POLITICS
by Jim Kaness

Children progress through three political stages as they mature: communist, socialist, and finally capitalist. Let me explain this further.

A newborn baby is totally dependent on its parents for all its needs including food, shelter, and protection. The parents have virtual ownership of the child and dictate its location and circumstances. As the child grows the parents assign the child chores or tasks or duties to perform as a virtual slave of the parents, but also to begin training the child how to live in this world.

“From each according to his ability, to each according to his need” is a slogan popularized by Karl Marx in his 1875 Critique of the Gotha Program. The phrase summarizes the principles that, under a communist system, every person should contribute to society to the best of his or her ability and consume from society in proportion to his or her needs. This describes the communist status of young children in our society. As the child matures it is schooled in the ways of the family and the society it lives in. The child is expected to contribute to and repay the family and society with work and income in various forms according to its abilities and the available opportunities.

Somewhere in the child’s teen years the parents begin withdrawing their authority and transition the child toward becoming self-supporting. This transition may last into the child’s twenties or even longer. This describes the child’s socialist status in which the parents provide a safety net of emotional and financial support available as needed to the child.

As a young adult the child is freed from the authority of its parents, but not from the authority of the greater society it lives in. The adult is free to make its own decisions, good or bad by any measure, and is expected to bear the consequences of those decisions. This, then, defines the capitalist status of adults in our society. The adult is free to invest its resources and talent as it chooses and to reap the rewards of that investment. This may include creation of a family or a business or a career in any form.

Some adults feel inadequate or unwilling to take total responsibility for themselves. They prefer that the greater society- the state or nation- provide a safety net against their own misfortunes in life. These adults prefer to live in a socialist society of one form or another that will offer them protection against extreme poverty or illness or other incapacity. Pure and honest socialism works much like an insurance policy. The "premiums" are paid in the form of higher taxes by the whole population in exchange for the knowledge and comfort that in the event of individual economic or medical disaster the government will step in with meaningful assistance.

Few adults choose to live in a communist society, although some have chosen various forms of communal living or the “gang lifestyle” in response to their own real or perceived situations in life. Communism appeals to those adults who feel they have little to offer themselves or others, and who want someone else to take care of them in life.