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IS COMMUNISM REALLY DEAD?
The good news
-------------
The relief is enormous. The most varied types of people almost
everywhere in the world feel it. The specter mentioned in the
C o m m u n i s t M a n i f e s t o of 1848 has given up the
ghost. It's been a long time since it appeared as a l a b o r
m o v e m e n t in capitalist societies, which was the way it
originally made a nuisance of itself. Lately, all well-intentio-
ned folks - from the humanists at the Pentagon to the environmen-
talists in the Green Party - have been familiar with communism
as, of all things, a w e l l - a r m e d s t a t e with a cou-
ple of "satellites". Its domestic life was a "system". They could
see from afar how "inhumane" everything turns out when you put
the ideals of communism into practice as state interests. Not
only that, in contrast to all the other systems in the world
which function simply by having a structure, communism forever
suffered from n o t f u n c t i o n i n g. Finally, just in
time for the 2000th birthday of Jesus Christ, it's going bust.
Its architects and caretakers admit as much, and are giving up
their system. They get their criticism of communism right from
Capital und Democracy, Inc. So the world is back in order again.
It has now been conclusively proven that there is no alternative
to capitalism, which is above all criticism. Those in charge will
see to the few violent changes that remain to be made in the East
to insure against backsliding. The course of history itself dic-
tates this development. The agenda calls for the landscape deva-
stated by communism to be reforested with real money under the
supervision of freedom's might.
The bad news
------------
The relief is unjustified. The news celebrates a success which
involves no benefit whatsoever for many millions of people. Just
because capitalism now "proves" to be the superior "way of mana-
ging an economy" doesn't mean there is any better life waiting
for them. For a successful 20th century state people only play
the role of useful material, serving as victims of its triumphant
advances on the economic, political and military fronts. The be-
nefits of social peace, which is what "prevails" when there is no
class struggle, also turn out to be rather peculiar. The business
irms locate as they please, rationalize production and sack their
employees, and stage the rounds of collective bargaining with the
unions as a gigantic media show. Politicians call for sacrifices,
remind everyone of foreign competition (whom the local bu-
sinessmen combine with), and raise social security taxes so they
can cut the benefits. They reel off federal budget figures, the
unemployment rate and pollution statistics, announce the rate of
inflation and the purchase of weapons. In short, the freedom of
action of the side where money and might are assembled increases
with each passing day. Those on the other side, where communism
is conspicuous by its absence, discover in their smaller
paychecks and deteriorating health the changing relation between
wages and work-effort. The popular reference to people starving
overseas - how well off we are by comparison! - shows how badly
this comparison is needed. Where poverty is not useful it takes
on extreme forms, as anyone out of work can also see!
The decay in the power of the "East bloc" Communist Parties is
equally bad news. When those people over there decide their pre-
vious system has failed and start reforming with a vengeance, one
would at least like to be given a hint of what's so great about
it, amid all the shouts of triumph. The effects of perestroika on
the situation of the ordinary Soviet citizen seem to be anything
but good. The notoriously empty shelves are even more empty now.
Nationalists of all sorts are enjoying their new-found freedom so
much that they bash each other's heads in. Under the first non-
communist government in Poland, this same freedom leaves hardly
anyone with anything more to buy, so that quite a few Poles are
to be found abroad, working illicitly in Germany in order to make
the transition from low wages to small-scale international black-
marketeering. The Hungarians, who have been saved by their free-
dom-oriented government from those nasty red stars on buildings
and police caps, also appear to be a bit worse off although they
now have a stock exchange. W h a t is so delightful about all
this, and to w h o m?
Well, does the Western citizen at least get anything out of it?
After all it is really for h i m that the good news is propaga-
ted six hundred times a day! Was h e being harrassed by the old
Communists who refused to reform? Did they spoil the fun of li-
ving in the better system? Impossible! But the way democratic po-
liticians tell it, people do have reason to be relieved. For de-
cades, every military conflict, and what's more the danger of the
really big war, was blamed on Communists. NATO had to keep procu-
ring more tanks, planes and missiles - and that gets to the tax-
payer. People who got by on this interpretation are still in the
dark now that they hear about the Russians'efforts to disarm,
about the new thinkers' selfcriticism that the Soviet Union does
in fact have too many weapons. After all, the announcement of mi-
litary success in regard to the socialist system (now that it ad-
mits its own failing in this area too) applies all the more to
W e s t e r n actions. The Eastern insight that its efforts to
keep up militarily have been a mistake pales against the
"correctness" of W e s t e r n relentlessness. The Western line
is that "we" now need superior armaments more than ever because
it is these efforts in the past that have led to the current Rus-
sian doubts. "We" don't give up tried and true recipes, especi-
ally since a "relapse" on the other side is not ruled out. Just
in case, "we" still have to arm to the teeth to guarantee "our"
security interests once and for all. Anyone who wants to can find
ample supporting material for this position in the daily press,
where NATO's acquisition of armed forces is mentioned week after
week.
