watching the TV the other day and various candidates were
calling other candidates “radical”… Its a thing in the U.S… where
by calling another candidates “radical” you can claim the middle ground,
in any political race…
… which got me to thinking…
the boogeyman of American politics over the last 70 years has
been communism…Richard Nixon won his first senate campaign by
painting his opponent as “communist” and that was in 1950…
so by definition, Karl Marx who “created” communism must also be
a “radical” but let us understand what the word “radical” really means…
with examples from Marx…
one of the key events of the 19th century was the widespread
discontentment that culminated in the attempted revolutions
of 1848 and 1849……
the list of demands that were part of this revolutionary period
are also the demands of one Karl Marx…and this is important to
note… the “party” that Marx lead was basically a workers party…
the entire revolutionary demands were basically workers demands
and what do workers demand?
Even today, we can list off basic worker demands…
better pay, safer working conditions, more benefits, press freedom,
universal manhood suffrage…(more on this one later) freedom
of expression…
these demands were the “radical” demands of the workers who drove
this revolution…and Marx supported each and every single one of these demands…
and in the pages of the newspapers he wrote in, he pushed these demands…
these “radical” demands were the demands of workers wanting basic
democratic rights of voting and liberalism… they wanted the workers
to become something more then just “workers”… they wanted a say in
the things that affected their lives, as workers and as people…
and how is that any different then anything we demand today?
in fact if we actually read the “Communist Manifesto” written by
Marx in 1848, we see how really “radical” he really is…
what are his “radical” demands?
a progressive income tax, abolition of inheritances, abolition of child labor
free public education, nationalization of the means of transport and communication,
centralization of credit via a national bank, and perhaps the most “radical” he had,
which was the abolition of private property…
Let us look at these “radical” demands… each and every one except one, became
a reality in the next century, the 20th…
and the one that didn’t, it is rather obvious……
but how “radical” does a man have to be to want the right to have some
say in his life?..
Marx was so “radical” that a majority of his ideas, once considered to be dreams,
were fulfilled the next century…
some of the ideas of the revolutionaries in 1848 requires some explanation…
for example, one of the big demands of the revolution in 1848 was the
relaxation of and even the elimination of censorship…what that means is
that any book written in say, Prussian Germany, had to be passed by
the official government censor to be allowed to be printed…
and that censorship even extended into the daily writings of
newspapers…and needless to say, that censorship also extended
into private communications, your mail was also examined for
“radical tendencies”… there as no such thing as “private” communication…
the next example was “universal manhood suffrage”… in Europe as was
true in America, laws were passed that allowed voting to occur only if
you had a certain amount of property… so, to vote, you had be male
and own a certain amount of property…
this is the basis of the “radical” demands Marx had for “universal manhood suffrage”
so we have basic worker demands that we can certainly relate to today,
demands like higher wages and safer working conditions and having a say
over the matters that affect us the most…
and so, in this midst of “radical” demands, we find ourselves
with a question?
on whose side are we on? do we stand with the workers and
give them the basic human needs of having their bottom line
needs of food, water, shelter, education, health care being met?
the needs that all human beings have and must be fulfilled
if we are going to rise above being simple, human/animal…
or are you on management side, where to deny people their basic rights
is done to maintain power and wealth of the wealthy who own
the production side of the economic system…
ok, let try this, if we admit that one of the basic rights allowed
to human beings is education, then what is wrong with universal
free admittance to collage… free collage for anyone who wants it…
why is this idea so “radical” when one of the basic rights of being
human is an education?
the answer lies in “it costs to much”…
so, we deny people one of their basic human rights because it
cost too much?
who exactly will it cost? and how can we logically decide upon
the matter of “it will cost to much?”
cost to much to whom and how do we decide if the cost is too “high”?
by what means do we judge this matter of the “cost” being too high?
in whose viewpoint do we make this sort of judgement?
the wealthy or in the eyes of those who have a need to be educated?
these are the “radical” demands that someone like Marx would have
fought over today, if he was still alive… why is free collage education
so “radical” when the cost of ignorance is far greater… see the 2016
presidential election for the cost of ignorance in America……
if the idea of abolishing tuition is so “radical” then why do these
countries practice it, Germany, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Denmark,
Norway and Finland, Iceland, France and Estonia…
this is just one small example of “radical” demands not being so “radical”…
and an example that lead us to think of Karl Marx has being not so “radical” if
his demands were the exact same demands that workers want and still want…
the only question comes down to his most “Radical”
demand, that of the elimination of private property…
I shall approach that in some later posts as it requires a very long,
detailed explanation…
but the question of the demands of the “radicals” really resides on
the question of “values”?
what do we consider important? is having a say in our lives really that
“radical” of a demand? don’t all people want a say in what happens in
their lives? do I personally want my life to be dominated by this
fanatical drive for profits that corporations have?
I can see the cost of this drive in my mind, heart and soul and I can
see the costs of profits in the mind, heart and soul of America…
we have such social problems as alienation and discontentment
and within such actions as Sandy Hooks and rampant drug addictions
as in opioids, which are meant to deaden the pain one feels, sounds
familiar? most of, indeed almost all the problems of modern day America
can be directly or indirectly shown to be the fanatical drive for profits
by corporations…
in Europe, they have far fewer issues because they have
limited the profit motive of corporations and thus they have
alleviated many of the social problems we face in America…
or said another way, Europe is a saner place then America because
it has limited the pursuit of profits………
in 1848, the battle was to gain some rights to be able to have
some say over the forces which dominate our lives, politically…
but the forces that dominate our lives are just political, they
are economic and we must begin to face up to that problem which
has promoted such stress in American’s… and it is this stress that
has lead to many of our social issues… in America you can go bankrupt
if you face a medical crisis, I know because when I had my colon issues,
the total cost was around 360,000 and my share was 20%…
that pretty much cost every single dime of money we had…
we haven’t recovered and most likely will never recover financially,
but what about people who can’t afford that?
that is part of the stress that afflict America…and causes
such issues as I mentioned…
so part of the solution that was a factor in 1848 is also
part of the solution in 2019 and that is this…
the solution cannot be just a political solution, it requires
and indeed, demands an economic solution for it to become
a viable solution…we cannot just fix the political problems
and say, “mission accomplished” no, that is just not enough…
we must fight the economic tyranny that currently exists
in this country…
and what is the solution?
the “radical” Marx had the solution all those years ago,
fight for the right to become who you are and
engage in having a say in our lives……
Kropotkin