“A spectre is haunting Europe – the spectre of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre.
“Where is the party in opposition that has not been decried as communistic by its opponents in power? Where is the opposition that has not hurled back the branding reproach of communism, against the more advanced opposition parties, as well as against its reactionary adversaries?
“Two things result from this fact: I. Communism is already acknowledged by all European powers to be itself a power. II. It is high time that Communists should openly, in the face of the whole world, publish their views, their aims, their tendencies, and meet this nursery tale of the Spectre of Communism with a manifesto of the party itself…”
Oops, sorry, wrong document. I thought I was reprinting the 2019 Labour Manifesto written by Corbyn and McDonnell, but accidentally ran out the 1848 Communist Manifesto written by Marx and Engels.
The mistake is understandable: mutatis mutandis, the two documents are identical in spirit, if divergent in some insignificant details.
It’s the details that are filling today’s papers, while the spirit is mostly ignored. Clever commentators analyse Labour’s economic planks and confidently predict that out of these planks the coffin of the British economy will be made.
Most of them display unbridled optimism by expecting the economy to collapse over time. Actually, since only God operates outside time, they have a philosophical point. But if they mean a rather long time, say months or even years, they are wrong.
The collapse will be almost instant, with perhaps another trillion’s worth of investment getting out while the getting is good. That’s on top of about £800 billion that has already fled in joyous anticipation of a Labour victory.
Still, in this matter the optimists and the pessimists differ only in the exact timing of the catastrophe. Neither doubt it’ll happen.
It’s not surprising that in our materialist, philistine age everyone thinks of politics in economic terms. “It’s the economy, stupid” and all that.
Yet the slogan by which I live my secular life is rather different: “It’s the freedom, stupid.” Having grown up under the worst tyranny the world has ever known, I wish to live out my days in freedom – as much of it as possible.
And if the Labour Manifesto ever becomes government policy, Britain will no longer be a free country. She’ll lose even the rump of liberty still surviving the concerted century-old assault on it by all major parties.
The Labour Manifesto is socialist, communist as near as damn. Hence it shouldn’t be assessed merely from the standpoint of sovereign debts, tax hikes, promiscuous spending, nationalisation and what have you.
All those things are important, but they are derivatively important. They spring from the essence of socialism and its logical extension, communism. Alas, we sometimes forget what it is, confusing essence with slogans.
Anyone who takes socialist slogans at face value must also believe that choosing a certain brand of toothpaste would make him a sex god, or that his friends will consider him a genius if he keeps his money in one bank rather than another.
Since we none of us are so credulous, let’s forget all that clamour about share-care-be aware equalities and fairnesses inscribed on Labour’s red banners. They are just flatulence or, to be kind, means to an end.
And the end towards which socialism strives, its very essence, is the juxtaposition of omnipotent state and impotent individual, otherwise known as despotism. That’s all.
Economic redistribution that so upsets most commentators isn’t a malum in se. In itself it’s ill-advised and ruinous, but not necessarily evil. What’s evil is the end it’s designed to achieve: maximum empowerment of the state with the concomitant maximum enfeeblement of the individual.
Socialism thus represents an inversion of every certitude that lay at the foundation of our civilisation, based as it is on the sovereign value of each person made in image and likeness of God.
The two strikingly similar manifestos that I pretended to confuse transfer sovereign value to the state, turning people into an amorphous, faceless, bullied mass. For make no mistake about it: any attempt to act on the Labour Manifesto will be accompanied by burgeoning political tyranny.
Labour promises free everything, but one thing that won’t be free under its government is speech. That’s why they propose to nationalise the Internet, mirroring similar measures already taken in Russia and China.
Civil unrest is bound to follow within months of Labour’s ascent, and I’m being generous. The British don’t share the French affection for barricades, but they have never been pushed as far as Corbyn’s government will push them.
And socialist, borderline communist governments always respond to civil unrest by ratcheting up violence and oppression. Hence it’s not just the British economy that’ll be torn to tatters, but Britain herself.
Only fools or knaves can vote for this midnight terror. I pray that most Britons don’t fall under this description. Because if they do, I’ll end my days in prison.
One important difference between the two manifestos is that the second one promises decriminalisation of abortion (p. 48). That means killing unborn babies up to full term. For no reason other than that the mother finds continuing with the pregnancy to be inconvenient.
That’s a new low in British politics.
I can hear it all now.
“OH, that manifesto is just a statement of ideals to work toward in the long run. None of that stuff will EVER be implemented in reality. Trust us on this one.”