Thoughts on Communism

 I had to read the Communist Manifesto in high school, so I know what the general idea is. Examining it this time around, these are some thoughts that came to my head:

1) the idea of breaking the traditional formation of society (i.e. the class structure) and thus getting away from the problems associated with the class struggles, for example the upper classes oppressing the lower classes, is a grand idea, but it is much too utopian. I'm sure most of us are thinking this. There are always going to be people who are greedy and who will want to make more money and there will also be those who are lazy and don't want to work- neither will want to benefit society but rather themselves. This won't ever change. However, bringing about certain socialist ideas, such as the healthcare benefits that we enjoy in Canada, are definitely not a bad idea. There has to be a compromise between a purely communist society and a purely capitalist society- extremes are never good (at least that's how I see it). There may be a better system to run a country, but either we haven't found it yet or it simply doesn't exist. Then again, no system is perfect, we just have to try to improve and update our own way of structuring things so as to adapt to current society.

2) Marx's proletariat/bourgeoisie distinction and class struggle is suggested to be a global phenomenon- yet it is not. This is a very eurocentric and does not apply to many other countries in the world. Thus the way that he proposes to solve the issues related to the proletariat/bourgeoisie cannot be seen as a system that can be applied globally. I think this is a common criticism of Marx's theory.

3) When I was researching for my undergraduate honors thesis (which was about the flâneur in the latin american avant-garde), I found out that everything is related to communism. Like my whole paper is interwoven with communist theories. In particular, I read a lot about the condition of modern life and how this is strongly based on alienation. There was a break from tradition and hence the individual is left incompatible with bourgeois society. As Marx stated "all that is solid melts into air" (the eponymous title of Marshall Berman's book)- the solidity of our world seems to "melt into air" and hence we experience alienation. So the socio-political aspects of the early 1900's was a huge influence of the era of modernity which greatly affected the writers and artists of the time and therefore has a strong relevance to literature and how it was consequently shaped.

Ok, that's all.