Just recently I decided to reengage with Paul Johnson's book "Intellectuals" which is basically about some really "smart" people who are often well published, taken seriously as intelligent people, but really not that smart. Being often curious about the origins of Communism and Naziism, I decided to reread his section on Karl Marx.

Johnson describes Marx as man devoted to his apocolyptic views where the downtrodden would soon overcome the ruling class. The workers would overthrow the factory owners and the decline of capitalism was inevitable. or was it? Marx could have sought an answer by investigating the life of workers or the economic conditions of the factory, but alas, he did not. Johnson says his ideas were pretty much academic and had no relation to the real world. Often Marx spoke in jargon that reflected a mind of theory and nothing else. for instance

"the proletariat can only exist world-historically, just as communism, its actions, can only have world-historical existence."

"Communism is empirically only possible as the act of the ruling people all at once and simultaneously, which presupposes the universal development of productive power and the world commerce which depends on it." (johnson, p. 59 paperback)

What the heck does this b.s. mean?

I also read a book (can't remember the name) from a guy about Hitler's early life and he, also, thought in terms of some cerebral other-worldly existence that came about some time in the future but now did not. It occured to me this is, perhaps, the hallmark of facism - it's dependence on thinking about a world that does not exist but could conceivably, at least to the true believers. Then I thought of the OWS.

Let's think about some of the things said by them. Let's first take a cue from Obama. In a visit with Joe the Plumber, he said he wanted to "spread the wealth around." Now, in reference to Marx, I have to ask "what does that mean?" It sounds like academic Jargon from a man who hasn't ever actually worked in a company making any wealth just as Marx never spent any time in factories learning about working conditions of employees.

Now, the first question is: how to you distribute wealth? I have no idea. Even increased taxes do not do that.

Now let's take the OWS movement. Wall street is representative of the actions of a number of companies whose stock is sold by people who mostly want to earn profit on it. To occupy Wall Street to protest the wealth within companies who are represented by it is to protest the octopus by occupying one of its legs. Wall Street is that mult-legged beast that brings profit to many with companies that have put a lot of money into the pockets of employees and, at large, increased the living standard of many. Wall Street, as a power hunger monster who needs to be tamed and fleeced of its gold to be distributed to the poor, lives only in the minds of academics like OWS who are imagining a world that does not exist.

I used to work for a company called Journal Communications. their stock was publicly traded and you could say I was part of Walll Street - although a minor part. But you wouldn't ever see any OWS occupy my house protesting corporate greed. and that's the point.

How do you bring down such an ideology? by simply asking a lot of questions to people who propogate such unreal fantasies. Such as:

1. Is it really true that we should give some kind of powerful group like the government power to determine how much wealth each individual should have?

2. what really is your evidence that some kind of socialism will bring a better life style than capitalism?

3. how is governmental taking of someone else's wealth to give to others who did not earn it different than legal theft?

People with the "grand vision" cannot answer individual questions like this because they don't deal with the real world as it is. Their ideology demands they don't. That is what is so attractive about it: they hope through their actions they will bring about a world that does not exist but could if they only work hard enough.