Conversation with a Communist

Recently, I met with a member of the International Socialist Organization (ISO) for what would become a three-hour-long discussion about Marxism. After attending an ISO meeting at UNT last semester, I asked the speaker of that meeting to consider being interviewed for this blog, and he graciously accepted. Armed with several months of research and my carefully crafted questions, I met Jason Netek at Banter Coffee House in Denton, Texas.

My interviewee arrived before I did. He was exactly as I remembered him, except that up close I could now tell he was a good eight years younger than I had assumed him to be from a distance, months earlier. He had the "look" of a radical, down to the perfectly worn-in green button down worker's shirt with rolled sleeves, well-groomed square sideburns, a small brimmed brown hat, and glasses that would easily fit into the 1960s. We sat down in the hip college town coffee shop, housed in the historic downtown square, where we chose to conduct our meeting. Walls of exposed brick and concrete flanked each side of the large space, which was filled with mismatched furniture and patrons sipping drinks from ceramic coffee mugs.

After exchanging minimal small talk, I explained to Jason that I was cognizant of both my lack of experience in interviewing people, and my absence of journalistic credentials. But my biggest concern by far, was that I would inadvertently offend my guest. I had worried for weeks about saying the wrong thing, or coming across the wrong way. He warmly dismissed all of those concerns and so we began.

Since the moment of this project's conception, I've been fascinated to learn what path leads someone to being a radical leftist. It turns out - in this case at least - it was a path not unlike my own. Jason comes from a middle class family, conservative and devoutly Christian. His mom was a teacher; his dad a former business owner turned insurance adjuster. He describes his family as being "neo-conservative" supporters of President George H.W. Bush (41). However, during President George W. Bush's (43) second term, he says things changed in his family's political outlook "...they [my parents] concluded that politicians were crooks, probably more out of my own influence than anything else."

His own political transformation took place years earlier. Jason joined the Young Communists League in 1999 at the ripe old age of 14, after being influenced by punk rock music and his older brother. He credits his brother's copy of the Communist party's bill of rights as a turning point in his ideological evolution. Truthfully, the seeds of revolutionary thought were sown even earlier than that. Before most kids were considering universities, driving, or first dates, Jason was already well versed in the red meat of the founding fathers, particularly Thomas Paine (whom he affectionately calls a "total Pinko"), as well as in French revolutionary history. Early on he felt the ideals of the American Revolution had fallen short in modern American society. "In my opinion, I had always sort of felt like [there was] something lacking from what we were starting from in the revolutionary era, to the present day."

After over a decade deeply immersed in Marxist thought and action, Jason now 26, is an expert in all things Communist. It was clear within the first five minutes of the interview, that my months of research was grossly inadequate to understand the fundamental ideology that was second skin to him. As the afternoon turned into early evening, Banter Coffee House turned into my own classroom, and I became a student of Marxism 101. Comfortable in the professorial role, Jason answered each question in a reasoned, intellectual, and comprehensive manner. It became clear to me during the conversation that the Marxist, perhaps more than the average person, is consciously aware of societal evolution, specifically that the present stands on the shoulders of the past. I get the sense that they see history unfolding as a sort of multi-millennial labor, with mankind's struggles being the birth pangs, and revolutions being the contractions, which as they grow closer together will one day deliver the society that Socialists believe is possible.

The question that brought the longest initial pause, came when I asked Jason to explain the practical advantages of applied Marxism. When he found the words he wanted to use, he told me "even having thus far fallen short of actually revolutionizing society in any way that makes sense to a Marxist, the mere attempts to do so are sort of what propels society forward. Marx said that 'Revolutions are the locomotives of history' and if you look back to any major social struggle, just in the United States even....the conscience intervention on the part of organized Socialists has been crucial in every step of the way."

Socialists see the silver lining in that, while there has not yet been a revolution worthy of praise absent caveat, their role in progressing society by being on the front lines of social struggle, is evidence of the merits of applied Marxism. He also acknowledged the weaknesses he sees in Marxism, noting an element of dogmatism, as well as sectarianism among groups of Marxists whose own identified interests sometimes conflict.

