Robots

The movie Robots is a propaganda movie for paternal Capitalism. The enemy to be overcome is the ruthless Capitalism where profit rules over all. A political revolution lead by an alliance of the petite bourgeois, elements of the labour aristocracy, and the paternal faction of the large bourgeois lead the workers and the lumpenproletariat to victory. The leading elements of the petite bourgeois are then co-opted in the restored power structure.

Rodney Copperbottom grows up believing in the propaganda put out by Bigweld Industries through the weekly television program, and through the annual parades. Mr. Bigweld, the owner, is portrayed as a benevolent being who encourages everyone to achieve their best. He is always open to new ideas. Everyone in Rivittown worships him because he is seen as the source of their prosperity. I was reminded of the large company towns like Flint, Michigan, where General Motors provided most of the jobs and social benefits. Other examples would be the large Japanese firms. These are prime examples of paternal Capitalism where the bosses knew best and looked after their workers. This was a carryover of the feudal relationship between serf and lord.

Encouraged by this propaganda, Rodney works day and night to create his invention so that he could present it to Mr. Bigweld and be amply rewarded. Here, we have the personal ambition and drive that is typically unleashed in a Capitalist society. It is people like Rodney that help drive the intellectual and technological ferment that propels a Capitalist economy. In many ways, this also describes the dot com boom: people with big ideas hoping to be brought out by large companies for obscene amounts of cash.

As Rodney grows older, he sees his invention more as making his father's life easier. The money and glory are no longer the prime motivators. He sees his invention as solving a social need. By improving his father's productivity as a dishwasher, his father will have more time to enjoy life. This conflict in motivation causes conflicts in a Capitalist society.

Rodney tries out his invention in the restaurant where he works with his father. The invention goes haywire and Rodney is fired from his job. Later on, Rodney decides to go to the big city in order to see Mr. Bigweld whom Rodney hopes will put everything right. Rodney arrives in Bigweld city and immediately encounters the lumpenproletariat when he is confronted by Fender who tries to con him out of $50.

Rodney reaches Bigweld Industries where he is refused entry because times have changed. The reason for this is that Bigweld Industries is now run by Ratchet instead of Mr. Bigweld who has mysteriously disappeared. Because Bigweld Industries is a monopoly, Rathchet has decided to stop making spare parts for the robots and make upgrades instead because of the greater profit margin. Self-image is now to be exploited to drive the purchase of upgrades whether the robots need them or not. A definite criticism of the current economy of which Hollywood is a part. Talk about biting the hand that feeds it. I was surprised that the employees were not sent off to seminars on how to deal with change. I was waiting for copies of "Who Moved My Cheese?" to appear.

The farce of the board room democracy is exposed when Ratchet quells any dissent by getting rid of the one robot who raises an objection. The other robots in the board room appear to be members of the labour aristocracy - workers who have privileges and incomes far above that of other workers. These workers are lulled into complacency by the pretense that the bosses listen to them. One of the labour aristocrats, Cappy, is the victim of sexual harrassment.

Rodney manages to find a way into the board room where Ratchet rebuffs Rodney's ideas. After Rodney escapes from Bigweld Industries, he finds Fender again and falls in the Rusties who practise primitive Communism. They have a benefactor in Aunt Fanny who has no visible means of support.

Rodney is appalled by the lack of initiative of the Rusties as all petite bourgeois are of the lumpenproletariat and proletariat. He "... finds a need and fills a need ..." when he starts his own business of repairing robots thereby threatening Ratchet's market share of 100%. So Ratchet reacts, as all monopolists do, by seeking to destroy Rodney.

The only other capitalist in the movie is Madam Gasket who recycles robot parts into ingots. She must be Bigweld's supplier. She is using her son, Ratchet, to achieve vertical integration and to increase the amount of raw material her factory processes.

