User:Bernieward/Sandbox

== Sandbox for user Bernieward

Obamism is an emerging social system that integrates economic, political, cultural and spiritual elements and features Barak Obama as the central figure and symbol. Importantly, Obamism not synonymous with the human being named Barak Obama or with the Obama Presidency.

Under Obamism, adherents generally ascribe whatever attributes they wish to Barak Obama, who might or might not exude those attributes in reality. Theoretically, any two Obamists might share nothing in common other than their identifying with Barak Obama as the symbol of their own personal belief system. In practice, Obamism has several nearly universal and generally normative beliefs:


 * 1) Change - Pre-Obama institutions, policies, traditions, etc. should be replaced.
 * 2) Messianic Leadership - A savior is needed; save the planet, save the children, save the species; make right past wrongs.
 * 3) Feminism - Females should be more highly valued than males within the society.
 * 4) Collective Economics - The State should own or control the means of production.
 * 5) Paternalism - The State should provide for individuals' needs; housing, transportation, health care, etc.

Most modern observers would disagree with some or all of these points.

Classical Marxism
Classical Marxism refers to the body of theory directly expounded by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. The term "Classical Marxism" is often used to distinguish between "Marxism" as it is broadly understood and "what Marx believed," which is not necessarily the same thing. For example, shortly before he died in 1883, Marx wrote a letter to the French workers' leader Jules Guesde and to his own son-in-law Paul Lafargue, both of whom claimed to represent Marxist principles, in which he accused them of "revolutionary phrase-mongering" and of denying the value of reformist struggles. Paraphrasing Marx: "If that is Marxism, then I am not a Marxist." As the American Marx scholar Hal Draper remarked, "there are few thinkers in modern history whose thought has been so badly misrepresented, by Marxists and anti-Marxists alike."