberation of Poland
Both Polish personalities of the XX century. Walesa went from Labor Leader to
President of Poland and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize

Our Judeo-Christian moral heritage shapes our values. They lead to good economic choices that elevate our standard of living and the well-being of our communities. It is because we are free to choose; we have the kind of internal freedom that is our moral compass.

I do not know if Marx’s radical stance against religion comes from an effort to contradict Hegel’s favorable position, or because it is an inevitable consequence after he adopted a materialistic philosophy, or because of his conflicted personal religious experience. Maybe it was all three beliefs, none of which are reasonable and logically valid. In the long run, it does not really matter.

Marxism is dead but not buried, yet!

Moshe Maimonides, born in Islamic Cordova, Spain
Physician of the Sultan Saladin, Theologian and Philosopher

“If one desires to turn himself to the path of good

and be righteous, the choice is his.

Should he desire to turn to the path of evil

and be wicked, the choice is his”.

 

Maimonides (1135-1204)

Laws of Repentance

 

ILLUSIONS, HALF-TRUTHS AND MASKS. Keywords: God is Dead, Religion is the opium of the masses, Marx-Engels, Materialism, Reductionism, moral choice, free-will, Solzhenitsyn, Human Action, Mises, Animal Farm, Hayek, Ayn Rand.

 

Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation. Former KGB officer. Infiltrated the security forces of the Yeltsin democratic government, by 1996 he was the head of the Federal Security Forces. By 1999 he was appointed Prime Minister. After the forced resignation of Yeltsin he assumed the Presidency. He was been in power since then, after several election cycles and changes to the new Constitution. In this photo, the former communist-atheist is shown leading in a religious ceremony.

ILLUSIONS, HALF-TRUTHS AND MASKS

A meditation about the new rise of communism in America

By Xuan Quen Santos

PART  V

“Over half century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of old people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: -Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened-. Since then, I have spent well-nigh fifty years working on the history of our revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some sixty million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: -Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this happened.”  

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008)

Templeton Address in London on May 10, 1983

 

God is not dead, just forgotten.

This was the conclusion that Solzhenitsyn reached about the cause of the Russian Revolution, the emblematic example of the communist system created by the Marxist ideology. He had served the totalitarian Soviet state as a soldier in WW II and ended up arrested and in prison for criticizing Stalin in a private letter opened by censors. Sent to the Gulag prison camps, he met Christian prisoners. Their examples and faith led him to find God. Solzhenitsyn received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970. He was released from prison after eleven years and eventually exiled in the West.  As a lecturer and writer, he was an outspoken critic of the Soviet Union and the barbarism of atheistic totalitarianism. Among his most significant publications are “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” (1962), “Cancer Ward” (1966), “The Gulag Archipelago” (1973), and “Warning to the West” (1976).

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008)
Prisoner of the Soviet Gulag, dissident writer
Nobel Prize in Literature 1970

Solzhenitsyn is not alone. For more than a century, generation after generation of Russian writers have described life under totalitarian regimes, Imperial Russia and Soviet Marxism. Names like Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Gogol, Pasternak, Sakharov, Shcharansky and many others, have laid bare the permanent struggle of the common person that lives under continuous repression, poverty and constant scarcity, fear of death, depression and a negative outlook on the future. But none have made a clearer connection to the atheist, and more clearly anti-religious character of Marxism. After living in the United States for many years, Solzhenitsyn returned to Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union. He received many honors, prizes, medals and awards as an honored citizen. He died in 2008, only to see the new Russian Federation abandon its opportunity to develop as a free society of free persons, with a representative government, and install Putin, blessed by the Orthodox authorities, and perform re-election after re-election until his mask fell off. A new flag, a new constitution, a new despot, but the same political scheme after all. What would Solzhenitsyn think of his country now? Was he used by Putin as propaganda? His family stayed in Vermont and became US citizens.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)
Controversial philosopher. Ill since childhood, drug-addict, suffered severe illnesses throughout his adult life, with periods of severe depression. His poor health culminated in a complete mental and physical breakdown in 1889, ending in a decade of dementia. 

Solzhenitsyn’s remark is a hopeful response to the phrase made famous by F. Nietzsche, who wrote “God is dead” in “The Gay Science” (1882). He explained that the belief in the Christian God had become unbelievable, thus, everything that was based upon this belief, including the whole European morality and Western traditions of jurisprudence and law are bound to collapse. This created a need for individuals to create their own values of morality in a secular society. Nietzsche’s remarks evidenced a process that had taken place during the previous two centuries. Marx was already a product of that trend.

Karl Marx (1818-1883)
Obsessive worker but hardly ever completed anything. Socially awkward, had difficulty establishing personal relations. Instrumental rather social learner; isolated. His father criticized him for his "ignorance of other people's feelings". Focused on details, Slovenly, oblivious to his appearance and the filthy living conditions of his own family. Had difficulties accepting personal responsibilities.
Are these symptoms of the Spectrum of Autism and ADHD?

