The Stupid Gene
I don’t often talk about things like the reviews of my books. For a start, there aren’t many, and a few years ago when Facebook was revealed to be selling people’s personal information I deleted my accounts and pages even though that page contained even more reviews than what are otherwise available on the internet. But there is one review in particular that has always really stuck, that lives rent free in my head, and I just had to talk about it for the following reasons.
—Don’t get me wrong, I very much appreciate this person’s review, I appreciate all of them, even the mean ones, and this person was not wrong about my book at all, but they specifically mentioned having a problem with the fact that I discuss “communist/leftist propaganda,” and I…I just…Where to start?
Technically I am not a communist but, thank you, I also don’t mind being called one because, yes—I want you to have access to healthcare, to a good paying job, to as much educational opportunities as you want or need, with good civic infrastructure, responsible, accountable public representatives, workplace protections, childcare, affordable rent and housing, a really good food supply, etc. Technically I would say I am probably a libertarian socialist, much like the famous Oscar Wilde, which is like one degree removed from anarchy (anarchy without the idealism, you could say), although maybe I wouldn’t be if I was more interested in politics than might actually appear from my writing. Mostly I am more concerned with how my red currant bushes are doing than how our government is organized.
That out of the way, let’s now talk about the unbelievable irony of being unable to find adequate healthcare in a CAPITALIST SYSTEM under which you CURRENTLY LIVE, that you have to SEARCH for healthcare information on the internet and find my book, written BY A SOCIALIST, also WITHOUT AN EDUCATION because he could not afford an education or healthcare for his abundant mental health problems under the CAPITALIST SYSTEM IN WHICH WE LIVE, and is a poor/middle class researcher who does not make money from his book because all of the CAPITALISTS under the CAPITALIST SYSTEM want to have the book FOR FREE instead of PAYING for it (COMMUNISM) and so just steal it anyway only to turn around and call me a SOCIALIST, all just so you can get at least a grasp on your probably debilitating medical conditions then complaining that SOCIALISM, and not the CAPITALIST SYSTEM UNDER WHICH YOU CURRENTLY LIVE from which you cannot get the relief you require, is the problem.
If there is a stupid gene, my friend, you were born with it, and I am very sorry.
The United States has the WORST healthcare to spending outcomes of ANY developed nation, with MASSIVE plagues of diabetes, depression, drug addiction, and other metabolic illnesses. But this is also not an accident or failure of Capitalism. It is literally how capitalism is designed to operate—to take profit from the suffering of others, to turn disease from malady to money, to make death an opportunity for higher stock options. Then you get people like that crazy viking lady telling everyone that carrots are poisonous (their shit must stink like HELL) trying to opportunistically exploit people’s desperation because of the way CAPITALISM fails to provide for most people.
The brilliant theorist Stafford Beer observed the famous truth “the purpose of a system is what it does,” which can be useful to analyze any problem by objectively evaluating whether something is useful or not. Most people in the United States ‘love’ Capitalism because they have been indoctrinated their entire lives with the 4th of July, and consumerism, and stuff, and shit, and materialism, and propaganda, and BIG TRUCKS, and GUNS, and really crappily built houses BUT THEY’RE SO BIG, in order to believe that Capitalism is good, when in reality this system sucks the life out of EVERYONE that lives under it, especially and even the rich people who think they are rich while trapped in tacky compounds, friendless, even buying managers and consultants just so they can pretend they have friends and mistaking the pursuit of money and wealth for fulfillment, then wondering why at the end of their lives they can’t simply enjoy themselves and have nothing in spite of also having everything.
The only people under Capitalism who are Capitalists are people WITH CAPITAL, and you, my friend, buying my book, are a WORKER, NOT a CAPITALIST.
When most Westerners hear the word “communism” they also understandably connect it to the images of Soviet Russia and its authoritarian empire that was the USSR. I often criticize communism for the failures which occurred under its banner such as the massive Ukrainian famine under Stalin which killed millions of people as he stole their grain and maniacally schemed for power. In fact, it was the failure of Lenin and Stalin to actually share power and design a stable country which directly led to the downfall of the USSR. Mao Zedong famously also killed millions of his own citizens with a famine because he stupidly thought sparrows were a pest species, ordered them killed, then countless acres of crops were destroyed by bugs the sparrows normally ate, although this problem was actually because of the managers of regions in China who falsified crop production numbers in order to please the authoritarian at the top, and could have been fixed had it been identified before it was too late.
