CHAPTER XXVIII.
ABOUT SUPERFICIAL ASSUMPTIONS.
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It should be obvious, in this terminal stage of capitalist evolution that what began about two hundred years ago in England as the Industrial Revolution has become today an Industrial Explosion encompassing the whole planet Earth.
In this world-wide competitive scramble to develop at all costs, the only consideration is short or medium term profit.
In the competition to win the trade war, any cost or long term investment in social well being and ecological considerations is being evaded.
The possible destructive results of the reckless use of science and technology in the hand of desperate merchants cannot be foreseen. The merchant class is the least class of society that should be in charge of the destiny of this planet in the present situation; yet, after the failure of the first socialist attempt to create a more Humane and rational socio-economic organism, they are completely in charge.
Never before they had such power: now they dominate the United Nations and they command the military power of the West under NATO; this power they have already collectively used in the destruction of the Yugoslav Federation, the Gulf Wars and now the forever War on Terror. But more powerful of all their armies is their control over most of the Media because it is through the Media that they are able to convince and steer the rest of the society to accept the philosophy and vested interest of their class as the law of the land.
Why would Mr. Murdoch, the "stinker" of the capitalist media, go to Eastern Europe soon after the collapse of the socialist dictatorships to buy into the media outlets of those countries?
The Merchants, this small class in our society, have proclaimed themselves to be the defenders of freedom and democracy: these are the same people who believe in the philosophy of selfishness.
As we have seen before, strong public opinion seems to be the only force that could prevent extreme conservatism from risking the complete degeneration of society and of the environment, but public opinion is very much influenced by conservative capitalists.
It seems to be evident that most people have come to believe without question the capitalist assumptions disseminated through all the means of information and entertainment.
The subtle and pervasive spreading of half truths, biased opinions and superficial concepts has created an atmosphere of suspicion and hate towards anything that may threaten the capitalist system. Opponents of capitalism are being de humanised or made fun of; they are painted either as "evil creatures" or as "bleeding hearts", "trendies", "lefties" etc.
In general terms, the main trust of capitalist propaganda rests on one main assumption that Capitalism is good for progress, and that every other alternative is either evil or impracticable; that there is no alternative to Capitalism as the only system which promotes 'freedom and democracy'. On this assumption many people are even prepared to persecute those who disagree.
Therefore, we should try to examine the objectivity of these assumptions and see if they warrant the risk of social and ecological disintegration.
First of all, the capitalists maintain that we have no other alternatives available other than Capitalism or Socialism as it has evolved so far; therefore, even when admitting that Capitalism has some faults, they point out that the alternative is much worse. Consequently, we must bear with Capitalism whether we like it or not, the only thing that we can do is to try to improve it.
Most people are satisfied with this assumption, and they do not even think that Socialism could have succeeded in a different environment than the one where it started, or that other alternatives can be found.
This is a negative attitude. But capitalists do not think like this in the course of their business, they are always willing to try new methods and schemes to make profits.
They only choose to promote this negative attitude in the public to protect their interests when Capitalism is being questioned.
We must remember that the capitalists, or any ruling establishment for that matter, always have and always will discourage and obstruct the development of any viable alternative to their own economic system. They have all the interest and the power to do so. Moreover, why are they so worried about Socialism if they are really convinced that it is so inefficient and it has no future? Why did they go to such extremes to prevent its birth and sabotage its development?
Should we accept the superficial capitalist assumption that there cannot be alternatives to Capitalism, and deny ourselves the opportunity to find one?
Another point which is promoted very successfully is that Capitalism is 'Democracy”. But our type of democracy is more an illusion than a fact, and it is not by any means a feature of all capitalist countries. In fact it is more the exception than the rule.
There have been several kinds of societies in history that had some elements of democracy, and the primitive communal societies, where private property did not exist, were probably the most democratic of all. There is a close relationship between property and power. Communities where property was evenly subdivided amongst the citizens were fairly democratic, but as soon as property accumulated in a few hands democracy disappeared.