The truth
---------
The good news is evidently not intended to be checked in any way
by the people it is presented to. It neither deals with communism
and its mistakes, nor bothers to specify the accomplishments of
capitalism. As repeated a thousand times on television talk
shows, in feature supplements and in political speeches, it is
only the latest twist in the venerable tradition of anticommunism
known as the c o m p a r i s o n o f t h e s y s t e m s.
This theoretically settles the question of which social order is
the better of the two. Without worrying too much about the pecu-
liarities of the two modes of production and the corresponding
types of states, the system comparers use their conception of the
Western system, which is nothing but flattery, to measure the
Eastern one. Lo and behold, they end up discovering that socia-
lism is inferior. For decades, this is the way political scien-
tists and commentators have "justified" the unyielding Western
policy toward the East, an East which everyone knows is unwor-
kable and actually has no business existing. This whole perfor-
mance serves to promote the sham that Western h o s t i l i t y
to the Eastern bloc is based on a scrupulous consumer product
test aimed at finding out which of all possible social orders is
the best.
The good tidings that communism is over and done with provide a
brand-new kind of evidence for this biased interpretation of
world politics. The defendants have now begun accusing
t h e m s e l v e s of the violations of efficiency and human
rights that w e arrested them for. Up to now the West has kept
demanding that the East admit its defeat under the pressure of
this or that business deal and little war. These days, it can
simply p o i n t to the other side's declaration of bankruptcy.
People who think communists capable of every crime and normally
don't believe a word they say, suddenly start quoting them when
these new thinkers adopt Western doctrines. When Eastern politi-
cians imitate "our" comparison of the systems and now actually
p r a i s e Western p r o d u c t i v i t y (after years of
criticizing it as one big sign of decay), doesn't it really mean
t h o s e p e o p l e a r e a n y t h i n g b u t
c o m m u n i s t s? But who cares about that, when all that
counts is the cheap thrill of the enemy confessing its failure to
copy what is by "our" standards successful production and politi-
cal rule! This proves once and for all that "we" are right, and
the only thing left to do is make sure the reforms actually do
boil down to a capitulation in "our" sense.
All the talk about communism being dead is therefore just a bra-
zen way of saying that s u c c e s s m a k e s
c a p i t a l i s m r i g h t. The many fine things that are
done throughout the world under the protection of Western weapons
and by the use of Western money are all o.k. - since nobody else
has come up with any "comparable" order. Conversely, those who
fail in their competition with the Free World and its techniques
of doing business and using force only demonstrate the
pointlessness and impossibility of any alternative. Just as the
end of the workers' movement "proves" that workers need capital
and nothing else, the Russians' new humbleness and the desertion
of their "satellite" nations to the other side show that the
achievements of capitalism are insurpassable. Anyone who asks
about the price that the realm of freedom demands from all its
walk-on characters f o r f e i t s h i s r i g h t t o
c r i t i c i z e. This is no refutation of communism - it's the
way those in tune with the times demonstrate that modern state
interests are not only victorious but also infinitely sensible
and moral.
A communist dogma and its current validity
------------------------------------------
The cheap triumph of people who point to the debilitated East
bloc and enjoy its self-criticism is one thing. It is another
matter that nobody disagrees.
Another word about those who dote on the diagnosis that communism
is dead. They are delighted with current "developments" that they
claim to be the logical consequence of what they have always
"known". They now know once and for all that the political eco-
nomy of Eastern socialism which, in their view, always used to
work much too well as a source of political strength for the
other side, really doesn't work at all. When Gorbachev says
"market", "investment" and "democracy", t h e y hear all those
fine terms that are used over here to misrepresent every lousy
Western practice as a necessity or a point of honor. They fancy
themselves prophets who have fathomed the demands of history.