Rodney, as the petite bourgeois, takes leadership in restoring Mr. Bigweld to his rightful place. He drags along a reluctant labour aristocrat (Cappy), and the even more reluctant lumpenproletariat (the Rusties). His hopes are crushed when he discovers the crushed spirit of the isolated Mr. Bigweld. But Mr. Bigweld is awaken from his torpor by Rodney, and joins forces with Rodney and his allies. Their attempt at a palace coup fails when the police side with Ratchet. Only the climatic battle between the workers led by Rodney and those led by Madam Gasket decides the issue. With Mr. Bigweld restored to his place, Rodney surrenders his independence by being coopted as Bigweld's successor. And so, all dissenting elements are assimilated into the system.

The message of the movie seems to be that raw Capitalism is an aberration, and that the paternal Capitalism is the comfortable norm.

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The Other Pope

Picked this up via Bob Harris.

Prof. Juan Cole discusses The Other Pope to that many on the right and on the left are discussing.

John Paul II was a complex man and among the more intellectual popes in history. Because of his admirable stance against Stalinism in Eastern Europe (which did not in fact involve any denunciation of communism or socialism per se) and his anti-abortion stance, he is often claimed as an ally by the American Right (which is mainly Protestant and mainly about the best interests of wealthy business people).

But John Paul II was often an inconvenient man, whose moral vision would be upsetting to the US Republican establishment if it were taken seriously. He opposed the death penalty, to which George W. Bush is so attached. He opposed the Iraq War. He condemned laissez-faire capitalism and cared about the exploitation of workers, who he felt should have a dignity that is seldom bestowed upon them by the Walmarts and other firms in the US. And he cared about the rights and welfare of the Palestinian people in a way that virtually no one in the American political establishment does. He symbolically blessed the Palestinian claim that Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the Palestinian people.

That is, the Pope's message sometimes had a strong progressive content, and he was in some important ways on our side. That progressives might have had differences with him on some issues should not forestall our celebrating his progressive legacy. The American Right appropriates shamelessly anyone who even halfway agrees with them. We on the left must learn to make sectional alliances and commemorate those areas of agreement we have with people like John Paul II.

My own opinion is that Pope John Paul II has been the most radical pope so far in history. For this reason alone, the conclave will probably elect someone more acceptable to the Capitalist ruling class. The reason the late pope was seen as conservative, was that he was not more radical than the left wing.

I suppose that a pope has the thankless task of trying to make sense of where that rampaging Spirit of God is inspiring people to go. Even though the pope suppressed the Liberation Theology movement, many of its ideas have been incorporated into the Church's teaching. My earlier posts showed how some aspects of Marxism have been taken whole into the pope's own writings.

As for the issue of women priests, my opinion is that the real problem is not that women cannot be priests, but that women cannot have power within the confines of the Church. To allow women priests would be to perpetuate the clericalism of the current Church structure. Instead, we need to introduce real democracy into the structure of the Church.

We, the People of God, come together into one indissolvable Church to worship our Creator, the One True God, and to celebrate the joy of the message of universal salvation gained for all peoples in all the ages by Jesus Christ, the Son of God, through his death and resurrection. We further acknowledge that we are one with Christ through our Baptism and the Eucharist. We are all equal before God and each other. We are answerable to God and to each other for what we have done and for what we have failed to do.

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Australia's needy slipping through cracks

The real description of the trickle-down theory is that Australia's needy slipping through cracks into oblivion.

ALMOST three quarters of non-government community service agencies are failing to meet demands for their services because of funding shortages, and risk closure as a result.

The Australian Community Sector Survey 2005 reveals that 74 per cent of such community service agencies were unable to attend all the people seeking their services during 2003-04.

The Council of Social Service of New South Wales said the biggest increases in the incidence of people being turned away were in the areas of child care, housing assistance, community legal and financial and material support services.

In the Capitalist system, there is no profit in helping the poor. They take away money that could be invested in more profitable ventures. This is the basis of the violent hatred of the rich for the poor. Yet without the poor scrambling to work at jobs that pay a pittence, how can the rich make money?

Thus we have a contradiction: the poor need money to survive in order to purchase goods and services. Yet they do have enough money to cover all of their needs, so they can not spend as much. Without a living wage, they cannot drive the economic engine. If wages rise, then profits are cut, and Capitalists cannot fund their investments.

