(Editor's note: This is Part I in series on Taylor Caldwell's commentary, "The middle class must not fail or all will be lost.")
What? I received my property tax bill today, punishing me for daring to own my own home. Does anyone remember the phrase "no taxation without representation"? What about the Boston Tea Party? Does anyone remember what the Revolutionary War was all about? Do they even teach that in school anymore? Probably not, but let's move to the 21st century.
Do you know how many different taxes you pay throughout your daily life? Would 100 different taxes, directly or indirectly, surprise you? How many did you vote for, decide on or approve? Not a single one that I recall.
But wait, as the commercial says, there's more! Are you aware that "welfare currently pays more than a minimum-wage job in 35 states, even after accounting for the Earned Income Tax Credit, and in 13 states it pays more than $15 per hour"? Why work?
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In 1974, a very perceptive lady named Taylor Caldwell wrote a frighteningly insightful commentary ("The middle class must not fail or all will be lost," appearing first in The Review of the News, a predecessor of The New American) on the why of the preceding. Let's let her paint the portrait with her own brush:
"With the rise of the industrial civilization in the world, about 200 years ago, there also arose a social body which we know as the middle class. Before that, most of the world suffered under a feudal system in which the people were truly slaves of their governments in all things. There was no strong buffer between them and their despotic rulers, no assurance of freedom to pursue commerce and to live decently, to keep the fruits of their labor and hold the pain of tribute at a minimum. The middle class made the dream of liberty a possibility, set limits on the government, fought for its constitutions, removed much of governmental privilege and tyranny, demanded that rulers obey the just laws as closely as the people, and enforced a general civic morality.
"Sound leaders looked to the experience of Rome, the first to encourage a middle-class, noting that Rome had been a strong and prosperous Republic, with much public virtue, a large degree of freedom for every citizen, and a constitution (the Twelve Tables of Law) on which our own is based. After the fall of Rome, governments had everywhere destroyed the middle class, returned to despotism, and entered the dark ages. It had been centuries since a rising middle class resolved to keep government at a minimum and to force respect for the people and eschew tribute except for such absolute necessities as armed forces, street protection, and the guarantee of the authority of contracts in commerce.
An international elite
"Those who for centuries have ruled their nations, from father to son, in total despotism, realized that they were threatened. Were they not the elite, by divine right? Were they not by birth and money entitled to rule a nation of docile slaves? Did the people not understand that they were truly inferior dogs who needed a strong hand to rule them, and should they not be meek before their government?
"Little wonder that the elite hated the middle class which challenged them in the name of God-given liberty. And little wonder that this hatred grew deeper as the middle class became stronger and imposed restrictions through which all the people, including the most humble, had the right to rule their own lives and keep the greater part of what they earned for themselves.
"Clearly, if the elites were to rule again, the middle class had to be destroyed. It had to be destroyed so despotism and the system of tribute could be returned, and grandeur and honor and immense riches for the elite – assuring their monopoly rule of all the world. For you see the elite of all nations, then as now, were not divided. They were one international class, and worked together and protected each other. But the middle class laughed and said, 'We will bind you with the chains of our Constitution, which you must obey also, lest we depose you, for we now are powerful and we are human beings and we wish to be free from your old despotism.'
"The elite did not give up. While it profited from the industrial revolution which under liberty of enterprise freed the people from the feudal and despotic systems, and which gave a new birth to the middle class, it also hated the threat to its own authority. It did not wish to destroy the industrial revolution; it wished to use it for its exclusive purposes. In the early 19th century this elite looked for a way, once and for all, to regain its power and extort tribute from the people and so destroy the burgeoning middle class which stood in its way, and to subdue the populaces again to their proper role as slaves of government by the elite.
Conspiratorial advance
"Through the 'League of Just Men,' elitist conspirators sought a fanatic to cloak the point of their purpose in slogans and attainment. The man they hired was Karl Marx. Certainly Marx was no worker; he had never soiled his hands with labor. He hated the middle class, which he contemptuously called the bourgeoisie, for he considered himself superior in mentality and breeding to what he called 'the gross merchants of commerce and exploitation.' He did not attack the waiting despots, no indeed. They were of one mind with him. Rather he proposed in his books and pamphlets the return to government of the total power to exact tribute from the people in order that the government might better direct every phase of the people's lives, as he asserted, 'for their own welfare.' The elite, in turn, would control the governments.
"Marx began to accuse the middle class of heinous crimes and aroused the workers against their benefactors. He labored to create envy and malice among the workers – all aimed at the entrepreneurial middle class, which had raised the them from serfdom, restored their human dignity, and given them liberty for the first time in nearly 2,000 years.
"Karl Marx was made to order by the self-styled elite. They financed the propagation of his sedition all over Europe and in America. They bled France and Germany with it. They financed sedition in Russia. And the plan began to succeed. By 1910 the Scandinavian countries had already fallen to the socialism of Karl Marx. Only three nations stood between the elite and their ambitions – the British Empire, czarist Russia, and the United States of America.
"Much is now made of supposed czarist tyranny. But the fact is that the czar of Russia had already granted his people a greater measure of freedom. A constitution had been established, and a parliamentary system. Russia, too, was well on her way to nourishing and encouraging a middle class.
Hate and envy
"The elitists were anxious to promote the Marxist notion of demanding tribute from the people, for only through forced tribute could freedom be destroyed and the people reduced again to forced labor for the benefit of the elite. Only thus could the middle class be eliminated. So, we have Karl Marx's infamous notion, 'to each according to his needs, from each according to his ability.' That is a foundation for slavery and tribute. Marx and the elite had a juicy bait for the workers, who were deluded to envy and hate the middle class which had freed them. If the riches were taken away from the middle class, then the workers would become their equals. Marx called this redistribution of wealth. Not wealth from the elite, with their vast fortunes in every country of the world – inherited fortunes which would not be taxed as income – but wealth from the strong middle class, which would be robbed in the name of the people. Only earned income would be vulnerable to seizure.
"But in the way of all this happiness for the conspiring international elite, and the slavery of the people, stood the United States, the British Empire, and czarist Russia. They would have to be destroyed." (To be continued …)
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