They are the same ideologists who were utterly convinced that the
East was i n c a p a b l e of reform. They are now sponging off
popular uprisings which they always used to consider impossible
what with all the repression, no democracy, etc. These analytical
brains don't hesitate to use the Western system as a
s t a n d a r d which no one can escape with impunity. Whatever
fails to meet the criteria of real money deserves to perish -
this is their magificent insight.
As for the system that has failed by "our standards", no one of
course has a shred of interest in knowing anything about it. It
would only blur the cherished picture of the "rigid planned eco-
nomy" to actually take a look at the socialist combination of
"planning and market" at close range. You would have to notice
that there's hardly any communism involved in using the masses to
produce n a t i o n a l wealth as if it were their o w n. You
might even end up seeing that the Eastern alternative to capita-
lism consists merely in t r y i n g t o m a k e i t
b e t t e r. People much prefer to apply the method of accusing
people over there of not doing things the way "we" do and there-
fore not achieving a proper gross national product. This way you
can at least make some interesting suggestions to the nations
that have already been made dependent on "our help" by Eastern
trade. After all, they now ask for vigorous interference themsel-
ves, being just as disinterested in communism as "we" are. When
politicians in Moscow and Warsaw, Budapest and East Berlin praise
capitalistic efficiency, it is very clear what they mean. People
who recommend higher food prices and a pool of unemployed as a
m e a n s of getting a national economy going know nothing about
capitalism, but they do insist on pointing out that capitalistic
efficiency is incompatible with sympathy for the masses. It makes
sense that the people coming up with such gems in the discussion
about the need to return to capitalism don't have to fear being
considered cynical advocates of the sacrifices capitalism de-
mands. When system comparers theorize about the superiority of
the Western way of ruling and running an economy they are not
forming j u d g e m e n t s about capitalism and socialism, but
e n d o r s i n g t h e p r a c t i c a l t a k e o v e r of
the one by the other. They urge that the economy and politics of
the East be completely done over to fit those Western needs which
were already on their way to being met through the economic and
political extortion (known politely as "terms") of Eastern trade.
The people on the other side who have taken up this "offer" are
not c o m m u n i s t s but rather n a t i o n a l i s t s.
And t h e y are going begging these days, not "communism"!
The point is the i m p e r i a l i s t i c nature of the
"communism is dead" campaign. This is already betrayed by those
silly know-it-alls who, whenever they hear of any problem anyone
has in the East, can only think "Well, of course, a market eco-
nomy and democracy are long overdue!" It's just a small step from
the monotonously stupid litany "We've always known what they need
over there" to the finding that the managers of the successful
system are responsible for them and will d e f i n i t e l y
l e t t h e m h a v e w h a t t h e y' r e l a c k i n g.
The heirs of Eastern "mismanagement" are expected to change the
way they run their countries in such a way that the superior sy-
stem can be introduced there. "W e" demand and advocate
r e f o r m s, consider them "imperative" (without specifying
which ones or why), and approve or disapprove of them by the
strict standards of "our" interests. We christen all this,
"readiness to help", to give it a name, and lay our conditions
for these noble acts on the table. Anyone who hesitates to com-
ply, who has reservations about this institutionalized interven-
tion and fears a loss of political sovereignty, is throwing a
wrench in the works and won't admit that communism has failed. As
we said, discerning analysts don't dwell too long on the fine
points of communism's demise. T h e y' v e made the
d i a g n o s i s, and now it's up to the l a d i e s a n d
g e n t l e m e n i n c h a r g e to t a k e a c t i o n.
The mouthpieces of recent history have no problem confessing they
are only reciting and amplifying on the "ideas of the rulers"!
They actually consider it a virtue of this simpleminded discovery
of theirs that they are speaking in favor of a most real, calcu-
lated political program which has long since been making success-
ful strides forward.
It doesn't take much for the "ideas of the rulers" to become the
"ruling ideas". All you need is widespread agreement with the
principle that success is what makes you right in this world.
Your plans and projects are then what is known as "reality", and
everyone must adhere to it. Or, in more simple terms, everyone
must see that i n t e r e s t s w h i c h a r e v a l i d
deserve to be cooperated with. Even - and especially - those who
criticize gain credibility when they are "realistic" and keep to
the standards which make the world go round. This is the only way
to have the "possibility of having an influence".
These simple but admittedly somewhat abstract rules have always
been easy to learn for the majority of citizens who have anything
to say about politics beyond casting their vote on election day.