Karl Marx wrote “Religion is the opiate of the masses” in “A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right” (1843). He had recently graduated from university where he had been active as a radical Young Hegelian interested in applying Hegel’s dialectics to political and social conditions. In context, the quote reads: "Religion is the consolation of the oppressed, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the masses." How much did his family’s break from its orthodox rabbinic tradition influence his views has not been considered by his biographers. Ostracism from a traditionally very supportive social group has consequences, particularly if you commit apostasy and adopt Lutheranism but not obtain full acceptance, as was the case in conservative Prussia. Regardless of whether or not this psychological predisposition influenced his work, anti-church and eventually anti-God were already trends resulting from the times. 

Richard Rothe, a Lutheran Theologian and Ethicist wrote “God is dead” in his theological text “The Beginnings of the Christian Church and Its Constitution” (1837). He argued as a warning that the state needs the church to reach its goal of demonstrating moral conduct. He had studied in Berlin University and was also a follower of Hegel, but did not deviate from the idealism of the master. He may have been the first to recognize the changes resulting from secularization that were taking place.

G. W. F. Hegel wrote “God is dead” in “The Phenomenology of Spirit “(1807)) as an important part of understanding the nature of the divine in the Christian faith, not as negating its existence. In discussing religious beliefs he attempted to stay away from the specifics of religious dogmas, definitions and imagery. This led him to create a Hegelian language on religion that needs to be mastered ahead of any consideration of his ideas. For the layman, it is enough to discover that modern Judaism is much influenced by Hegel’s abstract ideas. Hegel also proposes that religion, particularly Christianity with its Jewish ancestry, represents a culmination of the union of the divine and human nature in a way that neither purely symbolic nor doctrinal conceptions of God can achieve. The essential idea that is the basis for this conclusion is the recognition that the human person possesses self-determination, agency, it is capable of thoughtful and deliberate actions, and thus capable of moral behavior. This is what the faithful believe with the phrase “created in his image”. It is also the essential idea that led to the discovery of the economic laws that govern the free market economy, the free enterprise economy, or just plainly, the market. Adam Smith had described it as just “an extension of our natural liberty”.

The Cult to Reason during Robespierre's period of the French Revolution

      The intellectual currents of rationalism and empiricism were at the heart of The Enlightenment. Skepticism, agnosticism and atheism are but a step away when faith is lost. The inheritance received by the agitators nurtured in the sequels of the French Revolution came with many direct attacks against the Catholic Church. The repression against opponents included the massacre of over 10,000 priests and nuns, taking over churches and universities, and lands and rents. Religion was found to be in the way of revolution. A religion of the state was created: The Cult of Reason. When Napoleon, the military hero of the revolution needed the Pope to crown him to legitimize his takeover as Emperor, he reinstated -barely recognized its existence legally- the Catholic religion as the one most French people professed.

God is Dead...He is Risen

Since Medieval times, writings using the phrase “God is Dead” or a similar reference about the death of Christ had centered on its meaning as a component of his humanity, the cycle of redemption, and the passing to an afterlife. That is, an affirmation of the faith. Eighty years passed for the same three words of Hegel to change their meaning into Nietzsche’s opposite. Marx has much to do in the process and the explanation is in the one word that also turned Hegel’s dialectic idealism into its opposite: materialism.

 Marx baptized his method as “dialectical materialism”. He borrowed the first word from Hegel but applied it to formulate a model to explain the causes of history. I have discussed how limited it is and its main flaws as it was based on insufficient and incomplete historical data, it lacks predictability, it was based on erroneous economic science, and it contradicts the open-ended principle of an evolutionary process which generated the model. The second word, materialism, shaped his proposed communist vision into what it actually becomes, as all the evidence shows, and not in the workers’ paradise he promised. Solzhenitsyn claims that sixty million people died in the Soviet Union as a result of communist policies. The Washington D. C. Museum of the Victims of Communism places the number world-wide at more than one hundred million. Independent estimates that include proxy-wars, terrorism, guerrilla wars and famines in failed communist states, raise the number of victims in 125 years to more than 250 million people. How many more have been added with the Russian invasion of Ukraine?

The word “materialism” is now commonly used as in “Material Girl” (Madonna 1985), describing an extreme inclination to consume, to buy, or to have wealth at the expense of other forms of personal satisfaction such as love, relaxation, friendship, visiting a museum, listening to music, or just reading. In philosophy it refers to a current of thinking that developed in the XVIII century during the early part of The Enlightenment. As incredible as it may seem to some, its essential idea developed more than 25 centuries ago when a Greek called Democritus conceived of “the atom” as a universal component of all matter.

