Capitalism and Other Kids’ Stuff

Liberals are people who are under the only partially mistaken impression that altering the structure of government is the best way to influence people and resources. Conservatives are people who are under the only partially mistaken impression that altering the people in power is the best way to influence other people and their culture.
To put it more simply: Liberals want the decision to be spread out among more people, preferably everyone; conservatives want the decision to be made by as few people as possible, preferably just one.
Socialism, as envisioned by Marx and Engels was, ideally, a where everyone would share the benefits of industrialization. Workers would do better than in the English system at the time ( The Communist Manifesto was published in 1848 ) because there were more workers than bosses and the majority would rule. As a purely economic system, socialism is a lousy way to run a large scale economy. Socialism is not a political system, it’s a way of distributing goods and services. At their ideal implementation, socialism and laissez faire capitalism will be identical as everyone will produce exactly what’s needed for exactly who needs it. In practice, both work sometimes in microeconomic conditions but fail miserably when applied to national and international economies. And they fail for the same reason: Human pervserity. Too many people don’t like to play fair, and both systems only work when everyone follow the same rules.
Socialism is liberal. More people (preferably everyone) have some say in how the economy works. Democracy is liberal. More people (preferably everyone) have some say in how the government works. “Democracy,” said Marx, “is the road to socialism.” He was wrong about how economics and politics interact, but he did see their similar underpinnings.
Communism is conservative. Fewer and fewer people (preferably just the Party Secretary) have any say in how the economy works. Republicans are conservative. Fewer and fewer people (preferably just people controlling the Party figurehead) have any say in how the government works. The conservatives in the US are in the same position as the communists in the 30s, and for the same reason: Their revolutions failed spectacularly but they refuse to admit what went wrong.
A common mistake is to confuse Socialism, the economic system, with Communism, the political system. Communists are “socialist” in the same way that Republicans are “compassionate conservatives”. That is, they give lip service to ideals they have no intention of practicing.
Communism, or “scientific socialism”, has very little to do with Marx. Communism was originally envisioned by Marx and Engels as the last stages of their socialist revolution. “The meaning of the word communism shifted after 1917, when Vladimir Lenin and his Bolshevik Party seized power in Russia. The Bolsheviks changed their name to the Communist Party and installed a repressive, single-party regime devoted to the implementation of socialist policies.” (quote from Encarta.). Those socialist policies were never implemented.
Whereas Marx saw industrialized workers rising up to take over control of their means of production, the exact opposite happened. Most countries that have gone Communist have been agrarian underdeveloped nations. The prime example is the Soviet Union. The best thing to be said about the October Revolution in 1917 is that the new government was better than the Tsars. The worst thing is that they trusted the wrong people, notably Lenin, to lead this upheaval. The Soviet Union officially abandoned socialism in 1921 when Lenin instituted the New Economic Policy allowing for taxation, local trade, some state capitalism… and extreme profiteering. Later that year, he purged 259,000 from the party membership and therefore purged them from voting (shades of the US election of 2000!) and fewer and fewer people were involved in making decisions.
Marxism became Marxist-Leninism which became Stalinism. The Wikipedia entry for Stalinism: “The term Stalinism was used by anti-Soviet Marxists, particularly Trotskyists, to distinguish the policies of the Soviet Union from those they regard as more true to Marxism. Trotskyists argue that the Stalinist USSR was not socialist, but a bureaucratized degenerated workers state that is, a state in which exploitation is controlled by a ruling caste which, while it did not own the means of production and was not a social class in its own right, accrued benefits and privileges at the expense of the working class.”
Communists defending Stalin were driven by Cognitive Dissonance. “The existence of dissonance, being psychologically uncomfortable, motivates the person to reduce the dissonance and leads to avoidance of information likely to increase the dissonance.” They didn’t want to hear any criticism, and would go out of their way to deny facts. The abrupt betrayal of ideals by Lenin and Marx left many socialists clinging to the Soviet Union even though they knew Stalin was a disaster. They called themselves Communist even though they espoused none of Stalin’s viewpoints and very few of Lenin’s revisionism. In Russia, Lenin remains a Hero of the Revolution. Despite having screwed things up in the first place, Stalin is revered by Communists for toppling the Third Reich.
Conservatives defending George W. Bush are in the same situation as Communists defending Stalin. Stalin was never a “socialist” and Bush was never a “compassionate conservative”, but the conservatives just don’t want to hear any criticism and will go out of their way to deny facts. The current construction of the conservative movement in the US descends through the anti-Communists during and after WWII, the George Wallace “America First” blue-collar workers, the racists that Wallace picked up that switched parties during Nixon’s Southern Strategy, and the nascent libertarian movement championed by Barry Goldwater. Ronald Reagan’s acceptance speech for Goldwater during the 1964 Republican National Convention laid out the insistence of a balanced budget: “There can be no security anywhere in the free world if there is no fiscal and economic stability within the United States.” And yet, like Lenin revising Marx, when Reagan was governor of California he didn’t practice fiscal restraint. And when he was elected president in 1980 he did the exact opposite of his campaign promise and triple the deficit and there has been “no fiscal and economic stability” since his flip-flop. Fiscal restraint was never implemented.
Abrupt betrayal of ideals of Reagan when he got into power left many conservatives clinging to the Republican party even though they espoused none of Reagan’s new policies. Despite screwing things up in the first place, Reagan remains a Hero of the Revolution and is revered by conservatives for toppling the Soviet Union.
Reagan isn’t Lenin and Bush isn’t Stalin, but the parallels are notable. George W. Bush, like Stalin, inherits a failed revolution that relies on a cult-like worship of his predecessors and a complete denial of the facts.
Let me repeat Wikipedia’s quote. “Stalinism is a state in which exploitation is controlled by a ruling caste…. at the expense of the working class.” This is the exact opposite of what Marx and Engels were trying to accomplish, and is precisely what George W. Bush and the Republicans are working so hard for.
Most of the Republicans/conservatives/dittoheads I know are basically good people, but they’re gullible fools who have spent more than 20 years burying themselves in lies needed to resolve the cognitive dissonance created by Reagan’s betrayal. Reagan called the Soviet Union an “evil empire”, but as we’ve seen it wasn’t much of an empire and most of the people in it aren’t particularly evil. Khrushchev repudiated Stalin after he died in 1953, but wasn’t strong enough to change the system or the cult worship that kept the dictatorship alive. Republicans need to repudiate Reagan, but there is no one out there who has the guts to tell the truth. The GOP is reduced to whining, flag-waving and outright lying. The shame of being a conservative has never been greater.

