An Ism about the Isms

What in the world are you talking about? asked Josh. Well, it can be complicated so let me back up a little, said Kevin, You are familiar with the three political isms? Communism, Socialism, and Capitalism? queried Josh. So what do you know about them? Communism is the whole Marxist idea of a utopia. Capitalism is private ownership and Socialism is somewhere in between. Close, but not really. How so? asked Josh knowing that he was right. How couldnt he be right that is what every teacher had ever taught him about it? He had read that numerous times. He was sure that is how it was defined a thousand times. Capitalism is private ownership and control of resources. This includes the ownership of labor. It is ideal in a pure Free-Market situation; however, capitalism is about greed and growth. It is not so much about acquiring more things, but winning. In the process, the Free-Market is destroyed through the greed to win and come out on top. A good example is how Vanderbilt and Rockefeller would use their sheer financial power and control of assets to disrupt the market, manipulating labor and customers causing havoc on their competitors. As they ran into trouble, both Vanderbilt and Rockefeller would buy up their competitors stock at bargain basement prices, acquiring their companies. This would continue until they reached the levels of monopolies. In a Free-Market, a true Free-Market, the number of competitors and knowledgeable buyers keep prices low and quality high. Labor is offered to the business owners. Labor faces the same rules as buyers and sellers. If you want to market your labor, you want to keep your quality high and price down at the same time, the employer, if they recognize you as an asset, will do what they can to retain you. Again, a good example would be people like da Vinci, Picasso, Dali, or Carnegie when he started out. However, in Capitalism coupled with the desire to win by Capitalist, there is a strong tendency to try to control everything and they do this by their sheer size. To a Capitalist, the Free-Market means they are free to do as they will and they have.

Okay, so what is wrong with what I said or with the Capitalist system? asked Josh thinking he was in for a win, I mean if you have what it takes to win, why shouldnt you be allowed to grow to such a size? Kevin answered with a serious look, There is nothing wrong with being a success. But the problem is not being successful. The problem is being obsessive with winning. These arent individuals who just won and were happy with that. These are individuals that continue to push beyond the finish line; just like the empire builders of old. They want more and more and it doesnt matter how. So, what is wrong with that? asked Josh sincerely confused. Think about it. We have created a society in which more is desired. Not more growth or learning but more things. Kids go to school not to challenge themselves but to get a job for money and more things. Those with money use it to find ways to make more while those without find ways to get it. We arent a society that is searching for solutions; we are a society that seeks quick, profitable answers. What? asked Josh. Think of it this way. We have created a single dimensional society. We are obsessed with measuring wealth as a form of status and it isnt even real wealth such as accomplishments, respect, and friends. It is just the accumulation of things. Money has become a shortcut. If there is a problem, throw money at it or pay someone else to handle it. Centuries ago, kings fought their own battle. Hell, England even had a queen who led the charges against Roman invaders. I think her name was Boudicca. Now, they just pay someone else to do it. Back then, it could have cost them their ass, so war was called for only when they felt it necessary and now since their ass is not a problem, they are more willing to use military intervention. Weve become a society that is all about what I can get out of it? It isnt enlightenment or education; it is all about things. We are missing what is real in life. Instead of gaining knowledge, relationships, we are gaining things and debt to get those things. We are throwing away our lives and opportunities to say, Hey, look what I got! People are doing whatever they can to obtain what they think will solve their wanting. Big corporations are armed with lawyers circumnavigating the law to find ways to increase profit margins at the cost of employees and customers. Employees are willing to throw away their lives, their rights, their freedoms to get money to get the things they think they need to define who they are, to feel good about themselves, to emulate their heroes who are nothing more than people trying to get all of the things they want and doing whatever they can get away with to do it. They hide behind a corporate setup or an L.L.C. to do what they can plus their army of lawyers and politicians they own. They even use the excuse that they are too big to fail. Cecil Rhodes used his money to sway politicians in parliament to support a war with the Boers. Morgan lent tons of money to the Allies in World War I making it hard for Wilson not to support them ending with us entering the war that had nothing to do with us. Japan became

militant and went to war to avoid the bullshit of the western powersthey had been pushing Japan around and to acquire what it needed to rise to the level and compete with the western powers to avoid having their government hijacked and their country turned into a colony like the rest of Asia. People on the lower end of the spectrum do what they can to get the most they can for the least just like the guys on top. There are all types of cons, swindles, cheats, thefts, murders on all levels to just get things. Producers are squeezing more and more out of the cost of the products to increase profit margins, finding ways to share less and less with the people who actually do the work to earn the money. People are suing like crazy, withholding help to one another, seeking simple solutions to just get things. No one is learning anything except how to make money and get things. Members of the elite like Vanderbilt or Dimon do something and they are accolade as financial genius or go getters if they ask for assistance, they get it for the good of the nation. People on the bottom do something like it and they are nailed for fraud or called moochers. Wow, wow, I never would have saw things that way, said Josh with a look of shock on his face. Even religions are being twisted to steal followers from one another and along with it tithes. People dont pray to God for guidance of just to thank God in all of Gods incarnations; they pray to God for help to acquire things. Well, what about socialism? How is that any better? asked Josh. It isnt. It is the nightmare created by capitalism turned into a night terror. How? I thought that it was about the government stepping in and trying to redistribute the wealth; helping all? asked Josh. When you moved away from your mom and dad, you were forced to learn a lot about yourself and the world around you, right? Well, yeah, answered Josh wondering where Kevin was going with this. If you still lived at home and they were still taking care of everything for you, would you have learned any of it? asked Kevin. Probably not, probably none of what I have learned, confessed Josh. Exactly, if the government is stepping in and taking care of things, what is there to challenge the people, the communities to learn, grow, and solve the problem? I guess nothing.

