As the economy of the world, via the US, comes tumbling down like Humpty Dumpty, I read articles about the End of Capitalism, some writers even noting that with controls it would still never work. For once, I think age works in my favor, age and an education and the heresy that allowed me to go beyond the required mainstream knowledge-base; for these writers, so obviously presenting their case for the Marxian revolution and Communism, have no history. And no horizon, so hemmed in are they by their young age and near-religious belief in a happy one-solution-for-all-ills dogma. What we are seeing now is not the end of capitalism; we are seeing the end of oligopoly, a very different thing. There is no free market, though this phrase is used by both the mainstream, the oligarchs, and the Marxian horde lost in what Galbraith might call, for the Left, the common wisdom. Everyone is playing on the word "free," a word-concept with a strong knee-jerk reaction. The oligarchy cites Adam Smith, though he did not particularly care for free markets and advocated controls. What we have now with our oligopoly is no controls which they equate to freedom, freedom to do anything despite the fact that freedom also includes the freedom not to do. This kind of absolute and total unrestrained action is anarchy and anarchy is contrary to civilization. Civilization is a very old concept raised up to control destructive (and self-destructive) impulses and urges so that people could live together, live better. Anarchy makes hash of this, as exemplified by the Reign of Terror post-French Revolution. Nevertheless, this is the freedom that the present oligarchs have sought and obtained and in the heady joy of doing whatever they want to satisfy their greed for power and money, they have brought the entire world to the rink of the abyss, from which cliff we can see that their theories touted as the common wisdom have run the gamut of their intellectual desert, flatlands of dust and sand sans vegetation; that is, their theories have failed utterly. Their theories are grand delusions. Delusion has run the world for the past 30-40 years under the fancy name of globalization. Globalization, though it has had some positive effect, is the end result of greed and l policies of monetary policy that, in order to "work," must disregard much of reality. . .and humanity. These oligarchs are of the same ilk as the crime syndicates in China (Triads, Dragon Societies) that believe anything is okay, including (somebody else's) loss of life, as long as they make money. They are involved in things like fake drugs, inferior construction materials, even tainted baby formula. Free market oligarchs have given the world a prohibition-like crime wave: anything goes, sang Cole Porter. A little definition is in order. An oligopoly, according to the OED, is, via its etymology, business run by a few businesses; while oligarchy is government by a few, which I think we can all agree is what we have in the US today, the ruling clique being the oligopolists. In truth, it might be said that these people have ushered in a time of oligotrophy, a decrease in nourishment (Cf. pp. 103-4, 11th US ed., 1975). Seemingly beyond the historical horizons of the young, disenchanted Marxists is the fact that once there were controls. Once capitalism worked. FDR put into effect controls on the greed and rapaciousness of delusional business practices and, through the 1960's, capitalism worked, albeit more of a democratic-socialist variety, with LBJ putting in more social stop-gap programs for social well-being (security) that might be considered socialist. It is only when the populace feels secure about the basics of life, especially in the face of unexpected turns of fortune--including national disasters--that production and the quality of the goods produced increases, increased production being the businessman's mantra for just about everything good and necessary. At best a rationalization that ought to be questioned but today nobody questions or considers: all that's wanted is immediate action. . .by those who see a problem to solve a problem. After many fruitful years came a new breed of production-oriented businessmen and increased production, which means more and more; and since production must continue to increase ad infinitum in their universe, money must also increase ad infinitum for profit--like a perpetual motion macine; however, with socially edifying controls in place, this is not possible, so the new breed began shouting about getting Big Brother out of our lives, not bothering to define who "our" was. Everyone of that generation knew who Big Brother was and everyone hated Big Brother, so without question it played. A magician's misdirection, for all that was wanted was government control out of the lives of the greedy, production- and profit-oriented great corporations, the bankers and investors and faux economists from Yale and Harvard, people so imbued with Ricardo and Malthus and the common wisdom that they could not see the world had changed over the years, they could not see the inhumanity of their obsession. When you're in the business of creating want and producing the goods to satisfy the delusion, you can't expect the lie to stand the test of time. Liars are eventually caught out because the lies must be consistent and they grow bigger and bigger until it takes two whopping hands to shove them down people's throats. We can't blame it all on the Republicans, however, for Clinton put the final touch to the move from controlled, working capitalism to oligopoly. The neo-conservatives did the rest, with a vengeance. And you can still hear them scrambling in their call to let the damage work itself out "naturally." Naturally? Well, then, crumblings like we're seeing now, depressions and inflations are natural, as are unemployment and poverty, insecurity and death. . .and government unconcern, as was true of monarchies and theocracies, people's lives being basically worthless. You know the mantra: there must be poverty for there to be progress. And. . .only the better sort are worth keeping alive (AKA Social Darwinism). It is this kind of belief system and practical delusion that helped bring about The Great Depression in the 1930's, with the precipitous fall of the stock market in 1929. With what's coming up, The Great Depression will assume the character of a shallow bowl. FDR put into effect