The concept of class identity and struggle (dialectic materialism) was first introduced by Karl Marx in his Communist Manifesto (1848).. Marx described a two-class society where where the well to do bourgeois capitalist class victimized the proletariat working class with the proletariat eventually destroys the bourgeois capitalist class; thus, setting the stage for "the end of human class struggle".. What Marx didn't anticipate was the rise and development of a third economic class, the emergence and growth of what became the Middle Class..
This rising Middle Class was the the direct outgrowth of "bottom up" capitalism, free markets and private property rights which permitted Marx's proletariat class to become gradual accumulators of wealth which eventually developed into the vast Middle Class in Europe and North America.. Marx mistakenly though that Capitalism would be crushed by the revolutionary forces of Economic Determinism, but instead the economic growth and the expansion of free markets, private property rights and wealth accumulation permitted the massive growth of the new Middle Class..
Today the attributes of Capitalism have gradually given way to "top down" Socialism where expanding government power has started to eliminate the Middle Class.. In effect, most governments of today control the economic system and most economic decisions are made by the self-interest public sector.. Under Socialism, government "top down" decision making is not about reason and rationality.. It is void of sound knowledge and historical experience.. Its all about government establishing authoritarian power and control over the masses which become economic dependents of collective state.. Individualism is debased and Collectivism is emphasized by the autocratic ruling elite.. Oppressive taxes, excessive regulations and controls gradually destroy private initiative and investment.. Consumption declines, unemployment rises and the once stable Middle Class, the backbone of a free and open society, disappears into the socialistic pit of ever expanding poverty..
Regretfully this is what is gradually taking place in our Bahamanian society as our once prosperous Middle Class is slowly disappearing into the ranks of expanding poverty.. This social and economic transformation is being crafted and engineered by the ruling elite as government central power is being consolidated by crippling socialistic and economic policies which strengthens the government's financial power and ultimate control over an unknowing and unsuspecting people.. Today the Bahamas, as well as the United States, are moving away from a free and independent, Middle Class society into a collective society governed by autocratic rule and class conflict.. As this once dominate and prosperous Middle Class gradually disappears, freedom and liberty will be relegated to the past as the socialistic utopian masters of deceit and tyranny will ultimately reign supreme in what Marx so many years ago described as the so-called "Workers Paradise".. Least we the people forget that without freedom and capitalistic growth, there can be no sustainable Middle Class.. The people will become mere economic dependents of the all powerful and encompassing socialistic state that historical, like all other socialistic states, will eventually end up in Depression and political failure..
For eternal optimists and skeptics alike take a close look at economic collapse of Venezuela and the terminal decline of socialistic Europe followed by Japan and then the once great United States.. Political economics may once again become Thomas Carlyle's dismal science..