Materialism as a philosophical doctrine proposes that only material beings exist. Its opposite is idealism. Materialism includes living beings, such as humans. It was particularly influential in France. It challenged traditional views of human nature and morality, suggesting that everything from our nervous system to our thoughts and emotions could be explained by the physical sciences, such as electrochemical processes in the brain, or hormones and essential minerals in our body. It is obvious these beliefs leave out of existence anything metaphysical or spiritual. This led to a conflict with traditional religion and morality, as it seemed to leave little room for God and free will. It also destroys the fundamental idea behind the science of economics. Man is moral choice, says an old aphorism. I can add from personal experience that definitely, Woman is shopping choice. Human action, deliberate and purposeful, is the source of ethics as much as it is the foundation of economics and other behavioral sciences. Materialism, in its essence, sees the universe operating like a machine governed by unalterable laws, which also apply to human beings. The first qualities that are denied of us are our free will and our individuality. We are to obey invariably to the same stimuli; we respond like programmed robots. "Religion is the consolation of the oppressed, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions” really means in Marx’s ideological construction: God’s grace is a useful fiction that keeps quiet those in need. God’s love is used to control those that suffer. God’s mercy is used to redeem the fallen. Robespierre, Lenin and Mao tried to destroy God, religion and the churches. Marx did not call for that. That is why Putin rebuilt the Orthodox churches and finances their operations. That is why the Orthodox Patriarch of Moscow blessed the invasion of Ukraine. That is why all religions in China are controlled by the state. That is why Jesuit Pope Francis allowed Xi to appoint the bishop of Lüliang. That is why Jesuit Marxists came up with the phrase “preferential option for the poor”, led young seminarists into the path of Liberation Theology which inevitably took many to become guerrilla warriors in the less developed countries of the world and kill in the name of Christ, the revolutionary.

In the unidimensional material world, the human person does not exist. Only the collective of equal bodies is recognized, very much like an anthill or a beehive. They behave either controlled by DNA, or by instinctive reactions to the environment. Science has provided a new option of controlling human behavior: conditioning, brainwashing. The state controls education. The sole purpose of existence of the parts is the functioning and preservation of the whole. Society exists with immutable laws and disposable humans. That is why the role of the proletariat is to produce more workers for the factories of the beehive. Their life has no meaning beyond their reason to exist which is to support the state. That is why they will be provided with what they need, but they are expected to give all they can according to their ability.

By having taken the route of materialism, Marx-Engels reduced the multidimensional and holistic complexity of the human person to that of a grain of sand in the ocean. They committed the same error, but multiplied it a hundredfold, when the complex social order is reduced to a pile of sand without accounting for the ocean, the sun or the weather. This reasoning error is called reductionism. Today, the social sciences recognize that their object of study, the social order, is a complex phenomenon that although it results from human action, is not the product of human design. The appearance of market prices comes from the future as interpreted by the individual expectations of all buyers and sellers. They are constantly changing. No one can possess the timely information to emulate this process. It is not a matter of having all the data of past prices, or the size or speed of the computer. Supply chains in an ever changing world market would be another example. Humility has yet to come to the attitude of most economists.

There is another error. The Marxist model ends at the revolution with little to say as to what would come after. Engels tried to fill the blanks, but it was not enough. Their followers have been trying to formulate an economic theory ever since without success. A century of failures proves it. No one ever explained how the ants are supposed to be organized. Who is going to organize it and how? This naivete was exposed by Eric Arthur Blair, better known as George Orwell, when he lauds the superiority of the Marxist system.

“At normal times a capitalist economy can never consume all that it produces, so that there is always wasted surplus, and always unemployment.”  On socialism: “On a socialist economy these problems do not exist. The State simply calculates what goods will be needed and does its best to produce them. Production is only limited by the amount of labor and raw materials. Money, for internal purposes, ceases to be a mysterious all-powerful thing and becomes a sort of coupon or ration-ticket, issued in sufficient quantities to buy up such consumption goods as may be available at the moment.”

Did you know that for decades the Soviet spies transmitted to the Moscow bureaucrats detailed information about the prices of commodities and of thousands of consumer goods usually found in any American supermarket? Do you remember the newspaper inserts with special offers and coupons? Now they are in your smart phone. Think of what happens every day in the specialized markets: the stock market, the bond market, the commodities market, the precious metals market… Are market prices totally predictable?

 Marxists do not have a theory of prices, they never developed one; and even in the age of supercomputers, the market prices are changing by the second. Prices are not coming from the past; they are not history. Prices are coming from the future. Without real market prices, industry cannot have the information as to what to produce and how much. Consumers cannot distribute their limited income efficiently. The history of economic miscalculations of the socialist regimes all over the world are abundant and tragic. What do you know about the ecological and economic tragedy of the Aral Sea? Check it out. It is so gross that it changed the map of the world. The next time you see on the TV a nation starving and asking for free food from the United States, research first if it has property rights as the basis of its agriculture, or whether it is governed by socialists or Marxists, or under attack by them. It should not surprise anyone that intentional famine has been used in the past as a method to control the obedience of the population. Stalin, Mao, North Korea, Pol-pot, Congo, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen… What about Gaza? Who is blamed for the famine? Most likely climate change!!! Of course, it is caused by capitalism. 

