not as complex as you’d think. it’s a structural thing in capitalism that has taken advantage of a vulnerability in humans, accentuated that vulnerability by creating social contexts in which it is greatly amplified, and then created ways to passify such anxieties through various modes of consumerism. okay sure, you’ll say ‘but what about those emo kids in japan?’ for those kids, it’s just an artistic trend… they don’t really feel like our emos. our emos wake up every morning and have to decide whether or not they’re gonna go ahead and shoot up the school down the street.
there are torrents of alienation and social anxiety running rampant in our culture making basket cases out of many people. and these are normal people who aren’t supposed to be psycho (like me; a certified psycho)… or i should say, shouldn’t be able to become psycho simply because they aren’t smart enough to. our psycho’s are not deep, philosophical de sade types; ours are regular folks made crazy by forces in society, both public and private. on the streets, in the schools, in the homes, in the prisons, at the work place, etc. capitalism engenders a competitive element in society that doesn’t just manifest in the market and sports, but in the peer groups and other social institutions. this super-structure is immense and made up of subtle inter-working parts, which, examined individually, don’t raise any cause for much alarm. but when combined they form a terribe creature that secretly eats away at the mind and soul of the peeps. now if there’s any hint of philanthropy in your heart, young man, you’d not find this fact agreeable. in fact, i want you to go out today and find an emo kid somewhere, buy him a coffee, and have a chat with him.
i don’t buy into that tired old argument: without incentive for improvement, people aren’t creative or motivated. a socialist/communist economy would not eliminate the competitive wage system. instead, it would place in the hands of everyone- instead of a hand full of company owners and stock holders that don’t do shit- the decision about the value of a specific skill. and there is a lot involved in making this determination, or course. the demand (popularity) of it, the amount of resources put into training (doctor takes 8 years… garbage man takes two days), and so forth. but what is not a determining factor in the ‘value’ of a worker anymore is his willingness to work for a lower wage than the other guy. in this system, there are no incentives to produce private profits, so workers are not evaluated by single individuals who decide their value according to how effectively they can be exploited to generate private profit, compared to that other available worker. there is no more force pushing wages down, here, either. that’s two birds with one stone.
now i want you to tell me how something like this might be workable: anti-dialectics.co.uk/AAA_Socialist_Economy.htm
is this a utopian pipe dream? yeah? why and how? if everyone is equally involved with and committed to improving production so that more is accomplished in less time and with less resources, how could you possibly go wrong? it’s simple; the guy who comes up with the next best thing is recognized by everyone as an asset and is rewarded accordingly. this means that when you figure out a way to produce electricity out of cold fusion, you get a HUGE raise with which you’ll be able to buy 100 rap CDs and a whole QP of weed at once (marijuana will be legal, btw).
now what’s the fucking difference whether you do this in a capitalist system or a communist system? you’re still doing the same thing, either way. in fact, unless someone told you you were living in a communist society, you wouldn’t know the difference. only, you’d not be able to accumulate 137 billion dollars… but who the fuck needs 137 billion dollars when their life is great? you work half the time you would in a capitalist society because everyone is working and sharing the labor load, and everything you buy and own is cheaper because there aren’t any parasite owners jacking the price up to pocket more profit.
like, what am i missing here? some bullshit about social darwinism? this is the nonsense the ruling classes have been peddling philosophically to rationalize their ‘right’ to power for the last 2000 years. wait, darwinism is only a few centuries old. you know what i mean; same shit, different name. it’s been part of the philosophical furniture since thrasymachus spit that shit in the republic. yeah no shit, einstein. might is right. but the moment the working classes rise up and take power, it’s suddenly ‘reactionary’ or ‘resentful’, not ‘mighty’. bollocks. and first of fucking all, the only reason the arstocratic classes gained power over the worker/soldier type was because they were able to brainwash them ‘philosophically’; ‘you need us, we represent god’s kingdom and order, socrates and plato and aquinas and the gang said so… so we’ll do the legislating over here in the castle and you guys go work in the field, mmkay?’
my ass. you ain’t bout to get this nigga like dat. i know better.
so you look that short paper over, dude, and tell me with a straight face you don’t think it’s workable.
very wealthy, indeed. the quintessential capitalist of the music industry. hey man, when in rome, etc., so he told warner brothers to eat his shorts and went independent. and he paid his guys very well for what they did, but his musicians were in it for the love of the art more than the money. if you wanted to get paid, you bought a leather coat and went to work for AC/DC… but you’d never reach the level of potential, as a musician, that you’d reach playing frank’s stuff. frank hired real musicians, not a bunch of power chord playing clowns looking for publicity on the cover of some magazine.
but frank wasn’t a philosopher like us. sure, he could go round for round if he had to, but he’s more scientifically minded. frank wants to see the data, not the rhetoric. he’s not gonna accept the basic premise of communism because like everyone else who’s been brainwashed, he also thinks such a system doesn’t permit private property. he’s excused for his ignorance because political philosophy isn’t his department. he’s a composer… the best the twentieth century had ever seen across all genres equally.
so, given the circumstances and environment in which zappa thought, lived and worked, we’d not say his extraordinary wealth was something that was ‘unfair to the rest’. if there ever was a case where we could justify that hyper-meritocratic formula i mentioned above, zappa would be that case. he was quite literally unlike anything else in the music industry for three decades. an entirely different animal than anything you heard on the radio or watched on MTV. these guys aren’t a ‘garage band’, dude. zappa was to modern music was einstein, bohr, and heisenberg were to physics.
the zappa business lesson:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWXUatVuxQg[/youtube]