by Andrew Kahn
In responding to the article written by “Catire”, a simple note is needed before proceeding. The value in individual accounts, about individual lives, in relation to a discussion on nationwide policies within a revolutionary government – or any government for that matter – are objectively relevant when they speak within a broader context to the lives of a majority or even a significant minority of the population. It is within this context that the charges and insinuations leveled against the successive people’s government led by former President Hugo Chavez and current President Nicolas Maduro should be weighed and evaluated. For while the article title speaks of “How I was personally affected…” the larger article provides obvious overtones that call the reader’s conscience to oppose the Bolivarian Revolution in toto. One’s conscience is requested by Catire to oppose the Revolution because we are to believe that Catire is a representative of the general population. Thus, one individual speaks for the whole. The alleged victimization of the one is a microcosm of the repression and reversion of civil society as a whole. Or so we are to believe.
A rebuttal is made more difficult when general principles and ideas must be defended as the heart strings of individual suffering are attempted to be pulled, but I shall attempt to tweeze out the salient points from Catire’s personal revelations and analyze them on both the individual level of Catire himself but mostly in light of the general goals and trajectory of the socialist Bolivarian Revolution which is the actual target of Catire’s testimonial.
Catire begins with claims of being an average citizen, a working class citizen born during the 1970s when Venezuela was “called “Little Arabia” for the flow of money at that time came through oil.” Catire then states, “Unfortunately this has changed in the last 15 years.” As I read this, I was immediately jolted and wondered what it was about the flow of money coming through oil has actually changed in the past 15 years. Indeed, the criticism of the Bolivarian Revolution is that theirs is a one-track economy that is overly dependent on oil. If nothing else, this first paragraph alone should provoke a pause in the reader. It is made to be as if the socialism of the Bolivarian Revolution has dried up the oil in the country and led the nation away from this era of halcyon years of the 1970s. This is patently incorrect.
I was further puzzled by the complaint waged against the socialist government in the following paragraph. We were asked to recognize that Catire’s family – which works for a living and sacrifices as Catire notes – is unable to find credit to buy a house these days. This oddly comes after it is stated that his family acquired property during the years before the socialists came to power. Puzzling indeed this was – I was wondering if I was supposed to feel sympathy for the inability to acquire credit for property when a house was apparently already possessed. Perhaps this working class average citizen was attempting to expand property holdings beyond an already-owned house? Is multiple property holdings really the mark of a “working class” citizen? I confess I am baffled by this idea and clarification would be needed.
Within this context of the personal account being extrapolated as a means of generalizing to the whole, it should be clearly noted that while we are being led to believe that the working class citizens of Venezuela are being denied access to homes, the reality is vastly different. The Venezuelan government, specifically as a result of its socialist principles and concrete application of them, has guaranteed housing and home ownership to the working class. Indeed, halfway through 2015, Venezuela had surpassed 700,000 subsidized – many free – homes having been built and provided to the poor and working class in Venezuela ( http://www.telesurtv.net/ ). These are homes not based off the promotion of predatory loans and the credit system of capitalism. For those such as myself who live in the United States, we can only wish that the working class had such access to decent housing. Instead, the United States is plagued with predatory loans, foreclosures and neighborhood after neighborhood of boarded up homes and vacant houses. While Venezuela has been building homes despite being under siege from an economic war waged from Washington DC in conjunction with national and regional oligarchs, we see the United States, the beacon of middle-class dreams, is kicking its citizens to the curb, forcing its citizens into homelessness via foreclosures and allowing abandoned homes to be boarded up then demolished – all in the name of economics. Spare me as I shed no tears that the alleged working class of Venezuela cannot gain access to credit to acquire property when they already own homes. In the context of a socialist revolution, the 700,000 homes provided already to the actual working class and poor severely outweighs the “needs” of a bourgeois middle class that is “under attack” via the “repression” of difficulty in finding credit.
Yet not only are we to deplore this repression versus the “working class” – a repression manifesting itself in difficulty in finding immediate access to credit – we are asked for tears to well up in our eyes at the claim that now it is impossible, allegedly, to buy a new car or take vacations to the United States. Again, one needs to ask what the actual class point of view is being spoken in this article. Once more the personal is being extrapolated to generalize the society as a whole. This begs the question as to whether the Revolution in Venezuela, one that never claimed to be in the interests of the upper classes, is concerned, or should be, with such a class. For the actual working class in Venezuela did not enjoy, at any time – and certainly not in the days of the 1970s that were hearkened back to – access to easy credit, new cars or vacations to the United States. While some in Venezuela apparently bemoan the difficulty of making sojourns Up North in 2015, the vast majority of the population who are now food secure, education secure, house secure and job secure (all of these parameters having been internationally recognized) likely look askance and chuckle that their former ruling class is having to spend summers in Caracas and the region instead of the previous sorties to the north. In the scales of justice, millions who enjoy access to basic needs and can now sleep at night with a roof over their head and food in the stomach far outweighs the upper – or allegedly working class – visiting Miami’s Little Havana or New York’s Times Square.
It’s hard for me – and should be hard for anyone – to take too seriously the attacks against the Bolivarian Revolution. There is a vicious bent in these attacks; one which often manifests as an upper class pleading poverty and claiming working class roots when their actual status belies that they are part of a traditional ruling bourgeois class. Often seen these days are Venezuelans who enjoyed the spoils of the pre-Chavez years – when these spoils were literally spoils from the spoliation of the masses – attempting to ingratiate themselves to the clueless masses in countries outside their country by claiming “working class” status and then looking for sympathy as regards their alleged persecution – a persecution that is invariably a lack of “capitalist freedom” to plunder.
Yet what is this capitalist middle class freedom if not the freedom of racial denigration where the indigenous are looked down upon, their language and existence ground into a fine pulp and rejected as backwards and “not Christian”? What is this freedom if not the freedom to exploit the denial of the humanity of the worker? What is this freedom if not the freedom to use police forces to persecute – not merely arrest – the working class? What is this freedom if not the freedom to ignore the masses as they wallow in misery with no hope of dignity?
We must bemoan the lack of access to easy credit to purchase additional property. But, I demand to know, what of the credit access being difficult and the economy going through rough times? The hypocrisy! The bloody hypocrisy of it all! We hear crocodile tears being shed for the working class having to stand in line for food at government-subsidized grocery stores. Do shortages exist? Certainly. And why? Because the same tendencies in the bourgeoisie that claim to care about these lines are the same ones who bomb these grocery stores and profiteer from reselling subsidized goods across the border in Colombia…and then they decry the actions of President Maduro to stop this illegal smuggling of the people’s goods.
This is anything but a personal attack on Catire. The socialized nature of modern life and society prevents a class-based criticism of the opponents of the Bolivarian Revolution to be a personal attack. While opponents of the Revolution use personal anecdotes to wage an unholy war against a Revolution which has brought food, shelter, education and dignity to the masses, the response must be one that looks at the totality of the Revolution and not the discomfort of the bourgeois individual who is having trouble planning a trip to the shores of the United States. For again, a full stomach and a secure roof for the masses is of much greater import.
For the Christian readers, Christ will not say, “When I wanted a new car, you gave me credit for one.” No, He will say “When I was hungry you fed me, naked clothed me…” And this is what the Bolivarian Revolution is concretely guaranteeing and implementing. Indeed, it is the radicalism of true Christianity and the radicalism of a concrete socialist model that provokes such despair and anguish among the elite.
What we hear are the ghoulish screams of a class that recognizes it is being uprooted in Venezuela. Uprooted by democracy that has been elected over and over. It has won referendums on the peoples’ constitution, elections – and recall elections – and indeed it has won the intangible respect and support of the masses. Certainly, the support of the masses is unquestioned as even the opposition – save for the most extremist groups led by the terrorist jackals such as Maria Machado and Leopoldo Lopez – recognizes that the rhetoric of the Revolution cannot be displaced by them and even certain policies would require continuance if the opposition came to power. Yet this too is a clever ruse intended to deceive the masses into thinking that the opposition has a modicum of concern for them. This being an opposition that was once the ruling elite that provided for easy credit for the upper class. An opposition that was once the ruling elite that provided for vacations to the United States. And that provided for the denigration and subjugation of the working class and indigenous.One that continues such denigration through the private media.
Perhaps the real issue for the class that Catire represents is seen in one of one his paragraphs that begins: “Since the time Chavez allowed impunity for the masses…” Search for another article from Catire’s class and they will say that there is not impunity for the masses but rather they are subjugated to a police state. So which is it? The bourgeois class cynically uses “the masses”. At times “the masses” are a group to be a rhetorical member of when this can derive sympathy to one’s individual state. Or “the masses” are used and held up as being subjugated by the Revolution to provoke anger towards the Revolution. Or, “the masses” are castigated as unwashed hordes who roam with “impunity”. Perhaps though, this complaint of “impunity for the masses” – whatever this means – is indeed the crux of the problem for the bourgeois classes in Venezuela. The masses now are ascendant. Byt as we know, centuries of dominance do not die hard…anywhere. Venezuela is no different.
Perhaps it is this rising of the masses – this “impunity”- that provokes such howls among Catire’s class. It is not a personal attack on Catire when I speak of howling and use the previous phrase of “ghoulish screams”. Catire, it appears, is a product of his class prejudices. It is significantly “bigger” than Catire. It is a class issue and one that cannot be seen as anything else. Co-optation of the working class for the purpose of destroying the Revolution of the working class is beyond the pale. The previous ruling class never was concerned with the working class. It was a ruling class based upon the immanently required exploitation of the masses and denigration of the Afro-descendant and indigenous population. This previous ruling class never did care about the working class. It never did and it still doesn’t and it never will.
