China and Communism

I just had a rather interesting conversation with my dad.
Of course this isn’t unusual, knowing the amount of unusual conversations we have had in the past.. But the topic for this one was communism.

It came up because currently I am reading Mao’s Last Dancer.
(Excellent book by the way, I highly recommend you read it)
This book is a true story based in China in about the 1970’s. During that time China was a very communist country, no thanks to Chairman Mao.

Now, I wasn’t totally sure what being a communist country entailed so, as you do, I asked my dad.

He told me that a communist country is a country controlled totally by the government. Everything is owned by the government: your house, your land, your crops, everything. The government control everything. There are a lot of regulations and rules that are all set down by the government that are very strongly enforced. If you break a rule there is one punishment: death.

Why? I ask him, What does having a country controlled by communism achieve? Why would someone make their country like that?

He told me that by having everything under government control, everyone is supposed to be equal. Everyone is treated equally and is given an equal amount of the basic human needs like food and money. Everyone is treated the same, and all differences are overlooked. If one person has particularly good skills in something, say growing good crops, they are given no more special consideration than the next person. This would work if everyone acted the same. But see the thing is, not everyone acts the same. There are quite a few lazy bastards (to use his words!) who do jack shit. They don’t pull their weight and they don’t put in the same amount of effort that everyone else does. But in a communist country, they will still receive the same rewards as the person who has great skills in something.

How is that fair?
I mean sure, its equal alright, but fair? I don’t think so.

I then said that I thought the whole point of communism was that no one person was in charge. That the people decided as a whole what was going to happen. Why then, did Chairman Mao brainwash and condition all of the younger generations, the pliable young people who knew nothing of the world, to chant for hours during school “Long, long live Chairman Mao!”? Why was it that most little boys dreams were to grow up and be a Red Guard for their beloved Chairman Mao, to be the most devoted servant of Chairman Mao?

That doesn’t sound like equality. That doesn’t sound like everyone is equal and everyone has the same rights. Chairman Mao himself, the one man who is promoting equality in his country, is the one man who is making his country unequal. How can the whole of a country be called equal when there is one man controlling all of them? That man obviously has far more power than the rest, and I highly doubt he’s alone. There will be a few select others, for example Vice-Chairman Lin Biao, who will also have more control that most. Their answer to that would probably be that mankind needs a leader to lead them on the right path. That answer right there is the exact reason that communism wont work. Mankind is so disorganised and so diverse that in order to get along without too much hassle and without too much killing, we need a leader or leaders to set down rules and keep us all in check. Keep us all behaving so that we don’t lose control and start having riots left, right and centre.

Dad then showed me a shirt that he bought in Holland. Quite a shirt.
It says:
“Like Ralism, Egalitarianism, Imperialism, Absolutism, Socialism, Totalitarianism, Democracy, Fascism, Utilitarianism, Communism, Conservatism, Nationalism, Marxism,.. Fuck politics, let’s RIOT”

Like I said, quite a shirt.
Basically, its stating that pretty much no matter what type of politics the country is governed by, let’s just start a riot anyway just for the hell of it.
It was dad’s opinion that this is the way that quite a lot of young people in particular think. They want reasons for everything and if they don’t get a reason, they won’t do what it is they are being asked to do. They will rise up and create a riot because they question why they should do something. Dad said that these young people don’t understand that you don’t need a reason for everything, and if they were given the reason they wouldn’t understand it. But they don’t see this and instead they create a riot, asking for answers.

Back to communism, I then asked dad why anyone would want to make their country communist. Why would anyone want to make their country so unfair? His answer was simple and one heard many times before.
Because they are the ones in power, so they don’t care about anyone else.
They have what they want, power, so stuff everyone else. The only people who want to live in a communist country are the ones in power and the ones who do screw all because they can do screw all and still get the same rewards as a person who works hard. Communism is highly beneficial for them, being able to do nothing and get everything. For everyone else, however, communism pretty much sucks. Dad told me that the reason communism doesn’t work is because of those people who don’t pull their weight. If everyone just slacked around and did the bare minimum, the country wouldn’t go forward. No extra would be made and the country would start failing after a few decades with less being produced but a growing population to supply to. He said “Face it, incentive makes the world go around.” This is what a capitalism country uses. However, dad said, a purely capitalistic country wouldn’t work either, with the rich taking all the good stuff and leaving the poor even poorer. This creates a big gap between the rich and the poor, which isn’t really all that good. He said that’s what makes a country like Australia such a good place to live in. We have a government that controls a lot of things and has a few regulations that are enforced, but everything is privately owned. The regulations help to keep everything under control. If everyone was left to their own devices no one would be able to agree on anything, and riots would break out. So the government is there just to control everyone and keep them in order.

Don’t you think that’s sad? That we human beings cannot be happy with what we have and we must always argue about everything? Why is it that God made human nature so that we always want what we can’t have, that we always must disagree with each other? Sometimes I think that’s the reason why religion was invented, so that human’s can strive to overcome their horrible nature and be a good person. (That’s probably a reason why I so strongly disagree with Christianity because there are always catches for you to fall back on just in case you can’t be a good person. For example, God told us to never sin, but just in case you ever do, it’s ok because Jesus died on the cross to forgive us of all our sins. So basically I can sin however much I sweet please because God has already forgiven me of all my sins on account of the death of Jesus. Totally contradictory. But never mind.)

That’s one of the reasons that I like one of my favourite authors, Isobelle Carmody. He books are set in our world, but after our world has been destroyed. Destroyed by humans being greedy and always wanting more, more, more. Their greediness resulted in a huge explosion that poisoned the entire earth. Most of the population was killed. The small amount of people who weren’t killed react quite strongly to “The Great White” as they call it. Naturally, they blame it on God, because precious smart humans couldn’t possibly do something that wrong. They revert back to the old ways of about the 10th century, living like peasants, out of fear that their God will punish them again and kill them all. But do they try to not be greedy? I don’t think so. They still want control of everything, and still want more things. They still want to be bigger that what they are. And so the process of going forward starts again and I’m sure that over time, they will get back to the exact spot where their knowledge was their downfall. Humans always want more and they will always be greedy. Living as a human in a human world, I didn’t see this. Until I read Isobelle Carmody’s books. She made me see that perhaps, even though it seems like humans have somehow miraculously been given the power on earth, perhaps their greedy nature suggests otherwise. She made me see that it really was just random chance that humans evolved into intelligent beings. It could have been dogs, or dolphins or even dung beetles that evolved to be the most intelligent species on this earth. Our greediness for knowledge was what gave us the world and it will also be what takes the world away from us.

Of course, Isobelle Carmody’s books are just fiction, however, when I read them I think that sadly, if anything like “The Big White” did ever happen, humankind would act exactly how she has described we would act. And that’s horrible.

So I decided that I hate humans. I hate their greediness and the way they just take everything, without even asking. Who let them take the earth and pollute it like they have? Who let them hurt animals and be cruel to them, just because they don’t have a voice to say no? Who let them take over the world and turn into what it is today?
No one did.
But they came and took it anyway, because there was nothing standing in their way, and because they were greedy.

Greediness will be their downfall.