Only a small minority calling themselves "leftists" have had to
strain themselves a bit. But they have mastered this task brilli-
antly and made their contribution to the "communism is dead"
song-and-dance. There's no question that they are all for
"r e f o r m s" i n t h e E a s t, because they regard them
as an o p p o r t u n i t y just as the Western governments do.
Conditional socialism: "Only if..."
-----------------------------------
Russia's perestroika and the "return" of the East European states
have been reason enough for leftists in the West to abandon their
most sacred principles. It's n o t that they've found a flaw in
their previous ideas. Rather, they embrace the barbaric bourgeois
principle that failure proves an idea wrong, in this case socia-
lism. Their "reaction" to the demise of Eastern socialism has
nothing to do with a real understanding of the change that has
taken place there, nor with its influence on the notorious
"relations of power between progressive and reactionary forces"
in the world. Their "reaction" is instead a mendacious perfor-
mance which they themselves honestly believe in, namely that the
"events" in the East bloc have taught them something. With the
p r o o f they manufacture from the capitulation of Honecker and
his ilk, they fall in easily with the official anticommunism. The
troubles, failure and refors of the socialist societies in the
East are, for them, nothing but material for the well-known epi-
taph "communism is dead"'that they dress up as a t h e o r y.
Turning this epitaph around, they passionately proclaim,
"Capitalism lives!"
One is almost tempted to ask these leftists if they would also be
in favor of Eastern socialism if it were just as successful as
"freedom and democracy". But this is a superfluous question since
opportunism is never based on a reasonable judgement, but is a
m e t h o d. It is the method by which people who liked the word
"revolution" twenty years ago, who in their ridiculous Marxist-
Leninist phase worshipped the proletariat, have always been
avidly learning from experience.
Those who jumped on the alternative Green bandwagon abandoned
their flirtation with communism only because they noticed that
capitalism and its inhabitants simply don't play the role of a
c o n d i t i o n f o r t h e i r s u c c e s s. Because that
is what these people were looking for, they hit upon their
"environment and peace" nonsense. After all, capitalism always
lends a willing ear to anyone seeking to "improve" living condi-
tions w i t h i n it, to c o o p e r a t e
p o l i t i c a l l y w i t h i t. It has never occurred to
them that the capitalistic use of nature, and democratic milita-
rism only prove the n e c e s s i t y of getting rid of this
system. After all, they never based their communist ambitions on
necessities, but rather on the approval of a few thousand mora-
lists who in those days made leftist drivel fashionable with its
alleged prospects of success.
Those who jumped on the alternative science and journalism band-
wagon have remained true to the method which they previously
practised as leftists. They always considered bourgeois society
to be - not what it is - but a mass of c o n d i t i o n s for
something else. They saw conditions for its own abolition, and
produced (with their "intention of being practical") reams of
nonsense about workers' consciousness, currency crisis and the
distended welfare state which were all evidence that late cpaita-
lism was in in its final throes. They had to keep checking capi-
talism's ability to "solve" its "problems" to see whether it was
already reaching its expiration date. The problems it causes the
working class and the allergy-ridden victims of the environment
were not that important any more. Now, the national debt, peace,
forests, the education system, "employment" and energy were
fashioned into scholarly warnings of impending
c a t a s t r o p h e s. A c o n c e r n f o r
c o n s e r v a t i o n was the order of the day for the in-
tellectual elite, who considered their methodologically "correct"
nonsense to be the up-to-date criticism of capitalism.
Leftists have always been so critical that they want to be in
harmony with real or imagined t e n d e n c i e s. Today they
can harvest the fruits of their conditional brand of socialism.
When Gorbachev and Honecker are proof that communism is dead, and
the demand for convertibility of East bloc funny money to get
some goods back on the shelves shows how i m p o s s i b l e
i t i s t o p l a n a n e c o n o m y, then opportunism is
no longer just an attitude. It has attained the status of an
"empirically" confirmed theory. When thinkers keen on being al-
ternative return to the original formula of conditional socialism
and make it out to be the quintessential Marxism; when they pose
as yesterday's Marxist believers who have wised up and declare
that Marx' alleged prophesy of the fall of capitalism has been
refuted - then they've hit bottom. Brezhnev & Co almost start
looking good by comparison!