The Revolution marches on as the industrial and urban working class, allied with revolutionary peasants, will not cede its power. This Revolution is one of eminent love of the people and of humanity and because of this it is one that is unafraid of guaranteeing this love through active defense. A person loves their family and will defend their family against attacks – militantly, if required. And so it is seen in the Revolution that began with Simon Bolivar and is found concretely and potently in the present Revolution, the democratic and mass-based Revolution of the working class and revolutionary peasants. Perhaps this is the “impunity for the masses” that Catire claims.
Now, in fairness, Catire does not speak of this as the “impunity” he decries. It is, apparently, “impunity” from being arrested for urinating in public – the highest form of criminality for a society that operates on the bourgeois respectability lifestyle. Did Catire or his class allies ever ask why someone needed to urinate in public in the pre-Chavez era? Perhaps the person had no indoor plumbing in their Caracas shantytown. Perhaps? But no, impunity is the lack of policing of poverty’s natural results.
The complaint made of “impunity” is that “armed groups of civilians that claim to protect areas roam the streets of the barrios” to “impose social control” – as if this is not what Catire himself is calling for when complaining about a lack of social control in the barrios that he himself – nor his class allies – live in. Again, the masses and working class are cynically considered by the bourgeois when it serves the interests of attacking the Revolution.
One question I often pose and have yet to be provided with an answer is simple. If the problem with the Revolution is truly the precarious nature of the lives of the masses – the masses who allegedly suffer from the impunity provided by the Revolution for “armed gangs” – then why have they not rejected the Revolution en masse? Why have they not voted against the Revolution en masse as would be expected? Well, fear of course. So it would be said by those ruling class protectors of the working class. “The masses fear voting against the Chavista regime because they will be persecuted.” Yet the barrios and the working class neighborhoods have not voted exclusively for the Revolution. They do not have guns to their heads to vote for the ruling Grand Patriotic Pole alliance that is led by President Maduro of the PSUV. They may vote as they choose. And they do. And overwhelming. For the Revolution. If arrest and persecution for voting against the Revolution was a reality – as is often claimed – why then are the jails not at overflowing with those who did not vote? Why are there so many roaming the streets and standing in lines for food if they are all denied social rights and freedom and are being imprisoned like slaves for voting against the Revolution or not voting at all? Because the Revolution is not doing this. The masses are freely voting. And they are voting again and again for the Revolution- a Revolution of the people.
We have a class of people such as Catire who, even after admitting to “working with a private foreign client”, will turn around and claim they represent the masses. It is fine, Catire…do not bat an eyelash as you admit you work for foreigners. Foreign does not mean bad. I recognize that. But let me ask you, simply, what is the repression in the fact you cannot go to the beach or the mountains or allegedly “anywhere” on the weekend as you would desire on your non-foreign client paid salary? Ask how it sounds when the masses enjoy local entertainment with their families and a lack of freedom is considered the inability to go “anywhere” any weekend. What is criminal about the fact that perhaps every weekend you cannot go to the beach or mountain? Is it a human right to escape your neighborhood and community to go to the beach and mountains in a new car bought from easy credit? But let the Revolution die so a bourgeois upper class elite can have unlimited forays to the beaches while the masses go hungry in their shanties. This, my friends, is freedom. This, my friends, is why the Revolution must die! Je suis bourgeoisie!
This is the “national disaster” spoken of – a disaster with complaints of civilians “watching” their neighbors for signs of political malfeasance against the Revolution. It is easy to complain of the masses taking power and guaranteeing that actual destabilization and attacks – both political, economic and physical – against the masses and its infrastructure do not come to fruition. It is easy when you are not part of the masses. It is easy when this is done as a plea for sympathy from one’s class allies. But the masses of the working class, the elderly previously discarded, and the indigenous previously killed with impunity do not really care at this point. Centuries of oppression and attacks and genocide and denigration and dehumanization, simply put, are of much greater consequence than having a bourgeois businessman or corrupted union ally being “watched” by the masses. Centuries of oppression are not overturned with a tea party.
Oppression is still being battled and attacks from without are still present. They have not ended and have merely escalated both overtly and covertly. What is to be done, Catire? Lay down and roll out the red carpet? Allow the diminished power of the elite to return and rule for another three centuries with the force of the police, military, politicians, economic leaders and church once more monopolized by the capitalist minority? Remember, centuries of oppression are not overturned with a tea party.
There is a cry for political rights – a cry for a return to those halcyon days of the 1970s or perhaps the 1980s when The Caracazo and its massacre of the working class occurred. The days pre-Chavez and pre-socialism. Bourgeois political rights for the elite. Bourgeois political rights that are neutered “rights” when the masses have no input. For what are political rights when the working class and indigenous have no say? When the majority are beholden to the minority elite of capitalism and its favored bourgeois class, what are “political rights” but merely code for “exclusion of the people”? This is not what the Revolution allows and not what the people, through their community collectives and national leadership, will allow. Times have changed and the right to dignity and food and housing and education and humanity will not be reversed.
This is not an attack on an individual, but if one cares to speak of the individual, we can certainly speak of the millions of individuals in Venezuela who are in full support of the Revolution and the actions being undertaken; actions which, at times, are criticized for having been too conciliatory with the opposition. Imagine – the bourgeois has a force from the people that looks for even more radical and sectarian actions than the PSUV has undertaken at this point in the Revolution. Democracy is not what the opposition wants. Indeed, it is the antithesis of what the opposition wants as it cynically calls for a return to democratic principles that never existed in the days before the Bolivarian Revolution.
Yes Catire, let us not stand in the way of La Salida. Let us allow the democratic order be toppled in a putsch since the elections do not elect the former ruling class. For the sake of democracy. Let the children of the barrios be forgotten and criminalized again. For the sake of democracy. For the sake of democracy let the the women of Venezuela once more be relegated to a subservient role. Let the indigenous be murdered by death squads. For the sake of democracy. For your class, let the workers be entitled to nothing, but let your class have easy access to credit. Let the repression of The Caracazo return – for the sake of democracy. So wealthy families can travel to the ocean and the mountains and the United States. The spoliation of the masses is needed for the spoils to accrue to the ruling class.
The former ruling class is diminished and has transferred – in part – to the workers and peasants. But even this partial transfer is too much for the bourgeoisie and capitalists. The dignity of the workers and peasants was the first step in the process and it has created a deluge in which this new class-conscious and politically-militated group has stated defiantly that the existential and humanistic needs of the millions will take precedence over the “right” to luxuries for the few. These needs of the people will be defended. They will be defended militantly and unceasingly for there will not be a return to the oppression of the past. A new car does not compare to food in a child’s stomach. A beach vacation does not compare to universal health care. Attempts to defeat or repress this storm of justice, this transition of ruling class power to a new ruling class known as “the masses” will be met militantly and forcefully – barrio to barrio, workplace to workplace, town to town and city to city.
The people have spoken and will not bite their tongue or restrain their economic and political power again. Centuries of oppression are crumbling. Centuries of denigration are over.
Yes Catire, class privileges are being lost. Nothing personal.
But…
Understand…
A new day has dawned.
Andrew Kahn lives in New York City. Unabashed Bolivarian socialist. A pharmacist by degree, a rebel by decision, he blogs at http://akahnnyc.blogspot.com/
Venezuela: Yes, revolutions are messy things and people’s prejudices/expectations die hard. A Havana taxi driver who has access to tips from foreigners earns more per month than a Cuban MD. This is considered outrageous by those from a different society where people become MDs in order to make money (healing people being a secondary consideration) Becoming a doctor is considered a privilege and a calling and has to be earned. But this is enforced by an economy which is very poor so there really is not much “extra” privilege to be spread around. And is that something to look forward to on this planet? There is a stark either-or perspective in this piece which I find unrealistic. If the basics are met and the revolution secured, surely there can be a little wiggle room for those with cars and free weekends?
So turn that around.In the West taxi-drivers are almost always poor.Is it right that a man of the people lives in poverty so someone “educated on the peoples money” can grow rich. Cuba has invested enormous sums in education and on medical care for everyone.They have the overall best educated and healthiest population in all Latin America.And they have something else that can’t be described easily (at least by me).A natural dignity about them.What you see in many countries in Latin America.Where the poor,common people,”know their place”.They know not to defy the upper class,because those are “above them”.That is gone from Cuba.Everyone is equal,under the law,and in peoples eyes.A hotel maid,is proud because her children or grandchildren are university graduates.The taxi-drivers son or daughter may be the doctor,or an engineer,or an ambassador,or military officer.Positions unheard of for people of their “class” in most of the World.And certainly in Latin America.Now of course in other countries some people from those classes can rise that high.But while in those countries they are the rare exception.In Cuba they are the rule.The War on Cuba the Empire has waged for generations has harmed their economy horribly.So yes foreign tourist money buys more at present for a taxi-driver than a doctor earns on his regular salary (though if there was no tip money the doctors salary is higher).But that is the consequence of the evil of the Empires hatred against Cuba for escaping from their control.There seems to be in the West (and sometimes even here) a “feeling” that somehow some are “better” than others.That a doctor,lawyer,entrepreneur,is of a higher class than the “people”.And so must by “right” be accorded special “exceptional” privileges in society. I’ve seen both sides of those classes.And it’s been my experience that many of the “common people” are no less human beings worthy of the same respect and dignity as the upper classes in a country.And in many cases far more worthy.