Complete democracy has seldom been allowed to develop in the world. Even in ancient Greece, the 'cradle of our democracy', democratic rights were only the privilege of a few thousands citizens property owners, and the Greek socioeconomic organism rested on the work of many thousands of artisans and slaves.
Our present kind of democracy was born in the Medieval Communes and City States. It was the democracy of the early merchant traders and artisans; it evolved with Capitalism, and it is suited to the system it is the democracy of the merchants, in which their class by their capitalist Constitutions have all the advantages over the rest. But, as it evolved with Capitalism, now it is degenerating with it.
Real democracy presupposes a general level of education oriented at promoting rational independent thinking, a complete freedom of information, and a system of elections which does not favour wealth or deception. Can we honestly say that our democracy conforms to these requisites?
Our democracy is allowed to exist as long as the capitalist class has the advantage, can command fifty one percent of the votes, has the power to make it difficult for any party that threatens their interests, or as long as all the main parties are capitalist oriented. But as soon as there is a real threat to their power, they change the rules of their democratic game. They will support any dictatorship, even the most oppressive, as long as it is in favor of capitalist business.
It was capitalist interests that helped the establishment of fascist regimes in Italy, Germany, Spain and China after the first world war; after the Second World war it was Turkey, San Domingo, Viet Nam, Argentina, Greece, Brazil, Chile, Salvador, Nicaragua and other Asian, African and South American countries where behind the 'gorillas' of the army juntas was the shadow of property owners, bankers, businessmen and corporations.
The capitalist media likes to publicise and exaggerate the degree of oppression and repression perpetrated by communist regimes, but they completely avoid mentioning the oppression and repression perpetrated in defence of mercantile capitalist establishments not for humanistic ideals but for selfish personal greed. Without mentioning the exterminations, cruelties, robberies during the centuries of mercantile colonial expansion, just read William Blum's documented story of capitalist repression during half of the last century.
Socialist countries may not have had our kind of democracy, but they certainly did not have the monopoly of repression in the world.
Therefore, it may not be in the nature of Capitalism to be democratic, and in the nature of Socialism to be undemocratic, but rather it may be the result of many variable factors and many different historical circumstances.
One of the main factors may be that any ruling class can afford to be democratic when it feels safe, and it becomes undemocratic when it feels threatened.
Therefore, different forms of democracy are allowed to develop and exist within different organisms as long as they do not threaten the established order.
There are different determining features in the nature of different organisms. But, at least in theory, an economy based on the common ownership of the means of production should be more conductive towards a democratic society than a system where, in the words of Karl Marx, "the necessary condition for the existence of the private property of a minority is the nonexistence of any property for the immense majority of the society".
The main problem with the planned economies of the socialist countries was that, because of their original backwardness, their revolutionary beginning, and the continuous opposition from within and outside, they were forced by necessity to concentrate all economic power in the hands of a central government. The constant threat and ostracism from outside promoted in these countries a sort of siege mentality, which in turn favoured the establishment of a tough and dumb leadership rather than a moderate one, and forced them to dissipate a great amount of their resources on armaments instead of peaceful projects; Therefore the development of entrenched elites and corrupt bureaucracies.
Another important reason for their failure was that in most countries the social awareness of the population was not ready for radical changes that were promoted by inexperienced revolutionary minorities supported by the still backward Soviet Union determined to have a ring of friendly regimes around their borders.
By the time some of the leaders decided to democratise the system it was too late.
By then the socialist bureaucratic establishment, as in any dictatorship, had ossified into a corrupt amoral ruling class. This caused the majority of the people to become cynical about those ideals for which in the beginning they would have made any sacrifice, they also became despondent and lazy as they did not have incentives to work, nor the fear of unemployment, as we have in capitalist society, to goad them to work.
