So, I have been trying to figure out what to do about all the wrongs in the world and why I feel so numb at the sheer enormity of the work ahead of us.
Now, I am not a militant against anything per se, I just have radical ideas on the way things "should" be. I also have a realistic streak and understand how things currently are. I also tend to be a problem solver and am trying to reconcile the two worlds. One in which we live and one that I hope to have for the world.
Now, the numbness stems from my unclear understanding on the transition period between the two worlds. What really has to happen to get from one to another while limiting negative impact (or worse the ultimate impact) to those in society. And this slow realization that there can be no purely peaceful means of transition, and my pacifist hackles rise at the concept.
But the real issue is getting people to realize that the world sucks the way it is now (yes, I know it could be worse, but efforts have already been made to avoid THAT fate) and it needs to change soon before there will be no opportunity to change it without drastic changes and means.
I am a big fan of means justifying the ends and NOT the ends justifying the means. It is important keep your ideals and morals while changing the world to represent those ideals and morals. Otherwise, anything goes to get to the world which represents those ideals and morals but in the end those ideals and morals cannot exist based on how it was achieved.
Needless to say, and like I have mentioned earlier, the numbness also stems from my lone voice speaking out, though I am trying to "network", if you will, and find like-minded folks who understand the reality of the way things are and the means and end of what it should and can be.
Please read the following webiste and see if you can be part of the solution, and hopefully, a cure for my numbness.
http://www.infoshop.org/faq/index.html
2 comments:
I completely agree that any government that tries to implement a "socialist" style economic system is doomed to fail because the control of capital and assets gets moved from corporations and it goes to the state.
Unfortuantely, having it being controlled by either a cororation (a totalitarian-type system) or a state (a totalitarian-type system) has ultimately the same outcome, the capital does not belong to those who use it.
If capital is not used, it is nothing. The only way to get value out of capital is to work with it (or on it). Any value added by this means should go to those who do the value adding and not those who own the capital, unless the capital is purely owned by those who work it.
So I disagree that the economic model presented is poor, but is in fact the natural state of economics while any enforcement by either a state (Soviet style communism) or a coporation (American style capitlism) or corporation controlled state (Nazi fascism) is a fallacy.
And I do thank you for your comment. :) I will investigate your links and respond in kind. :)
Coming a bit late to the party, but eh well...
I do not think that Marxism equates to totalitarianism and unprecedented state repression. But then Marx himself probably wouldn't have advocated what most Americans think "Marxism" is.
It seems to me that Marx's most useful ideas are in his critiques of capitalism. For example, understanding "capital" in the sense of money whose sole purpose is to make more money, the function of capitalism becomes more clear.
It is easier to see, in the development of capitalism over the past 4 or 5 centuries, that it went more or less on its inevitable curve. It started with the Enclosure movements in the 16th century in England, which from one perspective was basically theft in terms of the destruction of the commons, forcing the vast majority of people to sell their labor to survive.
Eventually, as companies became too big for one person or one family or one lineage to run efficiently, they became corporations. And in the 20th century, we saw the inherent difficulties with corporatism, though we in America tend to idealize and/or fetishize Keynesian capitalism, in the 50-s, post-war, baby boomer economy sense. And it is true, Keynesian capitalism is preferable to the neoliberal capitalism (globalization) that we see today.
I suppose what I'm trying to say is that capitalism has always had a certain amount of injustice and arbitrariness attached to it. Marx did the best job I've seen at pointing this out on a theoretical level. So understanding Marx goes a long way toward identifying and articulating The Problem(tm).
Now in terms of repression seen in "Marxist" nations in the 20th century, esp. China and Soviet Russia, I would argue that it is precisely because these Marxist states weren't Marxist enough (so to speak) that they failed (along with the increased economic pressures of neoliberalism, where virtually every country in the world is being forced to participate in a cutthroat, globalized economy where corporations are free to uproot themselves at will, following the cheap labor, ie, outsourcing to India at the moment).
Put another way, greed and centralized social control were fundamental to both Mao's China and Stalin's USSR, when in reality openness and toleration are required for a theoretically "pure" Marxist state. China, for example, is now adapting quite well to the global economy in its "communist" mode of government. Of course, once labor costs go up there, the factories will move elsewhere, but that's another story.
One of my recent fascinations has been exploring similarities and differences between a Marxist perspective and an anarchist perspective. I don't hold much stock in Libertarianism (though it sounds good up to a point), largely because I believe that human beings are inherently social and cooperative as opposed to antisocial and competitive.
But that's just me....
Good to see your blog, Baron, and the interesting thinking contained within it...
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