After the failure of the collectivization of farms in Mao's China, between 15 to 20 million people died of starvation. This marked a similar episode in the Soviet Union. Famine is a policy under communism.

Blair-Orwell’s naivete was also exposed by providing the answer to who is going to organize the communist society in such a way that it will create the workers’ paradise. First sold under the banner of equality, the communist system necessarily has at least two classes of people. One class is the proletariat majority that obeys. The other class is the membership of the CP, the Communist Party that rules. Blair-Orwell wrote “Animal Farm” (1945) as a criticism to the Stalin regime that by then had been exposed for its brutality and failure. As a naïve socialist, he probably never thought he would be describing the final stage of any and all socialist experiments.

A XX Century classic, a portrayal of Stalin's Communism
How the promise of equality degenerates into totalitarianism

One of Blair-Orwell’s most famous lines and my favorite of his many artful insights into the totalitarian mindset is "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others". After revolting against the farmer, the animals initially approve the principle of equality in sharing the benefits of their labor. However, as the pigs take control, they re-write the commandment "All animals are equal" and justify their own privileges exercising their power over the other animals. What Blair-Orwell believed, as do most socialists, or at least they pretend to believe, is that the regime of the Soviet Union was a deviation from socialist dictum and Marxist “purity”. Science says it was an inevitable consequence. It was the destination of The Road to Serfdom.

Animal Farm (1945) is a satirical allegorical dystopian novella.
Coming to New York streets soon!

Theory and history have proven that socialism inevitably ends in a totalitarian regime, regardless of its name or banner. Theory and history prove that the economic conditions of any and all socialist regimes seem to work and last until the previously accumulated capital is depleted, worn out or destroyed. When the last communist leaves, he does not need to turn the lights out. They had been without power for months.

Marx-Engels began to publish their ideas of what their economic system would be and how it would operate between the 1870s and 1880s. This is more than 25 years after they had inspired the labor unions to declare the revolution against capitalism. Marx died in 1883 and Engels in 1895. The substantive work of Engels is really the backbone of what is known as Marxism, the source of all forms of modern socialism. It did not take long to be debated and debunked. Austria had then a renowned faculty of economics at the University of Vienna, then also the center of the powerful Austro-Hungarian Empire. Their academic rivals were part of the Historical School of the German universities who had been attacking the world trend towards free trade that the Industrial Revolution had promoted and was moving into Europe from America and England. Marx is a deviate product of the German focus on history. It did not take long for the Austrians to confront the Marxist-Engels schemes. The names of Menger, Wieser, Bohm-Bawerk, Schumpeter, Mises and Hayek are associated with the Austrian School. Unfortunately, what happened to the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the end of WW I, sent the Austrian scholars on a diaspora. Austria went from being one of the most expansive political countries in the world to being one of the smallest, broke and isolated. Schumpeter was the first and he became identified as a scholar with Harvard. Mises taught in New York and was a beacon at the Foundation for Economic Education, now in Atlanta. Hayek moved first to London, then moved to Chicago where he had a very productive career, before moving back to Austria and Germany. The Austrian School has flourished in America. These economists are making significant changes to the prevailing thinking in economic theory: Kirzner, Rothbard, Sennholz, F. A. Harper, Boettke, Ebeling, Selgin, L. White, and Roger Garrison, among others.

It was Eugene Bohm-Bawerk who debunked in 1898 the Marx-Engels theoretical propositions for socialism shortly after they were finally published in 1894, just before Engel’s death. A graduate in law and economics, after serving in the civil service, he taught at the University of Vienna. He was appointed Minister of Finance for several periods between 1995 to 1900. At the time of WW I he had returned to teaching. The collapse of the Austrian Empire sent the Vienna school into oblivion. The work of the early Austrian academics was not available in English until decades after WW I. The work of Schumpeter, Mises and Hayek only became known until after they moved to the West before the start of WW II.

HAYEK'S WARNING - CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW

THE ROAD TO SERFDOM

Nothing I have written in these pages is new. One does not need to know advanced mathematics to understand the flaws of socialism in any of its forms, regardless of the masks that conceal its true identity or the language its mobs are chanting. It is not necessary to discuss the details or get involved in endless debates about the doublespeak that was invented to disguise its lack of substance. It has been debunked before and the arguments are the same.

Five easy-to-read books go directly to the heart of the matter. They are: “Bureaucracy” (1944) and “Socialism” (1922) by L. von Mises; “The Road to Serfdom” (1944) and “Fatal Conceit” (1988) by F. A. Hayek; and “Atlas Shrugged” (1957) by Ayn Rand. They are all in print and also available in the thrift market. 

Rand wrote for the general public from the perspective of a victim of the Soviet regime of terror, but very alarmed about what she was witnessing in America as it plunged into the masked socialist regime of FDR. She provides in her novels the illustrations to Hayek’s “Road to Serfdom”. Several of her novels were made into movies.

