It's Sunday as I type this. Foul machines churn away outside my window with a disgusting arrogation. There is the insistence that everyone should listen to this grinding, whirring field of dissonance at all times. There is, in the brazenness with which this crap is presented to me, the firm insistence that capitalism is the moral superior in this world.
Some wretched building is being constructed. I can only assume it is incomplete, as it resembles some Eastern European abandoned tenement. The thing is hideous. All buildings are now built with cost as the limiting factor. Nothing beautiful is built. Think of all the economically inadvisable buildings religion has brought us. Now do the same for capitalism. I think what I am saying is that capitalism doesn't even have the self-respect religion has. There is no joy in capitalism, no effort is made beyond that which is absolutely necessary, and there is no charm in anything built under its black pennons. The grey edifice I mention is being built like a kids' puzzle, massive ashen ramparts sealed into place with inert sludge. Even bricks are too indulgent for this beast.
As a child there was always a terrible fear for me that my Kinder Surprise might in fact be a wicked surprise - the charge within might simply be a solid lump of plastic, a one-piece toy. This, to the curious, growing mind, is of no use at all. They could just as easily have printed a plastic middle finger for me to play with. The same may soon be true of buildings - lowered into place by a huge crane and opened immediately.
I think what I'm aiming to illustrate is that the anodyne, banal efficiency of capitalism is sapping the joy from everything. Nothing can be done anymore to amaze or subjugate the senses. I do seriously believe that the quality of literature has been inversely proportional to the scale of capitalism over the years. All is done for money now - in my opinion the last true repository for matchless art was the Romantic Era, but the Romantic artist is absolutely incompatible with the modern age. The concept of the individual as key in the construction of art is nonsense nowadays, for the only things that will be written are those which please the masses. Do not mistake my meaning - many of the Romantics were wildly successful, but society has changed since that time. A kind of apathy permeates everything at present, a dull philosophy of expedience holds sway in the construction of all things. Marx writes of the economic base determining the superstructure, and he is of course correct to do so. I used to think the idea fanciful, a grand conclusion tailored to his argument, but of course this is true. If the study of economics has taught me one thing, it is that economics is utterly corrosive, and necessarily corrupts all thought. And all things in this sphere are reduced to a horrendous self-interest, the concept of rationality barely supporting that of kindness. Labour is a factor of production in the same way as land or machinery, a homogenised input. This is as humbling as religion, in fact it is more so. Religion at least values each person as beautiful and divine, if in subjection to a higher being. Capitalism keeps the subjection and disposes with the exaltation. This is servility. This is the distillation of the religious impulse. This is the desolation of the soul.
Then, is being shackled to economic facts, impelled to construct hideous buildings of a Sunday, any better than being forced to attend church on a Sunday? I think it is worse. Even the church cannot quash rebellion in the mind, yet capitalism requires far more interaction. To undermine religion it is enough to simply stop believing; one might stop believing in capitalism but it will not wither away. One must pretend to love the machine, one must pretend to praise one's chains. And there can be no sedition when one's physical movements contradict one's thoughts. Soon the worm of resistance is crushed. And not just crushed, but inverted on its host. How much pretending can one take part in before one is believing?
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