Commissars of Capitalism

PHW49 and the Commissars of Capitalism

By John Taylor; 23 December, 2005

"The light and heat of the sun cause the earth to be fruitful, and
create life in all things that grow; and the Holy Spirit quickens the
souls of men." (Abdu'l-Baha, Paris Talks, p. 59)

In the past week we have looked over Marxism and how the former
transmogrified into postmarxism, with its doctrine of "agonistic
pluralism." Although most of Marx's ideas have been refuted,
postmarxists justify continuing in their radical persuasion by
pointing out that in terms of numbers there are more poor people and
higher rates of unnecessary deaths of innocent babes in the world than
ever before. This cannot be denied or ignored, whatever you think of
Marxism or Capitalism. Shoghi Effendi spoke of a coming "world
community in which all economic barriers will have been permanently
demolished and the interdependence of capital and labour definitely
recognized..." (World Order of Baha'u'llah) What exactly does that
mean? Sure, profit sharing would break down our present hard
distinctions between owners, managers and workers, but would the
demolition of barriers mean no more poverty? Jesus did say, "The poor
will always be with you." And Baha'u'llah in the Persian Hidden Words
wrote,

"O Children of Dust! Tell the rich of the midnight sighing of the
poor, lest heedlessness lead them into the path of destruction, and
deprive them of the Tree of Wealth. To give and to be generous are
attributes of Mine; well is it with him that adorneth himself with My
virtues." (49)

This, it strikes me, is an ineluctable mandate, a divine dictate to
writers to take on a special mission, to go beyond "telling truth to
power" and take the truth about the poor to the rich. Think of Hans
Christian Anderson's haunting tale "The Little Match Girl," a
wrenching tale about the death of an innocent child in hopeless
poverty. That is no fairy tale, and neither is the death of dozens of
babies every minute. Truth telling is our holy grail, the object of
every thinker's effort -- to touch others like Hans Christian
Anderson.

An exemplar on the opposite end of the moral spectrum is David Fromm,
a Canadian mouthpiece for privilege so eloquent that he was hired as
speechwriter for Bush II. He is best known for coming up with the nice
sounding shibboleth, "The Axis of Evil." Fromm sticks in my craw. He
makes me ashamed of sharing the same word "writer" for what we both
do. Why is he so annoying? Because what he says makes no sense,
morally or rationally, (for example, his Axis of Evil bugbear was
Korea, Iraq and Iran, the latter two had been at war with one another
for a decade, and the former was on the other side of the planet) he
is clearly selling himself as an intellectual hired gun for the
wealthy few, but worst of all we have no word for such a person.

What do you call a David Fromm? A brown nose? A brain whore? The best
suggestion I have heard so far comes from Noam Chomsky, who suggests
the old Soviet term, "commissar." Commissars are secular priests,
arbiters of political correctness. Commissars were the censors, the
party members who snitched on their neighbors. During the battle of
Stalingrad they were the petty officers who volunteered to shoot those
civilians who attempted to leave town when the going got hot. Chomsky
is right, capitalism has its commissars too. As long as there is so
much prosperity in rich lands they will not be shooting any of us but
as I said at the start, there are more people dying per second now
than at any time in history, so they bear as heavy a moral burden as
the ones who laid aside their pens for guns in the battle of
Stalingrad.

The 49th Persian Hidden Word is a call for all not to lay aside the
teaching function formerly taken on by priests and commissars. Even if
we are smart enough to fire all the priests and commissars of the
world, even if we expunge all propaganda we still cannot leave aside
the vital teaching functions that commissars and propaganda performed.
People's lives and happiness are at stake. We all have a firm duty to
tell the rich of the midnight sighing of the poor, not as authorities
but as fellow seekers of the truth. Above all, this mandate applies
for scientists who must see to it that the knowledge they produce
serves all humans, not the privileged elite and their hired
mouthpieces only.

