Larry Kudlow: In a communist system, the state is everything

Yesterday we were all disappointed that neither President Biden, nor Madam Psaki were willing to slam Cuban communism.

We are Americans together, and here's what I suggested last night:

"It’s OK to come out against communism."

Today I’m very proud of Madam Psaki and President Biden, who undoubtedly gave a green light to a fierce attack on Cuba and its totalitarian system.

Take a listen, hardline:

"Communism is a failed ideology, and we certainly believe that it has failed the people of Cuba. They deserve freedom. This has been a government, an authoritarian, communist regime, that has repressed its people and has failed the people of Cuba."

Again, I’m proud of the Biden’s for getting to it. 

Just a quick additional thought:

In a communist system, there is no freedom—no freedom of speech, religion, and media. There are no elections. There's no democracy. There's no nothing. The state is everything. 

Outside of the czars, commissars, and nomenklatura, the rest of the people in the communist regime, like the old Soviet Union, East Germany, or now Cuba and Venezuela, have nothing. Nothing. 

They are totally impoverished, and if something says something against the state, basically the commissars will line them up against the wall and shoot them. No one knows how many people were killed by Joe Stalin or Mao Zedong. It could be 100 million easily. No one will ever know what the evil empires did.

WHITE HOUSE CALLS COMMUNISM A 'FAILED IDEOLOGY' AFTER HISTORIC CUBA PROTESTS

Here's the economic point — communism is a completely state-run economy. The state controls the means of production. They control all distribution systems, all consumer outlets. They control all prices, and, of course, there are no markets. 

The commissars set prices and production goals in so-called five-year plans, which, of course, failed catastrophically down through the years. 

My former boss, Ronald Reagan, was completely right when he kept arguing that the internal contradictions of Soviet communism -- meaning the collapse of their economy – would doom them to the dust bin of history.

Nobody believed him, but the Gipper was right.

Remember the old Soviet phrase: "You pretend to work, and we pretend to pay you."

Now, there's a big difference between that Soviet communism, which is practiced today in Cuba and Venezuela, and the kind of woke, socialist tendencies of today's Democratic Party. It's a big difference.

However, the reason I’m using the term "woke economics" is that, in general terms, "woke" has come to mean left-wing ideology, left-wing politics. You might say the "economics of redistribution," not "growth." The economics of income leveling — so-called "equity" — at the finish line instead of opportunity at the starting line, and of course, woke various representations of identity politics.

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To me at least, this new $3.5 trillion plan coming out of the Senate is a representation of more central planning and governmental control over our economy than any time previous in history. 

This is not seizing the means of production, but it is moving in a direction that is socialistic and is moving outside the normal boundaries of American politics. 

This Democratic Party is completely different than the one I supported in my youth, helping Allard Lowenstein, Ed Musky, Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Completely different than Bill Clinton and proposing policies that are inappropriate and threatening our prosperity and our economic freedoms. 

Look, we are in an economic boom. Whether temporary or not, inflation is soaring. The last thing we need is huge spending, which will generate continued massive deficits.

That will at least partly be monetized by the Federal Reserve, and at the same time, the last thing we need is massive tax hikes across the board, which will cripple investment, production, employment and wages. In effect, this government planning on a grand scale, presented by our Democratic friends, will be increasing demand and curtailing supply.

If it is legislative, the result will be a collapse of king dollar, a permanent jump in inflation, and a major decline in the economy.

That's the last point I want to make.

This whole approach, in my view, is a declinist approach. It curbs the animal spirits of free enterprise and raises the power of government bureaucratic planners in the Washington swamp. It will damage us at home and weaken us abroad.

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Mr. Biden may or may not realize it, but he is becoming a manager of American declinism, and that is not where we want to be. 

I worked proudly for two presidents who wanted to make America greater and greater, keep our city on the hill and provide a beacon of light for all the world to see— the benefits of a free country, a democracy of freedom, and a free economy.