The poor starve thereby contracting the economy so forcing the Capitalists to cut back spending, and thereby increasing the death spiral of the economy.

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Police Suspected In Rio Massacre

Meanwhile, Capitalism continues to take its relentless toll of the defenceless. In Brazil, Police Suspected In Rio Massacre

Elite police units searched two squalid suburbs Saturday as part of the investigation into Rio's bloodiest massacre in memory. Two suspects described as rogue police officers remained at large.

State Gov. Rosinha Matheus offered a $1,900 reward for information leading to the capture of the gunmen who went on the killing spree Thursday that left 30 dead, including five teenagers shot while playing video games at a bar.

...

On Friday, state officials released composite sketches of two men believed to be police officers with links to death squads — shadowy associations, often made up of off-duty or retired officers, hired by local businessmen to kill undesirables.

...

Police death squads in Brazil caused an international uproar 12 years ago, when eight street children were killed as they slept outside a church in downtown Rio.

Emphasis Mine

Here the police are acting as agents of the state who is the servant of the ruling class. But there is a conflict here between the actions of the "rouge police" and the "elite police". Why? Because there is an inherent conflict between the small capitalists (including the professionals) and the big capitalists (including the international bankers and large fianciers). The small capitalists are on the front line defending Capitalism and often resort to direct methods to defend their interests. On the hand, the big capitalists, realising how vulnerable their position is, resort to lulling the great mass of people to sleep by maintaining a facade of religion, democracy, justice system, and differing views.

This is an example of three (3) classes in a Capitalist society in conflict. (The third is the small time criminals, etc.) The ruling class cannot crush the small capitalist class to reign in the death squads because the ruling class needs the small capitalist class to keep the workers in line. However, the depredations of the small capitalist class must be brought under control as not to arouse the workers.

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Monthly Statement of Audience

Following an anonymous comment, I have to post two (2) things:

Bucky Katt: He's not open-minded. He's just a moron.

And, of course, my monthly statement of audience:

I realize that nothing I say matters to anyone else on the entire planet. My opinions are useless and unfocused. I am an expert in nothing. I know nothing. I am confused about almost everything. I cannot, as an individual, ever possibly know everything, or even enough to make editorial commentary on the vast vast majority of things that exist in my world. This is a stupid document; it is meaningless drivel that I do not expect any of the several billion people on my planet to actually read. People who do read my rambling, incoherent dumbfuckery are probably just as confused as I am, if not more so, as they are looking to my sorry ass for an opinion when they should be outside playing Frisbee with their dog or screwing their life partner or getting a dog or getting a life partner. Anyone who actually takes the time to read my bullshit probably deserves to ingest my fucked up and obviously mistaken opinions on whatever it is that I have written about.

Signed: Douglas

Stolen from Why I Hate Personal Weblogs

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Pope John Paul II’s legacy of paradox

The Financial Times considers Pope John Paul II’s legacy of paradox from the viewpoint of Capitalism.

It began with the Vatican's contribution to the demise of the totalitarian regimes of Communist Europe but it ended with division in the Church as a revered but authoritarian pope refused to tackle what critics saw as crucial issues of reform. The deep conservatism of the man who had fought so hard for glasnost - openness - in the Soviet Union meant he was having none of it in his own Church.

First off, the Catholic Church is a voluntary organisation with a fundamental set of beliefs - the dogmas. If you cannot subscribe to these dogmas, then you cannot be a member of the Catholic Chuch. If you to challenge these dogmas, then you put yourself outside of the Catholic Church. Secondly, there is very vigorous discussion within the Catholic Church about many other matters which do not surface in the Capitalist media. For example, the question of the role of the laity is still hotly debated.

If you want to turn this question around, you can question anything in the Capitalist media except Capitalism.

The real paradox of Pope John Paul II was that he was anti-Communist but not pro-Capitalist.