A note of interest is that Ayn Rand was originally a refugee from the early days of the Soviet Union. She made her life in New York. Her real name was Alissa Rosenbaum. She was born on February 2, 1905, in St. Petersburg, she witnessed the first shots of the Russian Revolution from her balcony when she was 12 years. She moved to America in 1926. Her books and lectures became a significant force in the American Libertarian movement. In a way, she is the American Solzhenitsyn. In 1988 she wrote: “There is no difference between communism and socialism, except in the means of achieving the same ultimate end: communism proposes to enslave men by force, socialism - by vote. It is merely the difference between murder and suicide”. In my opinion, the acclaim and following she received early on turned into a cult. She began to lecture on her views about the nature of the world and humanity. In fact, she developed a doctrine that opposes Marxism that turned out to be another materialistic proposal she called “objectivism”. Many of the commentaries made about extreme egoism, or unbridled laissez faire, as reflected in the phrase “greed is good, greed is right” of the character Gordon Gekko, are really responding to Rand’s reductionist ideas. When you debate Rand’s views you are not considering the holistic, ethical and even spiritual aspects of the economic system that can just be called “the market”, without any other qualifications. The market is free, or it is not.

Ayn Rand on Park Avenue, NY

In a collection of lectures given in America and in England titled “Warning to the West” (1975), Solzhenitsyn wrote: “There is not even a single precise definition of socialism that is generally recognized; all we have is a sort of hazy shimmering concept of something good, something noble, so that two socialists talking to each other about socialism might just as well be talking about completely different things…But socialism defies logic. You see, it is an emotional impulse, a kind of worldly religion, and nobody has the slightest need to study or even to read the teachings of the early prophets…Socialism is defended with a passionate lack of reason.”

Solzhenitsyn, prisoner in the Gulag

 

ILLUSIONS, HALF-TRUTHS AND MASKS. Keywords: Marx-Engels, Lenin, Mao, brain washing, Cultural Revolution, behavioral conditioning, Joseph McCarthy, Berlin Wall, Velvet Revolution, Vaclav Klaus, Hayek, Friedman

 

The Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989

ILLUSIONS, HALF-TRUTHS AND MASKS

A meditation about the new rise of communism in America

By Xuan Quen Santos

PART  IV

“The idea of Socialism is at once grandiose and simple…We may say, in fact, that it is one of the most ambitious creations of the human spirit…so magnificent, so daring, that it has rightly aroused the greatest admiration. If we wish to save the world from barbarism, we have to refute Socialism, but we cannot thrust it carelessly aside.”

Ludwig von Mises (1951)

 

Discussing Marxism seriously has become increasingly difficult for several reasons.

The first one is most of its proponents around the world are involved in an act of faith, and not of reason. They are already invested in the political activism of the Marxist idea called “The Praxis”. They believe in the ideological construction that leads to the inevitable stage of revolution, so they are already practicing it. Instead of waiting for the workers revolution to spontaneously start, as predicted, they ignite the bombs, start the urban terrorism, kidnap capitalists and sponsor the strikes. The words luddite, sabotage, boycott, strike and picket line come from “the Marxist Praxis”. They are involved in a self-fulfilling prophecy. Their minds are closed. Job would have a hard time finding the patience to reason them out of their errors. Brainwashing is easy when compared to educating.

You may not be surprised to find out that the origin of “brain washing” dates from the Cold War period of the 1950s. It was first used as a translation into English of its literal equivalent in Chinese of the expression xi nao. The reporter was describing the procedures of how Mao’s People’s Army was treating dissidents to “clean their brains from western capitalist ideas”. It describes what happens at re-education camps with those that are not outright eliminated. It is a vulgar application of the techniques in behavioral sciences developed early in the XX century by Pavlov and Vygotsky in Soviet Russia, and by Skinner in America. The scientific term is “conditioning”. Clinical methods based on the same principles are used today in treatments of addictions, or rehabilitation of prisoners, including those rescued from religious cults or long kidnappings. During Mao’s “Cultural Revolution” (1966-76), more than 2,000,000 people were subjected to the “cleansing” treatment. Most of the victims were elder conservative intellectuals and artists, businessmen, university professors and religious leaders. It is also described as “psychological torture”, a regular tool of all the secret and spying government agencies. Do you remember “water-boarding”?  Another example of how science becomes a tool without moral limits in the totalitarian state. Do you remember “1984”?

