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Notes from a (Non) Subversive
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Notes from a (Non) Subversive |
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openthoughts Member
since 2006-01-16
Posts 94Where the child can be free |
There is a possibility this will be combined with my other ongoing prose piece, A Life of Minutes. Notes from a (Non) Subversive; Volume I: Communism In the beginning, G-d created the Universe. After that, a great deal happened. For the sake of this essay, most of it will be bypassed and a jump will be made straight to Karl Marx’s creation of the Communist Manifesto in 1843. While considered a bible to some, here in America it is still taboo to supportively refer to the Communist Manifesto despite us supposedly living 50 somewhat years post-McCarthyism. Ask around if you don’t believe me (but don’t blame me if the CIA picks you up. Not my fault). Americans are still convinced that Communism is synonymous with bad. Why is this? The answer is simple. According to Communist ideals, Capitalism is synonymous with bad; and we here in America love us some Capitalism. And Capitalism is so easy to love because it loves us right back. It's a system that allows the majority to profit in a way that no economic system ever has before. And as Alexis de Tocqueville would say, the majority is the absolute power in America. Of course, it’s easy to forget that the whole world hasn’t always been all about the Capitalism. Actually, in relation to G-d creating the Universe, I would say Capitalism could quite possibly still be a nice, gooey fetus. What the American government wants the people to believe is that Capitalism is, and always will be, the greatest thing since, well, America. This is, if you think about it, the right thing to do. We stop believing and the system stops working. Simple as that. We need to keep buying and selling, exchanging paper portraits of our dead heroes, wanting Wanting WANTING, to keep the economy moving. That’s what makes Marx an easy comic book villain. He’s an outsider from more or less a century ago who advocated the fall of the American way of life. Can’t you just imagine him plotting the fall of Capitalism and the rise of Communist domination in some underground lair? I'm betting he had a really evil laugh. So he wanted to bring down America? Well then. Roll out the red carpet. And yes. The red carpet joke had to be made. I guess that’s it. We have a system that’s working. The majority of the people like it. Karl Marx wanted that system to fall because he thought he had something better that only he understood. He must have been the bad guy, right? Sure. There’s no way we could have possibly misinterpreted what he was saying just a little bit. There’s no way that instead of calling for Communism, he was predicting it. Oh yeah. Maybe he was. It's all the same. As I said, it’s easy to forget that Capitalism wasn’t always the most significant system. As creatures of the present, looking at what has already happened, while necessary, isn’t always natural. The current natural tendency of people is to look at the near future and to see how it will affect our present. The problem is, the further into the future we try to look, the more unclear what we see becomes. For example, I can tell that right now, at this moment, my stomach is rumbling, signifying hunger. This hunger will no doubt lead to a sandwich or some other form of nourishment. My level of hunger indicates this sandwich will be in the very near future. Based on my eating schedule and the schedule of classes for tomorrow, I can expect another sandwich in that plan. However, as we move further and further away from this present date, I can predict less and less the schedule of my sandwiches. Ridiculous tangent or brilliant analogy? Personally, I don’t care. You decide. Before you do though, consider this: I originally would order the same sandwich at the same deli every day for lunch. It was a plain wrap with regular turkey, provolone cheese, and lettuce. Simplistic and uninteresting as far as sandwiches go but hey, I liked it. It was working. Eventually however, I began to get tired of the plain wrap and wanted to try something new. I discovered the green spinach wrap. New! Green! Exciting! Now it was the same wrap with a new shell. I apologize for this. I’m really quite hungry. The point is, I had a system that I liked and anyone who questioned it was wrong because it worked for me. Only the system was not a constant. It had to change at some point. My “usual” kept evolving. Now I’m somewhere between the herb wrap with smoked turkey (possibly even grilled chicken) and a chicken Parmesan sandwich. That’s what I’m into now and I stand by it passionately, perhaps because I am a creature of habit. This is, finally, not a digression because what is humanity comprised of but creatures of habit? According to Marx, society began in the form of something like Primitive Communism. Some genius that lived within a few thousand years of the guy who discovered fire and the guy who invented the wheel (give or take a couple of eons just so I know I’m not wrong) realized that more people farming together meant more food. When Man stopped walking everywhere and finally stopped, he stopped right into Primitive Communism. After that, the better fed had the ability to conquer and control the not-as-well fed. Thus, slave societies emerged. Now I don’t want to go into the details of this entire progression because there is no way I’m researching