Consider this letter to the editor published in the latest Scientific
American. A reader objected to economist Herman F. Daly saying in an
analysis of world poverty that "the well-being induced by an extra
dollar for the poor is greater than that for the rich." The reader
ripostes: "He can prove that only if he can define `well-being' as an
objective unit. Because that is not possible, he cannot prove his
statement." This is an attempt to do what Karl Popper did to Marx, to
show that he was wrong in his claim to being scientific. You can only
be scientific, that is, if what you say can be proven wrong. If you
try to defend the rights of the poor, you are being emotional, not
scientific. Here is Daly's devastating response, repeating a lesson
from Economics 101 but one that bears repeating over and over in a
selfish society.

"Most people feel that a leg amputation hurts Jones more than a
pinprick hurts Smith. We make interpersonal comparisons of welfare or
utility all the time on the democratic assumption that everyone has
the same capacity for pleasure and pain. We do not need an objective
"utilometer." Add to that the law of diminishing marginal utility of
income (we satisfy our most pressing needs first), and it follows
logically that an extra dollar of income is of more utility to the
poor than to the rich." (Scientific American, January 2006, p. 14)

Less, for haves, is more. This law of diminishing marginal utility is
a fundamental law of economics, but even defenders of the poor often
forget to invoke it when it should on the tips of everyone's tongues.

But the wisdom of the 49th PHW is not about do-gooder writers boring
complacent rich people with sob stories about the down and out. Read
it again. It says, tell them about suffering, why? In order to save
them from certain destruction. This is evident in the last few pages
of Chomsky's "Hegemony or Survival," which I reviewed a few weeks ago.
If you do not have time to read the whole book, check out its last
chapter.

This, in essence, is what the Bush II administration has been doing
since 911: it is blaring out a huge ballyhoo about security, but when
it comes to real security risks, like the spread of fissile material
from Russia, money is strangely absent. Real dangers get no attention
at all. Everything he does seems calculated to sit back, arm them,
anger them, and then the bad guys stir up trouble. And why shouldn't
it, the only time the Republican party is popular is when America is
under attack. Economically, the right rapidly makes itself unpopular
since advocate for the rich and stomp on the poor; and remember, the
law of diminishing marginal utility decrees that giving to the rich
quickly sets the economy into a downward spiral. Bush I was unpopular
at the end of his administration, as Bush II is now; this the
capitalist commissars know about and allow for in their calculations.
So from their point of view, another, much more deadly attack like
9-11 would be manna from heaven, the best thing that could happen to
them. It would be a free ticket back into the White House.

We all know that the Guardian predicted that Paris, New York, Chicago
and other Western capitols would be simultaneously nuked by an
"inveterate enemy." The Bush II administration is doing everything in
its power to see to it that he is proven right, that Qaida and their
ilk will load their suitcase bombs and do their worst. This is not
governance, is partisan advocacy become a cancer. And as the HW warns,
it is cutting directly at the root of the tree of wealth, the very
prosperity they claim as their power base.

If this sounds like rule by suicide, you are getting my drift. My
theme of late has been lying and truth telling, and in exploring this
theme everywhere I turn I find the same thing. Suicide. In the same
issue of Scientific American a columnist suggests "murdercide" as a
new word to describe what suicide bombers do. They are not just
committing suicide, nor are they just assassins, they are both,
murdercides. He discusses a good explanation as to why most suicides
take place, by psychologist Thomas Joiner in a new book.

"People desire death when two fundamental needs are frustrated to the
point of extinction; namely, the need to belong with or connect to
others, and the need to feel effective with or to influence others."
(Thomas Joiner, Why People Die by Suicide, quoted in Scientific
American, January, 2006, p. 34)

Suicide, then, is a direct result of the old, male dominating view of
power, power as "me over you," as "he over she," as "we over them,"
rather than networked, female power, "we and you working together for
a single common cause." In order to tell the whole truth, the former
type of power must serve the latter. To tell a lie is to participate
in a common suicide. Whether you are on the side of the commissars in
power or not, the only hope is to build together upon the Golden Rule.

"Every violation of truth is not only a sort of suicide in the liar,
but is a stab at the health of human society. On the most profitable
lie, the course of events presently lays a destructive tax; whilst
frankness invites frankness, puts the parties on a convenient footing,
and makes their business a friendship. Trust men, and they will be
true to you; treat them greatly, and they will show themselves great,
though they make an exception in your favor to all their rules of
trade." (Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays, Vol. 1)

--
John Taylor

badijet@gmail.com