Map of the former USSR - The Soviet Union until 1991

The second one is their ignorance of the basic mainstream and current thinking in economics. For a century, most universities and textbook writers, including the holy Ivy League institutions, teach either outright Marxism, or Keynesian Economics. Both approaches center on the control of the economy by governmental institutions. One uses the method of terror to take over. The other preaches as a method the mask of monetary and banking control -inflation- under the excuse of preventing economic crises by financing welfare entitlements -dependency-. On the way to the workers’ paradise, the first one is a short cut through hell; the second one makes a first stop at the entrance to purgatory before getting to the same destination. Torture is the necessary result of inflation, recession, economic disorder and the destruction of capital and morality; all as consequence of Keynesian Economics. The convoluted language and mathematical formulas of the technocrats that both doctrines use to mask their half-truths makes it difficult to carry on any discussion without a translator.

Serious academic Marxists are scarce but run of the mill experts are visible in the academic spheres of the United States and others occupy powerful positions in “the swamp”. Although it seems to be a surprise to many, it is not to those that remember the infamous Senate hearings of the House Un-American Activities Committee, and the investigations led by the controversial Senator Joseph McCarthy (R. Wisconsin). History has not been kind or objective to what these processes really exposed during WW II and the following decade. By admission of many of the witnesses, there were “cells” of the Communist Party in many university faculties and the cultural/arts scene. Some professors had lied about their membership in their applications for immigrant visas, or appointments to teach. A few spent time in jail, many were fired, many resigned. Soviet spies were found in the State Department and later discovered within the Manhattan Project that gave the Soviets the atomic bomb. Unfortunately, McCarthy turned the proceedings into a media circus in the new age of TV for his own personal political gain, but his excesses backfired. The discredit and counter propaganda was such that the term McCarthyism has since then become synonymous of defamation and political accusations with no basis. He died in 1957 after being censured by his colleagues. But the most important consequence of his activities was to discredit any effort that could be labeled as “anti-communism”. Until recently, calling anybody a “commie” was a big no-no, totally politically incorrect. After a few years, many of those that had admitted their political affiliations to international communism went back to teaching at their old posts, others were paid reparations.

Sen. Joseph McCarthy's campaign 

William Bennett, Reagan’s Secretary of Education, expressed McCarthy’s fall in 2007: “The cause of anti-communism, which united millions of Americans and which gained the support of Democrats, Republicans and independents, was undermined by Sen. Joe McCarthy ... McCarthy addressed a real problem: disloyal elements within the U.S. government. But his approach to this real problem was to cause untold grief to the country he claimed to love ... ¨Best¨ of all, McCarthy besmirched the honorable cause of anti-communism. He discredited legitimate efforts to counter Soviet subversion of American institutions”.

The Anti-Trump self-labeled “resistance movement” has now made evident to the general public there has been a Marxist movement festering in disguise for decades. Further study of what the House’s committee and Senator McCarthy activities exposed would show that many of the universities that have promoted riots in recent years are the same that were identified in the 1950s. The scandalous international abuse of AID’s programs to promote anti-American causes abroad is now in the open. McCarthy pointed clearly to the Voice of America, VOA (Precursor to NPR and PBS) as promoting socialist ideas. He even accused the ACLU of being infiltrated. He may have been wrong in his approach and methods, but he was prophetic if we compare his warnings to what has become very visible in 2025.

Map of Occupied Germany  West/East

I, like Fukuyama and many others who have been defending the ideas that make the American system a historical exception for its defense of the rights of individual persons, erroneously thought in 1989 that the implosion of the Soviet Union was the announcement of the end of the Marxist influence and its many disguises in the affairs of the world. I had a rude awakening in 1993. I met Vaclav Klaus.

President Ronald Reagan in Berlin, with the Wall behind
Scene of the famous speech of June 12, 1987

One of the most memorable moments in the history of the XX century took place on June 12, 1987, at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. The former capital of Germany was physically split by a tall, concrete prison wall topped with barbed wire and communist armed guards. It prevented East Germans from escaping to the side that had been freed during WW II by the western allies led by the USA. It was the peak of the Cold War. On that day, President Ronald Reagan stood in front of the wall and said: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" And, as the shofars of Jericho made the ancient ramparts collapse, the walls surrounding the entire Soviet Union began to crack and crumble.

The Fall of the Berlin Wall, notice the police and soldiers just standing by

Map of Berlin divided by the infamous wall

The Baltic states began to call for independence, strikes spread across Poland, the soviet republics on the Caucasus rebelled. Moscow began a spin into chaos. On November 9, 1989, the communist wall that divided Berlin was brought down by young people on both sides, just using their hands. The military guards just stood by and some eventually dropped their weapons and moved to the western side. Germany began its yearned unification. Just a few days later, the Velvet Revolution began next door.

Czechoslovakia’s communist government resigned after failing to suppress by force massive peaceful demonstrations of college students that began on November 17 and ended on December 29,1989. The Velvet Revolution was a response to over 40 years of communism. It received its name because of the smooth and speedy transition it made to return to self-rule and a very openly free market economy. It became obvious that a new generation had been preparing for the moment. Among them was Vaclav Klaus. I had the opportunity to visit with him for a long interview on October 17 of 1993, shortly after he assumed the position of Prime Minister.