His 19891991 encyclical, Centesimus Annus, written with the Berlin Wall falling, gave an insight into his views on labour exploitation and legitimate profit. The core of his economic philosophy was a rather ill-defined need to uphold the dignity of man.

The ill-defintion comes from the incompatibility of Capitalism and human dignity. Pope John Paul II write in article 6 of Centesimus annus:

6. With the intention of shedding light on the conflict which had arisen between capital and labour, Pope Leo XIII affirmed the fundamental rights of workers. Indeed, the key to reading the Encyclical is the dignity of the worker as such, and, for the same reason, the dignity of work, which is defined as follows: "to exert oneself for the sake of procuring what is necessary for the various purposes of life, and first of all for self-preservation". The Pope describes work as "personal, inasmuch as the energy expended is bound up with the personality and is the exclusive property of him who acts, and, furthermore, was given to him for his advantage". Work thus belongs to the vocation of every person; indeed, man expresses and fulfils himself by working. At the same time, work has a "social" dimension through its intimate relationship not only to the family, but also to the common good, since "it may truly be said that it is only by the labour of working-men that States grow rich". These are themes that I have taken up and developed in my Encyclical Laborem exercens.

The pope continues in article 10:

10. Another important aspect, which has many applications to our own day, is the concept of the relationship between the State and its citizens. Rerum novarum criticizes two social and economic systems: socialism and liberalism. The opening section, in which the right to private property is reaffirmed, is devoted to socialism. Liberalism is not the subject of a special section, but it is worth noting that criticisms of it are raised in the treatment of the duties of the State. The State cannot limit itself to "favouring one portion of the citizens", namely the rich and prosperous, nor can it "neglect the other", which clearly represents the majority of society. Otherwise, there would be a violation of that law of justice which ordains that every person should receive his due. "When there is question of defending the rights of individuals, the defenceless and the poor have a claim to special consideration. The richer class has many ways of shielding itself, and stands less in need of help from the State; whereas the mass of the poor have no resources of their own to fall back on, and must chiefly depend on the assistance of the State. It is for this reason that wage-earners, since they mostly belong to the latter class, should be specially cared for and protected by the Government".

It is at this point the pope wants the state to intervene to protect the dignity of the workers against the depredations of the rich. This is the "paradox" that the Capitalist media finds so hard.

This is also where the papal doctrine has a serious flaw. He assumes that the state operates independently of the ruling class. The state exists solely to oppress the other classes. For the state to adhere to this papal doctrine means that the state must self-destruct.

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Answers to the meaning of life form centre of his work

Cardinal George Pell wrote that Pope John Paul II let Answers to the meaning of life form centre of his work. The Capitalist media is making most of the pope's alleged role in the collapse of commumism in Eastern Europe. Strangely enough, they have not explained why communism still survives in Cuba, Vietnam, and Laos. Or why socialism is emerging in Venezuela. Here, the good cardinal is writing as an apologist for capitalism:

The collapse of communism and the triumph of the market created a new situation to be evaluated. In Centesimus Annus (1991), the Pope reflected on the new challenges, analysing the anthropological errors that led to socialism's failure and cautiously endorsing democratic capitalism. But the Pope also reminded his readers that some of the most important human needs find no place in the market.

Yet, we find, in article 3 of this encyclical,

Among the things which become "old" as a result of being incorporated into Tradition, and which offer opportunities and material for enriching both Tradition and the life of faith, there is the fruitful activity of many millions of people, who, spurred on by the social Magisterium, have sought to make that teaching the inspiration for their involvement in the world. Acting either as individuals or joined together in various groups, associations and organizations, these people represent a great movement for the defence of the human person and the safeguarding of human dignity. Amid changing historical circumstances, this movement has contributed to the building up of a more just society or at least to the curbing of injustice.

[Emphasis in original]

This capitalist society is in the process of locking up people in inhumane circumstances without a trial, destroying unions, removing access to legal aid, undercutting the minimum wage, locking up unionists, closing down women's shelters, denying medical aid to the poor, denying education to the poor, forcing people to work in unsafe conditions, denying access to the physically disabled, closing down alternative media, throwing people out onto the street because they cannot pay the rent or the mortgage, invading third world countries to seize their resources, etc. Where is the human dignity in all of this?

