The end?

How to Read Marx Like a Human Not a Tool. 

Ok, we need to set some ground rules here. First, we aren't debating anything. I'm telling you my reading of the English translation of Marx's most famous works. All i care about is The Communist Manifesto and Volume 1 of Capital. 2) i think Lenin was wrong in his interpretation of a couple important aspects, and i think Stalin was a buffoon. I don't mean that in the common offhanded dismissal of mainstream Marxist Thought way, as in "ugh, those backtracking wusses, afraid of a little oppression and murder," i mean if Marx had lived to see Lenin's rise to despotism he would have said "no, dirtbags, you're doing it wrong. This is exactly what i said was the stupid part." 

Again, we aren't debating my opinion, i'm allowed to be wrong because I'm not telling you to do or not do anything other than form your own opinion and compare and contrast it with mine. That sounds antagonistic, i know, but it's the only accurate description of the scenario i can utter. You don't get to tell me that my opinion isn't my opinion, you just file it in the "Bottle's opinion as i understand it" folder until you have something to contribute to the conversation. I think we can both agree i would have been extra-special worked/starved to death in the gulags of 100 years ago Soviet Union because i'm a loud-mouthed jackass. 

I have a limit test/rule. If you end up having to kill or torture people to get a road repaved, you are some flavor of wrong. Marx doesn't try to justify it, he very clearly says violence and rebellion and war are an inevitable reaction to exploitation and oppression and History tells us there's no obvious way to actually escape it. The more developed an industrial society the less violence actually takes place, but the end result is always some qualitative version of war. His actual suggestion is the democratic election of representatives who will politically advocate for the working class so that people can support themselves rather than depending on generosity and pity (nothing is fair until you agree it's fair). He advocated spreading people out, giving them land and technology to support themselves and freely trade the surplus with others, rather than forcing them to owe a debt to a landlord for the privilege of being allowed to live in poverty. It's still possible to choose to be lazy and starve under that plan, but you can't argue you didn't have access to the knowledge and technology necessary for a productive and fulfilling life. I used to tell my students "i'm telling you what to do to pass this course, the people who do it get As and Bs, the people who don't get Ds and Fs. I have no idea how hard or easy it will be for any particular one of you, so drive your struggle bus over to my office hours and i'll gladly give you extra help." I didn't actually say it in those exact words, but maybe it would have been more productive. Se la mort on that one. 

The first problem i have with Lenin is that he clearly took the "inevitability of exploitation" as a justification for oppressing and exploiting the predominantly peasant population of Eastern Asia. Some days i'd rather be a subsistence farmer, to be honest. I know which part Lenin misunderstood, it's the part where Marx talks about looking down on the farmer as lazy and inefficient. It's easy to misunderstand, Marx doesn't reiterate the context of that statement as a specifically Capitalist point of view inside the larger process of exploitation; he doesn't clarify his rhetorical approach, he shortsightedly assumes you understand it. Stalin's notion of single-nation Communism is equally problematic, because that is just about as opposite of a global proletariat as i can imagine. The story about the hand-picked bloody roses and apology to Konstantin Rokossovsky is pretty interesting though, as are the happy birthday exchanges between him and Churchill right up until that Iron Curtain diatribe. FDR's in there somewhere as well. I know i'm rambling, i just think people tend to not actually conceptualize all the things that were happening at the same time. How many people mistakenly think Stalin was Axis rather than Ally and ignore the fact that Pearl Harbor is what actually forced us to choose a side in WWII? It was Stalin's war against Hitler and Mussolini when you brass tack it, and we had so many fascism fanatics Vonnegut had to write a book about it. Killed an imaginary pregnant lady and everything. 

Where was i? Oh yeah, it is certainly true that Marx envisioned a type of globalized society, but i think we have to look at that in its most honest and simple manifestation. A carpenter should be able to go anywhere on Earth and have a productive and comfortable life as a carpenter. A doctor is a doctor, a lawyer a lawyer, a mechanic a mechanic, and so on. Professions might have varying levels of importance in different places, but some amount of what you do is equal to some amount of what another person does; we should all be able to adapt to the changing needs of society as a whole and we should all have access to the technology and education that makes that possible. 

The next problem is Communism itself. Communism is clearly a religion in Marx's brain (he compares them to all the really nasty drugs made from poppies like Marcy Playground did): it has an origin story, it has a teleological goal, and it has a detailed series of devout behaviors that assure you'll get to the promised reward. I skipped over that chapter of the manifesto, but i told you that's what it actually does, it criticizes the utopian aspects of broader Communist ideas, and says true revolution can only come from the people usurping the power of their handlers. You know me, i say there's no bowl of Lucky Charms at the end of the rainbow, but i completely and respectfully accept your right to disagree with me so long as you aren't using it to try to take advantage of me.  Marx might scold me for that, but i ain't afraid of no ghost. 

Back to the point. What are the real dynamics of Marx's evaluation of Capitalism? First of all, Capitalism very much works. The boss exploits his workers for profit, consumers get happy and demand more, it gets bigger and bigger, but before any one guy actually wins, the people being exploited chop off his head. That's not allegorical, by the way, that's literally the French Revolution and the umpteenth time it's happened in Marx's "History is Fun" library reading list. Marx very clearly implies that's stupid. The end result is a crash either way, so we should use the best tools we have to make the process as survivable as possible. Economically speaking, Marx says it would be better to approach the cataclysm by letting the global economy actually reach its equilibrium rather than waking up one morning to find that one guy actually won and the entire rest of the world has no money until he decides how to divide it all up again. 

I'm reminded of the very peculiar and interesting distinction between a Republic and a Soviet Democracy. The term "Soviet," by the way is the actual name for the type of democratically elected representative and by extension the congress of elected representatives. Soviet isn't merely a synonym for "Russian" like most of us Americans naively think it is. If you are one of those Americans then you're really gonna hate the fact that our Electoral College is really difficult to intellectually differentiate from Soviet Democracy. By all means, go read the thousands of pages of text about it and pick my consolidated appraisal apart, i will very much respect your efforts. 

I myself am a "do it or don't" kind of guy. I don't find much value in putting off what you're still not going to want to do tomorrow; if it's a coin flip, i'll flip an actual coin so i don't have to care anymore. If you have to waste time threatening me, you could have already killed me by now. James Spader would have (a Blacklist reference, where did that come from?). And that, believe it or not, winds us all the way around to a sentiment best expressed by Neil Gaiman's Mary Katherine Gallagher impression from American Gods. We all know the game is rigged, but it's the only game in town. 

My question is, do you think he punned his own name on purpose, or was it just a happy little Bob Rossian coincidence?