During the cold war when the failings of Stalinism were reported in the capitalist press in the west, the culprit was always the failure of "communism". The bureaucracy was never spoken of favorably of course, but it was always drummed in to our heads that the real cause was the system; communism.
It served the capitalist class well to link the totalitarian dictatorship to communism. If that were communism, what worker in the industrial democracies would want it? And it was obvious by the end of the 20th century that Soviet workers had had enough. That Stalin eliminated practically the entire Marxist leadership of the party that led the first successful socialist revolution in history is not an issue of concern to the bourgeois historian. That Stalin and the social forces behind him were far from communist and that the Soviet dictatorship was equally as far from being a communistic society is not part of their history: "Communism has failed", is their rallying cry.
Yet when capitalism fails, and it fails on a monstrous level, the system is not the culprit, at least in the same way.
In an article in today's Financial Times, the author writes of the crisis in the subprime mortgage market that is having a serious effect on housing as foreclosures mount. Interestingly enough, he does allude to the crisis having its source in the system to a certain extent. "There is no single villain," he writes. "There is no one company or person to point to." This is true. But he then regresses: ".. this was a market phenomenon.." he concludes. (1)
He is correct, there is no individual or lone company. For socialists, the issue is not this or that individual either, it is the system itself, the system of production we call capitalism or the free market, where one class of people, a minority, own the means of production and they purchase the labor power of others to produce the necessities of life. It is this that socialists aim to eliminate and replace with a form of social organization that is collective, rationally planned in harmony with nature, and not driven by the anarchy of the so-called free market. The capitalist class however is the force that will defend the old way and it is the force that will ensure that this change is not without pain and physical confrontation.
The author cannot admit that it is the system of production itself, the system in total, as they did with the collapsed Stalinist regime. When the capitalist economy wreaks havoc and mayhem on human beings it is merely a "market phenomenon."
The destruction of the rain forests is simply a "market phenomenon." Starvation in Africa is a "market phenomenon" as is pollution, high infant mortality, and the wasteful and market-driven building of homes without any serious concern for the environment. Homes that will now stand empty, owned by moneylenders in mansions in Westchester and Beverly Hills or London while the folks who went to work to pay the interest on the loan are thrown out on to the street. Disease and death in the former colonial world are rampant. Attacks on living standards in the industrial world are increasing.
The trafficking in women, mostly young girls, is at unprecedented levels.
In the colonial era, males of the occupying forces had their way with women of those countries they occupied, the same with slavery. Today, men from Europe and the US, many of them working class men, flock to Vietnam, Latin America, Thailand and Cambodia in search of brides who, because of poverty, will welcome anything that will get them to the wealthier countries and offer some sort of life and future other than the one that exists where they are. Some of these men are racists but their racism doesn't apply when it comes to sexual gratification and their ownership of women.
Under this "legal" deal the young bride, often much younger than her new husband, will remain passive, subservient, stuck in a new land with a new language and the threat of returning to what they once had. Is it a better life? In many ways it is, you might not be hungry every day. You might be able to send money to your father and mother or siblings, but that doesn't mean it is a free and decent existence. It is super-exploitive. Any nondescript little man, bullied by his boss, afraid to open his mouth, can have power under this deal.
As long as I have lived on this earth, starvation has existed, like poverty and wars over natural resources like Vietnam, Iraq etc. It is even worse today.
Webster's defines a phenomenon as "A rare fact of occurrence" and "An extremely outstanding or unusual person or thing." Unusual is a key word here.
There's some phenomenon's about all right.
(1) Subprime assault on southern California: Financial Times 4-21-07
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