Finance Minister of the Czech Republic in 1993
Future President in 2003-13

Klaus, born in 1941, studied economics in Prague and worked at economic research institutes and the state bank. In 1989 he entered politics and was one of the leaders of the Velvet Revolution, serving as Minister of Finance from 1989 to 1992, a position he left to become Premier of the Czech Republic. After the separation of Slovakia in 1993, he became Prime Minister of the new Czech Republic and led its economic transition to a free market. Under his leadership, the new country grew more than any other post-communist country. He left government in 1997, but he remained active in politics. He was elected the second President of the Czech Republic in 2003, serving until 2013.

Asked about the speedy progress the Czech Republic had made under his guidance as Minister of Finance, he replied: The country is progressing in every way: political. economic and institutional. “The Czech people have already become accustomed to the lowest inflation rate in the region. We have one of the lowest unemployment rates in the world and a balanced fiscal budget, the only one in the region. This has led to monetary stability, which makes it unnecessary for citizens to hoard foreign currencies. People have already regained confidence in the Czech Krona, our currency, which is a very positive sign that we have been successful. The domestic savings rate begins to grow, which means that people already have a positive view of their future and their country.”

We discussed the European Union and the role the United States and international organizations, such as the World Bank or the IMF could play in the future of his country. His answers were eye openers. “I want to highlight the fact that the rest of the world underestimated the invisible and silent changes that had been going on for many years in the countries behind the Iron Curtain... They went unnoticed outside… Before the Revolution we moved tirelessly, waiting for events any day. Something was already in the air, and we were preparing at full speed for it… Paradoxically, we were much better prepared for the collapse of communism than the West, especially Western Europe, which was moving with the assumption that the Soviet forces were going to be still in power.” “European unification? Yes and No. Our slogan after the revolution was BACK TO EUROPE, which captured a deep-rooted Czech feeling. But that does not mean accepting the bureaucratic, centralized and unifying interventionism of the European Union.” 

Dr. Vaclav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic

Klaus received international attention for his firm stance against international aid programs and for his rejection of advice from multinational finance organizations. He had clearly defended his free market positions and policies usually associated with neoliberalism. I inquired further, and his answers are illuminating: “As an economist and not as a politician, I had studied all the books written by Milton Friedman, Friedrich von Hayek, James Buchanan and others of similar thought that definitely influenced my thinking. However, this influence was not only in economic aspects but also in fundamental political aspects. When the reforms or practical measures that we have adopted are analyzed, they are neither more nor less than the application of what is described as a market economy in any good textbook. There are no longer fundamental differences between the various thinkers. It is in political visions or models that differences appear. I am often asked by journalists what model we will follow in my country; whether it will be Sweden, the United States, England or Switzerland. Models are the product of circumstances. Our model is the Czech model that seeks the fastest way to approach what is neither more nor less than a free market economy.”

 I was surprised by the list of economists that influenced his current thinking, since his education was initially developed behind the Iron Curtain. He unequivocally said: “It is true we were educated in Marxism, but after a few years, no one was a Marxist. Not even our teachers. Our universities had to import Marxist teachers from American universities or send students there to study. We discovered our roots in the old Austrian masters who in their own time had already refuted Marx. Old books were dusted from the attics and students learned in underground classrooms. We had prepared for our return to freedom.”  “If you start anything with cloudy vision, which is the middle way or third way, you don't know where you want to get to or where you want to get out of. This is totally ineffective and does not work. You simply cannot combine incompatible elements, from different worlds. When politicians try, sooner or later they fail. That is why we must be clear and transparent in presenting our vision to the people. Opportunism does not lead to any positive results, and that is true not only in post-communist societies, but everywhere.”  His reference to the middle way or third way means in politics the social democracy/democratic socialism schemes, and in economics the New Economics of Keynes, the Neo-Keynesianism of his disciples, or other forms of government led systems of production and distribution.

I asked about the overwhelming support the Czech people gave to his leadership, to which he answered: “To speak of the market economy and liberal democracy as a platform does not seem right to me. I think it is necessary to go deeper. It is difficult to argue about whether the market economy and liberal democracy are in themselves goals, or whether they are means to achieve higher goals. For me they are means to achieve what we can call a free society, of free men and women. The market and a participatory political system are the means to achieve this, and in this sense, they are the most effective means to lead us in the opposite direction from where communism had taken us. The political platform that we have proposed to our Parliament, and to our people, begins with the individual, then continues with the family, followed by communities and municipalities, and finally the State. That sequence, that ordering vision of priorities is absolutely crucial. We did not promote either the market economy or a liberal democracy per se. We were promoting how to give people back their dignity and their civic responsibility. We believe that there is a delicate equation in every free society, and that is that freedom implies at the same time responsibility. That is the idea that must be communicated, with sincerity and transparency.  Outside of the United States, particularly in Europe, the term “liberal democracy” uses the term liberal as in liberty, from classical liberalism. The term in the United States is commonly used as a synonym of socialist. Democracy in modern times refers to a political system structured on frequent and fair elections by a “universal suffrage” of qualified citizens that vote for representatives. Liberal and democracy are two of the most abused and ambiguous words in today’s language of double-speak.