I have family in Venezuela, they are middle class, whatever that may mean to communists I’m not sure, they own their own business. They have a few business vehicles, perhaps they are evil for it, I’m not sure. From what I’m told the crime in Venezuela has gotten noticeably worse over the last decade, so much so that many business owners must carry weapons under their seats when they drive. 4 or 5 of the most violent cities (murder, theft, rape) in the western hemisphere are in Venezuela. Also from what I have read, even from leftist media outlets, is that what was once a vast majority that voted Chavez in, has now dwindled to about 50-55%. That the ‘revolution’ will be defended with violence is something that worries those who have invested their lives building something of value in the nation, like employment for others.
I read some of your blog Andrew, in particular some sort of communist manifesto, it seems you recommend forced nationalization of private schools, which would include schools such as Montessori and Waldorf, you would make vaccines mandatory, and if I’m correct referred to the Jewish Bolshevik terror as the glorious Bolshevik Revolution. I know the bulk of those in this comments section are socialist leaning and even full on communists, but be that as it may let me point out a few things that I think have been misconstrued.
Firstly, the notion that business enterprise is somehow evil because it seeks profit is based on an incomplete assessment. Profit simply means income above costs, which allows for reinvestment, research, development, training and so on. An incorrect assumption is that the profit of a productive business is the same as profit from what I would call papers pushers – investment bankers, hedge-fund managers, predatory lenders and so on, which provide no productive capacity. The ideological antagonism towards productive capacity by the radical revolutionaries, and communists is directed by blind rage of all thing considered ‘unjust’. This is such a simplistic reaction that it must have no other outcome than to crush private enterprise and all the benefits that arrive from those who seek to produce value and employ others. This misplaced anger and impudent language towards anything considered above ‘the masses’ is a mechanism of social control no different than the tyranny imposed in North Korea.
I’m sure some will argue that Cuba and North Korea are communist paradises (perhaps with the caveat that if only it were not for U.S. sanctions) but both countries lack serious development, they cannot even produce enough energy to keep the lights on consistently. Where is the technical know how? Why can they not build out a real communist paradise? Build bio-fuel plants, wind turbines, solar panels and the various other sustainable technologies? Because they lack centres of innovation, they lack mechanical know how, they lack inventive prowess, in essence they lack imagination. They cannot produce because they kill production, what they do produce is inferior because the developmental process is political rather than innovative. Their industrial base is ideology driven, and thus produces only based on immediate social need, it is not able to pre-empt, or anticipate, but is only reactionary.
To put this in a spiritual context, as I see it anyway, we have a struggle between those with imagination and those with ideology. The type of communist ideal espoused by so many on this site, that which disparages private business and private ownership is referred to as the peoples movement, yet the the desire by the individual to rise above others based simply on their own inner impulse is called out as selfishness and the root of evil. Yet a so called peoples movement and its attendant ideology will limit the individuals ability to question things, for the accepted dogma of the ‘people’s way’ becomes ingrained and concretized. Outspokenness becomes itself a reflection of selfishness, and is frowned upon. Without the individual voice the ‘masses’ become a herd, rather than the ‘people’.
There are arguments for government regulation of corporations, which I think is necessary to reign in malfeasance, revoking corporate charters is a big part of that process, as is separating investment houses from deposit banks, supporting working wages not through wage controls but through the wise use of tariffs. There is absolutely no reason that a free market system, with proper regulations which are transparent and democratically agreed upon, cannot be both just and liveable. No reason whatsoever.
The primary argument against such free market democracies voiced by the radical communists, Bolivarian militants and so forth is about the unjust nature of resource and worker exploitation. In reality the exploitation of resources is for each nation to decide themselves and should be governed by law. Why is it assumed that in communist or socialist countries that somehow resource extraction is made ‘good’ because the proceeds go to the socialist agenda? Are the resources still not being extracted and causing environmental issues, or population displacement? How does communism or socialism change anything about the extractive process besides being cloaked in an ideological rhetoric? In fact societies that embrace innovation are reducing extraction needs by developing alternative technologies, such as enhanced recycling, more sustainable input replacements, and better energy technologies which reduce the need for oil and coal. Furthermore, many companies are working on prototype consumer goods that can be dismantled and reused, and the advancement of 3D printing negates the need for costly shipping and all the associated pollution related with consumer goods transport.
The bulk of the diatribe above, which everyone seems so in love with, is a character judgement based on class, which delineates what constitutes too much accessibility to travel, or credit, or some other such thing. What an absurd position in reality, while the author decries that the population lives in poverty he wishes to pull down the so called ‘bourgeois class’ to the same status as the masses, where everyone has enough to eat, a shelter and an education, rather than raise up the population to a level of mobility equal to that of the so called ‘bourgeois class’. The argument to counter this raising up of people is that, “Not everyone can live with such excesses! The earth has only so many resources! Thus we must all live very meagre lives and be happy with travelling no further than the confines of our national border!”. How utterly ridiculous. So who in the socialist paradise can get permission to travel abroad? I mean travelling abroad being as excessive as it is, surely only the party elite should be allowed?
Lets do away with one particular theory real quick, resource scarcity. We have the know how and technology to recycle every shred of paper, plastic and steel in existence. We can recycle every piece of food waste as compost back into the soil. With solar energy and new non-toxic battery storage technologies we can produce long term sustainable energy. The implementation of these technologies is simply a matter of policy, know how, and intelligence. How many politicians however, mired as they are in their ideological straight jackets, can free themselves from their disassociated ideas and allegiances?
With all the communists and radical socialists on this site I wonder why I linger, but than I remember that I linger because of Russia, a country becoming more free, more technological, and more self sufficient. A country that emerged from communism and is moving on. A country with a much better tax rate than any other industrialized country, and a country who is supporting free enterprise, and reducing the red tape associated with starting business. A country with a leader who is not an ideologue but an innovator and thinker. Do you communists and radical socialists think modern Russia represents your ideologies? That its people want a return to the old days of a communist paradise?
***great comment Angelo except for all of us that are not radical socialists…mod
Angelo,
Thank you for taking the time to respond to my article and for actually looking at my platform at my blog which I encourage everyone else to as well (http://akahnnyc.blogspot.com/2015/08/a-working-platform.html).
I am actually considering a point by point rebuttal of your rebuttal of my rebuttal but regarding your critique of my platform, I will quickly respond.
1) I called for nationalization of schools with “charter schools” being reverse and re-publicized. I also called for a standardized teaching of the people’s history. History must not be scripted by corporate textbook industries as it currently is. As regards religious schools, they can easily follow this policy while retaining full freedom to incorporate religious teaching as well as an adjunct class. Please don’t paint me as Enver Hoxha.
2) Valid vaccinations will be mandatory with limited exemptions. Public health is critical and must be ensured in the face of luddite ascientific objections cloaked in “religion”.
3) Yes, I referred to the Bolshevik Revolution as glorious. We can debate the later actions taken by it based upon the conditions the Revolution found itself under, but yes, I call it a glorious revolution and I stand by that.
Would you be interested in a debate and rebuttal with me?
I have no qualms taking up a debate Andrew, though I’m not that keen on it at this point. I sincerely doubt I could overcome the divide between our positions. I do always seek out all sides of the story with an open mind, however as someone who cherishes his time and energy, debating the merits of the Jewish Bolshevik terror is not one of them, or as you affectionately call it, the glorious Bolshevik Revolution.
The issue of forced public schooling and state dictated history is also not really great debate territory, it’s a waste of our time and effort, we will not likely find common ground here either. The time in which it would take to argue the benefits for diverse schooling options, including both private and public schools, is far more than I care to invest right now (I’ve been down that road in a much more productive setting).
However if you wish to reply to my points than by all means, I think you feel very passionate about introducing others to your views, and that would include rebutting those who don’t agree with you. I may chose to respond in kind.
Cheers
“Bolshevik Revolution as glorious”….and we need more October 1917 world wide!
(For the record: I’m a radical leftist, but of a relatively decentralized sort. Headed towards social anarchist, but I do think it’s good to have broader structures so not quite, but not a Communist)
Just a clarification on the question of profit. Sure, if you want to increase production (something a lot of Greens want to ask questions about) or make it more efficient or whatnot, you have to have some kind of surplus which you can devote to doing that stuff. In a market economy with money (whether capitalist or not) you call that profit–so to make improvements you need profit, fine. So say you have a socialist-ish economy and all the businesses are co-ops with no single owner; they’re all owned by their workers and maybe to some extent their customers get to hold stakes as well. They’ll still need profit if they want to do innovation. Or, they’ll need enough surplus to pay taxes with if they want the government to do innovation. Both would be nice. So those workers will need to set aside some money after they pay themselves.
But such a system need not be driven by profit. Capitalism is driven by profit as a motive. Profit money becomes something the owner can use to own more things. Big fish eat smaller fish. If you fail to generate as much profit as possible, someone else won’t and they’ll buy you. And any part of society that isn’t generating profit is subject to endless attempts to incorporate it, whether it’s the act of cooking food or “non-profit” charities or drinking water.
Being driven by profit, capitalism always tries to extract as much as possible. There is never such a thing as “enough” profit. That, among other things, necessarily means driving wages down as far as possible. Before Marx ever wrote, classical economists referred to the tendency for pay to drop to the minimum level required for subsistence as “The Iron Law of Wages”; these guys were not remotely socialists, they were just realists. Politics and workers’ struggles like trade unionism have been able some of the time to trump the Iron Law of Wages, but capitalists spend a lot of effort rejigging politics so that won’t happen. Lately they’ve been increasingly successful. Fighting against that situation under capitalism is always paddling upstream; the playing field is not level because the system itself stacks it.
