Obama a Socialist…or “Interventionist”?

Guest Blogger Bio: Chuck Edwards is the Director of Bible Study Curriculum for Summit Ministries and is the co-author of “Worldviews in Focus.” His email is chuck@summit.org.

I recently came across an extended interview with Barack Obama by David Leonhardt (Obamanomics, The New York Times, August 24, 2008) reporting in more detail than I’ve seen anywhere else about Obama’s mindset regarding economics. According to this article, Obama believes in the free market, hence he is not technically a socialist, which is defined as the government ownership of the means of production. On the other hand, he said in the interview he’ll just tax the productive workers in order to redistribute it!

Here are Obama’s actual words: “If you talk to Warren [Buffett], he’ll tell you his preference is not to meddle in the economy at all — let the market work, however way it’s going to work, and then just tax the heck out of people at the end and just redistribute it,” Obama said. “That way you’re not impeding efficiency, and you’re achieving equity on the back end.”

That’s called interventionism, or, as the late postmodern professor of literature at Stanford, Richard Rorty, put it, “welfare-state capitalism.” This is where the government uses regulatory policies and the tax codes to control economic outcomes (without taking ownership of the private sector) and redistribute wealth according to their purposes, or, as Obama told Joe the plumber, “spread the wealth around.” (For more on “interventionism” and how it contrasts with a free market economy, see chapter 9 of Understanding the Times, by David A. Noebel, ordered through Summit Ministries online: www.summit.org)

This is why Obama and Biden scoff or laugh it off when McCain and Palin refer to them as “socialists.” In his mind, Obama is not a socialist in the traditional understanding of the term, i.e., Marxism-Leninism as practiced in the USSR, China, Cuba, etc.

While Obama hangs out with avowed Marxists like Ayers, he personally is not committed to a total Marxist ideology. He also taught part-time for 12 years at the University of Chicago, and got to know liberal law professors who also saw the importance of a market economy. Obama said, “During my formative years [at the University of Chicago], there was still ideological competition between a social-democratic or even socialist agenda and a free-market, Milton Friedman agenda. I think it was natural for me to ask questions of both sides and maybe try to synthesize approaches.” As he said in the interview, he is a pragmatist. He understands the failings of traditional Marxist socialism. It’s obvious, even to Obama, that the USSR imploded under its own weight from not being able to feed its own people because of its economic policy.

Unlike your traditional run-of-the-mill Marxists, Obama understands that the free market is the only engine that can grow the economy and produce wealth. Yet, as he learned under the preaching of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, he also is convinced that inequality among people is not moral and should be eliminated. Wright teaches a radical Black Liberation Theology that racism is the main problem. Obama seems to have moderated that view, refocusing the oppression of blacks in particular and substituting all poor people, regardless of race. Therefore, the government must do what the wealthy will not do voluntarily, i.e., share their wealth. For this reason, government must step in to make the transfer of wealth a reality.

So while there are similarities between Obama’s views and Marxist socialism when it comes to core values (redistribution of wealth, equality of outcomes, etc.) as well as common themes with Black Liberation Theology, Obama, being a pragmatist, takes a different road to achieve the goals of these ideologies. Instead of focusing on the plight of African Americans, he talks about the plight of all middle-class and lower class Americans who are being oppressed by the wealthy upper class. And instead of state ownership of property and businesses, he proposes higher taxes on the wealthiest individuals and large businesses to stimulate more economic growth in the private sector and provide through state redistribution a larger share of the prosperity with those on the lower rungs of the economic ladder.

If our aim is to persuade moderates of the superiority of the conservative viewpoint, I suggest using the same pragmatism that Obama espouses, yet turn the tables by showing the actual results of his interventionist policies. Those policies have been tried and found wanting. Understanding Obama’s worldview reveals why he is proposing what he considers is a more moral and equitable solution for the modern American state. We can commend his intentions, but at the same time point out the unintended consequences of his proposed solutions.

For example, the reason Chrysler, in its merger with the German auto-maker Daimler, moved their new headquarters to Germany instead of remaining in the United States is because the corporate tax rate in Germany is lower than in the U.S. So if Obama raises the corporate tax rate, the result will be more companies moving overseas, further dampening the U.S. economy. (see The FairTax Book, by Neal Boortz and Congressman John Linder, p. 65-66).

The point is, if we want to keep U.S. companies here and allow the market economy to grow, we need to lower tax rates, not raise them. The reason companies move outside our borders is not because of greedy corporate executives, but because of the Federal government’s tax policies. The problem is not with greedy businessmen, the problem is with greedy politicians who play class warfare with the citizens to get elected while raking in millions for their re-election war-chests by dangling “tax-incentive” carrots in front of corporate lobbyists.

By understanding Obama’s mindset, we need to deconstruct his worldview and show the wrong-headed direction he would take the country. As John Adams wrote in a letter to Thomas Jefferson, “The general principles upon which the Fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity….” (June 28, 1813). I am convinced these principles are enduring truths that we abandon to our own peril and that of our fellow countrymen.