At the same time the capitalist “West” was undergoing a cycle of extraordinary economic expansion that gave strength to the working people and made them able to achieve better material and social conditions. The allure of consumerism made the comparison with the struggling “East” even starker.
Capitalist apologists like to claim that Capitalism is freedom. This is quite true for those who believe in Capitalism, no matter how poor and restricted they may be. But to claim that Capitalism is freedom for all is a completely false assumption, which, unfortunately, many people have been conditioned to believe.
What is freedom? In real life, as far as we know, the abstract concept of absolute freedom does not exist and this word is being abused very much. One of the main restrictions on the absolute freedom of each individual is the freedom of the others, and often the freedom of one is the slavery of many.
Freedom must be defined and specified in relation to objective actions or subjective feelings: freedom to do or not to do, to feel free or not. Freedom can be a state of mind, a question of choice, a question of faith or belief. Sometimes what is freedom for one person can be oppression for another, depending on their attitudes and inclinations. How can we explain that in many struggles and wars in our history just as many people died on one side as on the other, both fighting for their freedom?
People think of liberty in relation to themselves and what they like or do not like to do, in relation to their own subjective values and attitudes, but most of all in relation to whether they are allowed to live or not. Life is Life, even in different societies: there may be different environments and different sets of rules, but in the end all peoples are Human beings, they must live, work, love, raise children, laugh, cry, and finally die.
In capitalist society, the amount of freedom of action and movement of every individual person depends a lot on the amount of property and money one owns, and on how good a job one has within the economy or the government. This applies more or less in all modern industrial societies, even if the rules and conditions may be different.
In every society there are people who are ambitious and want to lead, and people who are happy to go along and follow, as long as they are allowed to live a decent life, and their children are not denied the opportunity for a better future.
There are two main freedoms that people are struggling for in the world today: one is the freedom of the merchant to exploit, the other is the freedom of Humanity from being exploited.
By the philosophy of the merchant, only if one has something to sell one has the right to survive, and only if one has the capital or the money to buy them, one has the right to use the natural resources of this planet. Therefore, at present there is a clash of interest worldwide between capital and Man; between the law of the merchant and the money lender on one side, and the law of Nature on the other.
In this struggle there is no question of nationality, race or culture. These, for international capital are only ploys and disguises. There is a contest for 'freedom' between Capital and Mankind.
Amongst the allies in the capitalist camp we find some of the most intolerant right wing associations and religious bigots, including the Klux Kluk Klan, we find organised crime, secret service organisations that have become a law in themselves, and also we find every one of the capitalist dictatorships around the world regardless of colour, creed or nationality. Only a superficial and naive person could sincerely believe that it is everybody's freedom that these groups worry about, especially if we consider that most of these people believe in the philosophy of selfishness. Why did the United States always intervene directly or indirectly in favour of capitalist interests against societies trying to lift themselves from poverty and oppression?
Which was in reality Mr. Reagan's "Evil Empire"?
The freedoms that Humanity should strive for are the freedom from unemployment and poverty, insecurity, ignorance, pollution, and, above all, war.
Should we believe without a deep scrutiny the superficial capitalist assumption that they have the monopoly of freedom for the whole of the Human race?
The business establishment, their entourages and their capitalist economist always expound the doctrine that governments should not meddle in the management of the economy and the society. They state that everything should be left to private enterprise; that capitalist entrepreneurs, with profit in mind and competing with each other, can provide cheaper and better services to the public than the government can. Therefore, most government functions should be performed by private business for profit, only what is not profitable to them, like for example providing for the poor, should be left to the government or to charity. They hate to see the government spending public money on anything that has not the purpose of helping or promoting their vested interests. They hate the government bureaucracy that is not at their service, or is there to regulate them and to protect the public. Yet, they have their own bureaucracy, bigger than the government; what is the proliferation of banking, insurance, advertising, civil law, etc. if not a vast, expensive, non productive bureaucracy of capitalist business?