Now Everyone can be a PM........ :p

Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi’s comment that it is possible for anyone, regardless of race and religion, to be the nation’s leader, if the people wanted it to happen sounds rather unconvincing. It even sounds ridiculous.

The truth of the matter is that it could only happen if ruling party agrees or permits it to happen - which is utterly impossible. It can only happen if an alternative party or coalition which is not race-based comes into power. Until then it will only remain wishful thinking.

When a qualified person like Low Siew Moi cannot be accepted as the acting CEO of PKNS, what hope is there for higher political office to be occupied by someone regardless of colour and creed? Just take note of the vehement opposition that is being mounted against her appointment solely because she is not a Malay.

Has the Prime Minister condemned this unreasonable opposition to this well-deserved appointment?

Malaysians had for 50 years given their support to the Barisan Nasional. All the component parties had participated in the election not under their party banner. They stood under the BN banner and were accordingly elected.

In view of this, the MCA had requested that a second BN Deputy Chairman’s post be created and filled by someone from the MCA. (At present the Chairman, Deputy Chairman and Secretary General of the BN are all from Umno.) It has also been suggested that the Deputy Prime Minister could be decided by the component parties of the BN.

What has been the response from the Prime Minister? If he had responded positively to these suggestions, then we can see some hope for the emergence of non-racial politics in Malaysia.

Until then, we can continue to hear words that have no meaning.

BLACK POWER

The new president of the United States of America brings the promise of change not just for the United States but for the whole world, too.

I HAVE a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.’ ... I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.” – Martin Luther King on Aug 28, 1963.

