Do The Capitalist Shift
          By Jesse Smith


   Ah, high school. I remember sitting in History class, discussing good
ol' boy Marx, his good buddy Engals and their quest for the perfect
society. Or at least one that would be better than the one they lived
in. They dreamt of a day with minimum wage and unions and
equality. A classless society that took care of itself. Good for them.
Marx said that someday the capitalist society would fall and be
converted to Communist (or at least socialist). I was told the
reason it didn't happen was because the workers did receive unions.
We did get minimum wage. Capitalism evolved into something better that
supported the little guy. Capitalism went from being the big, bad
poverty maker to the big, rich, happy society. Things shifted in our
favour.

   Well, they were partly right. Capitalism did, in fact, shift. However,
it wasn't that the workers were being taken care of. Quite the opposite
in fact. The poverty just moved. Once upon a time, England was covered
with factories, smoke and the cities were filled with poor. Now, things
have changed. The lower classes walk around in suits and ties. Change
for the good obviously. Or is it?

   The problem with capitalism, which has always been and always will
be, is that for every person that is well off, there must be ten, a
hundred, a thousand that have little. In the case of England, Canada
and the United States, the poverty line has moved. South. There
are a thousand times more people starving and dying due to lack of support
now than one hundred years ago. They just all happen to be in other countries.
By the late 1980's the countries of the south were considered to be in debt
to the industrial countries of the north by over one trillion dollars. That's
a heck of a lot of money.

  What seems to have happened is that the countries of the north realized that
Marx was, in fact, correct. The people wouldn't take suppression forever. In fact
they were probably shocked into action by the revolutions in Russia, China and
Cuba. So, what to do? They starting giving in. They started making a society in
which the masses (or at least most of them) could live comfortably. Little
by little, the People starting making it in the world. What they didn't know
or care about was that their burden was being shifted. The industries started
moving factories south. Where office buildings rose, factories disappeared....
And magically reappeared in places like Brazil, Morocco, Sudan and Mexico. Children,
men and women were chased off their land so that the people from the north
could eat their food. Houses were wiped out so that the north could have
cheap clothes. 

  Now, I believe we are (over all) worse off. Now the people whom are being
exploited may be in another country, but the are a lot more of them. According
to Marx's theory, it is just a matter of time until they push (and push hard)
for the privileges we have here. We are sending them teachers, technicians and
money. How long before they realize that they can cut us off and take
what we have? Marx was right. It is just a matter of time.

  Here's another thought. Capitalism has always been the benefactor of a
few over the many. Those few seem to grow and expand at the expense of the
many. So where to now? If the countries of the south start really pushing to
gain what we have, who will pick up the slack? Who can they exploit? I see
one of two possible out comes. Either they turn on us and take what we
have by force. Which I don't think is completely likely. Or they will simply
take back their own land and start managing it the way is was supposed to be
managed from the start. In that case, we will have no choice by to follow
suit. We will be forced to cut out the extra crap. CD's and TV's will
be luxuries again. Brand name clothes will become rare. People will no
longer have a million toys and movies. Actually, that doesn't sound so bad.
More importantly, we will have to look after ourselves and treat our
neighbours to the south as equals. Brothers and sisters, not a source
of cheap goods and income.

  We could have a peaceful, gradual transition to socialism, the way Marx
would have wanted it. It's too bad, but I think he was right. The proletariat
will revolt and it will get bloody. I just hope it is kept to a minimum.
The proletariat have nothing to lose but their chains. They have the world to gain.
Workers of the world, let's sit down and talk about it.