This is one reason capitalism has always tended towards instability and crises. I don’t agree with Marx that such crises will inevitably make capitalism fall, but the thing is that as capitalism extracts more and more profits (and maybe reinvests them to increase production), it reduces wages by dropping pay, by using less labour per unit production, or both, and then it finds that not enough people have the money to pay for the stuff that’s been produced. It’s happening right now, masked somewhat by the ongoing run-up in debt that people are using to pay for the stuff they need but can’t afford. But the debt just makes things worse; if people can’t pay for stuff, they sure as hell can’t pay for stuff plus debts plus interest. As the interest compounds, storing up more crisis for later, something has to give sometime.
The call for socialism is ultimately a call for an end to the battle between owners and workers to decide who gets the money, by making them the same person. While the impetus is largely from below and based on the perception that the owners usually win, extracting massive rents one way or another, socialism also ironically would stop what some see as the excesses of unionism, where a powerful union might win so many concessions that it puts the firm out of business. If the workers are calling the shots and deciding the finances, they are no longer on a side, they are not assuming that anything financial the owners say must be a lie (because it so often is), they are themselves the ones in control and dealing with questions of how the firm is to continue and prosper. And we know this can work, because there are already many worker-owned and -controlled co-ops out there, including in sizable factories. They seem to do about as well financially as firms with normal ownership structures, but they take better care of their employees and they never move the production to Bangladesh or wherever because that would put the owners out of a job.
On Cuba and North Korea–Oh, get real. Nobody says North Korea is an example of anything. And maybe you could list for me all the capitalist small tropical islands who are the incredible technological leaders you want Cuba to be in order to be good enough for you.
“(For the record: I’m a radical leftist, but of a relatively decentralized sort. Headed towards social anarchist, but I do think it’s good to have broader structures so not quite, but not a Communist)” – Purple Library Guy
Your concerned about social inequality, but support a stream of group based individualism that is relatively free of government, but which supports a broader government framework. Or something along those lines. The problem I see arising in this interesting confluence of ideologies is where the social aspect comes from; the welfare system. Decentralized structures are either decentralized or they are not. In your framework where is the welfare system being funded from?
You mention decentralization, in what way does this form of group freedom come into regulation with regard to trade. I mean, how are profits capped or kept in check, and by what body is this decision made? Does the regulation of trade impede group freedom and the very principles of anarchy?
I’m not sure a true welfare state can be decentralized at all, there is too much state involvement with funding needs and money disbursement.
“Nobody says North Korea is an example of anything. And maybe you could list for me all the capitalist small tropical islands who are the incredible technological leaders you want Cuba to be in order to be good enough for you.” – Purple Library Guy
Who said anything about being good enough for me? I was responding to a communist, using communist countries as reference is quite valid I would think. My position is that pure socialist states lack the capacity to innovate in ways that free markets can. There are numerous examples of free market innovations, too many to innumerate in fact.
I too have an issue with egregious wealth accumulation, but this in most cases is related directly to the financier class, not the producer class. I have argued repeatedly that private central bank monopolies are the core of this inequality, only to be shouted down time and again from those (often times socialists) that either feel some affinity towards central banks, or somehow don’t recognize that most government taxation goes toward debt repayment as the result of government borrowing.
The financier class, using free money and easy access to deep money flows will cannibalize industries by manipulating the price of commodities and currencies using derivatives, they force companies into receivership and buy them up for pennies on the dollar. Over time the financiers have taken over vast swaths of industry, they then place ivy league hot shots to squeeze profits, often times bankrupting once well run companies, and/or off shoring production. Rinse and repeat.
The socialist peoples movements is partially a reaction to this very real situation. However, we need not become Bolivarian radicals, or communists to change the situation. THAT is my basic premise. Everyone wants to throw the baby out, when it’s the water that is dirty. Change the water – enforce the laws that are on the books which prevent corporate malfeasance, remove corporate contributions from the democratic process, indict politicians that are found to be corrupt, revoke corporate charters if needed, remove protection from policy makers who act illegally, and for the good of all people strip the ability to create money from the private banks. All this needs to be done in any case, and it doesn’t require that free markets be squashed in order to do so.
A decentralized economy is always better than a centralized economy, this has been proven out over time, its called systemic resiliency. Centralized control ALWAYS leads to entropy, that is why China is being forced to open its market, centralized control of a growing economy throttles human potential and leads to either stagnancy or social chaos.
You argue that the producer creates purely for profit, and seeks only to enslave its workers to sub-human levels of hardship, and you say this based on what? Are you cherry picking the worst examples historically or just blowing hot air? Have you ever run a company and employed people? Do you recognize that in the business world there is an ongoing evolution of the business model, where business owners are trying new things, changing work environments, employing new tools. Employees and how they are treated and paid is a very big deal in the business world, therefore the primary issue is not mistreatment of workers in the industrialized countries (yes it happens, as does rape and murder) but the off-shoring of factories to regions of the world where there is no culture of business ethics. How employees are treated, and how they are viewed is primarily cultural.
Henry Ford paid his employees high wages because he recognized that if he did so his employees would be able to afford his products. He created a movement of higher wages without unions, and many companies followed suit. There are tens of thousands of companies that pay their employees very livable wages around the world, in most cases without unions. To me you are a simply being reactionary. Blame producers, and blame business, that is fine, but I assure you, a world without independent business and trade leads only to stagnation.
I abhor communism, as well as all forms of centralized control, and this also includes private central money control by the financier class. Transparent and democratic free exchange with a justly implemented infrastructure of law (government) need not devolve into radical socialist ideologies. Social support systems are fine, but they should be like hospitals, there for mending, not life support.
Without government taxation of wages, and minimal land taxes it should be within reach of the average worker to buy themselves a plot of land, set up a little dwelling, maybe with friends, raise some chickens, have a bonfire every night, eat some garden fresh produce from the backyard, and generally live quite comfortably, all without a communist overlord government. Freedom is largely expectation, and an honest and just free market system with minimum taxation allows people the freedom to save, and even retire at a much younger age if they desire. Want to to live in a commune? Get together with others, buy the land, get off-grid, raise your food and gaze at the stars. Socialist paradise, no thanks.
“Social support systems are fine, but they should be like hospitals, there for mending, not life support”
Oh, I disagree. In many Europeans countries they do have universal free health care (running these is usually not cheap, nor free: they do tax the hell out of you for the privilege), but what happens when the patient is there because of industrial injury? They get treated and the tax-payer picks up the bill, that’s what!
That’s a direct subsidy to private companies and the damage they cause to their own workers. In other words: socialism for the rich.
That’s just one of many examples where ‘Capitalists’ – who often get away with paying as little taxes as humanly possible – benefit from ‘social programs,’ which is Socialism by another name.
It’s the same with pensions; once the ‘human working unit’ has been used up, it’s ‘retired,’ and there it is the tax-payer again shouldering the burden to look after a now frail individual with nothing left to give.
Take food stamps, what are they if not a top-up scheme for the scandalous low wages employers pay?
Here, in Europe, we have “working tax-credits” (tax relief) reserved for those on low-pay and very low-pay. Again; this is the tax-payer footing the bill for the living-wage employers categorically refuse to pay.
And how about free schooling? Why does the tax-payer have to pay to educate private corporations and businesses future employees? And it’s not only about educating future employees, free schooling also free parents to go out and work for businesses and corporations while their kids are at school, all courtesy of the [socialist] tax-payer.
You keep going on about failed “socialist paradises,” but why don’t we talk about countries where they have pure Capitalism? And.. to my knowledge, there are none. Why? Because: Capitalism, in its current form, cannot exist without some measure of Socialism: State benefits, State funding, State subsidies to the rich. But you don’t hear them complain about these very real forms of Socialism (which just happen to benefit them *eye-roll*) because that’s how parasitic Capitalists outsource their overheads to the faceless masses.
“[..] Without government taxation of wages, and minimal land taxes it should be within reach of the average worker to buy themselves a plot of land, set up a little dwelling, maybe with friends, raise some chickens, have a bonfire every night, eat some garden fresh produce from the backyard, and generally live quite comfortably, all without a communist overlord government”
Yeah… and that’s the freakin’ point!
Capitalist are NOT paying their way in this world, they just take-take-take and then take some more. That’s why they pay little taxes and all over the ‘capitalist’ world, they work hard day and night, to shift the social costs to anybody other than themselves.
But! Not everything stemming from capitalist ideologies are the Devil impersonated.
I’m open and also sure there are plenty of clever ideas [provided they’re non-exploitative] we can draw from the Capitalist Model. Innovation can be named as one of them; although I’m rather skeptical, since most ‘innovations’ do come from the scientific community, and they are usually heavily subsidized by the State in one way or another…
To me, the missing component in Capitalism is ethics. Go through the ideology of capitalism – libertarian or otherwise – with fine tooth comb and scratch anything off that is inherently and fundamentally unethical. Whatever is left, is what we can learn from it and use it to collectively evolve.
And even perhaps incorporate them into Socialism, or some other new school of though we don’t have a name for yet.
-TL2Q
On the welfare state and decentralization–the problem isn’t scale, really, it’s more unevenness, as well as specialization. I mean look, if ten million people can support one million pensioners with a 10% tax, then 100 people can support 10 pensioners with a 10% tax. It’s not that small groups can’t provide “social programs”, it’s just that small groups aren’t used to “thinking like a state” and don’t have the tools available to make the decisions. That’s not a huge problem. A bigger problem is that some whole communities are relatively poor and others relatively rich even aside from questions of who employs whom. A hardscrabble farming community would have a much harder time than a community of mostly high-educated professionals in providing welfare or pensions or health care or whatnot; there’s just less surplus. So yeah, you need some way to smear the resources around a bit to counter that sort of difficulty. And another real problem is things like high-end hospitals, or big science like CERN, or symphony orchestras. You need some way to allocate for things that any given small community or neighbourhood doesn’t need, but which you want to have exist. There’s standards, too–you don’t want every town to have a different gauge of railroad track or some damn thing. Which is the kind of reason I’m not for pure anarchism. But I do think it’s possible, especially with modern technology, to get things like that arranged with considerably less centralized control than we use for it now.
