171 years ago, the Communist Manifesto was first published.

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels filled the book with bold new ideas for how the working proletariat could rise up against the monied bourgeoisie.

At one point in the text, they write a check-list of the top ten goals of the communists.

This list included things like free public education, a progressive income tax, and a state-owned central banking monopoly.

That’s all been accomplished of course.

Then there are a few other goals which you might recognize as coming back into fashion these days.

For instance, Marx’s platform includes the “abolition of all rights of inheritance.”

Marx also advocated “Equal liability of all to labour. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.”

And number one on Marx’s top ten checklist was “Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.”

Marx would fit right in running for President amongst the current crowded field of “democratic socialists” clamoring to one-up each other with the most communist platform.

For instance, Bernie Sanders’ platform includes a top estate tax–aka inheritance or death tax–of 77%.

But that’s far from the only stale old idea Bernie Sanders has dug up.

Last month he announced his plan to overhaul housing and make it more affordable. This includes a 25% house-flipping tax. That, apparently to punish the people who buy crappy houses, fix them up, and sell them for a profit.

You already pay property taxes on land, which means it’s not really yours, you’re renting it from the government.

But now they think you should pay even more if you’re improving that property to sell. And Sanders wants an additional  “empty homes tax” of 2% on the total value of vacant houses.

Marianne Williamson and Pete Buttigeig have both proposed one year mandatory national service for young people.

Bill “your money’s in the wrong hands” de Blasio dropped out of the Presidential race, and went back to NYC where he’ll continue raising taxes on the people who have the nerve to invest millions of dollars in New York City property.

The wealth tax, proposed by Elizabeth Warren, was abandoned by Sweden after it didn’t work.

Virtually all the candidates are peddling some expansion of free education, whether it is giving away free college or erasing student debt. They all want the income tax to be even more progressive, with top rates of 70%+.

Current Presidential candidates aren’t proposing bold new ideas. They are rehashing old failed communist ideas.

But it’s not just communist theory that’s the problem. Countries have already tried putting the Communist Manifesto into practice.

Abolishing inheritance of property was actually one of the first things the Bolsheviks did in 1918 shortly after they came to power in Russia.

This, along with other policies to weaken the family, quickly created millions of homeless children. 

The effects were so disastrous on the economy and family, that even the Soviets reversed course, and restored inheritance rights by 1926.

Communist China abolished land ownership, instead collectivizing farms in the late 1950s. It’s no coincidence that famines from 1959-1961 in China killed millions. China too reversed course, gradually at first, but eventually restoring private property ownership.

The ideas in the Communist Manifesto have been tried by the likes of the USSR and the People’s Republic of China, only to be abandoned because of their abject failure.

But now there are new generations of victims, indoctrinated in the public school system, ready to take the bait again, hook, line and sinker.

We’ve seen how quickly the rhetoric has changed, even from just one election ago. Bernie Sanders was the furthest to the left by a clear margin. And now his fringe beliefs have become the standard rallying call of these politicians.

Right now these candidates may be peddling “communism light.” But in another four years that could turn full-bolshevik.

So it makes sense to protect yourself from the effects these proposed policies would have on you.

For instance, why fix up American houses and get punished, when you could buy foreign real estate for cheaper? Then you have assets, and a living option outside the country.

That’s especially important if they continue making their way down Marx’s checklist to, “Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.”