Throughout most of the conversation, a dominant reoccurring theme surfaced: the "Marxist" societies that have existed to date, do not represent the type of bottom up revolution that true Marxists seek to create. Time and time again, I asked Jason about the various statist Marxist governments of the past and present, that serve as the only example of Socialism I have ever known. Each time he informed me that these were not representative of Marxism at all. He eschewed affiliation with "Communist" countries from North Korea, to China, to Cuba, to the Stalinist USSR. He even went as far as comparing some of the countries to the United States, in terms of their reliance on capitalism as an economic system of oppression. In comparing the Social Democrats of Western Europe to the Stalinist Socialists of the USSR, Jason described them as being "two sides of the same coin." He said that "in both cases, they use the state as a means to sort of further an end. And in both cases, regular working people have absolutely no say over their own lives."

According to Jason, the statist approach is diametrically opposed to real Marxism. It turns out that the world his organization envisions is one free of social stratospheres and class distinctions, and notably minus the autocrat. This society would house a "truly representative" democracy, where those who hold office are cut from the same cloth as the workers they represent, down to the same average salary. The needs of each person would be met, and people would gladly work without monetary motivation, but rather to contribute towards the society that they feel they have a share in controlling.

The world has not yet seen this type of revolution, but Jason explained that we have caught glimpses of it in the early years of the Bolshevik Revolution. From 1917 to 1922, laws were passed in the USSR which he believes heralded in an "unprecedented level of human freedom.” He sees the early years of that revolution as the true heir to the title of the “greatest social experiment in human history,” and that the liberties therein greatly eclipse the relative nominal liberty we enjoy in the United States.

This was one of many points in which I find an insurmountable disparity between his ideology and my own. America's nearly 250 years of unparalleled human liberty, in my mind at least, stands head and shoulders above the 5-year period of time that existed prior to a very brutal era in the USSR. Though absolutely flawed, our founders allowed for a future carved out by the contemporaneous values of each generation. Ours is a history of imperfect, yet constant progress towards living up to our founding ideals. This makes America, in my view, far superior to anything the USSR produced in the Bolshevik revolution. That being said, I acknowledge that people have different ideas about what is preferable, based upon what values they hold as their highest priority. If one man loves country music, and another man prefers rap music, and each hate the other music form, then the two men would surely rank the concerts of Tim McGraw and Eminem differently from one another. My highest priority is liberty, which results in a necessary inequality of outcomes. I can only surmise that what the leftist values most is equality, which results in a necessary recess of liberty. But I acknowledge that perhaps there's a theoretical philosophy on their part that a society can have both as their top priority. Unfortunately, my failure to ask that question leaves this topic somewhat unresolved.

Another area of interest for me, was finding out where Marxists stand with regards to individual liberties. When I asked Jason what his views were on the importance of "civil liberties," I got the impression that that my disarming guest felt a little intellectually insulted by the baseness of the query, and struggled to hold back a sarcastic response. Reader, I can assure you, at no point did I underestimate Jason's unusually keen intelligence. The truth is, I carefully crafted the sentence to illuminate the different ways in which the word "liberty" could be interpreted. For example, when I asked the question using the term "civil liberties," Jason was unequivocally adamant about the inextricable relationship between the socialist movement and the advancement of civil liberties. He relayed in no uncertain terms: "Civil Liberties for the individual, are part and parcel to everything socialism is about. And I would say that a Capitalist society is an incredible fetter on the further development of individual civil liberties. And I think in every single case, Communists and Socialists being at the forefront for the extension of civil liberties makes my point pretty well." He went on to credit Communists for the freedom to distribute political literature, earned by the founder of the Communist Party USA, Benjamin Gitlow (Ironically, Gitlow later became an prominent anti-communist voice). In other parts of the interview he also rightly recounted the integral role Communists have played in advancing civil rights for women, minorities, and the LGBT community as further evidence of Socialism's pledge to civil liberties.

However when I asked him "Do you believe humans have individual liberties that are present from birth?” the answer was more nuanced. "I think humans are born, and then they grow up and make societies. Those societies determine what's nature, and what's always been, right?...but I don't believe its the case that you're naturally guaranteed anything." Unsatisfied, I continued to probe about whether or not mankind has a naturally born "right to pursue happiness" He went on to admit that "I think we should have it, but I don't think it’s a natural thing,” he added. “I don't think there's anything natural about human society, it's conscientiously constructed."

As best I can gather, he believes in civil liberties, but only as a construct of human societies, not as a natural-born, God-given right. I understand his point of view, but that this creates a whole host of new questions about the permanence of the rights that are constructed, or the way in which disagreements about those rights are resolved.

