We Are All Bourgeoisie Now

What is so Bad About Capitalism?

As Canadians, we are satisfied that we live in a good country, where we are not oppressed by dictators, we have no Saddam, no Mislosivic, no Stalin. We feel safe because we live in a Capitalist Society. The Oxford University Press defines capitalism as “the modern, market-based, commodity-producing economic system controlled by 'capital', that is, purchasing-power used to hire labour for wages.” (2003) We think we have it pretty good because one of our prime beliefs is that if you work hard you can achieve anything. By anything we mean within the corporate world. Not many people would consider being a revolutionary artist like Picasso donkeys if you have an annual income under $20,000. Also the capitalist goal of maximizing profits at a minimum cost can too easily be lead to exploitation. Workers can be paid less and less, and have to pay more and more for the products they themselves build, as monopolies are created by tycoons and crooked business owners.

According to Marx, workers soon become alienated at their jobs and become depressed. The Paris manuscripts view human beings in modern society, human beings as they are understood by the science of political economy, as alienated from themselves because their life-activity takes an alien, inhuman form. Truly human and fulfilling life activity is an activity of free social self-expression. It is free because it is self-determined by human beings themselves; it develops and expresses their humanity because, as Hegel had realized, it is the nature of a spiritual being to create itself by objectifying itself in a world and then comprehending that world as its adequate expression, as the 'affirmation', 'objectification', and 'confirmation' of its nature; and it is social because it is the nature of human beings to produce both with others and for others, and to understand themselves in the light of their mutual recognition of one another and their common work. (Oxford University, 1995)

The chase for money dilutes everyone’s dreams. We no longer want to change the world, or cure cancer. As high school students, when asked what we want for our futures our usual response is “too be rich, therefore happy” (The Michener, 2000). Those of us who reply with a desire to be self-fulfilled, with a desire to make a difference are looked upon as naive, or “artsy”. This is one of the side effects of living in a Capitalist Society. Money is everyone’s goal. Not so much because we truly want it to be, but because we need it to be. Without money you cannot have a home, cannot have a nice car, clothes, food, you can’t find a mate. Who wants to date a poor schmuck with no income, who’s dirty, lives in a box and eats garbage. What’s life without the companionship of another person?

In our society Money equals Freedom, but the pursuit of money is what imprisons us. We are tied down to boring jobs, unable to create something out of our imagination because in a capitalist society imagination is a dangerous thing. Imagination leads us to think about what life could be like, if only things would change. That can either make us angry and rebellious or depressed and inefficient workers. Business owners cannot have inefficient workers, so we learn to control our imaginations in order to remain positive at work. However over time, our inner muse needs to exercise, so it begins to create illusions that can keep us happy, underpaid workers.

The liberals and conservatives and Libertarians who lament totalitarianism are phoneys and hypocrites . . . You find the same sort of hierarchy and discipline in an office or factory as you do in a prison or a monastery. A worker is a part-time slave. The boss says when to show up, when to leave, and what to do in the meantime. He tells you how much work to do and how fast. He is free to carry his control to humiliating extremes, regulating, if he feels like it, the clothes you wear or how often you go to the bathroom. With a few exceptions he can fire you for any reason, or no reason. He has you spied on by snitches and supervisors; he amasses a dossier on every employee. Talking back is called 'insubordination,' just as if a worker is a naughty child, and it not only gets you fired, it disqualifies you for unemployment compensation. The demeaning system of domination I've described rules over half the waking hours of a majority of women and the vast majority of men for decades, for most of their lifespan. For certain purposes it's not too misleading to call our system democracy or capitalism or -- better still -- industrialism, but its real names are factory fascism and office oligarchy. Anybody who says these people are 'free' is lying or stupid. (Exchange Anarkist, 2003)

We begin to fool ourselves into thinking that we are helping the world by making them victims of our western ideals. It is Bob Stone’s view that the world infact isn’t all right. He claims that “as the rich get richer and the poor poorer, we are all pitted against each other, millions in the third world are killed each year by humanly reproduced poverty, environmental despoliation proceeds out of control, and handy advantages of race, gender or nationality are used to exclude our neighbours”.

We delude ourselves with the belief that we are free. Free to attend school and learn how to conform. Free to pay large amounts of money for extended education, which we are told, we need in order to get the jobs we want so that we can have a decent income. We are free to go to work only to obey the set rules of our boss who is no better then us, no different. Why should he be getting paid thousands of dollars more then us? He went to the same schools we were forced to go to, why is he so much better off.

He is better off because he had the lucky chance of creating a product or service, which our society wanted or needed. We made him better then us by paying him ridiculous amounts of money to force other people to do work for him. It is our own trap we have set and baited, and we are our own victims.

Why Marxism Isn’t Dead

It can be said that since one cannot point out a specific Marxist revolution, Marxism was never alive in the first place. Some of the less informed may point out that Soviet Communism was based on Marx’s beliefs, therefore a rotten way of running the world, but this isn’t accurate. The post-revolution proletariat in Russia put to power, a government that sucked on the vulnerability of the people. Tired and weak from revolt the people were willing to listen to almost anyone. The dreams and goals promised by Stalin seemed too good to be true, and they were. He wrapped his true aims in a blanket of Marxism.

In Marx's view undeveloped countries like czarist Russia with a minority working class were in no position to lead what was to be in any case a global change from an interdependent world market to socialism. If anything the USSR's failure proved Marx right! In the end Marx envisioned not government control of the means of production but control by the working class, joined to democratic planning not by bureaucrats but by the associated producers. So Marx's own vision of socialism was not proved a failure by the demise of the USSR because it was not tested. (Stone, 1999)

Stalin was not a socialist, nor a Marxist. He was a Dictator, a Capitalist hiding in the beard of Karl Marx. He was a corrupt man who wanted to further his power, to further his wealth, and not the power and wealth of his people. It can be compared to socialists in Revolutionary France. The people of Paris and all of France wanted constitutional freedom from the Monarch, so they allowed a small group of well-to-do middle class men to speak for them. Some of these men, becoming more and more greedy as their power grew, started using the revolution for their own profit. They were not true socialists either.

It is human nature to want freedom. So long as we are being told what to do and who to pay taxes too and who to obey and who to work for and what to make and how much to pay, we will crave rebellion. As long as there are those who are poor, and those who are rich, simultaneously, there will be a craving for rebellion. And so long as there are ignorant people, and so long as there is power hungry, greedy people capitalism will always exist. As long as capitalism exists, Marx’s views will survive and socialism will be an alternative. And it doesn’t seem capitalism is going anywhere any time soon, so neither is Marxism.