The Marxist Roots of Obama’s Economic ‘Pivot’

by Joel B. Pollak

President Obama’s advisers assure us that he will use his State of the Union address tonight to deal with our nation’s ailing economy. Americans have already begun to hear talk of a “hard pivot” at the White House, away from health care and towards jobs.

Yet in economic terms, the president’s shift thus far has been more of the same: more government control and less individual freedom.

Karl Marx

His attacks on banks—including a new tax that will invariably be passed on to consumers—caused stocks to plummet last week. He has targeted some banks for being “too big,” but without ending the costly policy of “too big to fail,” which removes the discipline of risk and reward. He crowed, “We want our money back,” but wants to use “our” money for his own spending programs, not for tax relief.

The central idea of the President’s new plan appears to be shaping up as a jobs program, in imitation of FDR’s public employment programs during the Great Depression, and funded by new taxes on Wall Street.

The plan is not about job creation—more jobs could be created by the private sector—nor is it about recouping the bailout. It is primarily about redistribution—and is based on old, bad ideas.

Look for two key words likely to appear in the President’s speech: “productive” and “unproductive.” These come from Democrat strategist Robert Creamer, who recently wrote a blog at the Huffington Post entitled: “Tax Bank Bonuses and Capital Gains of Wealthy to Pay for Jobs Program.” Creamer argued that the government should tax the “unproductive financial sector” and “incentivize productive work” instead.

Creamer is no obscure pundit. He is the likely architect of the Democrats’ political strategy on health care reform, outlining it in a book he wrote in federal prison in 2006. He has also been a guest at the Obama White House, together with his spouse, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL). And his Huffington Post columns frequently coincide with the White House message of the week, both in substance and style.

The false distinction between so-called “unproductive” and “productive” work has a long and sordid history. It was a cornerstone of Marxist economic theory, and was also a staple of antisemitic rhetoric in Europe. Jews, barred by law from owning land and practicing certain trades, became prominent in finance—“unproductive” work, to their detractors—and were scapegoated during times of economic turmoil.

Last week, Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League feuded with radio host Rush Limbaugh over whether the Obama administration’s attacks on banking had any antisemitic resonance. Regardless, the policy is wrong, motivated and by a tired and self-destructive Marxist idea: using the heavy hand of government to shift wealth from “unproductive” Wall Street to “productive” Main Street.

What this Congress and White House—and their political advisers—fail to understand is that Wall Street and Main Street depend on each other. The financial sector doesn’t simply create wealth for itself; it also creates markets for the products Main Street sells, and investment for the jobs Main Street needs. Conversely, if Main Street cannot produce earnings and create new jobs, Wall Street cannot profit or survive.

Americans understand this intuitively—which is why there has been little appetite for the war on “unproductive” work that Creamer and his associates are trying to incite. There has been relatively little antisemitism, either, despite the fears of some Jews that the appearance of Jewish names among Wall Street’s fraudsters and failures might provoke hatred. Americans are above and beyond all of that.

Not so, Creamer and other left-wing strategists—who insist that the Obama administration must not drop its radical policies, but repackage them in populist rhetoric. Americans are not likely to be fooled—not least because the political class fails to practice what it preaches. Perhaps if President Obama gave up golf, or returned his Wall Street campaign contributions, people might start to listen.


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Posted Jan 27th 2010 at 7:17 am in Congress, News, Obama, Politics | 108 Comments