You’re saying I support group-based individualism. I’m not sure whether that’s supposed to be a good or a bad thing, but it seems oddly contradictory. This kind of labelling seems to me to obscure meaning more than anything else.
You want to go back to more managed capitalism. Well that’s dandy and all, but it’s unstable. The kind of capitalism that Norway has or that Canada had . . . well, first of all, even the Golden Age circa 50s to 70s left a surprising number of people out. It wasn’t perfect in its heyday. But such heydays cannot in any case last very long. Capitalism is not just economics, it’s political economy. The owners of capital, and sorry that’s not just bankers, always want more. It’s their job to want more. I don’t know why you seem all surprised and offended at the notion that profit maximization is what capitalist firms do–of course it’s what they do, it’s practically the definition of a capitalist firm. Go ask any mainstream economist what firms are supposed to do, they’ll tell you–it’s not some controversial notion that only commies claim, it’s the bedrock of capitalist claims to market efficiency.
And so if you have a political system that works to restrain their excesses, redistribute their excess wealth, and restrict them to making profits only in ways that are productive and useful for society, that is a barrier to maximizing profits, and they will pour great efforts into overcoming that barrier. Overcoming barriers to the maximization of profits is what capitalism does. And their position as the owners of capital inevitably gives them great power. So over time they will always turn the system away from restrictions on their activities, just as they are doing now. And when they do, things will tend to turn to crap.
The same problem applies to all attempts to preserve the environment–they represent restrictions on profit and so capitalism will work to overcome them. Serious Greens pretty much need to be anti-capitalist in some way. Something better than capitalism must be possible; the question is what, exactly. It’s been difficult to find out so far, because generally whenever someone tries the Americans will overthrow them or, at best, put them under massive pressure so it’s hard to tell what would have happened if they could develop normally. At a minimum, though, it seems pretty clear to me that one improvement would be extending democracy to include work. It’s not OK to have a dictator running our political lives, why is it OK to have a dictator running our daily lives at work?
That thing about Ford, by the way, is a myth. Ford was making a virtue of necessity–he said that, but only after he tried hard to break the back of the union with everything up to and including armed Pinkerton goons. He failed, the union won, and that’s the real reason he paid the workers decently. Then he was all “I meant to do that!” Bloody Nazi a-hole (literally, he supported Hitler).
You can say Communist states aren’t innovative, but again, Cuba is much more innovative than, say, the Dominican Republic or Jamaica. Cuba are world leaders in medical and organic agriculture techniques, whereas as far as I know most other Caribbean states aren’t world leaders in anything despite not being blockaded. And as for Apple, nearly all the technologies they depend on were invented by the state, and the few that weren’t were mostly invented by Bell Labs back when Bell was the next thing to a state–a huge, stable monopoly, both guaranteed and heavily regulated by the state. But let’s see, the internet, the web, the touchscreen, the GPS–all government inventions, and Apple itself was helped along by direct government aid in the early days.
Yeah let’s all just cop out and kick back…..that’s that ticket….I’m ok ma F the rest. Anyway, enjoy it while you can. You might even get to see the nuclear missile coming in before it hits while your gazing at that sky, but not if your gazing at your navel. As Obama says, you’ll never see it coming.
Cheers,
RR
“I don’t agree with Marx that such crises will inevitably make capitalism fall” Marx doesn’t assert that at all. Crisis are inevitable and will continue to grow more acute but that doesn’t mean that unless the people proceed to take over the commanding heights of the economy and transition to a post capitalist, socialist society, capitalism will return and well will be even more concentrated into fewer and fewer hands and this is EXACTLY what has occurred over the past century. Nostradamos. HA no one nailed the macro economic future of the world under capitaism the way Marx did-which is why the entire intellectual infrastructure of the West has been dedicated to burying him for the past 150 years. If we do NOT proceed to socialism what will occur is the mutual ruination of both contending classes…. The choice is clear…Socialism or Continued Capitalism Barbarism and Thermonuclear and Environmental Destruction. Nationalism religion, sex, race…..the fundamental DIVIDE in this world is CLASS. We need a to eliminate CLASS as a social category or we will perish…..and we DO have more than enough resources and technology to accomplish this task and life the entire world up out of the dirt. All the rest quite frankly is smoke.
Just as a reply to one point U made about innovation in communist paradises – I believe we can single out several historic innovations and many smaller ones coming out of those two third world countries, and many more coming out of those third world countries than any third world capitalist paradises we can mention. First and foremost north Korea has developed a nuclear weapon for itself despite sanctions internstional blockades famine. On top of this, North Korea becuase of North Koreas isolation, they have been forced to develope many imitations of western innovation, which Although are cheap and not as good, still
Represent significant innovation on the part of a isolated starving country. Cuba on the other hand has developed the worlds first cure for lung cancer and have doctors that revival 1st world medical care. now they might not have the cheap North Korean copies of the Internet, Ipads and phones,
Nukes and other products, I believe this Cuban innovation into the medical
Field perhaps is the right kind of innovation into soemthing that stands even as a problem in the most developed nations.
I have heard this arguement before that xommunism stifles innovation but when it comes down to it is the amount of innovation we have in the leading example of a capitalist country like
America even a good thing? I mean Apple is a billion dollar innovative company that stands as the poster child for why US capitalism is great but in
The end what is the majority of apple’s innovation? Changing a few features on THEr product every two years bc they know people will buy in mass despite the lack of any substantial difference between the iphn 5 and 6? And to produce this 6 billions was spent on r&d and development and marketing and so forth and so on. Cuba just developed a cure for lung cancer and its gdp is problem less than apples profits. Imagine how great this country would
Actually be if that money and innovation put into the iphn
6 was pushed into things that actually mattered.
The bulk of people here are not socialists….mainly white Russian and Orthodox Christian Viewpoint. I am a Marxist, but I enjoy this blog and Russia’s anti-imperialist stance as the only moral choice one can make as a Marxist, White Russian or Orthodox Christian. March separately, Strike together!
I wish I could contribute more to these discussions but I am burnt on Sat morning from being up all night and have been through this Marxists vs Capitalism vs Anarchism for years and all those looking for a “Third Way” There is only one way, the one percent have to be overthrown regardless of the nationality. Imagine if Occupy Demanded just this:
-OCCUPY 2.0 with AGENDA. Prosecute Bush Obama NATO War Criminals. Prosecute Wall Street Fraud Artists, Audit the Federal Reserve, Audit the Pentagon, Stop the Phoney War On Terror, Stop the Phoney War on Drugs, Stop the Militarization of Local Police they cannot be used as Tip of the Spear Against People. All Police Actions involving violence must be subject to review of citizens from Community Directly Involved. Warren Buffet says there is a CLASS WAR going on and HIS SIDE is WINNING! We must not be divided by sex or race Unite across CLASS LINES GENERAL STRIKE LABOUR STOPPAGE only WEAPON WE HAVE. When the Cash Register STOPS Ringing…the 1% LISTEN. Restore Constitution, Bill of Rights, Rule of Law, Government OF FOR BY THE PEOPLE INTERNATIONAL GENERAL STRIKE NOW-not even a call for revolution or appropriation of wealth, just the restoration of America’s own professed values…..and this would be considered radical. That is how disorientated most of humanity has become and why fascism will triumph in the West. Remember, Fascism doesn’t begin with Gas Chambers, it ends there….those with hobnailed boots are already prepared only half hidden in the shadows-ONLY HALF HIDDEN IN THE SHADOWS.
I’m not in complete agreement with this piece, but whenever we mention Cuba we should not forget the blockade. The sanctions that have been on Cuba for decades make the sanctions on Iran look like a 1% duty on beany babies. Despite this, the standard of living in Cuba is clearly better than the standard of living in most other Caribbean countries which have no such sanctions. So I don’t think the Cuban situation is about some sort of choice of austerity.
There’s nothing wrong with a nice vacation. But if the situation is such that one man’s nice vacation must be paid for by ten people’s going hungry, the “Come on, live a little!” perspective falls a bit flat.
(The main disagreement I have with this piece is that, while I have nothing against redistribution from the wealthy few to the ragged many, in Venezuela any problems the wealthy few may have been having in terms of importing luxuries or going on vacation aren’t actually caused by that, they’re caused mainly by a weird battle over currency between the government and the elites, where capital flight led to policies, policies created possibilities for scams, the attempt to crack down on scams led to other policies which opened the door for other scams and so on. So the tidy Robin Hood picture of the revolutionary poor taking from the rich who become upset at their losses is IMO largely inaccurate.
The reason the well-off, from the upper-middle class on up, have been so hostile to Chavismo is not so much because of actual losses; they haven’t actually lost much, so far at least, and they were already blazing mad before Chavez had even done much. For some time, any loss of oil rent was mainly made up in a return to robust economic growth which had been lacking in the 80s and 90s. That’s having a bit of a lull lately, to be sure. No, the issue is more one of outrage and fear. They feel acutely the loss of control over the country’s agenda, and they fear what will happen in the future if the Chavistas really do move more strongly towards socialism. They are deeply upset that the rabble, the “monkeys” from the hillsides, think they can run the country. It’s about power and control, and the loss of it, and at a visceral level it’s about complacent feelings of superiority, racist and class-based, and the fury we so often see from racists or sexists when their position on top is threatened.)
