Americans are FORCED to patronize the "Free Market" when they buy food and clothes. They are forced to patronize the "Free Market" when they buy a house or car, or practically any other consumer item. Can you give me an example of a washing machine produced by nationalized industry that is available here? People are forced to get some kind of a job, and more often than not, the jobs they take are low-paying service sector jobs. Only so many "Communist" government jobs available, you see. On the other hand, there's only so much room at the top of the Corporate pyramid, as we all know very well.
Though I'll grant you this: I suppose the distinct MINORITY of Americans that live in government-subsidized housing are benefitting from a socialized entity. More humorously, the "large" percentage if US citizens who manage to purchase a 1970's East German "Trabant" have succeeded in buying into Socialism. Virtully everyone else buys a GM, Toyota, Ford, Nissan, etc. But they certainly do have a lot of choice in the matter - if they don't like supporting Corporate industry, they can walk, or buy a "People's" bicycle. Of course, one can also take admittedly "Marxist" Mass Transit.
Still, most of us can't afford our own Private Lear Jet when we go to Washington to beg the taxpayers for more money to benefit OURSELVES. Obviously, the few remaining GM workers left in this country don't make the kind of obscene money GM's CAPITALIST Chairman Rick Wagoner was making, even after the bailout went through. Bonuses and all!
Not all folks who are compelled to prostitute themselves for Capitalism are minimum-wage employees, but many are. The reason "Free Marketeers" don't see any evidence of compulsion in the fact that the vast majority of Americans are FORCED to participate in the "Free Market," is that they've come to take the Private Enterprise system for granted. They regard it as virtually a god-given natural law, which it isn't. It's just one of many potential ways to structure the economic system within a given society. And hardly perfect, at that! When folks bemoan the alleged "Socialization" of America, they might take the time and effort to present a plausible case.
P.S: I'm writing this on a DELL keyboard of a DELL computer at the local Communist Public Library.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
The key issues are.
ReplyDeleteConsumerism. That individuals within societies are seen, as well as see themselves, as fulfilling themselves through acquisition. Individuals are alienated from what these things mean and the profits from there production. (Marx.)
Consumerism is the only social/economic organisational system on offer and other human aspects of growth and determination are denied or thwarted.
Aquisition as a measure of growth can never be fulfilled because these resources are finite and are determined by market fluctuations. Our stock goes down as well as up.
Consumeristic/capitalistic functions concentrate on short time cycles and conflict with sustainability. Sustainability as a principle demands difficult decisions of equalising access to life's resources, however it is the only model which has the qualities of cultural and social cohesion aims which are more intrinsically human.