anything for this outside of a dictionary and Wikipedia so I’ll give the quick version. Slave societies became feudal societies. Feudalism fell and became Capitalism. Watching this progression, is it all that logical to believe that Capitalism is the final step, the “be-all-to-end-all” of economic systems? Marx was only observing the evolution of the economies of nations. Communism is just my next “usual” sandwich (which I apologize for, since I do not have the foresight to predict what it would be). To him, it represented the next logical step. So if all that I have said to this point is true: if Communism is in actuality not the rival of America but simply the next rung on the ladder, then why, oh why, did it fail so miserably in Russia? It failed because the Russians tried to implement it. I know it sounds crazy but hear me out. You’ve gotten this far so you might as well. Nomadic tribes naturally gave way to Primitive Communism; Primitive Communism naturally gave way to slavery, and so on and so forth. If I were to go back in time and implement Capitalism on the Primitive Communist society, Capitalism would fail miserably. The people would not be able to comprehend the system. Think about it. They’d probably think, “I’m trading my food, my tool for survival for a piece of fancy paper?!” It makes no sense. However, it is obvious that Feudalism would not work today in America. If I made an attempt to claim lordship over all my neighbors and demand that they work for me then it would lead to one of two possible outcomes. I get dressed up all snazzy in an orange jumpsuit and locked away behind bars and concrete OR I get dressed up all snazzy in a white jacket with the sleeves folded behind my back and locked away behind bars and padded walls. These changes have to occur naturally. However, Marx’s realization created not necessarily a break in the chain, but more accurately, an imperfection. By instilling an awareness of the natural evolution, it naturally became unnatural. Communism made sense. More so than normal in a world like Czarist Russia. With Capitalism barely emerging and the country still implementing a feudal-like system, it would certainly make sense that the oppressed peoples would want find a system in which each person is perfectly equal to his neighbor in opportunity. It was the perfect system: it explained everything and offered the world to people who had never known the word “equality”. So now you have an unhappy population and a system that claims to have the solution to all the problems. It’s all pros and no cons. If only the Russian revolutionaries hadn’t overlooked one major aspect of Communism. It was a part of an evolution. Capitalism needs to happen first: it needs time to rise, hit its peak, and then eventually fall, giving way to Communism. Czarist Russia became the Soviet Union far too fast. I mean, there were a handful of revolutions in between the two, but you get the point. History’s hand was forced. Move Communism too fast and what do you get? Sloppy Communism. Nobody wants sloppy Communism. People might see this and call me Communist, or, even more interesting yet, Un-American. I know it’s bound to happen if this gets out to enough people. And although I see no reason to defend myself as a person or a thinker, the possibility that this might be misinterpreted has crossed my mind many times throughout this writing process and so I do feel the need to clarify my thoughts for anyone who reads this wrong, in the attempt to defend my ideas. I AM NOT A COMMUNIST! I support the concept of Communism, which is vastly different from being a Communist. I do not wish to see America turn to Communism, nor do I wish to see the world turn to Communism right now. I cannot emphasize those key words enough. RIGHT NOW RIGHT NOW RIGHT NOW. I acknowledge that Capitalism is the most efficient and prosperous system at the moment. I like my frivolity and materialism. I enjoy buying because I want, because I simply desire. I, like the majority of Americans, am not ready to give Capitalism up. However as a thinker, I refuse to directly categorize Communism with evil. Most do not question this association because it is not questioning the government. It goes beyond that and targets the faith the people have in their very way of life. I will not be bullied by the masses into this self-censorship that we all partake in because in life, in all our lives, we have nothing to lose and everything to gain from a more complete understanding of anything and absolutely everything. Capitalism will not last forever. It eventually will have to become something new. I agree with Marx that when Capitalism stops working, when the people of both our country and our planet have evolved and their needs have changed—be it tomorrow, a hundred years, or even a million years from now—it will be a variation of Marx’s theoretical Communism that will rise as Capitalism’s replacement. |
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JamesMichael Member Empyrean
since 1999-11-16
Posts 33336Kapolei, Hawaii, USA |
There now you've said it...I suppose we would have to ask some citizens living under a Communist Nation if they like that form of government...I'm sure like any any other form of Government there are good and bad points...first we need to identify those Nations that have existed or exist today, and are cleary Communist, focus on them, and then we can better understand this system of Government...got anything on Socialism?...James |
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