Communism: Mr. Obama, We Tried That, it Didn't Work Then and it Won't Work Now

by Randy Pope
Modest Clothing Distributors
Christian Worldview of History and Culture

Nobody who understands President Obama's dedication to Marxism expected any thing other than what they heard in his speech on “job creation” Thursday night [Sep. 8, ed.]. At the same time anyone who follows politics very intensely did not believe that he would be able to push a communist agenda in these United States as effectively as he has. Americans may not hold to the principles of limited government that the founders wrote into the Constitution, but neither are they communists. Give President Obama some credit here; he truly believes that communism is superior to the republicanism that the founding fathers bequeathed to their posterity. Unlike most politicians, President Obama is staying true to his deepest convictions.

Just because President Obama is exhibiting more character than most politicians is no reason to follow him, without restraint, into the “communist utopia” that he is attempting to erect. Contrary to Mr. Obama's deeply held belief in communism, it does not work. It has been shown to be deficient in the Soviet Union, in Cuba, and even China is turning to free enterprise to prop up their economy. The argument of the left in America has always been that we have not tried it. Well that simply isn't true. In the very beginning Americans did try communism.

According to their charter the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony were to live in community, distributing the goods produced according to the need of each family. The first year the colony almost collapsed. Upon the death of Governor Carver, William Bradford was elected governor. After a lengthy debate with the other leaders in the colony it was decided that they must follow the Biblical dictum, “if a man does not work, neither shall he eat.” Each man was allowed to do with the production of his hands what he willed.

According to their charter the Pilgrims of Plymouth
Colony were to live in community, distributing the
goods produced according to the need of each
family. The first year the colony almost collapsed.

William Bradford explained the experiment in communism like this, “The experience that was had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years, and that amongst godly and sober men, may well evince the vanity and conceit of Plato and other ancients... - that the taking away of property, and bring in community into a commonwealth, would make them happy and flourishing; as if they were wiser than God. For this community... was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retard much imployment that would have been to their benefit and comfort.”

The same type of communal living was attempted in Virginia in those early years too. Many who settled in Jamestown, came without family and they were seeking easy money, looking for the gold that they had heard the Indians sported as jewelry. Their society met with the same kind of fate as did the Plymouth settlers. Governor Dale tried martial law to make the communal system work, with little success. He finally acquiesced to the same Biblical principles that saved Plymouth. Once men were able to profit from their industry, productivity grew rapidly. They determined that, under communism, not as much work had been accomplished in a week as could be done in a day, under the Biblical system of private property.

Before it was called Marxism, Marxism was attempted in America, and by a populace with a godly character. It didn't work then, and it will not work now. The success of such a system is not dependent on those who are administering it. It does not work because it violates fundamental principles set forth by God in His Word. America's earliest founding fathers discovered that the hard way. Learn from history, or you “are doomed to repeat it.”

originally published in The Examiner