Sunday, November 6, 2011

The "C" Word

“[…] raising the curse of poverty from society must become the transcendent objective of all men of good will.”
-Edward Bellamy

Communism. At this point in history this social-economic form has been an abject failure, and in the west we have a still standing, but comparatively muted, tradition of viewing anything associated with its concepts as base, ignorant, tyrannical or just plain Godless. Even though no country has successfully applied the tenets of communism the fault does not lie entirely with the ideas and practices it preaches, but with the dictatorships or autocracies that implement themselves as rulers during the often chaotic revolutionary period that served to uproot the old regime. There has never been a truly communistic state.
Anarchism serves as the political mate for communism’s economic principles of a classless society and common ownership of the means of production. The “State” is incompatible with economic equality, as the old adage says “power corrupts” and as long as there are governments there will be people with more influence, wealth and power than others. The one thing people with power want is more power.
There are many people in the world angry at capitalism and the financial inequality it inevitably breeds. This has been made obvious by the multitude of protestors occupying the streets and financial sectors. Why one man sits in a multi-million dollar mansion and another is struggling simply to stay out of the gutter is a question we are beginning to ask in mass. This has served to intensify interest in the ideas of socialism, and in smaller numbers, communism, and how these systems might improve the quality of living in a society still governed by the democratic process.
In 1887 the writer Edward Bellamy published the book Looking Backward: 2000 - 1887
a utopian novel about a wealthy man from the late 19th century who, through the bizarre habit of sleeping in a hermitically sealed room, wakes up one morning to realize that he has been asleep for 113 years. The man finds that the America he knew from the 1880’s has transformed into a thriving socialist society where poverty has been eliminated. In a nutshell the book is told through discussions the man has with his guide, Dr. Leete, and others in the doctor’s household, about how the new society works and why the old society was destined to fail. It’s something like Rip Van Winkle…if it had been written by Karl Marx.
The book is far from flawless, although it proved to be very influential to the Marxist communities of the day, it is predominantly a utopian fantasy. When I originally read the book a year or two ago I was not impressed, it seemed no more than a dreamer’s dream of a perfect society governed by flawless, industrious people. But there was one concept that stood out to me; everyone, whether a doctor, government official, store clerk or an assembly line worker, received the exact same annual salary, or “credit” as it is referred to in the book, for their labor.
Originally I shared the sentiment of the main character when he exclaimed “Some men do twice the work of others! […] Are the clever workmen content with a plan that ranks them with the indifferent?” How can it be fair, no matter how hard one works or how valuable ones profession, to receive the exact same amount of money as anyone else. It wasn’t until recently when I came upon a Princeton University survey about happiness and money that I reevaluated the concept.
According to the survey 75,000 is the magic number when it comes to income. “The lower a person’s annual income falls below that benchmark [$75,000], the unhappier he or she feels. But no matter how much more than $75,000 people make, they don’t report any greater degree of happiness,” writes Belinda Luscombe in an article for TIME magazine about the study. The survey reminded me of Bellamy’s book when I thought to myself (and got out my calculator) “what if everyone received a weekly salary of $1,442? What sort of impact would this have on society if people were given the optimal salary to be happy, and would productivity in the industrial and business sectors rise, fall or stay the same?”
But once again the issue of fairness rears its head. Should a waitress really make $75,000 in a year, while the oncologist down the street working 60+ hours a week helping cancer patients is making the exact same amount? The issue revolves around the individual’s impact or importance to society. Usually our point of view focuses unconsciously on the microcosm, the individual job holder. The waitress’s job looks unimportant when presented next to the oncologist in the microcosm, but when viewing the whole of society, the macrocosm, the distortion fades out. What if there were no restaurants, so no waitresses, or grocery stores, so no cashiers to check out customers, or food distributors, and going a little further, no farmers. Individually the jobs of a waitress, cashier, wholesaler and farmer seem less important or prestigious than the oncologist, but without them there could be no oncologist since the person’s main focus now wouldn’t be on a health care career, but on finding food. Looking at the macrocosm of society the people, down to those running the cash register, involved in creating, distributing and selling food are as essential to the structure of civilization as a physician. Take out one element and the system has to restructure, or perhaps cannot function at all.
Without garbage collectors, truck drivers, manufacturers, store clerks, teachers, grunt laborers, construction workers, programmers, cooks, janitors, etc. etc. there would be huge gaps in society that would disrupt daily life enough that those in other careers would have to adjust, or even completely change, what they do. While these jobs lack the prestige of a surgeon, CEO or engineer, these latter three examples exist only because others, in the capacity of their employment, provide through goods and services the necessities that allow them to focus their energies elsewhere.
Society is like the human body. We often refer to the heart or brain and think of these organs as essential or more important than other parts, but without the intestines, bones, stomach, liver and kidneys, the heart and brain cannot function.
In his book Bellamy broached the subject of wage equality and how capitalism makes it impossible for the majority of society to receive a truly fair compensation for their labor or services.
“How […] can you adjust satisfactorily the comparative wages or remuneration of the multitude of avocations, so unlike and so incommensurable, which are necessary for the service of society? In our day the market rate determined the price of labor of all sorts, as well as of goods. The employer paid as little as he could, and the worker got as much.”
With capitalism society marches under the banner “your necessity is my opportunity.” Even though each part is necessary to the whole, they are not treated as such. As Bellamy pointed out, “the most perilous, severe, and repulsive labor was done by the worst paid classes…” If the argument against a universal standard wage is that it is unfair to certain professions, then why isn’t that same argument applied to the current system where the lowest paid people often work longer hours under more physical strain in potentially more hazardous conditions?
In a society organized under the principles of anarcho-communism compensation for work wouldn’t be dictated by a job title but by participation, the only requirement would be that each person work to the best of their abilities at the job they do, which, do to individual differences, would fluctuate greatly from one person to the next.
On a fundamental level humanity is essentially consistent. The argument that a greater number of people would make less of an effort at work if their compensation was guaranteed and unalterable seems unlikely. Undoubtedly those people would exist, as they exist today under the current system, but society will have its flaws in any form. The best we can do is organize ourselves under the principles of a system that allows the greatest amount of happiness, freedom and equality. Utopias do not, and cannot, exist, as their very name implicates (the word “Utopia” was coined by Thomas Moore in 1516 from the Greek words ou and topos, roughly translated as “not a place” or “nowhere”).
In the United States, as in many democratic nations around the world, we claim to value freedom and equality above all else. But those who have managed to grab onto power through their affluence and deception value only more money and power, while claiming to be champions of liberty. Communism, anarchism, socialism: they have become taboo words and concepts because of the fear the upper class has of a system in which it is impossible to become rich and grab power. Equality in compensation is not an idea at odds with our values, but one that embodies them at a higher level under the edict "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs."

1 comment:

  1. Yea, the salary idea is only relevant to THIS kind of society under capitalism. What sets humans apart from animals (for one) is that our survival is based on our cooperative labor. Right now we are alienated from the wealth we create in our workplaces because our bosses' profits come from our unpaid labor. So, equal pay for all seems like a moot point to me..though I'm having a hard time grappling with it right now. Because let's face it, service jobs suck. Even if I made $75,000/year that would not be fulfilling work. Does humanity really need a food service industry? Also, with the technology we already have at our fingertips in this era and a population of 7 billion or whatever, 40 hour work weeks are archaic. Planned labor and control of production would lead us to shared duties and free up our time to engage in social activities, education, research, etc. boundless possibilities.

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