controls on the capitalism of the time, which was along the lines of oligopoly. FDR brought to bear social policies in support of the people. All have been gutted: can you see the results? Are you secure in your home, in your health, in your retirement? Are you secure in your job? Once, a short while ago, Americans did have these securities. Now, life expectation is scratch to survive and then die in poverty. FDR's failure was in not supporting the union movement, which was the true Marxian revolution; for Marx hated government, the only true revolution coming from below, from the grassroots. If a Marxian revolution comes from above, it is just one more repressive, dictatorial government. . .as can be clearly seen if one looks to Russia, China, Cuba and North Korea. Some even say Vietnam is not a communist nation. Why? Power's still at the top. The ruling elite have it all, no matter if they dress like everyone else or not. Why are they so sleek while the rest of the populace looks to be malnourished? Not so different from pre-revolution days. This kind of revolution is reminiscent of the Chinese classic Outlaws of the Marsh. Supposedly a band of outlaws fighting the injustice and corruption of the system, they gave up their fight when they gained the same privileges that they were bitching about others having. There are modern Chinese writers who have had their hands slapped for stating there's little difference between the present regime and the prior Qing Dynasty. And it does appear that once Mao got to power, things didn't really change so much. The world of the present is not the world of Marx's (and Engel's) theories and so Marxian principles do not apply: they are passé. But they are handy and comfortable and make the uncomfortable and disillusioned feel good because they are something to hang onto, they are a change, a common wisdom that explains everything and has a cure for everything, much like your snake oil salesman. Even Socialism must be tempered because of the times; it's not 1890 any more. Any of these supposed leftist American revolutionaries notice this yet? No. They yell and scream and write the same slogans that were bandied about hundreds of years ago about rights and freedom and greed and equality and never notice what kind of world the prior Marxist revolutions have created. Any change is good, right? Anything but. . . . Why is it the equality that is wanted is downward spiraling? Everyone must be at the lowest common denominator. Bring the rich down to our level. (Who is "our"?) It seems to me that if you want the betterment of society, the betterment of mankind that the movement would be the other way round: upward. Raise people up, not bring people down. Bringing everyone down is a kind of South Park moment. It is intellectually vacant, for it perverts equality into egalitarianism; that is, no one can be better than another. At anything. Let me see if I can bring this home. . . I've been living and working in China for a little over six years now, coming here due to my social activism in the disability community: I was just too damned good and found myself at the ass-end of pressure and bribery by a corrupt State government, so my independent living centre sold me out. I figured, naïvely to be sure, that China needed, would appreciate, a real, qualified English teacher. Needed, yes; appreciated? No. Not a chance. For this is an egalitarian network in which expertise and competence is not appreciated at all, as it makes others feel. . .less. And that's not equal. That's not right. There is, though, less for me in the US: no social services network, no job for a 61 year old, no home, nothing. I can't even get the disability payments owed me--and it's been three years! If I gain more and do more, I am trashed. Example: I taught a course named Oral English and learned that it was supposed to be preparation for the students to take a nationally standardized test of English ability (for non-English majors). This test has no oral component. So, I revamped the course structure, giving them a great deal of writing and listening, to the consternation of some of the students and the fury of the Vice-Dean of Graduate Education (these students were Master's Engineering students). In the end, I showed an 88% pass rate with an average score of over 70. Before me, the average score was just over 60 with only about a 60% pass rate. The Vice-Dean would not speak to me, would not even acknowledge my presence if I spoke to him. I did not teach this course again. After me, things returned to the same old same old and the Vice-Dean was happy. Back to normal. Back to nobody being getter. Back to the school being no better. No improvement is good. For students, the situation is much worse, for from the moment they enter school, they are made to be like everyone else and everyone else who has gone before them. They are nothing more than graven images set on the ground, all looking alike and all facing the same way and all made out of stone. All life and feeling and creativity is beaten out of them, if not figuratively, then literally, for capital punishment is still practiced here. Education is a set interpretation of each subject. Knowledge is limited to what you're told it is. Learn the form and memorize it. Take a test to see how well you've memorized it. Learn more form. Take another test. A nationally standardized test to make sure everyone knows the same thing. Equality. Egality. The bottom line. (This breaks down at college entrance exams: some people are better at testing and get to go ahead to something better, albeit it a world in which everyone is again the same and being fed the same pre-digested concept of knowledge. Everyone will graduate, too. It will be a cold day in hell before there is an intellectual giant in China.) There is no thought to improvement, to betterment for, if there were, that would mean someone would be better, someone would know more than someone else and this cannot be. Not in an egalitarian society. Not in a society of equals. Not in a Marxian world, where everyone is to have the minimum necessary: it's right there in The Communist Manifesto. The nail that sticks out is hammered down--often with a sledge hammer. Where's the freedom in this world? An even more impo0rtant question is. . .if everyone is equal, who rules? Who can possibly be better enough to tell everyone else what to do? Further, as