For each of us reading a novel, a single word can trigger memories peculiar to us. Recounting our subjective response is a very different matter from discerning the meaning intended by the author. However, authors use words knowing that they will resonate in different ways for their readers.
"'What if the police do find out this Arne Torvald person is a Red? He won't go to jail for his beliefs.'" (pp. 112-113)
When I was perhaps seven, I read a war comic that must have been set in Korea instead of during the more usual WWII because the enemy were "Reds," a word which meant nothing to me at the time except as a color. When I asked two people standing nearby, a fellow pupil and a member of staff, what it meant, they both said, "Communist." I instantly "understood" that that these "Reds" were (a) evil and (b) indistinguishable from Satanists. Needless to say, my understanding has developed since then. How was I supposed to understand such a concept, expressed in a single word, at the age of seven? When my daughter was that age, I tried to answer her questions with something more helpful than loaded labels and also told her then that she might not agree with me about everything when she had learned more.
22 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Well, to me, "Communism" is Satanic! Because EVERY communist regime which has taken over a nation under the banner of Marxist socialism has ruled brutally and tyrannically. To such a terrifying degree that they made Genghis Khan and Ivan the Terrible look like pikers!
I agree that when a child asks questions, he or she should get honest answers as complete as his ability to understand will allow.
Sean
Sean,
But every Communist regime is not Communism. Russia became bureaucratic/state capitalist under Stalin. Maoist China was state capitalist from the beginning. Other "Communist" regimes were modeled on them. If the contents of a medicine bottle are replaced by poison, we do not continue to regard it as a medicine bottle.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
There is much here I don't understand or agree with. Or think makes sense. To me, REAL "capitalism" ("free enterprise" economics is a better term) means the consenting exchange of goods and services by private persons or organizations at prices that is determined at that time by the value placed on them by demand and supply. In a system where most property is not owned by the state. So, I don't understand what is meant by "state capitalism," because it is certainly NOT free enterprise. Not if by "state capitalism" an economy controlled or dominated by the state. Such an economy is socialism.
And every Marxist regime has CLAIMED to be guided by the thought of Marx and Engels (and Lenin as well). Their leaders and founders were constantly quoting from or justifying their acts by citing the Marxist canon (I'm tempted to call them Marxist SCRIPTURES). I don't think they were all consciously lying or being hypocritical, because life would otherwise be intolerable, given all the blood they shed).
Sean
Sean,
Capitalism is exploitation and competition. Stalinist bueau
Sean,
Capitalism is exploitation and competition. Stalinist bureaucrats exploited Russian workers and competed militarily against the US.
Socialism is cooperation for need instead of competition for profit.
Marxism, a theory of liberation, has become an ideology abused by state capitalists.
I will summarize what I think about Marx and Engels on another blog.
Paul.
I have added "Marx And Engels" to the Religion and Philosophy blog.
Exploitation is paying workers less than the value of what they produce, thus generating surplus value/profit.
All of this is a summary, to try to clarify a position, not to convince anyone of it.
Kaor, Paul!
I still don't agree with the definition given of what "state capitalism" is. Because the fact of the late, unlamented USSR competing against the U S and the West merely describes the USSR clumsily and inefficiently using the STATE, not a system of free enterprise economics, to execute that competition.
And the Marxist labor theory of value has long since been demolished by real economists like Eugen von Bohm-Bawerk (I don't know to add the umlaut to "Bohm"), Ludwig von Mises, and their successors. I mean the "marginal" theory of value. A simple example: the value of a ceramic pot is determined not by how much labor it took to produce but by how much OTHER persons are willing to pay for it. It doesn't matter how much "value" the pottery put into making the pot if his possible customers don't marginally value his pot more than they do other, similar pots and are willing to pay the price asked for it. If not, they will prefer to buy other pots whose quality and prices pleases them more. Value is subjective, not absolute, not determined by how much labor it took to make a pot or grow wheat, and changes with times and locations.
And the reasoning in my prior paragraph applies to all other goods and services. Competition is not a bad thing, it is simply the most efficient means of how to allocate and use resources that has been worked out by human beings. Actual "need" is determined by how much people are willing or able to pay for goods and services. I also argue that free enterprise economics is far more "cooperative" than anything you might prefer to replace it with.
Some might think these debates odd to find in a blog devoted to the works of Poul Anderson. I would say to such persons that Anderson himself used such ideas in his stories and that justifies, with Dr. Shackley's permission, discussing them here.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
It does indeed and I don't think that I am up to tackling the "real economists" just yet.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
And I thank you for the patience you have a shown to a reactionary like me! (Smiles)
It's not hard to find the works of vom Bohm-Bawerk or von Mises. I have some of the latter's books (I recommend his treatise HUMAN ACTION).
I thought especially of Anderson's "A Fair Exchange" (in NEW AMERICA). We see him using ideas of economics in that story.
Perhaps I was too sharp about "real economists." It simply seems to me that leftist economists never pay attention to things like the marginal theory of value.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Real economists they are.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
But do they address issues like the marginal theory of value?
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Sorry, I meant that I accepted that your "real economists" are real economists! Economics is a subject where I soon lose track of the arguments although I know that it is important. So I am not really up on which of them discusses what.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I recall how, in one of his books, Ludwig von Mises was very impatient with how abstract economic thinking was becoming. He thought there was too much stress being placed on using mathematics in economics. And we can see how that can lead to people losing track! He preferred to use plain German or English for explaining what he meant.
Sean
Sean,
When Marx describes the work process, he reflects our experience of it, I think. Conventional economists obfuscate.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
If you mean Marx's views about "alienation," then I don't agree with him. Because not everyone by far feels "alienated" by his work.
And all these charts, graphs, and equations so many economists use certainly end up obfuscating matters. A trend von Mises disliked and disagreed with.
Sean
Sean,
His accounts of exploitation and alienation. Many do feel alienated. I have also worked in jobs where I did not feel alienated. However, there is an argument that alienation is not just a subjective feeling but also an objective condition. If we spend hours performing tasks that do not realize our own creative potential but that instead satisfy goals dictated by someone else, then to that extent we are alienated from ourselves - the argument goes.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Are all of us creative? I don't think so. Are all of us esp. talented, artistic, philosophic? Not at all! Is life often tough and unfair? Yes. MY view is that most of us will just have to do the best we can in a frequently unsatisfactory world. A wise man does what he has to do without whining and moaning about it. And that includes being conscientious even about unsatisfactory jobs.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Oh yes. In my retirement, before all my pension money had started to come through, I stood on a production line for a very long time each day with only one half hour break. This caused a veinous reddening in my legs. I said that I would turn in for work the following morning unless a doctor told me not to. A doctor told me not to! Nowadays I can afford not to engage in such alienating work. There was a Polish man on the production line with me. Considering the nature of the work we were doing, I asked why he hadn't stayed home. He replied that the money was better here! Some of those guys walked very long distances in the evenings to attend English lessons. Sheila taught some of them. Our economy and society need such immigrants who are prepared to put that much effort into it. Sheila taught English in the community center of a Polish language Catholic church in Lancaster. She and I are both fully retired now and walk reasonably long distances for exercise - which reddens my legs again but I apply ointment recommended by that doctor.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Exactly! I too have done work I did not find particularly appealing, but I did it and without whining about it. Not surprised by what that Pole said, even after more than twenty years post Communist Poland has not yet entirely caught up with the West.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Without whining, we can improve work conditions.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Of course! What I had in mind was the petty, personal aggravations we get in everyday life. Such as getting stuck in repeated red lights. Or irritating co-workers who, for one reason or another, simply rub you the wrong way.
Ad astra! Sean
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