“If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.” – US President-elect Barack Obama’s first public words after winning the election on Nov 4, 2008.

ON Dec 1, 1955, six years before US President-elect Barack Obama was born, a black American woman, Rosa Parks, refused to get up and give her seat on a bus to a white as required under laws then in Montgomery, Alabama.

The man reported to the police, Parks was arrested and later became a symbol for millions of blacks who were systematically discriminated against despite the end of slavery almost a 100 years before that.

US civil rights activist Martin Luther King led the Montgomery Bus Boycott, lasting 385 days, when blacks, the major users of buses, took other transport. King’s house was bombed and he was arrested during the campaign, which ended with a United States District Court ruling that ended racial segregation on Montgomery public buses.

That energised the black civil rights movement, with King playing a prominent role. In August 1963, two years after Barack Obama was born, King gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech (extract above), to 250,000 people in Washington, considered one of the most stirring in history and a defining moment in the US civil rights movement.

Less than a year later, in June 1964, partly because of the work done by King and others, the Civil Rights Act was passed in the US giving blacks equal rights under the law and enabling most of them to vote.

In recognition of his work, King was awarded the Nobel Prize the same year, becoming, at 35, its youngest recipient. Four years later, when Obama was seven, King lay dead, felled by a single bullet to the neck from an assassin.

Forty years later, Obama, gave his victory speech to a cheering, crying crowd of over 250,000 in Chicago, when he became – beating his rival John McCain by a wide margin – the president-elect of the United States.

While he shed tears publicly when his grandmother died just a day before the polls, he was rock-solid composure itself during that speech (excerpt above), even as those around him and his supporters cried tears of joy.

Obama’s victory represents the culmination of a long, painful and perilous road that blacks have taken in America to gain recognition for themselves as a people.

They were forcibly brought from Africa as slaves, put through the most inhumane conditions and finally got their freedom from fiefdom in the 1860s. But they continued to be severely discriminated against and humiliated long after that, earning recognition as full citizens under US law only in 1964.

But despite that, the discrimination continued and although it has reduced tremendously, it is by no means over.

While Obama’s victory is without doubt a defining moment for the history of blacks in the US and an indication of how far they have come over the years, Obama himself was not a black civil rights activist.

His thoughts, his actions, his political behaviour cut across racial lines. He never sought to champion just black causes but included everyone in his agenda. That was what made him a presidential candidate and, eventually, president-elect.

Civil rights activist Reverend Jesse Jackson – who shed tears on Obama’s election victory, and the black who came closest before Obama to the presidency – tried creditably, but failed, to get a Democratic nomination for the 1988 election.

Obama’s book, outlining his thoughts and aptly titled the The Audacity of Hope, sets out his political philosophy, his guts and his, well, audacity, to think that he could one day become US president. Against all the odds he did.

In America, where an estimated 70% to 75% of voters are white, he could not have done it without white support. However exit polls by CNN showed he did not enjoy white majority support – some 55% of whites voted for McCain but that 43% (2% of answers were indeterminate) support he got was large.

Huge support from blacks (95%) and Latinos and others (over 65%) tilted the balance in his favour, enabling him to get about 53% of the popular vote. That is an indication of how much power minorities can muster when they vote in unison, as some of our own politicians found out to their dismay or delight on March 8.

Obama got remarkable support among young voters. The CNN exit poll showed two-thirds of voters under 30 supported him. And, importantly, 54% of white voters in this category were behind him, a clear indication the young are becoming less racist.

Obviously Obama did not win because he was black – he’s half-black, to be accurate. He won because he was by far the best candidate. He endeared himself to all segments of society by his genuine, reasoned yet impassioned plea to the goodness inherent in all of them, seeking always to unite and find common ground.

That he was black was NOT sufficient deterrent for the American public to vote him in as the next president of the United States – and by a wide margin, too. That is really fantastic and represents a situation many thought would never materialise.

A dream come true, a hope fulfilled. A victory against racism, a giant leap for mankind – Obama’s win is all that and more. If there is a lesson, it is to show that the problems of race and repression are indeed surmountable. Yes, change has come.

