the AKHLog V4

The Effect of Uprising on General Welfare

Let’s replace professionalism with basic logic here, since I have only the latter to support my claims.

My starting thesis is this:  if a communist revolution were to succeed at the current time in the United States of America, as in, if in one year the entire process of the fall of capitalism and the rise of communism played out in full, for the first year (the rest is unpredictable) each and every person in the country would have, at max, a salary of $46,791.97. And by the way, the communist system would have to be truly communist, not some faux-communism where a dictator is placed in power with a state run system over the governance of wealth.

$46,791.97 is a number generated by dividing the GDP of the United States ($14.58 trillion)by its population figure (311,591,917 people). We take the average profits made in the country and divide it by its total residency,

14.58 trillion / 311,591,917,

showing that the number produced would be what everyone would equally earn. This is, of course, a crude version of something that could be much better, but it is a good guess (since we don’t have anyone producing numbers).

This amount of money is, I kid you not, about the same amount as the median income in America in 2004:  $44,389. This means that the amount of money each person would get would be the same amount of money the average lower middle class person earns today (with the average being between $35,000 and $75,000).

This shows us a correlation that we can decipher quite easily:  any sort of revolution that proposes an “equal redistribution of wealth” would grant it if it were perfectly run and played out to its end, at least, in the U.S.

However we can see that this is a short-sighted aim, for one year of life is barely anything; what happens after that? What would happen if the U.S. were to undergo a successful communist revolution? Though quite unpredictable economically, some things that we know will happen can be listed:

1) Capital redistribution will make the economy less efficient, as in, the production process will be hurt, since cheap goods will remain cheap (see 3);

2) Money redistribution will ultimately be helped along through the old banking system, which means that a balancing of all accounts will probably be screwed up- just look at how they handle foreclosures; after this, I presume there would be no need for money, but there still has to be some sort of system that regulates how much of something you can get, so the monetary concept of credit still exists here;

3) Profits will no longer exist and a lot of business will go out of business, not because they aren’t making any money anymore (they don’t need to), but because some businesses necessarily must grow (I have in mind businesses that produce cheap goods), and this type of system is incompatible with such growth;

4) Let’s say that U.S. communism has a huge effect on the world; what happens is that a worldwide communist revolution takes place, and a global communist order is set up (this has to happen with any economy, it is a natural tendency); after this the average amount you earn becomes less and less, since each country has a different population rate and GDP;

5) Many other minor factors, including things like rebellions (don’t forget, your bourgeois buddies are, or were, revolutionaries too)

You may have noticed the trend in these problems that I have brought up. Over time, the economy will not grow and people will not get more than that average paycheck; instead, it will continue to decrease. The factors laid out above would reduce the cap of the yearly paycheck, at this time and date, to this:

$9,277.39

That’s hardly enough to survive with every year. That figure was generated with the world GDP figure being divided by the world population figure of 2010, so that’s a higher figure than it should be.

What these figures tell us are that a communist revolution is not historically ready.

Why am I even talking about the historicity of a communist revolution anyways? Don’t I hate communism as much as I hate capitalism? Well, of course. But regardless of whether or not I hate economy in general, I must be, in the Hegelian sense of the term, historical, and point to each movement of the historical spirit.

My point for this post is to reveal that the worldwide communist revolution will not come about anytime soon. Until the world is dominated by capitalism in a “global capitalist” system, a communist revolution will not be practical, and thus, will not be possible, will be unheard of. “Global capitalism” will change all of the countries with huge populations and low GDP into countries with a balance between the two, and when balance has been reached in these areas, then the communist revolution will be ready. But it won’t happen, which I will explain at a later date.

Carmilla

Walden, or, Life in the Woods: A Summary, A Quotation

“Not till we are lost, in other words not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations.”

Henry David Thoreau’s experiment, his most famous American excursion, was to live in the woods of Connecticut for a year, in a self-sustaining cabin during the late 1800′s. He did this to see if it were possible to live a higher life on a lower level of means, to see whether or not he could combine the hardiness of the savage with the intellectual capacities of the civilized man. He went to the woods to find himself, to find company there that he had not found in the world of men. He left men to see whether or not one could make a poor man’s living and live like a monarch. And he certainly did.

Often heralded as a preeminent transcendentalist, Thoreau was something more than his contemporaries, like Emerson:  he was thoroughly entranced by the natural world and wanted to experience it as it was. Emerson was not as “wild” as Thoreau; Thoreau even criticizes his friend as being too stuffy at some point in his writings. Unlike the transcendentalists, he saw the spiritual in all things, including man, but not in man alone. And I assume he was more down to earth than his contemporaries, who were, in my opinion, too Eastern in thought.

