Now here's an anti-socialist complaint for the ages! Never mind that this particular utopian fantasy, the one we call "socialism," has motivated the most powerful global movement to change the world for the better over the past two centuries. Never mind that the global movement for socialism (momentarily disregarding its various philosophic strains, from anarchism to Bernsteinism) has really been the ONLY global movement to propose something other than more capitalism. Socialism is a utopian fantasy.
(Folks, this is a continuation of this diary and this diary and this diary -- all parodies of capitalist attitudes toward socialism -- so there's more fun if you missed those!)
Okay I give up. Socialism is a utopian fantasy. So let's all get real folks, and discard that utopian socialist fantasy. Let's get real, folks -- we're not going to have a future in which the public controls the means of production. Even if we could have socialism, we're certainly not going to have a future in which, having controlled the means of production, the public decides to get out of the fossil fuel business. Nobody's giving up oil -- it's like one commenter said here at Orange, the people want cheap electricity. Fossil fuel electricity is the cheapest we get. Moreover, under capitalism the oil companies will buy all of our politicians, and at some too-late point we will discover that "alternative energy" is only a supplement to fossil fuel energy.
So forget about it. Infinite capitalist growth on a finite planet is our future -- as Bill Clinton told us, we need to "embrace it." And he's a Democrat you know -- the Republicans are worse. So while we're at it, we need to stop pretending that we're going to experience anything from the Earth's future climate other than that glorious future described in Mark Lynas' Six Degrees, in which we build the Keystone XL and burn all the tar sands and eventually the methane clathrates are released from the bottom of the oceans, exploding in great fireballs as they intensify our planet's greenhouse effect.
The best we could do.
But wait a minute! Wait just a cotton-pickin' minute! (I presume, having said this, that a minute in which cotton is picked is longer and more painful than an ordinary minute -- it's got to be longer than a New York minute, for instance.) Maybe a little fantasy would make our lives happier on the way to our global warming-induced doom. We certainly live in enough of a fantasy world already -- you know, the American Dream: nice car, nice house, big family, all that. If we hate our lives we can watch fantasies on TV, or at the movies, or (more commonly) on the Internet, or on our Blackberries. Why not a socialist utopian fantasy too? I'd love to see "Socialism: The Future" made into a Hollywood blockbuster -- I'd definitely pay $18 to see it.
In fact, fantasy is inherent in the use of money under capitalism. We've known this from the get-go -- this solid truth was clear to a famous philosopher back in 1844, who wrote in Shakespearean fashion:
I am ugly, but I can buy for myself the most beautiful of women. Therefore I am not ugly, for the effect of ugliness – its deterrent power – is nullified by money. I, according to my individual characteristics, am lame, but money furnishes me with twenty-four feet. Therefore I am not lame. I am bad, dishonest, unscrupulous, stupid; but money is honoured, and hence its possessor. Money is the supreme good, therefore its possessor is good. Money, besides, saves me the trouble of being dishonest: I am therefore presumed honest. I am brainless, but money is the real brain of all things and how then should its possessor be brainless? Besides, he can buy clever people for himself, and is he who has power over the clever not more clever than the clever? Do not I, who thanks to money am capable of all that the human heart longs for, possess all human capacities?So we've already got this -- possession in full of the pursuit of life, liberty, and utopian fantasy. We planned right, worked hard, staked our futures on the right partners (which we found on eHarmony or whatnot), and went to the right colleges y'know (back when they were affordable). I'm sure the folks around where I live think that way:
So why do we need any of this socialist crap around anyway? (Never mind that this new rationale drops the "we're stiff-lipped realists and don't buy socialism because it's just a fantasy" pose like real fast. When we finally admit that we're living out a utopian fantasy already -- you know, the one that says that the good life is here and the money and resources are never going to run out and there's always something good on TV or accessible via car -- we can gloat about living the dream all you socialists missed because you forgot to invest in the real estate boom or because you forgot to sell back in '06 or whatev. If you're unhappy, shut up and watch the new Hobbit movie or something like that.)
Well, first off, the capitalist utopian fantasy is only available to those who pay. And there's a big problem with paying if you look at it on a global level: about half the world lives on less than $2.50/day, so they can afford about $2.50 worth of utopian fantasy (you know, stuff like food, clothing, shelter and so on) every day. And then you have that 80 percent of the world (see the same website) that lives in countries where income differentials are widening -- in other words, in those places, the capitalist utopian fantasy is becoming more and more an exclusive province of a rich few.
So there's this big problem with the capitalist utopian fantasy in that regard. It's enjoyed in a highly unequal manner, because it's based on the ability to pay. The socialist utopian fantasy, however, is a fantasy of a world in which EVERYONE will share, for free --
well, whatever's left after capitalism does its doggie duty upon the world.
(NB: maybe all of us who share the socialist utopian fantasy ought to move to those places where everyone lives on less than $2.50/day, so we can all get together and have a little socialist utopia of our own -- but seriously? In this world? I think we'd all rather live in California or somewhere nice like that, if we can afford it.)