Excellent points – I appreciate your thoughts. I think I was kinda getting to that point in my blog when I was discussing that the masses at times see the Revolution as moving too slowly or being too conciliatory with the traditional capitalist elite. This of course is a calculated decision to not provoke all-out civil war at this point but events and capitalist attacks are making this harder and harder to continue – something which Maduro is recognizing and responding to as seen with the smuggling/terrorism problem at the Colombian border.
And you make a good point that the ruling class actually hasn’t lost that much up to now – something I think I forgot to more explicitly discuss but again was implied.
Again, thanks for taking the time to read my article and commenting!
Certainly everyone should be able to have “luxuries” of life but in the transition from a system of exploitation which Venezuela suffered under for centuries, this cannot take priority over an upheaval of exploitation in which the masses take power and begin to have what they need. The exploitation of the masses is what has previously allowed for the elite to enjoy the “luxuries”.
I actually have a platform I’m working on that deals with everyone having time for simple enjoyment of life – including vacation. Please check it out: http://akahnnyc.blogspot.com/2015/08/a-working-platform.html
Thank You Dear Andrew Kahn for you Rebuttal.
You have written a MasterPiece!! You are a Hero!!!
Just Wonderful:
“””””Perhaps this working class average citizen was attempting to expand property holdings beyond an already-owned house?
[…]
What is criminal about the fact that perhaps every weekend you cannot go to the beach or mountain? Is it a human right to escape your neighborhood and community to go to the beach and mountains in a new car bought from easy credit? But let the Revolution die so a bourgeois upper class elite can have unlimited forays to the beaches while the masses go hungry in their shanties. This, my friends, is freedom. This, my friends, is why the Revolution must die! Je suis bourgeoisie!”””””
Thank you!
Were heading into an era when more and more countries are going to lose the privileges Catire was claiming Venezuela was losing, and its not entirely, or even primarily, because of socialists. There simply isnt enough resources on earth for everyone to have the kind of lifestyle that USAmericans today possess. And for most countries, including the USA, the material conditions they experience now will progressively deteriorate in the next few decades.
Unless theyre part of the upper capitalist class. Different story entirely. But theyre the global exception, not the rule. The majority of the worlds population is going to get progressively poorer.
@ Massinissa:
> Were heading into an era when more and more countries are going
> to lose the privileges Catire was claiming Venezuela was losing
Yes, in fact that started in the very moment the Soviet Union got destroyed: Then suddenly the West no longer needed to hide its true “face” (brutal brats).
From 1990 on the standard of living started to decline in all western countries, because there no longer was any alternative that needed to be competed with (I had many relatives in West-Germany, and here from Berlin could see much better than from any other place what was happening here versus there).
So, even if people like Catire can never “get it”: The only way to get back their old social status is through more and more countries converting to Marxism/Leninism/Stalinism. Because only then the ZioNazi bankster elite would be willing to think about ways, how the West could return to being attractive to such people like Catire. And would branch off a couple of too-large-too-fail bank-rescuing trillions to help people like him.
Here is a very good alternative media video showing about debunking the western lies, that allegedly East-Germany “was bankrupt”.
It is only available in German and there are no subtitles:
What can we learn from the GDR economy? The GDR-economic miracle
(Was können wir aus der DDR-Wirtschaft lernen? Das DDR-Wirtschaftswunder )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pgMDxs8SnU
Only a few numbers: Although Communist East-Germany had no natural resources (no coal, no gas, no oil, no metals, nothing) and needed to pay 99 billion Deutschmarks of reparations (nearly 50 billion Euros, but in today’s terms it would be 10 times as much, inflation corrected), West-Germany (had much coal, metals and everything) got the western Marshall-Plan plus only needed to pay a hilarious 2 billion Deutschmarks of reparations. Add to this, that East-Germany lost 1.5 million traitors before August 13th 1961, which got free education and free everything in the East only for thanklessly committing TREASON and migrating to West-Germany, which didn’t need to pay a penny for their skills.
Also East-Germany not only has no natural resources, but at the same time is much smaller than West-Germany (because Stalin gave most o the original East-Germany to the thankless russophobic Poland!).
Debts level 1990:
West-Germany 1 Trillion
Communist East-Germany only a ridiculous 17 billion Deutschmarks
(Now Germany has more than 4.4 Trillion Deutschmarks (2,2 Trillion EUR) of DEBT:
http://www.aref.de/kalenderblatt/mehr/staatsverschuldung_deutschland_entwicklung.htm
http://www.staatsverschuldung.de/schuldenuhr.htm
And this number is increasing by about 1500 EUR per every second!
Disclaimer: It is 5 am here and I didn’t take the time to listen back and separate internal debts from external debts etc etc etc. It would be required to spenad a week writing dowsn every word and then translating it plus adding external references.
But I know that these facts are indeed like that. Who doesn’t believe me: Verify these claims. They _are_ verifiable.
The annexation of GDR by the West on October 3rd 1990 was the biggest robbery in human history since the times when Europeans stole all of North- and South- America from the true Americans.
How can the so called “USA” be a “nation” with a so called “national identity” btw???
I forgot another interesting fact: While the western liars always called their currencies “hard money” (which is now a joke since 1971 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixon_Shock ) and called eastern currencies “Aluminium-chips” the truth is, that western economies were run much less “market-like” than the Eastern ones!
If the West has debts: QE#1, QE#2, QE#3, QE#4(certain, but let’s wait for tommorrow’s interest rate announcement)
The ZioWest can borrow as much so called “money” as it wants from its privately owned/controlled tiotally intransparent so called “central banks”.
Printing moaaarrrr ….. is their drug ……….
If the East had/has debts: We pay them back.
Another fact is: We in communism had _ZERO_ inflation. ZERO,00000!
While western currency double most prices at least every 10 to 20 years on average.
Which constitutes in fact intentionally calculated planned robbery and shifting wealth from the bottom to the top.
martin,
your posts are very interesting, and since i lived through that time i feel i know almost nothing about it, in spite of a military job which fed me propaganda
which i began to see for what it was. i am still naive at 79.
if you have the time and inclination i would be interested and others might also like to see your synopsis of that era in east Germany.
no pressure, no worries.
thanks for your posts but please expand.
@oldnik007:
Thanks for your interest.
I could send you a thousand videos and articles, books etc. But most of them are only available in German language
Also this is certainly not a forum about Germany (not even about the Soviet Union).
But I appreciate your appeciation …
So in the context of what is not too OT from the topics covered on Saker’s blog I’m glad to provide a few more views, whenever they happen to fit.
rgds.
Very interesting points you make, Martin. I’d like to know more about it, with as much details as you can. See, I’m from southern Europe, and more and more people here are beginning to realize Germany’s pulled the same trick on us that they once did with East Germany. The few things I’ve read about it remind me a lot of what has happened in recent years: stock manipulations, State firms with appointed private managers who ran them into the ground and made possible for big private industry to buy former State property for chips, systematic destruction of worker rights and buying out leftist parties and worker unions… what happened in East Germany in the 90s, I think, happened in Southern Europe from 2005.
I am not sure if Germany is a good example of capitalism failing the working classes. It is a well functioning state with very good social support and worker rights (unions). Country with strong industry and plenty of jobs (in fact it needs a lot of immigration to satisfy future labor needs). Part of this success is of course Euro, which cheapened Germany’s exports at the expense of Southern Europe. I traveled through East Germany and West Germany when they existed and I have no doubt where I would’ve preferred to live. The West. And yes I am familiar with life under communism because though long ago but I lived it. Not as bad as western propaganda but much worse than Cold War era West Germany or France. I agree that since the collapse of Soviet Union things are going downhill with the financialization of the economy, the austerity policies, the wars and in general the turn to the right in the West.
The problem with Venezuela, as I see it, is that the Empire doesn’t allow for the “third way”. Unlike in Cuba there are elections (very good and fair system). There is private, not censored media. Yes, they nationalized oil, which is only fair, but the rest of the economy is private. However it is sabotaged by the Empire and the former ruling classes leading to economic troubles, which the government is having hard time to handle, partially due to incompetence. It is a punishment for people’s choice.
The only successful “third way” country (with well functioning partially capitalist system but not a client of the Empire) is China. However China cannot afford to liberalize its political system or the media because of the danger of “color revolution “. The most powerful technology the Empire developed is propaganda (invented in 1920’s in the US by a relative of Freud). People busy with their lives buy it. Next most powerful technology is the financial system, which only China can currently resist.
However it doesn’t change the fact that a well regulated capitalist economy functions better than fully centrally run one. So the East Germany is not a positive example, even if the reunification process was not fully successful.
@ Skeptic
What????
I had a bigh laugh. You have no clue whatsoever.
@ Skeptic : In my humble view you are not “skeptic” enough, or if yes, then of the wrong things.
Your primary (if not only) sources of information regarding Europe appear to be mainstream media and a few short trips.
Therefore it wonders little that you came to completely wrong conclusions on almost all points.
I would not respond to your message, wasn’t it for others who are interested in East-Germany versus the new EU states.
But honestly, I’m not very enthusiastic about the things you said nor about wasting much energy with your statements.
Only step by step in a hurry:
> Skeptic on September 17, 2015 · at 2:59 am UTC
>
> I am not sure if Germany is a good example of capitalism failing the working classes.
> It is a well functioning state with very good social support and worker rights (unions).