Is this what the good cardinal considers to be the triumph of the market? I know that the good cardinal has spoken against many of these things, but does he not know that by supporting the ideology of the market, then these things must follow. That is the irrestible nature of the market. If you accept the existence of the capitalist market, then you must allow people to make a profit. The one that makes the largest profit wins. Nice people definitely finish a very distant last in this sort of environment.

In article 4, we find a papal interpretation of the Marxist description of Capitalism:

In the sphere of economics, in which scientific discoveries and their practical application come together, new structures for the production of consumer goods had progressively taken shape. A new form of property had appeared — capital; and a new form of labour — labour for wages, characterized by high rates of production which lacked due regard for sex, age or family situation, and were determined solely by efficiency, with a view to increasing profits.

In this way labour became a commodity to be freely bought and sold on the market, its price determined by the law of supply and demand, without taking into account the bare minimum required for the support of the individual and his family. Moreover, the worker was not even sure of being able to sell "his own commodity", continually threatened as he was by unemployment, which, in the absence of any kind of social security, meant the spectre of death by starvation.

The result of this transformation was a society "divided into two classes, separated by a deep chasm".⁶ This situation was linked to the marked change taking place in the political order already mentioned. Thus the prevailing political theory of the time sought to promote total economic freedom by appropriate laws, or, conversely, by a deliberate lack of any intervention. At the same time, another conception of property and economic life was beginning to appear in an organized and often violent form, one which implied a new political and social structure.

[Emphasis in original]

(The last sentence is an allusion to the rise of socialism of which Marxism was one of the many competing strands of thought at the time.) This is similar to what new communists are taught today. Here the pope is expounding the class nature of the Capitalist society.

Article 5 further states that:

5. The "new things" to which the Pope devoted his attention were anything but positive. The first paragraph of the Encyclical describes in strong terms the "new things" (rerum novarum) which gave it its name: "That the spirit of revolutionary change which has long been disturbing the nations of the world should have passed beyond the sphere of politics and made its influence felt in the related sphere of practical economics is not surprising. Progress in industry, the development of new trades, the changing relationship between employers and workers, the enormous wealth of a few as opposed to the poverty of the many, the increasing self-reliance of the workers and their closer association with each other, as well as a notable decline in morality: all these elements have led to the conflict now taking place".⁸

The Pope and the Church with him were confronted, as was the civil community, by a society which was torn by a conflict all the more harsh and inhumane because it knew no rule or regulation. It was the conflict between capital and labour, or — as the Encyclical puts it — the worker question. It is precisely about this conflict, in the very pointed terms in which it then appeared, that the Pope did not hesitate to speak.

[Emphasis in original]

Here we have the pope recognising that class warfare is going on between the workers and the Capitalists.

The pope further recognises that the decline in morality is due to this new mode of production. That is, Capitalism causes a decline in morality because it sets people against each other. The basis for morality is respect for other people and when that respect is thrown away in the pursuit of profit, all morality is also thrown away. You cannot be a moral Capitalist. The Capitalist system rewards and encourages immorality.

Article 5 continues:

... The Pope's intention was certainly to restore peace, and the present-day reader cannot fail to note his severe condemnation, in no uncertain terms, of the class struggle.¹⁰ However, the Pope was very much aware that peace is built on the foundation of justice: what was essential to the Encyclical was precisely its proclamation of the fundamental conditions for justice in the economic and social situation of the time.¹¹

[Emphasis in original]

It is at this point that I believe the good cardinal is wrong. You cannot have any form of Capitalism without a class struggle. As long as there is more than one class in society, then there must follow a class struggle. Class warfare can only be eliminated with the destruction of all other classes. If the Capitalists win, then there are no workers and society collapses. If the workers win, then we have, by definition, a classless and therefore a Communist society.

I will address the anthropological flaw in Socialism in a latter post.

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