* 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."