Socialism: A Form of Mental Degeneration

Grand Strategy and Socialism
by J. R. Nyquist

Consider two categories: (1) grand strategy for states where power is constitutionally constrained; (2) grand strategy for states where power is concentrated in the hands of an unchecked oligarchy. In the first category, the grand strategist is forced into a conservative position. In the second category, the grand strategist takes a revolutionary position. It may be argued that the first position is linked to capitalism, while the second position is linked to socialism and Russia.

According to Ludwig von Mises, "It is the aim of Socialism to transfer the means of production from private ownership to the ownership of organized society, to the State. The socialist State owns all material factors of production and thus directs it." In other words, socialism signifies the concentration of economic power in the hands of government officials acting in the name of the state. The concentration of economic power naturally implies the concentration of all power - including international power. It is oddly significant, in this context, that the first socialist country was Russia, where the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics was born. Russia thereby became the "motherland" of socialism, from whence all international socialists drew their strength.

Over 110 years ago Gustave Le Bon wrote The Psychology of Socialism. According to Le Bon, the fundamental problem of socialism is found in the dangerous misfits who support the socialist cause. Le Bon warned against a host of degenerates and failures who "are made at great expense by our colleges and universities." Le Bon explained that these superfluous "graduates, licensees, instructors and professors ... will one day, perhaps, constitute one of the most serious dangers against which society will have to defend itself." As he further explained, "Notwithstanding their diversity of origin, they are united by one common sentiment - hatred of the civilization in which they can find no place."

What Le Bon could not have foreseen, however, was something that Ludwig von Mises recognized decades later: "The subversive activities of these professional plotters are dangerous precisely on account of the naivety of those who are merely flirting with the revolutionary idea. Those confused and misguided sympathizers who call themselves 'liberals' and whom the communists call 'useful [idiots]'...." The fellow-traveler plays with socialism. And whether he realizes it or not, he has been tricked along with the communists into supporting Russia's grand strategy. "The distinctive mark of all present-day communist parties," wrote Mises, "is their devotion to the aggressive foreign policy of the Soviets. Whenever they must choose between Russia and their own country, they do not hesitate to prefer Russia."

The above statement is true today, despite the so-called "collapse of communism." On the fundamental issue of foreign policy, the useful idiots align themselves with Moscow. What Mises wrote more than half a century ago is still true today: "They strictly obey all orders issued from Moscow. When Russia was an ally of Hitler, the French communists sabotaged their own country's war effort and the American communists passionately opposed President Roosevelt's plans to aid England and France in their struggle against the Nazis. The communists all over the world branded all those who defended themselves against the German invaders as 'imperialist warmongers.' But as soon as Hitler attacked Russia, the imperialist war of the capitalists changed over-night into a just war...."

The same dynamic plays out today, in terms of the Islamic threat, and the threat from Iranian nuclear weapons. The United States is blamed as an aggressor in the Middle East, just as the Western powers were blamed at the outset of World War II. The West must always apologize, along with Israel, for its alleged exploitation of the Third World. The tendency of this propaganda is to disarm the West morally, psychologically, and physically. To prove our good intentions, we now rush to the negotiating table with the intention of laying down our nuclear arms. Meanwhile, the Russians are helping the Iranian clerical regime to develop nuclear arms. Russia has agreed, as well, to give nuclear technology to Venezuela's Hugo Chavez.

As America turns to socialism, the grand strategy of the United States turns to appeasing Russia. This is because socialism (as an overall movement) signifies the consolidation of Russian and Chinese power over the entire planet, whether the socialists realize it or not. This also explains why American socialists have always denounced the wickedness of the U.S. "military-industrial complex." One might ask the question, "Aren't American socialists in favor of their own country's survival?"

To answer this question, we must turn to abnormal psychology.

"Modern socialism is far more a mental state than a doctrine," wrote Gustave Le Bon in the 1890s. "What makes it so threatening is not the very insignificant changes which it has so far produced in the popular mind, but the already great changes which it has caused in the mind of the directing classes. The modern bourgeoisie are no longer sure of their rights. Or rather they are not sure of anything, and they do not know how to defend anything."