Really?
google for “germany poverty”
https://www.google.de/search?q=social+situation+germany+poverty&biw=1280&bih=853&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAWoVChMIgO6syc7_xwIVQkQaCh1xCAok#tbm=isch&q=germany+poverty
Widespread Child Poverty in Germany
http://www.globalresearch.ca/widespread-child-poverty-in-germany/5357566
Germany’s One-Party System
http://www.globalresearch.ca/germanys-one-party-system-2/5330811
Social issues in Germany
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_issues_in_Germany
German Banker: Obama Is Destroying Europe
http://www.globalresearch.ca/german-banker-obama-is-destroying-europe/5454736
Berlin: A Grim Christmas for Many. Urban Poverty in Germany. Homelessness in the Inner City
http://www.globalresearch.ca/berlin-a-grim-christmas-for-many-urban-poverty-in-germany-widening-social-disparities/5316796
> Country with strong industry and plenty of jobs
> (in fact it needs a lot of immigration to satisfy future labor needs).
You have heard the same Propaganda-Shit as all the migrants who make the mistake to believe these lies and then risk their lives trying to come here.
The truth looks different.
Everybody (including my fellow Academics) who ever attempted to find a job in Germany will confirm this.
Google for or enter on youtube: “Fachkraeftemangel” (lack of skilled experts)
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=fachkraeftemangel
Even state TV admits it is a lie and myth:
Fachkräftemangel ein Mythos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaBQsLy-dr0
Fachkräftemangel und Asylmissbrauch: Wie sich Einwanderungspolitik seit Jahren im Kreis dreht
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dz1awTd_97A
Plusminus – Das Märchen vom Fachkräftemangel – eine Erfindung der Wirtschaft
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bUExQUvw8E
Fachkräftemangel: Ein Meister ohne Job
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EITUkwZZh1c
jobs (and 100 applicants).
The rest is the fairy tale propaganda of “Fachkraeftemangel”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bUExQUvw8E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFq2aAcf-8s
http://info.kopp-verlag.de/hintergruende/deutschland/gerhard-wisnewski/mythos-fachkraeftemangel-wie-die-zuwanderung-herbeigelogen-wird.html
> Part of this success is of course Euro, which cheapened Germany’s exports
> at the expense of Southern Europe.
Success???
Yes, but only for the 0.1%:
Google for: social inequality gap germany
https://www.google.de/search?q=social+inequality+gap+germany&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&gws_rd=cr&ei=WoT7VfCbDcaya8Xhi5gG
Millions Left Behind in Boom: The High Cost of Germany’s Economic Success
Countries around the world envy Germany’s economic success and look up to it as a role model. But a closer look reveals a much bleaker picture. Only a few are benefiting from the boom, while stagnant wages and precarious employment conditions are making it difficult for millions to make ends meet. By SPIEGEL Staff
http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/german-labor-reforms-create-greater-gap-between-rich-and-poor-a-830972.html
Eurozone social inequality most extreme in Germany
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/03/05/germ-m05.html
> I traveled through East Germany and West Germany when they existed and I have no
> doubt where I would’ve preferred to live. The West.
No, that’s what many Easterners also (mistakenly) believed back then while watching western TV.
Your mistake: You only had a quick glimpse and exclusively at the fancy shiny surface.
You would have wanted back in the very moment you found yourself in a position of being exploited by capitalism and finding out that everything that was for free or dirt-cheap (subsidized) in the East must be paid in the West. And although West-Germany as a US vassall got economic conditions much better than it deserved through its own work (namely through the fraud of Western-FIAT currencies and fractional reserve banking), even back then poverty, millions of jobless and 100 thousands of homeless existed in the West back then, but not in the East.
You must be a typical American or Australian, with a life-long brainwashed distorted world-view.
> And yes I am familiar with life under communism because though long ago but I lived it.
Haeh?
> Not as bad as western propaganda but much worse than Cold War era West Germany or France.
See above.
> I agree that since the collapse of Soviet Union things are going downhill with the financialization > of the economy, the austerity policies, the wars and in general the turn to the right in the West.
Finally a word I can agree with!
But as said, sorry for my french, you are clueless.
Here a few more links, but I’m getting tired of explaining it to somebody who won’t understand it anyway (both in terms of the language and in terms of the content).
In the view of millions of East-Germans Germany was not “re-unified”.
But the East got ANNEXED.
Those who still feel it and know the facts first hand are slowly but surely dying out (25 years).
Russia May Condemn “Annexation” Of East Germany
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-01-28/russia-may-condemn-annexation-east-germany
Google for “Treuhandkriminalitaet” or “Ausverkauf der DDR” (sellout of GDR) or “Beutezug Ost” (plundering the East) or “Invasion DDR” …..
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=treuhandkriminalitaet
Beutezug Ost Die Treuhand und die Abwicklung der DDR Doku über die DDR Teil 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YmxTojrls0
Beutezug Ost Die Treuhand und die Abwicklung der DDR Doku über die DDR Teil 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDR6Y4h8Px4
Treuhand 2010, das Dilemma bei der Abwicklung der DDR Betriebe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9G4M-qf2XQ
Die Veruntreuung der Treuhand – Interview mit Dr. Klaus Blessing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbdzwd1PXiU
Der skandalöse Ausverkauf der DDR | ttt | DAS ERSTE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skvOrpKb7Ls
Die DDR – Meine Heimat
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwihD-_LrMI
Then google for Hartz 4 or GEZ.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=hartz4
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=gez
Sorry, but this entire subject brings me into full RAGE.
Better inform yourself. But I don’t want to speak about these sad tragic losses.
I would rather take a tank and shoot back!!!!! As long as here is no revolution I try not to think of all this injustice.
I WANT BACK INTO THE FUTURE!
CCCP 2.0 :)
@ SumGuy: I are 100% right with comparing East-Germany to southern and eastern-EU.
Also thanks for your interest. But as said, most videos are so far only available in German language.
But see a few lines below for now, I will try to give Skeptic some of these url’s.
Correction: Should read: _you_ are 100% right
(this poor Celeron machine is on its limits, and sometimes the kbd doesn’t respond for some secs)
It isn’t that is why it has to constantly be manufactured and promoted at every event from Professional Wrestling to Football. “George Washington never told a lie…” The “Founding Fathers”
“Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves.” “1776” Without any real historical analysis that “America the Beautiful” is anything other than an “exceptional nation” And that has come to mean exceptionally backwards as compared to every other modern state that is now being torn asunder due to the imperatives of CAPITAL. No real soul searching is ever done. The election of a Black President is seen as a milestone….yet if America wasn’t still so racist….the colour of the man’s skin would not mean a thing. And Obama has ducked every issue regarding race relations that has made it to national attention. Having a beer with someone in the Rose Garden solved nothing. 2008 Financial crisis-laws passed to make it even easier to steal in fact, the crisis was used by Wall Street to steal even more money…..And the Culture….The Soprano’s was celebrated as the American Way…because it is, but only if you are in the top ten percent. 3 Former U.S. Treasury Secretaries and a Facebook Executive Laugh About Income Inequality 3 guys that should be in jail….https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8xoUw5FX6k now some fool will come on here and say but that is not real capitalism….No? Where did all the original wealth come from that these capitalist amassed in the days of Adam Smith…packing a lunch bag? No the same way it is gotten today producing body bags…. Fools in America scream bloody revolution if you try and take my gun away but never use those gun rights for their intended purpose….That is what is wrong with America today.
When one writes from an ideological point of view, everything has to fit or the ideology is discredited.
With the age of the uber elites, 0.1% running the globe (via finance, investment and banking hegemony), the new day dawning is Feudalism.
Sorry, Andrew. The facts don’t fit.
Ah, Saker, you’ve found another great ally in this Andrew Kahn. Thank you! Twice in two days he appears as a friend of the truth.
Andrew Kahn, thank you for this report. I am grateful to hear of the revolution from a revolutionary. I am glad to hear that Venezuela is okay, that her people are getting on with their lives and helping to make the true new world, one that orders itself.
If there must be any anger in this world at all, then let it at least be on behalf of the poor and the oppressed. I am so relieved to read analysis that pinpoints the struggle in its true nature, which is the eternal war of the rich against the poor. A war of plunder waged by a class that is not content simply to be idle, but which must spend all its moments stealing the wealth of this world from the poor. And hating the poor, hating them easily enough to kill them all and not think twice.
All politics, all economics, all propaganda, all class belief, all hatred, all fear, all analysis is made clear in the context of the war of plunder levied by the rich against the poor. And those who speak out about these things, I have observed, invariably speak in words that are clear, sane and reliable.
It’s a great pleasure to read you here.
Thank you. Much respect to you
Excellent piece. To people such as Catire, it’s simply a matter of adding insult to injury: no subservience from what used to be the silent, cowed majority alongside the very painful loss of petty bourgeois material privilege. The Whites in Apartheid South Africa of yesteryear spring to mind immediately.
Looking at the First World where the middle classes are still a majority thanks to imperialist rape and pillage, Catire’s lamentations are bound to become a gargantuan rallying call for total fascist reaction and counterrevolution. As an astute blogger made clear:
“The reality is that if revolution ever came to Klanada or Amerika, it would be an absolute nightmare for the vast majority of people. Their living standards would drop enormously, as their lifestyles would begin to reach an equilibrium with the rest of the planet.”
Given the fact that the plutocracy in charge of the West don’t feel any solidarity with their middle classes or labour aristocracies either, the prospect for these Western loyalists looks grim indeed. Fascist reaction is their last hope.
I wish class privileges were being lost here on Saltspring…the locals are starting to be despised by the shop keepers…who prefer the rich tourists to the poor locals.
