Yes, all actions create a reaction; generally benign actions create benign responses, aggressive oppressive actions create aggressive responses. That is why the enduring power and threat of capitalism were party to creating monsters like Stalin. Socialism has not functioned as a universal or in a vacuum. Capitalism on the other hand has largely been in control. Socialism can temper its excesses in Capitalist states but when in power, including with democratically elected governments like say Allende’s, must always fight it off. Cooperativism has been competitive and authoritarian in the face of the power of Capital and its fierce competitiveness For sure, it is a hard hard road towards achieving true socialism. Green politics is both swallowed up and sidelined by the powers that be too. Science and technological advances can help create prosperity but social inequality and disadvantage can never create a comfortable happy state, however prosperous many of its citizens may become. How to marry collective solidarity with individual freedoms? Not in a Capitalist world, only in a world without Capitalism. This is not to say Capitalism, as practised with a fair sense of compassion, is all bad but it can never come even close to an ideal, and is often outrageous and abominable in its devouring of the weaker people and nations in the name of greed worldwide. Ambition to improve one’s own lot, along with that of others and not at their expense, and to fulfil one’s talents is fine, but the love of money is not far from the root of all evil That’s how i see the world. It’s a big chasm to the champions of Capitalism. Maggie Thatcher pointed out that the Good Samaritan had enough money to help another, but the poor give more generously as a percentage of income and by far as a percentage of wealth beyond necessities than do the rich.
The Battle of Algiers shows how an imperialist action creates a counter-action, and pain is at its heart. Better prevention than cure, better help each other than take advantage. The world doesn’t have to be like this.
Obviously, everyone agrees with that last sentiment Kenji: The world doesn’t have to be like this.
name of greed worldwide. Ambition to improve one’s own lot, along with that of others and not at their expense
Would you say the Zhans are full of greed and ambition?
If so what is their objective? a better life?
The problem isn’t theoretical capitalism or socialism, the problem is here:every action creates a counter-action
Their greed and ambition is counter acted by others rigging the system in terms of real or artificial scarcity.
The Zhans attempt at getting a better wage is thwarted by the fact that the work can be shifted to another country without regard for the loss in the fixed assets left behind – costs are not rationalized because of payoffs to officials.
Corruption might not be a natural, unavoidable moment.
It’s very easy to say that the world doesn’t have to be like this, but the reality of it is that there were many more factors involved in the examples you have given. Especially when considering Stalin and his influences/ Rise to power.
I would attribute the rise of Stalinism not to capitalism as an idea, but capitalism exercised without the protection of individual freedoms. Workers were not allowed to unionize, and were violently attacked if they attempted to. There was no such thing was collective bargaining, and due to the discrepancy in education, the wall between classes was completely impermeable.
If people decide to get together and live in a commune without the need for money, this is a solution to the marriage of individual freedom with collective solidarity. But it’s impossible to implement on a national scale without at some point appointing a committee to say “You’re allowed to open a tailoring business, you’re not, you have to open a butcher shop”. It’s naive to think you can eliminate wealth by eliminating money. If you eliminate money, power and influence become wealth, and there’s even stronger a class system than there is with money, that’s even more prone to corruption.
There’s also the mathematical imperative that the economy tends to be better for everyone if people are free to make their own economic decisions.
The solution to me is to target the problems with capitalism. There are laws in place to prevent monopoly and artificial scarcity, but they’re never enforced because the rich have such better access to legal representation than the poor. Equalize education, equalize legal power, prevent soft influence peddling in politics, and it would lead to a society where social status is based on hard work and know-how instead of birth.
Imagine working in agriculture and not having enough to eat?
The individual matters not in collective systems as well.
Robert W Peabody III
Last Train Home 2009
DIR Lixin Fan
DP Lixin Fan
CAST Suqin Chen, Changhua Zhan, Qin Zhang
85 Min
This was an effective documentary of the largest human migration – one that happens every year for 130 million people – in the space of two weeks.
The film is conventionally done; linear, every shot framed text-book style. The wife’s speaking acts like VO for the husband and foreshadows what is to come.
With all that conventionality one might wonder what makes the film effective, and it is effective. I think the style of the film puts the story forefront to the filmmaking – not that the filmmaking is unremarkable, it is remarkable because it is well done and cohesive around the story.
Per MUBI blurb:
….the real price of capitalist prosperity—in generational chasms and social dissolution. —Kathleen Denny
In a way, yes. The parents didn’t know what they were signaling to their daughter. They send money home and naturally the daughter sees leaving the countryside as the way forward. If the parents had taken her to the factory at say, age 10, maybe she would have understood better the sacrifice and hardships and stayed in school.
On the other side of the real price of capitalist prosperity coin is the real cost of socialism.
The grandmother had to work in agriculture for the country. She said they didn’t have enough to eat and their clothes had holes in them.
What a way forward for the world…..
The Chinese believe the world we live in is not black and white. As the Tao’s yin and yang argument explains: every action creates a counter-action as a natural, unavoidable moment – Lixin Fan