那天收音機里說起罷工的事。老大問我,他們為什麼要罷工呢,弄得人人不方便。而且罷工還合法,拿著社會的資源,要脅民眾。這到底是什麼回事啊。我嘆道,說來話長啊。於是從馬克思說起,到近代工人運動,到共產主義運動,信口扯了大約半小時。
我以為近代工人運動和後來的人權運動都是我們今天享受的民主制度和普世價值得以成形的主要因素。所以沒把大鬍子說得極端,也沒把共啊資啊的說得那麼不堪。
我們聊過了大約一星期,逼迫再三,上8年級的老大寫下此文。我又在後邊把觀點補充了一些。我的英文就不用過獎了,給我時間改也好不到哪裡去,卻失了原汁原味。想了想是只對朋友開放,還是怎麼著,上回貼過一個沒頭沒腦的已經挨了幾塊磚了。就扔出來。誰愛砸誰砸。
就當教育孩子的一個案例看吧。
Journal Communism
A while back my dad talked to me about Karmax's (<--is that how it is spelt?) ideas about communism, and about how bad capitalism is. First I will talk about his ideas against capitalism, for capitalism, there is one person or body of people that are extremely rich, that leaves a lot of the workers poor or lower class workers which is not good for the economy. Communism is where the community owns everything, which means that there is better public services, better railroads, busses, schools, hospitals, it also means that the government tries to keep everybody equal, and that leads to having an strange but balanced economy, that means that there is a strong government rule and it is really hard to keep the government body in check, that often leads to a government ruled by force, as is the Chinese government. However in Canada, we have a free country and we have a democracy, but it seems that our public system really needs work, because we have a free country, the union is able to do what they like, and it is really hard to fight with them because they can just go on strike and it is a lose and lose situation, therefore in some aspects, a communism is better for the public than a democracy. But in some cases, such as the freedom of people, it is restricted, such as the fact that the community (aka the government) owns everything, so then the government is all powerful and the community can suffer if the government goes wrong, and there is no force that can contradict the government. After all these facts, it seems that there are many differences between communism and democracy, each with their ups and downs, giving them both choices that the other counterpart cannot make.看完了他寫的,我把想法再給他寫回去。真的是我寫得比他寫得還多。但我想他會讀,而且會接受一些東西。管他記得多少呢。關鍵是這種批判式的思維方式。現在看來我粗粗一寫,語言和內容的錯誤都太多了。我也不想改了,就這麼著貼出來招磚吧
The name is Karl Marx, a German Jew.
Your memory is relatively accurate, but there are a few points. Capitalism looked really like a nightmare to Karl Marx. The riches are greedy and the poor are struggling hopelessly. The economy isn't functioning well because of the imbalance on the contribution of wealth. Human society isn't going anywhere under capitalism. Karl was right. Wealth is power, and the power is always concentrated to a few out of the herd. I don't really know, but I believe it is not Karl who invented the dream of Communism. My understanding is that he portraited capitalism, pretty accurately with his fancy formulas and blablabla that beyond my level of understanding even somebody bother the burden translated into Chinese--I never read it myself, his famous 「Capital」. The world heard what Karl said. Some one tried to develop a new system based on his criticism—there comes Russia, China, Cuba…only Cuba is still, 「said」, hold these principles. China is currently ruled not by the principles, only the dominant party keep the name as Communism. Russia…only a few old, poor still remember, in their deepest memory, about the old, mighty and rusty system. The system is a dream based on a dream. If Capitalism is so evil, so full of problem, and the source is the individuals owns big wealth privately, so make the wealth own by the public. The public isn't greedy and the public must have a big picture, guess sees further too. So, people can plan everything ahead to avoid economy crisis, and every one get their fair share of the mutual product...sounds really promising. One thing missed--human being is lazy and selfish animal that evoluted from the natural process that follows the natural law, competition. The nature is fair, out of almost every single individual case ends up totally not fair. The world is balanced, based on restless movement between numerous imbalances. There is no way for a society that no body owns any thing—for example, underwear and socks. So if you own, the nature process of accumulation and concentration started until it reach a point that a few own the most and people owns nothing, well, here we get back to the capitalism again. Lazy and selfishness are human nature. No political system can change them. That is why worldwide movement of communism pretty much failed. The capitalism world isn』t totally turns its blind eyes to Karl too. Social fairness, as a serious issue, was raised, especially Union movement in the late 1900』s. Many strikes held almost every where. People demand higher pay, better working condition…all the good things that the owner of the businesses later realized is actually good for the business. Ford, for example, famous for his greediness and selfishness, generously raise salary for his worker to the level that they can afford to buy a car they build from their own factory. Well, your worker could be your customer too, isn』t it? And when your worker can afford to buy your own car, their friends and neighbour who isn』t working in your factory may want to buy a car too, therefore create a huge market, and you can make more money…And as the technology advanced, the workers found them have higher negotiation power over the business owners. The government find out that to let the rich few have too much influent in the political system is actually risky for everyone, so they pass laws to not allow single company control any industry, to bust competition…Of course there are many unions around nowadays pushed the ball to another direction that makes most people sick, and obviously we can』t blame poor Karl for that. Before we finish, Poor Karl, btw, is actually pretty poor. He has to ask money from his wealthy friend, or comrade, or tovarishch in Russian, a rich factory owner, Engels. I remember reading this when I was young, that Karl once wrote,」 Jenny (Karl』s beautiful wife) didn』t buy any cosmetic for months, and we can』t always have enough bread to complete a meal」…Engels, to my understanding, is the one responsible for pushing Karl』s research into a revolutionary movement. Yeah, he is the first communist, or Maxist.