Never in history has a US president-elect had so much of support outside of the United States. Kenya, where his father came from, claims him as its own; students from his former school in Indonesia celebrated unabashedly; a town called Obama in Japan was delighted he won; and in cities around the world there was elation at his election.

Not just the United States, the world expects much from this man Obama. Destiny will dictate that he will make his mark.

OBAMAISME......

Barack Obama’s election demonstrates that we can overcome our prejudices and bigotry and bring ourselves to do what is right, and that we can succeed if we try.

COULDN’T you just cry? With great pride and much joy, many in the United States of America did after Barack Obama was declared the winner of the presidential election.
They were celebrating in the streets – dancing, singing, and honking their car horns as if they had just won the football World Cup. Not that Americans in general give two hoots about soccer, but you get the picture.

In fact, even if they did bother about the World Cup, Obama’s victory is arguably much, much bigger in terms of significance and impact.
With the election of the first African-American president, the people who proudly describe their country as the “Land of The Free” and the “Home of The Brave”, laid to rest many ghosts of their past, and did indeed live up to their boasts.

African-Americans have a long and deep history. The first African slaves were brought over to the British colonies in America in 1619, more than 150 years before the colonies declared independence from Britain in 1776 and formed the United States of America.

The Declaration of Independence, which holds as self-evident the truths of human equality and the inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, was primarily written by Thomas Jefferson, one of the Founding Fathers who, by the way, owned more than 200 slaves.
Nearly a hundred years later, in 1861, Americans went to war with each other over slavery. After the war, the 13th Amendment of the United States Constitution outlawed slavery.
This was quickly followed in subsequent years by the 14th Amendment, which granted full citizenship to African-Americans, and the 15th Amendment, which extended the right to vote to African-American males in 1870. (Women, of whatever colour, were still not allowed to vote.)
You would have thought that that would have been the beginning of true life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for African-Americans. And, for a brief period, the promise was met with progress of substance.

But they soon found themselves oppressed, marginalised and discriminated against – in many instances, legally discriminated against – right up until the 1960s.
So it was no surprise to read in some of the commentaries published in US newspapers today how truly a historic moment it was when the American people chose an African-American as their new president.

(It is also worthy to note here that while African-Americans are a minority, they do not form the largest minority group in the US – that “honour” belongs to Hispanics, who make up 15% of the population, as opposed to 12% for African-Americans.)
The opening words to Thomas Friedman’s column in The New York Times went thus: “And so it came to pass that on Nov 4, 2008, shortly after 11pm Eastern time, the American Civil War ended, as a black man – Barack Hussein Obama – won enough electoral votes to become President of the United States.”

Indeed, the war has finally ended.

The Washington Post published a cartoon by Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Tom Tolles, showing a caricature of Obama walking through the gates of the White House.
The caption at the top of the sketch was the famous line from the Declaration of Independence written down more than 200 years ago : “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal”.

At the bottom, the caption read: “Ratified November 4, 2008.”
Indeed, that truth is now clearly self-evident, at the very least to Americans.
But what of the rest of us, who have followed the US presidential election as if it were the World Cup, including we here in Malaysia?

In fact, there has never been a person that so many non-Americans have wanted so much to be president.

What is this utter fascination with this man, so much so that aliens from Mars on their first visit to Earth could be forgiven for thinking that we earthlings were rooting for Obama as World President?

The answer lies, I believe, not so much in who he is but in what he symbolises.
It is the age-old story of the triumph of hope over despair, of freedom over oppression, and of the best qualities in each and every one of us over the worst that we are all capable of.
It is a story that demonstrates that we can overcome our own prejudices and bigotry, that we can bring ourselves to do what is right, and that we can succeed if we try.
I am not saying that Americans did the right thing by electing Obama. What I am saying is that they did the right thing by voting for who they thought could best lead their country, regardless of skin colour.

There is no doubt many Americans – white, black and every other colour in between – are still unable to get over their racial prejudices, just as there are many such people elsewhere in the world.

But on Tuesday, Nov 4, this unjustifiable intolerance was drowned out by a truth that should not only be self-evident in America, but also to the rest of us.

All men are created equal.

Couldn’t you just cry, thinking about that?