In fact, to leave functions that are important for the whole of the society and should be performed by a government responsible to the society, to capitalist entrepreneurs and to the law of the market could be very costly and disastrous.
For example, let's look at the Health Care systems in Canada and the United States: in Canada there is only one Health Insurance scheme run by the Government, it covers all the population, the administration cost per each dollar is very low, for example the cost of paperwork is one cent in the dollar; In the United States there are 1500 Health Insurance companies and still 30 million Americans are not covered, the cost of paperwork is 10 cents in the dollar, the cost of running this private enterprise army is astronomical as each of the 1500 companies must spend for their administration, marketing, advertising etc.; moreover, one of these companies has been charged with fraud and another 35 are under investigation. Of course all these companies are providing profits and a lot of non productive work for a lot of people, but this is little comfort for those who are sick; So much for replacing government bureaucracy with private enterprise bureaucracy.
Another example of private enterprise efficiency is what happened in Australia and, to a lesser extent, in other countries which have adopted the same capitalist philosophy: in 1983 a Labour government came to power; to keep the Media on side it became very friendly with big business and started listening to their advice; after a few months this government dropped most of their Labour Party policies and principles and started gradually adopting and implementing the "rationalist economic philosophy" of their business friends: deregulation of banking and the money market, privatisation, removal of controls over investment, cutting of government spending, control on wages but not on prices.
Since 1983 real wages fell nearly 15 per cent; with the billions of dollars saved in wages, the billions saved by cuts in government spending, plus many billions of dollars borrowed from foreign sources our free enterprise businessmen, instead of investing long term in building the productive capacity of the country, they started chasing quick profits playing a game of monopoly in Australia and around the world. Since the 1987 stock exchange deflation most of these business captains that had been praised and admired by our politicians, by the media and, consequently, by the general public went broke.
In 1983 Australia had a foreign account deficit of about 17 billion; after only eight years, during which our capitalist free enterprise businessmen were given a free hand, our foreign account deficit has reached about 150 billion dollars, moreover, instead of having something to show for such indebtedness, most of Australia's manufacturing industry has been dismantled, destroyed after being thrown to the wolves in the "level playing field" of the world market; moreover half of the best industries that were left had to be sold to foreigners: - our entrepreneurs could not service their debts, other Australian companies did not have the money to buy them out, therefore they had to sell out to foreign investors. On top of this, the country is in recession, ten per cent of the work force is out of work with consequent social degradation.
A country that is not industrially self sufficient, that is half owned by foreign capital likely to be withdrawn whenever another country may offer better prospects for profit, that has a foreign debt of 150 billions, such country is not an independent country, it is a Nation of servants, a "banana republic" as the Placido Domingo of the Australian economy liked to say.
All this in the short time of eight years during which our businessmen were given a free hand; One could not ask for more efficiency!
I have just pointed out some of the differences between the easy to believe capitalist assumptions, and a possibly more objective assessment. The doubts on the accuracy and honesty of these assumptions should be so strong that any reasonable person should think very hard before committing himself and his future generations to the perpetuation of a socio-economic organism that can only degenerate more and more into hopelessness, violence and destruction of the environment.
In conclusion, we must never let ourselves be confused by the assumption that there is no other alternative beside Capitalism or Socialism as they have developed at present. There is no valid reason why we should not find alternatives. We must always remember that the economy must be subject to the needs of a society, not the other way around.
If an economic system cannot any more serve the needs of the majority of the population then it must be changed.
Moreover, we should always remember the warning given two centuries ago by Adam Smith about the claims and advice from the capitalist class: " .....it comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the publick, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the publick, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it."
It seems to be obvious that there will always be a need for merchants in our society, as they perform the task of facilitating the exchange of goods and commodities in our complex industrial socioeconomic organism; they should have their say, the same as all other groups in the society, but they should not be allowed the power to subject all considerations for Human development to the particular vested interests of their class.