The left condemns concentrated wealth while demanding concentrated political power, the only kind backed by guns, prisons, and law.
I have spent much of my career around self-described communists, democratic socialists, admirers of Bernie Sanders, and professors who think Lenin and Stalin were not sufficiently progressive.
After so many faculty meetings, one begins to recognize that there are really only shades of red.
The American experiment never depended on producing perfect citizens. It depended on understanding that no political system could substitute for moral renewal.
Now, as younger voters embrace self-proclaimed socialists in places like New York, Americans naturally wonder what such movements would mean if they gained real political power. Mayor Mamdani has suggested that no problem is too large or too small for government intervention.
So let us conduct a thought experiment.
Suppose the wealthiest families accumulated their fortunes only through exploitation, political favoritism, monopoly, corruption, or violence. Suppose the rich become rich only by taking advantage of everyone else.
Even if we grant Marx that premise, where does it lead?