We can state with certainty that what "leftists" give as evidence
for the death of communism doesn't come from a misunderstanding
of Marx' explanation of the "tendency of the falling rate of pro-
fit". Even if the relevant passages of vol. 3 of "Capital" were
untrue, a l a w o f the capitalistic mode of production can
never imply a l a w o f i t s c o l l a p s e, since this is
a matter of people's free will. Such leftists have the appalling
notion that communism might possibly be justified, but only under
certain circumstances. Only if, as they say, capitalism were to
pass its expiration date; only if it had a built-in stopping me-
chanism; only if there were such a thing as a reliable historical
necessity for the transition to communism - then you could sit
back and watch the beast succumb to its disease! According to
this notion, which, like all nonsense, can cite a rich tradition,
communists are not the kind of folks who go around inciting class
struggle against capital and the violent power that protects it.
Rather, they are experts on history who, instead of swimming
"against the stream", advocate the course of things that is in-
evitable anyhow.
Well, that's n o t what communists do. Communists consider it
counterrevolutionary when such rubbish is uised as the official
state ideology in the East bloc ("We are only executing the ne-
cessary course of history." "After capitalism, which 'passes
away,' 'comes' socialism."). They therefore notice that the
"Wcommunism is dead" campaign is actually a reply to the stupid
position of being in favor of communism as long as it's supposed
to be coming about all by itself. But the campaign is unfortuna-
tely even more than that. After all, it refutes this one brand of
opportunism by advocating another, "realistic" brand!
For unlike communism, capitalism does not fail - it flourishes
like crazy. It's pretty damn stable, proves itself day for day,
and even arouses admiration in its former enemies. I t
w o r k s! And since s u c c e s s f u l f u n c t i o n i n g
is the only thing that counts for all decent people, including
sociologists, the U.S. President, the head of the Russian Commu-
nist Party and all East Germans bound for the West, this is the
universal refutation of any doubts that (indecent) people may
have about capitalism and its stupendousness. Because it works,
it doesn't have to be abolished - it should be followed!
The necessity of communism
--------------------------
does not spring from the misfunctioning of capitalism, but from
what's going on while and so long as capitalism functions. It's
the necessities of this system that communis ts want to get rid
of, not its "drawbacks" or its "oversights". To the popular que-
stion of how they would solve the notorious "problems'" that,
strangely enough, always plague the rulers and the ruled alike,
they reply, "We wouldn't". It is a matter of not creating these
"problems"'in the first place. Then no one would have to agonize
about the tremendous difficulty or even impossibility of
"overcoming" them.
Communists therefore also reject that sweet justification of
their historical mission which goes like this. So many beautiful
things appear in capitalism that don't work out properly in it
and can only be perfected under socialism. We're talking about
such favorite items as freedom and equality, humanism, real free
love, emancipation of the workers, of women, of homosexuals, etc.
Communists consider such philosophical insights into history to
be nothing but a stupid idealistic version of the disarming que-
stion, "And how would y o u solve the problems of the welfare
budget, divorce settlements, environmental pollution, the size of
the army and economic growth?" Really! As if communism were just
the continuation of capitalism by other means!
The necessity of communism has a slightly different origin. It
arises from an inspection of those same disagreeable circumstan-
ces which everyone else is always lamenting about. However, com-
munists refuse to regard every case of a damaged interest - be it
in matters of money, health or peace - as a "problem" to be sol-
ved (if it is at all solvable) by precisely those people who are
responsible for the "problem" existing in the first place. We are
referring to those dear fellow citizens who dispose over money
and political power. When the many aggravations, lousy practices
and sacrifices of bourgeois life turn out to be necessities of
the "system", then the "system" has to go. In this conclusion
lies the whole necessity ofcommunism.
1. The "communism is dead" campaign dominating public opinion
everywhere is "only" a matter of national consciousness. But when
entire nations unanimously decide that capitalism is fine simply
because it works, it's no joke. If t h i s is what's supposed
to be so great about capitalism, then it is no longer fitting or
even permissible to consider h o w it works, w h a t it ac-
complishes, what it's successful a t. This crass praise of ca-
pitalism is a textbook case of a t o t a l i t a r i a n
i d e o l o g y. No true or false arguments are put forward
about capitalism, its benefits and drawbacks, about interests
that it serves and interests that come up short. The finding that
"our" system is all right is expressly meant to be accepted as a
fact without any mention of its u s e f u l n e s s for anyone.
After all, the usefulness of the thing is that the fine is that
it downright e x i s t s, so that the fine democratic right of
criticism has now gone out of style once and for all. No one bo-
thers to refute it, for criticism simply has no place in a
"successful" system.
