Shakedown Socialism: Unions, Pitchforks, Collective Greed, The Fallacy of Economic Equality, and other Optical Illusions of "Redistributive Justice" [Paperback]

Oleg Atbashian (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 2010

This is a brilliant study, profusely illustrated with cartoons and propaganda posters. Atbashian explains why Socialism cannot work. He exposes the injustice of "Collective Greed" and shows why Economic Equality is a fraud. The book is an eye-opener as the author illustrates his points with examples drawn from his life in the Soviet Union before 1994 and more recent events in the USA.

"Oleg Atbashian has written a timely warning for Americans about the collectivists among us and their plans for the future. I hope everyone reads this book."
-- David Horowitz, Author of One Party Classroom (2009)

"In his brilliant, witty, and wonderfully illustrated Shakedown Socialism, Oleg Atbashian -- who grew up in the Soviet Union, shows what is happening in Obama's America today, and explains why it is putting us on the road to ruin. Shakedown Socialism is an enlightening, sobering, and wonderfully clear explanation of why statism kills -- and thus also of why and how Barack Obama is killing the American economy. This book shows why Obama's statist economic policies are a looming disaster for America and for the spirit of the free human individual."
-- Pamela Geller, author, The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration's War On America

"Brightly written and filled with entertaining and illuminating illustrations, Oleg Atbashian's Shakedown Socialism is a clear and eye-opening guide to exactly what is wrong with socialism and state control of the means of production, and how it kills both the economy and human initiative. Shakedown Socialism is an essential and inspiring guide to the virtues of the free market."
-- Robert Spencer, author of the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Oleg Atbashian, a writer and graphic artist from Ukraine, currently lives in New York. In the USSR he was a teacher, a translator, a worker, a freelance journalist, and at one time a propaganda artist, creating visual agitprop for the local Party committee in a Siberian town. He moved to the United States in 1994, hoping to forget about politics and enjoy life in a country that was ruled by reason and common sense, whose citizens were appreciative of constitutional rights, the rule of law, and the prosperity of free market capitalism. But what he found was a society deeply infected by the leftist disease of "progressivism" that was jeopardizing real societal progress. The result is this book, as well as many more essays, political parodies, and cartoons, published in various media in America and around the world. Most of it is collected at his satirical website ThePeoplesCube.com - a spoof of "progressive" ideology, which Rush Limbaugh described on his show as "a Stalinist version of the Onion."

Product Details

• Paperback: 134 pages
• Publisher: Greenleaf Press (August 1, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1882514912
• ISBN-13: 978-1882514915
• Product Dimensions: 0.3 x 7.9 x 4.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (47 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #282,598 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

106 of 111 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A must-read for every American August 25, 2010

By Karen Lingefelt

Format:Paperback

I have the privilege to know Oleg Atbashian through membership at his hilarious and satirical website, The People's Cube. There, through the prism of his own firsthand experience under Marxism, he leads us in skewering liberalism, progressivism, socialism, hope and change . . . or whatever label the Professional Left is using these days to cover the ragged holes in that hundred year old package of phony goods they keep pushing on America.

Truth is at the heart of good satire, and a sense of humor is the lifeblood for keeping one's sanity and perspective in times of tribulation--and beyond. Oleg has the unique ability to not only look back and see the absurdity of life in a Communist regime--but to cleverly use satire and humor to educate and even warn others of its perils.

Recent events make those warnings more dire, as it becomes harder to laugh in the face of increasing danger to our liberties. Recognizing that hideous face--as well that patched up, smoldering old package leaking something foul on America's doorstep--Oleg has taken a more serious turn with this book.

The text originally appeared as a series of essays at Pajamas Media. First thing each morning I'd read the latest installment with my coffee--though what Oleg wrote did a better job of waking me up than the caffeine. Had I waited till late evening to read his work, I doubt I would have been able to sleep that night. He wrote things that alarmed me and tore at my heart--not only because they once happened to human beings in another time and place, but because I see them happening here and now--in America.

And it's not just the increasing power and corruption of unions--the centerpiece of Oleg's book. It's something that's everywhere now. For years it's been seeping into our nation's pores, and it's now metastasized like an aggressive, deadly cancer consuming every organ in the body of our society. Many of us saw the warning signs on our own, but too many others continue to be like terminal patients in denial. Perhaps they're holding out for a miracle cure from someone who claims to understand what ails them, and will tell them they want to hear. Too bad they already fell for that in 2008.

What is wrong with such people, that they either can't see it, don't want to see it, or see it but insist it's not the same thing Oleg grew up with? Is it because of the bright, shiny new label hiding the old one on the Left's package that proclaims otherwise? Back in the 1970's, a certain oil company changed its name but assured its customers they could still count on getting "the same old gas." That could just as easily be the slogan of the Left--and their gas has never been anything but toxic.

The Left incites class envy by relentlessly attacking American prosperity with indignant rants against huge salaries and bonuses, or the "obscene" profits some company raked in last year. Yet if a company shows a loss, the Left is happy to see the government step in and take over. Meanwhile, the redistribution of American wealth is already in full swing: They insist that certain government programs, to be paid for by generations yet unborn, will stimulate the economy, while tax cuts proven to do the same thing, and with more efficiency and greater success, must end--because, so they say, the government can't afford to let us keep our own hard earned money.