The heart of Thoreau’s experiment was to escape the superfluity of civilization, which could include anything that surpassed the necessary means of life. He wished to live simply, modestly, for his own sake, really. Such a selfish mode of living, perhaps; but in the end, the experiment was supposed to wake his neighbors. He described himself as bragging “as lustily as a chanticleer in the morning,” singing to them this unsung way of life, so that they who were either poor in currency or poor in spirit could find either of those things.

In this very “boring” book, as most call it, Thoreau put forth some very dangerous ideas that could easily shake up the supposed necessity of superfluity in civilization. He put forth this idea in less than a page, whereas philosophers have had to write whole volumes on the subject:

“But men labor under a mistake. The better part of the man is soon plowed into the soil for compost. By a seeming fate, commonly called necessity, they are employed, as it says in an old book, laying up treasures which moth and rust will corrupt and thieves break through and steal. It is a fool’s life, as they will find when they get to the end of it, if not before.”

Man digs his own grave, working for the money to pay for his coffin! And who benefits? Everyone ends up getting better coffins, that’s all. Preposterous way of life! What does Thoreau tell us to do about this?

“When he has obtained those things which are necessary to life, there is another alternative than to obtain the superfluities; and that is, to adventure on life now, his vacation from humbler toil having commenced.”

When we finally acquire the means of living, which are shelter, clothing, food, and fire, we shall be ready to journey, just as our ancestors did. The fundamental problem of the modern era is the stillness of life (or the grounding of life, i.e. in permanent cities) that has been brought about by the culture of the West. Instead of remaining inert in these places, why not use them as save havens, for when we are in danger outside of them?

Thoreau wittingly states that a farmer who works his entire life to pay off the price of his house, does not own the house:  it owns him.

What does Thoreau think about the artistic movements of his time, that wished to free men from this terrible condition?

“The best works of art are the expression of man’s struggle to free himself from this condition, but the effect of our art is merely to make this low state comfortable and that higher state to be forgotten. “

The effect of an art that expresses an ideal is an unfortunate one:  it allows us to experience the ideal without changing anything about ourselves. So we remain imprisoned under the illusion that we are free through our art.

So, art doesn’t help us out of this civilized nightmare. What do we do to escape the drudgery of civilized life? Thoreau states this quite clearly in his “mission statement” found a good ways into the book:

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. “

And so he did. The “boring” part of the book comes after his philosophical section titled “Economy.” Thoreau talks about how he discovered life, and it is one of the most beautiful texts I’ve ever laid my hands on.

I’ll end with that quotation I promised in the title:

“I had this advantage, at least, in my mode of life, over those who were obliged to look abroad for amusement, to society and theatre, that my life itself was become my amusement and never ceased to be novel. It was a drama of many scenes and without an end. If we were always, indeed, getting our living, and regulating our lives according to the last and best mode we had learned, we should never be troubled with ennui.”

An Interesting Theory: On Apocalyptic Films

Slavoj Zizek is at it again when he is interviewed about his famously humorous but equally insightful usage of pop culture to describe philosophy.

An interesting idea is posed in the interview about the nature of “catastrophe” in modern day films. Zizek says that the proliferation of apocalyptic films in America and the fascination with the apocalypse has arisen out of the falling away of capitalism. He also cites that as capitalism collapses, human solidarity (or strength of relationship) is collapsing as well.

Thus, in such movies as 2012, 99% of humanity must die in order that a family of humans may live and discover that they love each other. The state of humanity is so sad today that the majority of people would never “know” each other unless all of humanity was wiped out.

Skip to 1:03 in order to hear Zizek say this (he explains better than I do):

Thought Dump. (One of many)

Collection of shit I wrote down. Or shit that adheres to some of my values, enjoy if you like, no one is forcing you though.

FOLLOWING STATEMENT IS RETARDED, PLEASE IGNORE. (Nate)

“Forget why it’s hard to say “Merry Christmas”. Forget why it’s hard to “Be a Man in America”. Forget that it’s hard to be a teenager. Forget it’s hard to be a woman. Forget that it’s hard to live in poverty. Because no matter the circumstances, you will always be prosecuted for being a human being, you will always suffer for being a human being. It’s not just hard to do these things, It’s just hard to be a fucking human being, and we should never assume there is a Universal truth, as there is only one Universal truth and that Universal truth is that there are no Universal truths.”

“Fear of action because of failure is no better then action with the possibility of failure.”

“Ironic that media became the very reason why it exists in the first place.” (I’m well aware of how redundant this sounds)

“Debaters armed only with the knowledge of their opponents weakness are morons.”

This needs no explanation.

I’m Designer

IT’S VALENTINES DAY!

Raging 1000 Suns.

(Caution: Loud)