The story of Vaclav Klaus has in common his early political conversion with many other important intellectuals of our times. Abandoning socialist/communist ideas after studying what modern market economics uncovered over a century ago is shared by many. Nobel prizes Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek, cited by Klaus, were socialists by their own admissions at the beginning of their careers. Friedman was converted by his father-in-law Aaron Director, a prominent professor at the University of Chicago. He was finally influenced by Hayek, who himself was taught by Ludwig von Mises. Hayek and Mises belong to the long tradition of the Austrian School of Economics. One of Hayek’s most popular books, “The Road to Serfdom” (1944), was an indirect refutation to Keynes’ ideas of the middle way. He wrote this dedication in the first edition: “I ask my socialist friends, is there a greater tragedy imaginable that in our endeavor consciously to shape our future in accordance to high ideals we should in fact be unwittingly produce the very opposite of what we have been striving for?”

Keynesians are abundant, but since they have been the holy cows for several generations, they often don’t want to come down from their ivory towers to entertain some fundamental questions. The most influential work at the central banks and control the value of the currency. In the United States they don’t have to discuss any theories. They are applying the laws that by their own account are untouchable. They label the legal errors that empower them “quasi-constitutional”.

The Federal Reserve Building in Washington, D. C

                                      The central bank system of the United States of America

Keynesians deny any connection of their ideas to Marx’s, yet the entire Keynesian construction is based on their belief that an inherent deficiency of capitalism needs fixing, and they know how. I am referring to what became known as the “business cycle” of boom to bust, periods of inflation to recession. This was a description made by Marx resulting from what his followers labeled “the laws of capitalist motion” which ends in the implosion of the system. The end was forecasted to be an economy controlled by a few rich monopolists when competition ceased, the exploited workers were impoverished or unemployed, and unsold surplus products accumulated for lack of buyers. Capitalists then went bankrupt. This was his vision for the future. From the aftermath of WW I and on to the Great Depression, the situation in Europe was close to what Marx’s had described. Keynes appeared with his prescriptions at the right moment. Up to then, there was no agreement in field of economic science as to the causes of the “business cycle”. What if it does not exist? What if it is just a mask for half-truth interpretations of errors caused precisely by the government’s manipulation of the currency and credit, particularly in times of war?

Now, in 2025, many voices have appeared questioning the “dual mandates” of the Federal Reserve system. Most criticisms are more political in nature as they accuse the institution of favoring the party of FDR in the inclination of their decisions about interest rates and the financing of public spending. The accusers seem to want a FED that favors their own political interests. The serious voices that would point to the basic theoretical-scientific flaws of the Keynesian ideas that gave origin to the present FED legislation are just discreet whispers. They are not popular in academia. I am waiting for a champion that will loudly voice the need to discard the whole scheme and restore the constitutional function for monetary management which is to have a stable currency and a safe financial system in which the interest rates are what the market forces -We The People- establish. Some of the maverick entrepreneurs behind the crypto movement are on the right track, but they do not seem interested in proposing an overhaul of our Keynesian burdensome baggage. Will Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent be the one that opens the floodgates to a more public discussion? The time has come for a new monetary system that protects the people’s property rights, facilitates communications and transactions all over the ever-smaller world we live in, and preserves for posterity the wealth already created.

A sample of the coins representing Crypto currency

The “Denationalization of Money” was already proposed since the 1970s by Friedrich Hayek, the 1974 Nobel Prize in Economics and nemesis of Lord Keynes. He called it just a sketch, in need of more input. Hayek wrote this small book for the Institute of Economic Affairs -IEA- between breaks of his academic engagements in Austria, Scotland and London between 1976 and 1977. At the time, he was mainly occupied completing the final volumes of his magnum opus “Law, Legislation and Liberty”. In the revised version of his visionary monetary proposal, he added the following final warnings.

“I fear that since Keynesians propaganda has filtered through to the masses, has made inflation respectable and provided agitators with arguments which the professional politicians are unable to refute, the only way to avoid being driven by continuing inflation into a controlled and directed economy, and therefore ultimately in order to save civilization, will be to deprive governments of their power over the supply of money.”

It will be necessary that the problem and the urgent need of reform come to be widely understood. The issue is not one which, and may appear to the layman, concerns a minor technicality of the financial system which he has never quite understood. It refers to the one way in which we may still hope to stop the continuous progress of all governments towards totalitarianism which already appears to many acute observers as inevitable. I wish I could advise that we proceed slowly. But the time may be short. What is now urgently required is not the construction of a new system but the prompt removal of all the legal obstacles which have for two thousand years blocked the way for an evolution which is bound to throw up beneficial results which we cannot now foresee.”