the fight is a never-ending battle, there's no chance of ever winning, no chance of actually becoming better. And the world comes out looking much like Ricardo's and Malthus's and the peasant world of the Middle Ages. Marx's concept of man is not a very edifying one, even if your reading of Marx is limited to The Communist Manifesto and he never managed to solve the question of who would rule. He was a very practical man, not given to romanticism or similar schlocky beliefs in the goodness of mankind. At least Kongzi (Confucius)--and Rousseau--believed people were born "good." The end of capitalism for these Marxian-minded people implies that capitalism has no good points at all. None. Baby and bath water, to use a cliché, are the same and deserve to go down the drain. Glug glug. But. . .capitalism gave them the education and intellectual gifts that allow them to speak, albeit with pseudo-intellectual lips. Capitalism gave them the good life they have, the good life their parents had, the better life of their grandparents. So that, in their security, they have the time and energy to talk rebellion. Capitalism gave them their computers, cell phones, heart pacemakers, micro-surgery and Velcro. My father's family survived at the bottom of The Great Depression. My grandmother sold pies out the backdoor. There are no pictures because cameras were as far beyond conception as a trip to the moon. Sometimes, my father had one meal a day: crackers and milk. He still liked to partake of such fare on occasion in the 1960's. But FDR's controls on capitalism allowed him to advance and move up in the world--the entire family. My father is the baby in the family, an accident; delivered on the kitchen table, as I'm told. At 86 he's the only one left. Grandma Secor died in 1974 at the age of 96 living a life she could never even have dreamt of. . .due to capitalism. The kind of controlled capitalism of FDR, a democratic socialism that made America the ideal of the free world--once. These young people have advantages that only capitalism gave them, yet they want to shit on it and throw it all away. Do they once stop to consider the implications of that "free world"? The unfree was (is?) Communism. Communism. . .unfree. . . Let them come to some "communist" country and live for awhile. Let them see the egalitarianism--that doesn’t work--and live like the average everyday citizen. I live well because the universities and middle schools offer good housing or housing allowances; but I've lived in a house without bathroom or shower. I shit and pissed in a pot and emptied it out in the morning. I walked half a mile to the public showers--this I did not mind, for I met and got to know my neighbors, something that is unknown in modern America. The ceiling dropped bugs and bits of debris into my food, onto my head, into my bed. The windows were small and up high and it was dark inside, dark and dank. I washed my face and my food and my clothes in the kitchen sink. When I brought my clothes in from the line, they were damp again within the hour. No AC. Electricity that was an afterthought, the house being built before electricity. Indeed, the original house was one room and the two built-on additions were obviously so; the kitchen build-on was falling away from the main house. I had to hang cloth on the ceiling to keep my cooking from being home to dirt, debris and sometimes not-so-miniscule bugs. And this is the norm in China. Even in this age of adopted American oligopolistic greed and corruption, this is home to most of the people. Yeah. The end of capitalism. The beginning of Marxian poverty, poverty of life, poverty of mind, poverty of. . .just about anything you can think of because poverty is life, so sayeth Ricardo and Malthus. When I read The Communist Manifesto, I see a reactionary conservative, like Plato, believing in something that doesn't exist. I see a doctrine that isn't much different from a monarchy and certainly fits the bill for dictatorship, which really isn't so very much different from what the greedy capitalist colonists on the Americas rebelled against. . .and the present oligopoly has given us. America, the US of A, is a reactionary people, running from one extreme to another without thought. Just as long as it's different. And then bitch about what it is that's been gotten. You can't throw it all away or you're re-inventing the wheel, to use another cliché. You've got to start with what you've got now and what you've got now is a Massive Depression with needed controls on oligopolistic greed. It needs government to turn itself back to its original purpose: the welfare of the people--as is happening in China, though those who are not here do not see it (Cf. Li Datong's articles at www.opendemocracy.com and shikejian's blog at www.bokee.com, this latter in Chinese, though I have an English version); America's got fascism. Today's Marxism confuses socialism with communism; Marx saw socialism as a step along the way to communism (and therefore something less). What is it, then, these historically naïve, philosophically confused modern Marxists want? It is because of Marx that everything about society and humanity is framed in economical terms, the bottom line. The best laid plans of mice and men? There's more to life than the economy. You've got the opportunity to put into effect controls on economic idiocy and delusion and building up the security of the people, for if people do not feel secure they do not perform; rather, they wallow in fear and decrepitude. The common wisdom must be dumped for something that has something to do with reality. We have the opportunity to make a new world. . .but all I hear are disenchanted (white) voices clamoring for the old, disenchanted voices crying out to make humans and dinosaurs exist together. Marxism. Socialism. One-size-fits-all solutions. Out of date solutions. All rich people are bad. That makes Paul Newman. . .bad? The exception to the rule does not prove the rule; it proves the rule's inadequate. In World Hypotheses, Stephen C. Pepper notes that any society that excludes any human is a psychotic society because all considerations, not just one idea and not just a great generalization, must be taken into account. After all, society is made up of individual people. Marxian philosophy only accounts for that over-arching generalization the masses.
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