It isnt only the stealing of opportunities for us to learn and grow, but we become more and more dependent on them to solve problems giving them more and more authority while reducing our ability to do things for ourselves. Socialism is nothing more than the government stepping in to regulate commerce. It is under the guise of leveling the playing field but they do it by creating a huge bureaucracy and creating high paying jobs for their friends, buddies, family members, and supporters. More and more money is spent, more dependency is created, more power is obtained, and as history has shown over and over, there is massive room for corruption. Businesses supporting politicians that support the goals of the business while making it tough on their competitors costing both the population and consumers more and more. Just like when an insurance starts for something, people arent as careful as they should be and prices go through the roof. Imagine if you were totally responsible for your house, you would do everything you could to make sure that it is safeyes, mistakes happen and in the old, old days friends and family will pull together to learn and help you rebuild. However, with the insurance which to me is nothing more than a Ponzi like scheme, you tend to become lax. I remember when we were kids, a friends house caught fire. We went around trying to enlist help. Instead, people asked, Well, didnt they have insurance? Of course they did, but the insurance found a way out of it. Look, all I am saying about socialism is that it is just the government stepping in to stop the excesses of capitalism but in reality, it creates dependency and removes opportunities. This just all created more of a culling and conditioning of the herd into mindless shoppers who believe that they are doing what is expected of them by being good little sheep. Interesting, interesting, said Josh, And what about communismisnt socialism highly related to communism? Kevin laughed a little to Joshs confusion and answered, Not at all, Socialism has more to do with Capitalism than Communism. If it wasnt for the excesses, greed, dominating markets, monopolies, unbridled growth and using the power to control the markets and labor the government wouldnt have to step in. Essentially, Socialism is a bribe to the masses by the government to maintain their position and keep a revolt from happening. Communism is the revolt. How is communism the revolution? Isnt it a system of dictatorships? How is it an improvement of people wasting their lives in a factoryisnt the same thing? asked Josh. That is the propaganda. What?

Communism comes from the Latin word for to share. It is as in people working together, helping one another, looking out for one another, and helping one another. It is sharing. It is what you would normally do in a functional family. Dysfunctional families come from each individual being out for what is in it for them. A family that realizes that they are all in this together is a functional family. It is the same thing with a functional community. If everyone pulls together; not necessarily agreeing with each other but working it out and working through it, much can be achieved. Imagine if someone who is having a hard timeand remember, a lot of hard times are created by greed and being out for yourselfbut everyone pulls together to help them get back on their feet and get their life together; think of it as that is one less person that will be inclined to pour themselves into a bottle, take pills, or resort to violence and possibly crime. But what about a dictatorship? asked Josh plainly with a sign of being worn down. What dictatorship? Oh, I know what you mean. Marx was a brilliant man in many ways but even he didnt figure out what communism is. No one knows for sure what it is. We do know that it is people working together as I have described, but I dont know what the market will be or how the economy will change. That will all be a growth and social evolutionary step for people to take. But the main principle is that people share with, help, look out for, and work with each other as a big functional family. Marx kept trying to turn it into a political thing. Problem is with a government calling the shots like Marx described and Stalin went on to create is that you still end up with a small group controlling the resources and people becoming dependent on that small group and considering the nature of man; the emphasis will be placed on becoming part of that small group and we are right back to people jumping through hoops to impress their masters and people seeking shortcuts, looking out for themselves which puts us right back where Marx startedCapitalism with heavy government involvement or socialism. I will tell you that the market will be different, production will be different, and politics will be viewed differently. But all of that will come about when people learn to realize that we are all in this together and to place the dependency which they have placed on politicians, bureaucrats, and capitalist on to people who are dependent on them. But what about all the books, essays, and articles on communism? asked Josh. Written by people who want things to remain the same, backed by capitalist who need you to be out for yourself. Why do you think that they are so against unions? Because it would cost them more money. Yes, they want you to deal with them one on one because when it comes down to it, you are an expendable cog in a machine that creates money for them. They want the market and you to be under control, their control. They are looking at millions, billions of dollars and they want to make sure that they have control of it. Just imagine if everyone stopped shopping at Wal-Mart

and other chain stores like them favoring local producers and suppliers. They would crumble quickly. They dont want that. They want the dependency, they want the stability. If people were looking out for one another, they wouldnt be able to control the labor market the way they do. If people were dependent on ones who are dependent on them, they wouldnt be a disposable cog and politicians and Capitalist wouldnt have the power they have, the control they have, they would be exposed to a true Free Market. Of course they are going to kick and scream and do everything that they can to create an evil image of communism in peoples minds and they have. Thanks to Marxs obsession about the government and the evolution to communism and people like Stalin who just created the exact same system that the rulers they replaced had. There is very little difference between Tsarist Russia or the Soviet Unionexile, murders, executions, secret police, those on top trying to control every aspect of peoples lives and demanding complete loyalty to the state. Loyalty in communism is by definition to one another. So it was all just bullshit pounded into us just so someone could make tons of money to get the things they think will fill the holes in their lives that they should have filled with personal accomplishments and relationships? Kevin smiled as he said, Yes, think about it. If communism was truly like that which they described, we could by their own definition be called a communist state now and have been ever since the Civil War. But also if communism was really that awful, why would they have to threaten, kill, imprison, and pound it into their minds with constant essays, articles, speeches, fear tactics like the Red Scare and McCarthyism? They dont want it to happen because they know if it succeeds anywhere in the world, there would be no going back. They wouldnt be able to live in the lap of luxury while someone else worked to earn the money to pay for it. Wow, I never ever would have thought of that, said Josh, Well, back to the original question, where should we order the pizza from now that I know that you are boycotting Papa Johns for the way he treats his employees?