The Nanny State

Learn about the Nanny State with these old magazine articles. Find information on the American welfare state from the historic magazines.

Karl Marx Reviewed (NY Times, 1887)

To be sure, the book review of Das Kapital by Karl Marx that appeared in The New York Times in 1887 was very different from the review that same paper would give that book today. For this reviewer, Marx was one of the advocates of chaos, and a militant political economist:

If he is anything, Karl Marx is a man in a towering rage. His paragraphs are replete with kicks and cuffs. He wants to slap your face if you are a bourgeois; to smash your skull if you are a capitalist.


Click here to read an article by Leon Trotsky.

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Who Pays the Bills Racked-Up in a Socialist State? (Literary Digest, 1894)

This article was written long before the crumbling Euro and the economic collapse of Greece, Spain, Portugal, Venezuela, East Germany and the USSR – it is an 1894 editorial that outlines why socialism cannot not work:

He insists that all previous Social evolutions have meant an improvement in production and an increase in income, but the peculiarity of the Socialistic programme is that “it is to be not a money-making, but a money-spending evolution,” in which “everybody is to live a great deal better than he has been in the habit of living, and to have far more fun.


This 1946 article argued that Socialism is simply un-American…

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When President Truman Tried his Hand at ”Distributing Wealth” (Pathfinder Magazine, 1949)

It seems like a tough nut to swallow, but 12 years before President Obama was even born – U.S. President Harry S. Truman plugged the idea of ‘wealth distribution’ as a portion of a piece of proposed legislation that has come to be known as the the Fair Deal. The president’s scheme was introduced to the nation in his 1949 State of the Union address, it was composed of 21 points and the element that is discussed in the attached article involving distribution of income was called the Brannan Plan – for it was U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Charles F. Brannan (1903 – 1992) who was its advocate. Secretary Brannan wanted the government to establish a guaranteed income for farmers, while allowing the market forces to determine the prices of agricultural products.

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Norman Thomas, Socialist Candidate For President (The American Magazine, 1940)

Here is a profile of the American leftist Norman Thomas (1884 – 1968), who sought the U.S. presidency six (6) times on the Socialist ticket. He was a former clergyman and despite the fact that he wished to ban all private property, nationalize all businesses and put the kibosh on a free press – he still sounded like swell Joe to us.

Norman Thomas, Socialist Candidate For President (The American Magazine, 1940) Read More »

Distribution of Wealth’ (Pathfinder Magazine, 1946)

Columnist Wheeler McMillen penned the attached 1946 editorial concerning a subject African-Americans have long recognized as problematic: American democracy and the tyranny of the majority. This has become a timely subject since President Obama introduced the term distribution of wealth to the American vocabulary during the 2008 election – this was swiftly followed-up by the Occupy movement and their Tweets regarding the ambitions of the 99 percent (meaning, majority – the Russian translation for this term is Bolshevik):

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Socialism Bad (The American Magazine, 1949)

It seems difficult to imagine, but this opinion writer felt America leaning toward socialism as far back as 1949:


While the people look more and more to Washington to do everything under the sun for them, the Federal Government hasn’t been discouraging them at all. On the contrary, the Administration has been repeatedly asking for more and more powers to use when it may see fit.


He is sympathetic to their feelings, but cautions his readers that Marxism looks alluring on the printed page – but it will simply lead to serfdom in the end

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The Utopian GBS (Time Magazine, 1923)

IF we were to have a favorite socialist it might be the silver-tongued playwright and all around-wit, George Bernard Shaw (even though in the attached film clip he blathers-on gleefully in favor of a government that kills the non-productive elements of society). In this article, Shaw muses about how the ideal society would operate – regardless of the flaws inherit in human nature (which Marx also ignored).


Click here to read a few Shavian witticisms.

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Statism (Pathfinder Magazine, 1946)

Not long after the free world had conquered fascism, the long twilight struggle against Communism commenced. Stalin’s Soviet Union had refused to comply with the treaties it had previously agreed to and was occupying North Korea and many of the Eastern European countries that the Nazis had invaded. Furthermore, Stalin was was funding armed insurgencies in Greece, Vietnam and China. In an effort to help define the tyranny that is Communism, Pathfinder ran this column that defined Communism as Statism and explained it in simple terms.

Statism (Pathfinder Magazine, 1946) Read More »

Defining the Left and the Right (Pathfinder Magazine, 1946)

Surprisingly, these definitions outlining Left and Right in American politics are almost accurate descriptions for our own day, but they still fall short in a number of areas – yet, wouldn’t it be amazing if they still sufficed after all the numerous tremors that have served to rearrange the sociopolitical landscape during the past sixty years?


When the largely agricultural province of Saskatchewan (Canada) began their flirtation with socialism they, too, started with laws involving insurance – car insurance! read about it here…

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