But China’s communism has persisted mostly because they did design a system which somewhat shares power and engages the population, so no one person can singlehandedly destroy the whole system, and Authoritarianism is specifically destructive because if someone is wrong there are no safeguards stopping them from implementing their dumb ideas, which can and does then lead to catastrophic consequences. But most of the negative association with communism is in fact a problem of authoritarianism, not communism, where authoritarians seek to impose designs and schemes onto people without any democratic safeguards, and authoritarian systems are the absolute worst form of government, in my opinion.
Similarly, most people want to believe in Capitalism because they want to one day get rich and then all our problems will disappear and life will be easy. But that’s also not the reality of the situation, and more wealth has been concentrated into the top 10% and 1% of the population since the election of Democrat Jimmy Carter, who began the demolition of socialist programs that had rescued the United States from the Great Depression. Some people’s monthly healthcare costs are also about to EXPLODE to double or triple what they were paying, because of CAPITALISM, and they aren’t even getting the care they need when paying those obscene prices. China is now overtaking the United States in infrastructure, technology, and quality of life, and are still mostly a communist country, and are fast becoming the envy of the world while the United States just continues to bomb and murder people in service of profit and capitalism (under both parties’ leaderships) while its own population dwindles and suffers.
You posted your review in 2018, seven years ago, and I wonder what are your healthcare costs today? How is that CAPITALISM working out for you? For your family? Your friends? Because it is NOT designed to take care your needs. It is designed to EXPLOIT THEM. Even if you do someday get rich and obtain that power you crave under capitalism you will still live in a pathetic society of poor people, not a powerful utopia in which to spend your time, and will be locked away in your castle, bored out of your mind, with nothing fulfilling to do with your time except cause problems for others just to feel something.
Ironically the United States does still have some socialist programs that still exist from past reforms. Social security, medicare, firefighters, police, infrastructure maintenance, public education, laws that forbid hospitals from turning people away from the emergency room, etc. Social security even has socialism in the title, yet even people who rely on social security and pay into social security so they can have it after they retire will also blast socialism without even realizing how much of it they actually benefit from even now (which isn’t much here, though), and the reason health insurance premiums were relatively low the last few years were from subsidies that the US government paid out to keep them low—SOCIALISM—and now that is expiring due to the current government’s removal of that and SO. MANY. PEOPLE will be ruined by the costs, returning back to a more hardcore CAPITALISM, which should make the reviewer very happy, I guess?
I do not want to be rich. But I do want to live in a rich society, where I can take a cool train to the downtown and walk on tree-lined roads made with pavers instead of cheap, stupid asphalt, and look at amazing architecture and well-dressed, well-fed people who like to talk about fun things, to watch the excitement in the face of young children when they learn cool new facts such as that avocados only exist because giant sloths used to eat them and distribute their seeds. I want to see holistic, industrial farms that use regenerative practices to supply countless five-star restaurants that pay its workers enough wages that they too can eat at those restaurants, and read new literature by people that had access to good education, and see great new movies and television made by people who not only had creativity but the opportunity to make them instead of the shit being pumped out of an industry that only cares about the stock price.
We are not going to get to that kind of society under capitalism, and if you love working yourself to death just to barely afford some semblance of a life you’re a dumb weirdo who isn’t paying attention and has no idea how life really works. Start paying attention, refuse to participate in systems which exploit not only your wellbeing but that of your family, your friends, your neighbors. Join a fucking union for God’s sake. There is no future in which individuals take advantage of others and we all survive. It’s not how anything works, and every man for himself will be the doom of every man, because to have internet, housing, a food supply, medical care, television, social media, restaurants, books, ipads, iphones, cars, trains, job opportunities, clothes, friends, countries, and humanity requires other people also getting what they need to survive. Don’t let the stupid gene win. You can do better.
By the way, please review my books online if you’ve read them, that helps a lot.