* You Love State Socialism (You just don't know it)
Tom Jennings 1:125/111

The essay below speaks for itself. It's not an exercise in
commie-bashing, in case you were wondering. Taken from a book of
essays written by Miklos Haraszti, a Hungarian dissident, it is
on the surface a harsh criticism of state socialism, told in
terms of western capitalism.

(The manuscript for the book was smuggled out of Hungary, to be
published first in France as "L'artiste d'Etat" then as "The
Velvet Prison: Artists Under State Socialism" in the U.S. (Basic
Books Inc, New York).)

                         *  *  *

"Outside the capitalist corporation's walls there is still an
ideal free market where total freedom of opinion and speech, the
right to assembly, and the freedom to organize flourish. Everyone
goes his own way and can become a proud and independent artist,
free of censorship. But inside the company it is a different
story. There; the employee must reckon with a microcosm of
socialism. His human rights are severely circumscribed -- except
of course, his right to work. He cannot go outside the walls,
cannot wander at will around the factory, cannot say, write or
organize whatever he wants. In these matters, it is the firm's
interests, conveyed by its owners and managers, that determine
right from wrong within the corporate culture. The employee may
love his work, but he cannot do what he likes *unless* his ideas
have first been approved by his superiors. His skills have no
value in themselves; they exists to sustain the fiscal health of
the corporation. His relations with other members of the company
are not strictly private; they are defined by the hierarchy of
professional skills. If he does not live for his work, the
company will let him go. As long as there are other corporations
for whom he can work, he is all right, even if he is fired. He
could even, if he wishes, leave of his own accord!

"How is this (admittedly simplified) state of affairs different
from state socialism? Only one aspect is truly different: the
existence of other companies. Under socialism it is the same
giant firm everywhere.

"Suppose that the company for which you work buys and sells art.
The board of directors, faithful to the owner's wishes, seeks
free and independent art. Anyone can come in from the street. If
his art is marketable, the whole company will work for him; no
one will intervene in his business. If his artistic freedom is
curtailed, he can threaten to leave the company and look for
another, or he can choose to become self-employed.

"Now consider the free artist who is asked by the company to
paint a portrait of the owner, or to create a sculpture that
symbolizes the company's ideals, or simply say something nice
about the firm on television. The money he is paid is not a part
of profits; it is renumeration for having complied with the ideas
of the firm's management. Creative freedom has undergone a subtle
change: the more successfully the artist has identified himself
and his ideas with the interests of management, the more creative
freedom he can retain. He has become a *directed artist*. He has
become a company artist.

"How is this state of affairs different from socialism? Only to
the extent that, under capitalism, the artist is free to resign
and go to another company. On our part of the world artists can
only find employment with the artistic department of the national
company or with one if its branches. All artists are the firm's
employees, and their colleagues (the other employees in other
departments and branches) are their audience.

"The distinction between directed and free artists, between
directed and free art, disappears at a stroke. The artists'
existential uncertainty is over. A steady paycheck is assured.
The rent will be paid, food on the table, and a roof overhead.
But artists' creative freedom is also over. Nevertheless they
have gained a great deal: by becoming state employees they are
given special attention. Their position is not competitive but
hierarchical: they gain a measure of control over the consumers
of their art in exchange for being controlled themselves by the
coordinating authority of the state. The company's neutrality in
the thorny question of aesthetics is over.

"The ethics of state socialism resemble the ethics of a large
company. Its discipline and freedom are like those of the
company's workers. Further, if you will imagine the greatest
possible "industrial democracy" that such a concern might achieve
within the constraints of its corporate culture, you will have
arrived at an almost exact model of freedom in today's modern
socialist society.

"Is it censorship that guarantees that the employees of Twentieth
Century Fox will create movies that serve the interests of the
entire company? Do relationships within the film studio require
censoring? Is the unavoidable process of creative compromise and
self-correction properly called censorship? Voluntary discipline,
identification, and devotion are essential elements in the
professional's acceptance of the company as his own/ Is this not
freedom? After all, didn't someone once observe that freedom is
simply the recognition of necessity?

"It does not matter whether the answer is yes or no: we know what
this is all about. This form of censorship is far more effective
than a negative, externally imposed restriction of private
freedom. It is quite irresistible when it bathes the employees of
the socialist supermonopoly -- the nation -- in its amniotic
warmth. Don't forget: under socialism, there are no longer any
owners."