Look: I don’t doubt that capitalism is extremely efficient with regards to production, nor that by and large it has been the most humane economic system that the Human World has known. Yet whether one is a very conscientious day laborer or an enterprising entrepreneur, one never settles for the best there is; one dreams of making it better, and one works upon the glaring shortcomings. Where capitalism fails is upon two fronts: the conditions of the workplace and the ease and availability of distribution, both of which are essentially one collective problem for the member of the Working Class.
There was a time when I lived on
the fringes of society, Socratically, engaging strangers in political debate,
going in circles. Then there came a time I tired of the same old platitudes. I
was embarrassed with my fellows on the Left, and I could not get all the
skeptics on the Right to budge, without giving in to them. So: I did the only
sensible thing. I got a job. I honestly and earnestly wished to be proven wrong
about the System; I’d watched too many David Lynch films, and I was hoping for
a workplace like Twin Peaks. Perhaps I might have managed my expectations
instead, but there was no way for a decent person to predict the sorts of evils
I encountered on a daily basis consequently.
Why, then, did it take so long for
me to act against those evils, having found the further confirmation which I
needed for my radical convictions? Simply put: I’d learned to blame people, on
principle, and I did not know whom to blame. At work I did not find the sorts
of “comrades” Marxists speak of; I found hypocrites, degenerates, the
lecherous, the shameless addicts, the barbaric, and the cruel. Why did it take
so long for me to set them straight? Because I could no longer answer this for
certain: is it Human Nature that’s intrinsically corrupt, or does the System
MAKE us that way? All my life I had been leaning towards and leaning on the
latter for my purposes. Yet if the former was far truer, why bother to save a
single Soul? And how WOULD you?
It took me two years, but I now
realize it like it happened yesterday. It does not matter, truly, whether
people are “intrinsically” corrupt or not. A System which ENGENDERS that
corruption is corrupt, which means that it remains imperative to change it for
the Better. People will adapt to any System, and that is a blessing and a
curse, depending on the Nature OF the System they adapt to. Even if People are
born Evil, a Better System is a better chance at rendering them Good, and if
they are born Good, a Better System will prevent them from converting. Simply
leaving the matter up to religion and personal arbitration (the two of which
have now become one) no longer suffices; we have all had quite enough of that. If
People are intrinsically Good, they deserve a System which REFLECTS that and
empowers it; if they are intrinsically Bad, then they deserve a kick in the ass
by the same System, and if it’s a mixed bag: so be it. I can only hope to be
one of the Good Ones, even if I have to end up doing some of the ass-kicking.
The objective necessity for reform
does not vanish in light of the “disillusioning” psychological “facts”; it is
simply restoked. Just as certainly as any restaurant, no matter how well-managed,
wastes food, just as certainly it is that Human Beings have the obligation NOT
to, and any farmer who enjoys the monetary rewards of difficult labour while
the actual FRUITS of his labour go to waste must be made aware that production means
little without effective distribution, and if he persists in his insistence that
our System suffices towards both ends, then he deserves the privilege of
neither, just like the man that sacrifices “freedom for security”. The matter
is not a relative, polarizing issue between authoritarian liberals and
regressive conservatives; it is a Universal Human Moral Calling: a genuine work
ethic to Improve as a Whole.
[({Dm.R.G.)}]
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