The Supreme Law of Survival in Capitalist Society!
2006/9/14 11:37:47
Without survival, everything else is nonsense! To survive in capitalist society, being like Tao Yuanming is useless (whoever designed the pinyin input system must be illiterate — "Tao Yuanming" isn't even a phrase?!). Tao Yuanming refused to bow for a few bushels of grain, yet back home he could usually find someone to share a drink with, had land to plant some beans and pick chrysanthemums. Is that possible now? Only those with rusted brains would think so!
In feudal society, you could have leisure without money. Back then they said "all land beneath heaven belongs to the king," but in reality you could just find a hilltop and become a greenwood bandit, or a recluse gathering ferns. But now, it's truly and genuinely "all land belongs to the king" — except this king is capital, is MONEY, is cash. This king is far more formidable than any feudal emperor; every inch of land is under its dominion.
In the capitalist era, every second of your life is lived within the eye of money. Going online isn't free, and even the bed you sleep in is equivalent to a stack of bills of varying thickness. Want to pick chrysanthemums or gather ferns? That's private property — no money, no entry! Tao Yuanming wouldn't last seven days in this era. Some nobody, scribbling a few lousy poems — why should anyone give you food or wine?
The supreme law of survival in capitalist society: you must have money! Money is the sole standard for measuring a person's survival capability in capitalist society — the prerequisite of all prerequisites. You can produce ten thousand moral, philosophical, or religious reasons to oppose this, but unfortunately, this ID must tell you: even acquiring those moral, philosophical, and religious reasons requires money as a prerequisite. Without money, you couldn't even be born — how much does it cost to have a child? This ID isn't entirely sure of the specifics, but it's certainly not zero, and that's enough!
In capitalist society, discussing Tao Yuanming requires an economic foundation. Capitalist society aims to simplify everything thoroughly, monetize it, globalize it. It is precisely this most brutal, most mechanical simplification that constitutes the ultimate driving force of capitalist development, and simultaneously the best weapon for capitalism's ultimate self-destruction. As the saying goes: the only way to make capitalism spend itself to death is to keep it in endless climax!