Liberals like to pretend that they are advancing civilization. On the contrary...

Jeffrey Folks | March 28, 2026

Liberals like to pretend that they are advancing civilization, moving forward, progressing.  Hence the moniker “progressive.”  But that term raises the question of exactly what liberals wish to advance toward.

The reality is that liberals are not progressing anywhere.  They are engaged in a repression of freedom and natural impulses that is inherently and inevitably authoritarian.  As George Orwell understood so well, the end point of liberal thought is a police state, in which personal freedom is suppressed in the name of some greater good, whether that be social equity, globalism, or some form of ethnic or sex-based equality and reparations.  Liberalism is repressive at its core: It cannot allow a free discussion of its intentions, since that discussion would quickly expose how repressive it is of the very impulses that make us human: the love of freedom, of family, of nation, of local environment, and of God.

In place of these natural human impulses, liberals instill a repression that is always on guard against those who would “fall back” toward being fully human.  The Communist Manifesto is the most succinct statement of progressive principles, and it is the foundational document that underlies the thinking of every modern-day liberal, even those who may not have read it or deny any connection with it.  In their manifesto, Marx and Engels are transparent about what natural behaviors they intend to suppress and how they will do it.

The Communist Manifesto states explicitly that its authors intend to eliminate private property, the family, religion, national ties, and the capitalist means of production, all of which will be taken over by the centralized power of the State.  In Marx’s view, the entire history of human society is a matter of class struggle — in the past between the feudal class and the bourgeoisie, then at the current stage between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.  Given the “fact” that everything is a matter of class struggle, it follows that all aspects of private and social existence must be reclaimed and converted to communal existence controlled by centralized authority.  Even children are no longer to be the property of their parents, but the property of the State, educated in Marxist principles from an early age in State schools.  And given the fact that the bourgeois and proletariat are actually at war, no tactic is prohibited: “By any means necessary” is the slogan of modern-day Marxists and progressives (the same thing), just as it was for Marx and Engels.

The Manifesto is a work filled with hatred and envy, written by a hypocrite who attacked capitalism while he was supported indirectly by the capitalist inheritance of his friend and co-author, Frederick Engels.  Not only was he a hypocrite, but he was widely regarded as having exploited the very sort of worker whom he made the object of his writings — a housemaid named Helene Demuth, with whom, evidence suggests, he carried out an adulterous relationship and had a child out of wedlock, although Marx kept the affair secret and refused to acknowledge the child.

Not only was Marx hateful toward and envious of the system he attacked, but he was entirely willing to resort to force in changing it.  In the Manifesto, Marx writes repeatedly of “seizing” capital and control of the means of production and of the forced transfer of agricultural land to “common ownership,” which is to say ownership by the State.  Marx’s entire system was based on the use of deadly force.  How else would capitalists and landowners, and even small workshop owners, be persuaded to hand over their means of livelihood?

It goes without saying that under communism, very little innovation or entrepreneurial activity would take place.  Why would venture capitalists risk their precious dollars in enterprises only to have them seized by the State?  Marx himself addressed the question of whether communism would make workers “lazy,” but he had no convincing answer other than the whip.

Having read the Communist Manifesto, we can understand the willingness of progressives to sacrifice human freedom — and human life — in the service of their ends.  Pol Pot was the most extreme of 20th-century communists, though not the most destructive in absolute numbers.  After receiving an education in Marxism in France, Pol Pot returned to Cambodia with the intention of wiping out all vestiges of traditional institutions and thought, just as Marx had proposed, and to do so, he felt it necessary to murder all educated persons — even wearing eyeglasses was grounds for elimination — and of all persons whatsoever over age thirty, since those persons were presumably tainted with anti-progressive thoughts and feelings.

Lenin’s genocide of the kulaks, with an estimated death toll of as many as 600,000, and Mao’s Cultural Revolution, with a death toll of between one and two million, were predicated on similar theories.  Likewise, during Stalin’s Great Purge, between 700,000 and 1.2 million were executed or imprisoned and tortured.  These violent acts were intended to eliminate entire classes of people whose affiliation with liberty, tradition, and capitalism made them enemies of the State.  In every situation where communism has been tried — in Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela, Vietnam, Laos, and the rest — there has been the same sort of repression, though perhaps on a lesser scale.

But what of “democratic socialism”?  Is it at all different from communism, and does it also repress freedom and humanity?  A good example of democratic socialism is the administration of Clement Attlee, whose Labor Party defeated Churchill in 1945 and remained in power until October 1951.  As prime minister, Attlee nationalized basic industries and expanded government services such as those for health care and housing, though these “services” did not alleviate shortages and only added to crushing government debt and resultant fiscal crises.  One can argue that Attlee’s social assistance programs alleviated immediate suffering, but they did so at great cost to the nation’s long-term growth and prosperity.  No subsequent Labor leader served as long as Attlee, and for good reason.  The British became disillusioned with democratic socialism and eventually returned to a more capitalist style of government.

Similarly, for decades, Denmark was governed as a democratic socialist country.  From1961 to 2024, the Danish growth rate averaged minus 2.9%.  The destruction of economic growth does not merely hit at the pocketbook level; it eliminates opportunities for personal development, choice of health care, travel, education, and satisfaction not available when one is impoverished by high taxes.  Only when Denmark restored a more capitalist economy and the personal freedoms that go with it did the GDP begin to rise, as it did to 6.5% in 2021.  “Far from a socialist utopia, Denmark is moving closer to American-style economic policies,” according to Populist Policy.

More so than Attlee or former socialists in Denmark, Mayor Mamdani of New York City is a self-proclaimed democratic socialist, and nearly all of the points Marx and Engels make in the Manifesto are reiterated in his platform, including transfer of essential services such as grocery stores, transportation, housing, and State-run early childhood education.  As for the use of force, Mamdani constantly speaks of wealth taxes and increased income taxes that would transfer capital from private individuals to the State, and of course these would do so by force (the threat of incarceration if not paid).  Mamdani is a wolf in wolf’s clothing, openly proclaiming his ties to Marx despite almost two centuries of failed communist experiments.

It’s time to come to our senses and admit that Marxism in all its guises is destructive and evil.  What Mamdani and others in America are doing may seem like “Marxism light,” but if allowed to continue, it might soon devolve into the nightmare of hardcore communism.

Jeffrey Folks is the author of many books and articles on American culture, most recently Heartland of the Imagination (2011).

Image: david__jones via Flickr, CC BY 2.0.

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