pinkfloydpsw's Blog

I have a friend that is openly a Marxist, but we haven’t delved into the details of his particular flavour of Marxism, because everyone’s is different. I think that’s because Marx is more of a critical analyst than a person wishing for power for himself. I intend to pencil in the day my friend educates me further. I have the notion that I understand the concepts of Marx’s work, especially in its criticisms of capitalism, and for the most part I am convinced that the man should be regarded as a genius social thinker. It’s unfortunate that some empire builders misinterpreted his work so as to express their own flavour of totalitarianism.

We can contend successfully that Communism simply does not work, this is demonstrable, and I think because of a fundamental contradiction between communism as a classroom theory that regards fairness in a quite attractive way to the intellectual parts of the human mind, and the realities of the desires of the very same minds, where people want things and wish to express themselves in a unique way. These are not compatible aspects, humans do not wish to have all the same stuff as other humans. They like the same stuff yes, they are inspired by what they see yes, but they wish for a uniqueness in regard for themselves. As a theory, the idea that all are provided for is appealing, there’s just no way to do it that will work.

Capitalism gives us better stuff, it drives innovation, fuels progress, inspires people to realise dreams, and it does this by tempting the creative person to see the betterment of other peoples experiences as potentially lucrative to them. Incentive is key, incentive is the mechanism whereby people give effort where they otherwise would not. Making, improving, and designing new things, selling those things to people that desire to express themselves through identifying with the output or the product. It’s a certain sort of person that favours the iPhone or the iMac, and they favour it not because it is better but because it suits their idea of themselves better than the PC or the Android phone.

Socialism an idea to limit exploitation, it wants to give the whole value of any labour by any person to a benevolent small state that administrates and provides judicial services. In a classroom it is attractive and in reality it works only as a compliment to capitalism, in fact it enhances capitalism by restraining it. I’ll explain what I mean by that now. Capitalism is unbounded, it wants everything to be in a market, but some things do not fit in a market. Need does not fit in markets, only desire. What Socialism, the sort that Mamdani in New York espouses, does when combined with capitalism, is to define Want and Need in distinct and separate lanes. Capitalism for what you want, socialism for what you need. This is a proven model, the UK in the 20th Century between the war and Thatcher, current Scandinavian countries, these are hybrid Capitalist/Socialist success stories. Rampant unrestrained capitalism is Brazil, the modern US, the modern UK, these are countries suffering from being capitalist via increasing mass inequality. Some would contend, and there is an argument to be made, that Fascism is state-capitalism, a result of unrestrained market power.

Communism is the idea that the state defines what production the people need. Again an attractive idea because it eliminates greed (if you have good actors), democratic in origin but that democracy has not ever actually been seen in its practice. Communism is command economy, and it simply does not work well because people cannot live this way. Our psychology does not let us stop wanting things or make us adhere to the idea that a small group gets to dictate your needs and quash your desires for the good of all persons. It lacks individuality, it’s boring, it does not hold any incentive to create or strive.

So best so far is the hybrid, what the US and UK had, what Scandinavian countries are fighting against the right wing to keep, and what Cuba failed to successfully evolve toward but might yet, seems to be the best method of economic policy in governance. I stated in a recent post that I no longer believe in democracy, this is because the demonstrable is not demonstrable to all, people get their opinions now from 15 second sound bites made by people they like personally, I don’t think that is a basis for voting rights. In fact I think it should be an exclusionary principle.

My posts can be controversial, but in light of the US rapidly moving towards a fascist capitalist unrestrained country (in my opinion), I think we all need to learn what these ideologies promise. Fascism is the state taking complete control of all things, it can work only if there is a benevolent ruling class made up of merchants who understand history and act towards the betterment of the people. More normally it manifests as a cult, it is overly nationalistic, it scapegoats minorities, persecutes the poor, and uses state revenue to build statues to its own false greatness.

Paul S Wilson