We can only that the Russians will come as tourists some day, and bring the breath of global reality to this little northern paradise :)
It is easy to elucidate that Catire’s arguments and complaints have a class base just by knowing what his nickname means . CATIRE = find out what it means .Hint : description of skin and hair color .
Catire = White Trash
i did find out what it means, and got this gem as an example….
Se acabó el tiempo bueno, Catira.
Good times are over, Catira.
which is appropriate me thinks.
The complaint about chavismo creating a ‘division’ between rich and poor was certainly a ‘catire moment’…:)
Sounds like a textbook example of Orwellian language. The oppressors become the oppressed, and vice versa.
Nicely done, Andrew.
Catire reminds me of a day long ago when a university professor’s wife confided in myself and a friend that she was concerned about a growing paranoia she was observing in her husband. “For example,” she related, “last night when he was passing in front of the picture window, he crouched down and crawled.”
My friend said “Don’t worry. It’s just that he has suddenly become aware of his class position.”
Hard as it is to believe, Catire is typical of wealthy classes everywhere in countries with huge disparities in wealth. They and theirs are everyone. They honestly don’t realize that you are looking at their country as the home of all its people.
I was once losing an argument with a student from India who was denying that India was poor. I suggested that the fact he was here meant he came from the upper 5%. He said “No. His family lived modestly, even the servants went home and night and weren’t live-in, they had only two cars.” I said “The average annual income is less than $200.”
“Oh!” He looked at me aghast. “But you’re counting the peasants!”
Catire and those he associates with are the Venezuelans. Then there are some dark smudges at the outer edges of his consciousness that do not have a true existence.
“No. His family lived modestly, even the servants went home and night and weren’t live-in, they had only two cars.”
The sad part was that he didn’t “get” the irony of “living modestly” and having “servants”.The “s” on the end of course meaning he even had more than one servant.
I remember reading a Polish history book printed before 1989.And in that book,along with the normal history information you’d find in a history book printed anywhere in the West.There were sections on the historical time sections that talked about the lives of the people.It gave details about the lives of the common people,peasants,townspeople,industrial workers.About small inventions and lifestyle changes.And gave some of those people’s names in history.
I thought,how different than history books in the West.Where only the wealthy classes are talked about in detail.Only those of “importance” in society “deserve” to be remembered in the West.The common people are considered only as “extra’s in the movie”.Put in to help focus better on the Kings,Nobles,Generals, Politicians,and wealthy classes of the past. That was sort of the “feel” I got when reading Catire’s words.That he represented the Western history books.While Andrew and Martin represent the one I read long ago.
I laughed when I read this – great points and humorous!
@ Andrew Kahn,
Two words; brilliant rebuttal.
Thank you. It was an honor.
Good article Andrew, thank you
Thanks for a closely reasoned defense with enough ad hominems to add salt. Saker’s original rather long forward, disclaimers, anticipatory balm to sooth the expected deluge of anger and then the article by Catire generated 300 comments including the not to forgotten “Scream of Total Disappointment,” and excluding the moderators’ merciful excisions. I’m learning to expect the unexpected and to not underestimate personal quiet volcanoes. Right after my rant against religions out jumps the reference to early Christianity where they apparently “held everything in common.” In other words, socialism if not communism. Now that kind of religion is natural. I’m a kind of babe in the woods as far as the level of sophistication here in the vineyard. I fear my need for approval and naivete will expose me to well deserved scorn but I am somewhat mollified by the saker dilemma whereby he escapes the horns by humility, humor, tension releasing rants, the tenacity of the ages, art, music and well-prepared moderators. It looks like a one-man show but it’s rather a finely tuned orchestra of dozens and thousands of spectator-participants like me. The long and short of it is this whole conversation on Venezuela is a real eye-opener which was initiated by someone who took a chance while fearing consequences. I mention this because I face mini-dilemmas every day where fear struggles with desire. Sometimes I win; sometimes I lose. My hope is that “after losing every battle, he won the war.” Dylan. I feel like apologizing but I remember a professor who told me fifty-five years ago: “don’t apologize.” So I won’t. I have a Catire and a Kahn in me anyway so what good would it do? Get some approval? Mitigate the scorn? Quiet the storm? Even if it did it would be a set-up for more approval. I’d rather play the saker vineyard game as long as it lasts or “drifts into eternity and back again.” Dylan. The Saker might hate Dylan but that’s beside the point. On point is love of Venezuela, rich and poor. I’ll let love sort out what that means.
Aah *sight*…and order in the universe has been rightfully restored :)
Onwards and upwards, my good-man, rebel by choice (more like: critical-thinker by choice, I’d say)
Already looking forward to more of your articles Mr. Kahn.
-TL2Q
Thank you! Please check my blog at: http://akahnnyc.blogspot.com or follow me on Twitter at: @akahnnyc.
^ Will do! Bookmarking it as we speak =)
So I have been waiting to see what other people comment. Is this just me? Why does a pharmacist in New York City get equal time on Venezuela with someone who actually lives there? Can someone help me out here? Not getting this.
Probably because the “pharmacist” studies and writes about Venezuela for a Western audience,”us”.And the fellow living there is a 5th columnist devoted more to the Empire than his own people.Does that answer your question.
Not really.
Perhaps the views of the pharmacist are more agreeable to the other Bolivarian radicals who frequent this site? As has already been stated by some, those who seek vacations and access to credit and more than one car are 5th columnists and can’t be trusted……I do wonder though, how many cars does the pharmacists own?
Maybe he’s really idealistic and only uses public transport. I knew a guy like that once. He dressed like Lenin, called everyone in his circle comrade, would only use public transportation, and refused to use a computer, he banged out these typewritten reports and would photocopy them for distribution. I ran a restaurant at the time, and we would screen documentaries on the weekends, a very social spot, got all the most interesting people from miles around. I’ll always remember him, he ate small portions, so was very thin, tall and very upright, and comrade this and comrade that. Very idealistic, but he couldn’t hold a job, he lamented having no money all the time. I always gave him free tea and coffee. He liked that.
I would love to just use public transportation; not having to care about parking, about garage, about repairs and tire changing, etc. It would be wonderful…
The problem is that on a capitalist profit driven society you don’t get decent transportation; all is done to favour car makers sales. And roads get nightmarish and dangerous.
On a society where the goal is the wellbeing of humans transportation will be planned with the human as the centre (not the car); and dense, efficient and fast transportation network would be put in place, allowing to easily go from anywhere to anywhere.
Having a car is not a “freedom”, but actually a slavery!
And note that the real rich people don’t enslave themselves that way: they have drivers! That is, they have (their own private) transportation. Wouldn’t it be better if that would be extendend to all, instead of being a privilege of a few?
Think you might be onto something there. Don’t know the ‘scene’ here. Just came for an article and started poking around.
“Equal time” — hell no. Catire’s reactionary whining is being supported and amplified by the MSM sewer 24/7. Your Western sensibilities are being hurt accordingly when the imperialist horseshit just doesn’t bite.
I did reply to Catire´s initial article, and sent it before reading any replies. This reply makes one point well, and could have been much shorter. My position, after thinking over the discussion posted, was clarified to myself while washing dishes, a great meditative activity I engage in often. Catire´s article was entirely lacking in a spirit of altruism, or any thought of the well being of others. He was entirely self absorbed, in the hell of his own ego.
I suspect that the saker posted Catire´s article to flush out the knee jerk communists and socialists of the community. I suggest we go beyond taking up sides of an old, dull and outdated argument, (socialism vs capitalism) and focus instead on something more vital (at least to me).
Altruism can be expressed in many ways, through religions, philosophies, ideologies, or simply through acts of kindness. Acts, I would qualify, as expressed by thought, action, or speech. Caring for another is a basic understanding of interdependence, of how the world works. As one matures, it extends further and further, to `all sentient beings´. We awaken to these realities through love and cultivation, via culture. It is a process advocated by spiritual teachers such as the christed one, and the awakened one.
I look at the isms of the economic and political/ideological world as tools in my toolbox, or my magic backpack. When you need a screwdriver, a hammer will not do. And for some delicate jobs, (as I have used in making jewelry) only a very specific tool will do the job. As we go through life, we should be acquiring tools, and learning to use them appropriately. Beliefs are often a failure of imagination and presence; being in the immediacy of the moment.
When it is an obvious waste of resources for everyone to have to buy their own books, do archival work, and maintain a library, it makes sense to provide public libraries. Socialism! Gads! Markets are pleasant ways to structure small town economies under some constraints and limitations. They also provide for a commons and a social life that is a definite benefit to mental health and society in general. Think of the souks, and mexican markets that provide such social riches! So, why not apply the tools when necessary and appropriate?
In america, under the ideological pressures of the so called free market, we have destroyed freedom, and access to markets and employment all round, as well as a destruction of the commons. Any idea, followed as a belief, becomes its opposite. We must understand the idea of balance, demonstrated so richly in the natural world. Opposites require one another, they dance, they spiral, they play. Freedom and limitations are dependent on one another.
That is why the idea of war, even war on microbes must be supplanted by a wisdom view. that being that we are full of microbes, and surrounded by them, dependent on them for health, and that annihilating them is very stupid indeed. Going out of balance is what creates illness for a society, or an `individual person´.
So, the question, and I believe it is political, not just personal, is how to create the conditions of health, balance freedoms and limitations with equity, justice and wisdom within a given society? We may mine our respective cultures for the wisdoms and mistakes of the past.
I felt a bit embarrassed at my previous post, having dashed it off hastily and thinking it too `personal´. Yet, after reading the above post, I could´t help yawning midway through and thinking, could´t you be a little more lively? Life should be, you know, lively, and personal. The doctrinaire stuff is just so dull.
May socialism descend on your country.