So, when I was in college and whatnot, I had a professor in some course, a history one I think, that made some comments about capitalism. Imagine that, right? He was all "oh, capitalism is the bane of existence". And a bunch of students were all "oh yeah, you are right, you so smrt".
Well, there is what I said, and there is what I meant to say. First, what I said:
"Professor, I must respectfully disagree with your comments. Capitalism has not oppressed the majority of people in the world as you have claimed. It has actually increased the quality of life for those who practice it, as well as those in countries that provide services to it. You cite India as an example of cheap labor. But the economy in India has done nothing but grow since capitalist countries like the United States have begun outsourcing jobs there. People who once would have been confined to field labor and a very low quality of life are now working jobs as telemarketers and consumer service at a desk making money and not depending on medieval bartering systems for trade. And nations that do not practice capitalism constantly fail. Consider the Soviet Union, or Cuba. And China, a communist nation, has turned to more and more capitalism to avert the problems that all other communist nations ran into."
It was something lame like that anyway. Nothing compared to what I wanted to say which I will write here, since nobody reading it can affect a grade. One must be diplomatic to get A's after all.
I would have started it thusly: "With all due respect professor, you are a flaming idiot. After reading your 'thoughts' on capitalism, I now question whether or not you are intellectually capable of arguing with a five year old, much less teaching a history class at the college level. You are obviously at odds with reality, because none of your statements make any sense in the real world, and your examples of systems that work, in fact failed. I mean, that is basic history, so you are obviously not qualified to teach history."
Since quotation marks cost money, I will continue this as a blog post. Communism is dumb. Socialism is dumb. Any kind of market system other than capitalism is dumb. Want to know why? It's simple...capitalism is a fancy word for "being human, with an economy".
Seriously. Nobody invented capitalism. Sure, guys like Adam Smith defined it, turned it into a theory. But capitalism is as old as cavemen. The system is simply "I want this and I'lll give you that for it". It's human nature to want things, and it is human nature to come up with ways to get it. Putting a club in another caveman's face to get his woman is capitalism. So is trading sabertooth meat for some freshly picked fruit. Capitalism is human nature expressed in the market.
Anything and everything else is not human nature. It is self-proclaimed smrt people coming up with ridiculous systems to make themselves feel smrtr. Karl Marx was an idiot. Don't be fooled...even idiots can write books and manifestos and whatnot. That sort of thing falls into the monkeys with typewriters category, except with humans so they are more likely to come up with something that sounds smrt.
You want some proof? I don't know why, you should know by now that I am incredibly intelligent and you should just believe everything I say. But, since I don't write stuff for stupid people (or smrt people) to read and consider my audience to all be incredibly intelligent, I'll give you some proof.
The proof is in the pudding. And by pudding, I mean communism. Because it is like a pudding. A very nasty instant pudding. No raisins, no nuts, no flavor...those kinds of things are capitalist. Nasty universal pudding, that is what communism is. It is forced. It is mandated. It is backed by force. Capitalism isn't backed by force, because it is natural. But communism is. It is at odds with human nature. It is an attempt to "fix" human nature. So it must be brutal because humans only know how to be humans. But that in itself is not the proof.
The proof is that communism doesn't work. You will notice that the top defense of communism in the face of its so many failed historical examples is that "well, they weren't 'pure' communism". Yeah, of course they weren't. Because human nature doesn't allow for "pure communism". Pure communism would actually work...if it weren't for humans.
But you can't use a system for humans that simultaneously disregards humanity. Communism does not account for personal wants. It does not account for emotion. It does not account for the natural desire to have a better life. It is a system designed for robots. But humans aren't robots. Humans have different wants and even needs. Human nature is a result of a lot of evolution. Humans are the pinnacle of life on this planet, and they came to be due to the very nature we exhibit. It all comes down to survival and comfort. Our advances in technology is from curiosity and a desire to become something more, not from government mandate.
Pro-socialist and pro-communist types will look at this argument and say "well, man should evolve into the next step, that is what we are about". The next step being a living breathing robot? Does that make any evolutionary sense? In a communist system, individual life holds no value. It is all about the collective. This goes against every evolutionary principle whether man or beast. That isn't progressive. That is REgressive. Bacteria operate in colonies. So do insects. Is that what man should turn into? Only higher orders of life operate as individuals. The highest order of life, humans, should therefore be the most individual of all, and by our very nature we are.
The world around us proves that communism and any other ism is a regression in evolution. Capitalism, our humanity expressed in trade and government, is a direct result of our humanity. Anything counter to that is anti-human.
Oh, and at the end of that diatribe, I would have told the professor to go take a long hike off of a short fiscal cliff.
Wonderful article, and well done!
ReplyDeleteIf I could just differ with you on one tiny point though... you said "It is a system designed for robots". I'm afraid that I'm going to have to, uhm, "disagree".
Communism doesn't even work for robots. Here's why:
You've got two identical, top-of-the line, multifunctional robots - same model, same year, even the same lot number. It would take a scanning electron microscope to detect differences other than their serial number.
This robot model has been in production for quite some time, so significant statistical data has been gathered regarding their maintenance needs.
The Arch-CommieBot - the supreme amongst equals - naturally decrees what "...to each his needs" means in terms of allotted and allowed maintenance expenses.
So far, so "good" in CommieBot land.
But one of these robots is tasked with charging newly manufactured MRI scanners with liquid helium, and is programmed to be well away from the superconducting super-magnets before the system is energized. It has zero accidents and requires the minimum possible maintenance.
The other robot is set to shovel and sort the diamond-hard engineered grit used to manufacture numerous grades of abrasive media, from sand paper to grinding wheels.
Strangely enough, after a month or so, their maintenance needs begin to diverge wildly.
Soon thereafter, the grit-sorting bot has accrued enough excess unbudgeted maintenance costs that a mathematical function in a daily chron job flags its serial number to the controlling ActuaryBot, which orders this obviously faulty robot decommissioned before it can run up any further expenses for the State.
Rinse and repeat. And repeat.
After a few iterations, a visit is paid to the CommieBot manufacturing plant (formerly Freedom United Engineering and Robotics, before it was nationalized), with demands to know why a significant portion of their inventory fails at a truly unacceptable rate.
The human engineers and senior management staff at CommieBot.gov are interviewed - some of them harshly - and attempt to defend the uniformity of their product by way of construction logs and consumables manifests.
They deny that ANY percentage of their final product hits the "market" as defective...
And that's when the killings start. As they always do.
Communism is the slavery of all to all, and as always the powerful will still claw their way to the top, rewarding and purging their enablers along the way.
Two problems with your argument...
DeleteFirst, you asserted that anything in a communist state is "top of the line". There is no room for such a capitalist idea in a communist market.
Second, you included humans. I specifically stated, no humans. These "commiebots" of yours would be created by infallible robots, not human engineers. Whether these robots are destroyed or not is irrelevant.
You got me with #2.
ReplyDeleteMy assumption for #1 was they were designed and (at least began to be) manufactured pre-nationalization.
But nonetheless, I yield. I can't get past your second point, i.e. you're right.
Darn you!
Nice blog!
ReplyDelete