2. But there is o n e Success of the system that you're allowed
to mention these days: its w e a l t h, that some people iden-
tify with the bananas East bloc citizens can now buy. However,
there is no good reason to give the system credit for the sheer
existence - or even masses - of wealth in it. After all, the as-
sets accumulating on company balance-sheets, in banks and state
budgets are not intended to satisfy people's n e e d s, but to
enlist more services from them, services of the kind that brought
about the assets in the first place. When capitalist wealth is
based on u s e f u l p o v e r t y, it should not be praised,
but combatted.
3. This u s e f u l p o v e r t y exists in the form of
w a g e l a b o r. It is dependent in every way on the needs
and cycles of business. The employers are the ones who calculate
when and how much people work and whether they work at all, how
much they earn and whether they earn anything at all. In
exchange, people are marvelously free to budget their wages,
their leisure time and their health. Consolation can be found in
the wealth that other people are accumulating, in the knowledge
that there are others who are even worse off, and in the words of
those in charge, that it is a "real necessity" to serve their in-
terests.
4. Capitalism has set up a special "welfare" department to be of-
ficially responsible for administering the useful and useless po-
verty that is evidently recognized to be a permanent feature of
the "best system". The money used for this purpose comes from
people's wages, is collected by compulsion, and handed out spa-
ringly. The wealth that exists in abundance is intended for a
different purpose, namely to be increased.
5. When people are forced to sell their labor power to others in
order to get hold of money, this does not mean they can benefit
from the wealth they produce. Their share of it is liimited to
what they need to remain useful for the services demanded of
them. Nonetheless, there a r e other benefits. The kind of suc-
cess that counts in the only true system requires supervision by
the state. With its monopoly on force the state regulates the
functioning ofthe system on a strictly legal basis, so that ever-
yone in his walk of life does what he's allowed to and refrains
from doing what he's not allowed to. In elections,
c i t i z e n s get to check off the names ofthe people and po-
litical parties who are to enforce the "necessities" of growth
and welfare, money and poverty, by passing up-to-date laws. This
is a really great benefit - the state's actions cannot be chal-
lenged because they came about in the democratic way. The fact
that those in charge were empowered by the people justifies all
their "unpopular" decisions. People are actually free to exchange
views on them. Another benefit.
6. The finances and power of the state depend on capital's suc-
cess. So do working people. Capital's success depends on how much
it attains by buying and selling and by investing in other coun-
tries as well. So every wage worker depends on his nation car-
rying international weight. He provides money and himself as a
soldier to make and keep his nation's currency and troops power-
ful. The competition between nations with its ups and downs is
therefore his business as well.
7. Especially when it comes to the East bloc. There, a few madmen
made an attempt to improve the capitalistic system and have money
produced for the state in a different, much more philanthropic
way. This hindered Western nations and their capital in its acti-
vities abroad. To save capitalism from having to put up with this
unaccustomed annoyance forever, its citizens take part in under-
mining this other system and stand by for the life-threatening
phase, the final burial of dead communism. They are informed by
their governments about the procurement of the necessary arms and
funds.
8. People are not only allowed, but supposed to form an opinion
about all these necessities. Science and religion are cultivated
and distributed among the people in the proper doses for both the
elite and the masses. A highly respected opinion about the un-
pleasant side of the functioning system is that there are cer-
tainly a lot of "problems" but they are in the best hands. The
pleasant side is that everything is necessary and has a purpose.
People can take to heart capital's need for growth and the na-
tion's need for power, including its definition of who's an en-
emy. After all, it's no secret whose success everyone depends
upon. "At least our children will have a better life."
9. This is the prevailing attitude even if a lot of people are
currently all excited about the "environmental problem" and are
developing an "ecological awareness". The necessities of capita-
listic business have devoured a fair bit of nature, making it
less and less suitable as a means of subsistence, so that people
start feeling sorry for trees and rare animal species instead of
comprehending the fundamental laws of the functioning system.
10. This is the system that is so alive and has outdone dead com-
munism. The good fortune of being allowed to take part in it is a
value in itself. It is known as f r e e d o m, will tolerate no
criticism and demands a great deal of support. The administrators
and advocates of the system say that all these disagreeable
things are necessities. But communists know they are "only" the
necessities of capital and its state power. And if working people
withhold their services to deprive the whole system of its foun-
dation, that will be the end of it. Then people can start plan-
ning and need no longer obey "necessities" that other people set
up.
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