That is, as Oleg calls it, "shakedown socialism."

He took a courageous leap of faith when he made the decision to break free of the old Soviet Union and the only life he'd ever known. Like millions before him, Oleg ventured to America in pursuit of an entirely new way of life, one that for over two centuries has promised and delivered freedom and opportunities found nowhere else in the world--only to be confronted with the very thing he sought to leave behind for good. Where can he go now? Where do any of us who cherish our liberties go?

We can find the answer in the words of President Ronald Reagan: "If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth." Well, here we are. Unless we want to lose our freedom, we must stand up and fight for it--and win--just as our Founding Fathers did.

63 of 67 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A decisive refutation of the principles of socialism and progressivism August 27, 2010

By Rob Shearer

Format:Paperback

Shakedown Socialism is a unique book in many ways. The book is a decisive refutation of the principles of socialism and "progressivism." The author, Oleg Atbashian, draws on his personal experiences growing up in the totalitarian economic system of the old Soviet Union to show why socialism not only has not worked, but cannot work.

Atbashian's own awakening from an inculcated acceptance of the superiority of communism to an embrace of the free market is the underlying story of the book. Growing up in the Ukraine, Atbashian gradually became aware of the hypocrisy of those who ran the command economy of the Soviet Union. While proclaiming the virtues of forced "economic equality" all of the Soviet officials, the "apparatchiks" who ran the country, instinctively sought every advantage they could not just for themselves, but for their children. Reflecting on this, Atbashian recognized the fatal flaw of socialism - Every parent will seek to secure the best for their children.

This epiphany eventually led Atbashian to emigrate from Russia to the United States. Here is how he describes his decision:

"Some years ago, I escaped from the shipwreck of the Soviet "worker's paradise" and moved to the United States, making a conscious choice between the forced inequality of socialism and the volunteer material inequality of capitalism. I didn't expect to be rich; I only wanted an opportunity to earn an honest income without sacrificing my dignity. I wanted the freedom to pursue my own choices and aspirations, not the ones prescribed by the state. I wanted to live in a country where my success or failure would depend on my own honest effort, not on the whim of a bureaucrat. I wanted my relations with people to be based on voluntary agreements, not mandatory requirements. And finally, I wanted my earnings to be protected by law from wanton expropriation."

"America deserves credit for living up to the ideas of liberty and fighting off the redistributionist utopia for as long as it has. As crippling as the hosting of two opposing economic systems can be, it still remains a free country. But the balance is rapidly changing. Like many immigrants seeking freedom and opportunity in America, I find this change not simply misguided but personally painful. And so do all freedom-loving people elsewhere in the unfree world, for whom the mere existence of this country still gives hope and validates their belief in liberty and individual rights."

Oleg is a brilliant (and funny) writer. I first encountered him while reading his satirical postings on [...]. When I read his observations on the fallacies of socialism, I knew I wanted to help get his work to a larger audience.

Some of the most powerful parts of the book are Oleg's own illustrations, and his selections of ironic photographs and cartoons. In what can only be described as providential irony, Oleg was trained as a graphic artist and had been employed by the Communist Party in a town in Siberia to produce propaganda posters. He uses those skills to great effect. There are 90+ photographs and cartoons scattered throughout the book which drive his points home. Many of them will make the reader smile, if not laugh out loud! The book cover is, naturally, designed by Oleg.

This is a relatively short book, and an easy read - but the ideas and analysis it contains are profound. In seven chapters and 134 pages, Oleg pops balloons, pokes fun, exposes hypocrisy, sounds a warning, and destroys the intellectual underpinnings of socialism.

Here's a sample passage from chapter 6:
"If some people had wings and others didn't, and the government wanted to enforce "fairness," soon no one would have wings. Because wings cannot be redistributed, they can only be broken. Likewise, a government edict cannot make people smarter or more capable, but it can impede the growth of those with the potential. Wouldn't it be fair if, in the name of equality, we scar the beautiful, cripple the athletes, lobotomize the scientists, blind the artists, and sever the hands of the musicians? Why not?"

I urge everyone who cares about freedom and free markets to read this book. Better yet, buy extra copies and give them to your friends.

Rob Shearer
Greenleaf Press

50 of 54 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Deconstructing socialist thought September 15, 2010

By Gary Wolf

Format:Paperback

Mr. Atbashian has given us a clear and concise primer on the fallacies of socialist thought in all of its myriad incarnations. With crushing logic, he picks apart (or, shall I say, deconstructs) the philosophical sleight-of-hand that has produced Leftist gems such as welfare dependency, affirmative action, union extortion, political correctness, and dictatorial regimes around the world.

In this sense -- exposing the normally well-hidden kernel of collectivist ideology -- Shakedown Socialism is reminiscent of Hayek's Road to Serfdom.

One particularly instructive aspect of the book is the ongoing comparison between contemporary "Progressive" practice and that of the Soviet Union. Here we benefit from Mr. Atbashian's personal experience from deep within the belly of the beast. The parallels are chilling, to say the least.

Thoughtful, well-written, witty. Highly recommended.