I think I now understand and am more aware of one of the motivations behind Marxism, specifically being the perceived exploitation of people, inherent to the capitalist way of life we enjoy. To a Marxist, it is exploitative to pay a worker (even a decent wage) to produce a good that will make a profit for the business owner. When the production is international and the worker is paid a wage we would find obscenely low, this point is magnified. However, when I asked Jason about the effects repatrotizing production would have on the economy of underdeveloped countries, he said it would have an extremely detrimental effect on the worldwide economy. While he acknowledges that under capitalism international production is an inevitability, he sees our prosperity as necessarily carried on the backs of poor people in developing countries. The answer to this, for a Marxist, is to put a system in place that does not produce for profit, where the means of production is controlled by the working class.

While I find it very hard to envision a world that does not have a capitalist system, I'm curious to hear more about this idea. I asked Jason what would drive innovation such a society? He explained that the idea that innovation only exists because of the profit motivator is a delusion created as a result of humans being socialized in a capitalist paradigm. In his view, people create things because it is "intrinsic to our species to create things." This is a reasonable response, but it hardly accounts for the unequal amount of innovation that capitalism created in a mere 200+ years, compared with any and all previous innovation for the collective history of mankind up until the capitalist era. Nor does it explain why a country like North Korea, which has no motivation to produce for a profit, also has no comparable innovation. North Koreans, as part of our Human family, must certainly have the same human instincts to create as we have in the United States. Admittedly, they most likely do innovate in unknown ways for survival. However, they do not innovate in any meaningful way that impacts humanity as a whole, the way so many American innovations have. I would say that the evidence of power of the "profit motivator" is obvious.

A few things surprised me about this interview. For one, I rather liked this guy. He was very smart, polite...charming even. All in all a very good representative for his views. Our ideologies might preclude him from wanting any type of friendship with me, but I don't think I can say the same is true for me, which did surprise me. I guess I always unconsciously assumed that I would never want to know a Communist, but I actually really enjoyed the intellectual exchange. Second, I was surprised to find that Jason did not vote for Obama, and considers the current President to be an extension of the previous one. Furthermore, he believes him to be a failure even by mildly progressive standards. He does not support Obamacare, calling it a "massive affront to working people, by forcing them to buy healthcare." He says he wouldn't consider voting for Obama in 2012. I assumed that while Communists differ from the Democratic Party, they would fall into the "lesser of two evils" narrative, and pull the lever for the donkey. I assumed incorrectly. Lastly, I was surprised by a passing, but very poignant comment Jason made about religion. Himself an atheist (a reluctant admission made after pausing to consider his mom's feelings), I once again assumed incorrectly, this time that he would be vigilantly anti-religion. It turns out, he's not much of an evangelical atheist. He matter-of-factly explained his apathy towards religious persuasions. "I think that these Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens types, maybe they have an interesting discourse on religion. I don't know. I don't care." He followed that up by saying the thing that surprised me the most throughout the whole interview: "I think whatever motivates people to do good in the world is a good thing." I think that is a profoundly enlightened view. I have found that atheists often do not see religion as a motivator of good in people, but rather as an albatross on the neck of mankind, and a catalyst for war and violence. After watching Bill Maher's movie "Religulous", I wrote a blog that highlighted the common ground that me and Jason the Marxist apparently share, about the positive role religion can play in moving people to do good in the world.

This has been the biggest challenge of my blogosphere life, (which goes back to at least 2004) to condense a three-hour conversation into a readable amount of information. I've labored to create an outline of the major points that I found most interesting in the conversation, which itself is like choosing between chocolate and...well, better chocolate. In retrospect, I wish I had asked about many other things. For example, how Arab Socialism and can coexist with the tenants of gender equality that Socialists hold dear, or whether he supports a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. But alas, I am left to wonder these things and move on. It is my hope that I have accurately conveyed the views expressed by Jason, as well as offered some concise and insightful commentary. I hope you get a better sense of Marxism and the point of views of those who believe in it. I'm very glad that I had this opportunity. It broadened my view of the world immensely, and challenged me in ways I had not anticipated. I'm very grateful to Jason for letting me pick his brain, and for patiently answering my questions. I apologize if anything I said or have written comes across as anything less than respectful of his time and his point of view.

Dennis Prager has often spoke of, and is writing a book about, how the future belongs either to America, the Left, or Islam. The unrest in the world today makes his predication all the more real. Two out of three of those possibilities probably strike fear into your hearts, as they do into mine. It is my hope that the American way prevails, and the Western capitalist experiment continues into countless generations bringing prosperity and liberty to the far corners of the world. That being said, if the future does end up belonging to the left, I hope it is the left of Jason's dreams, and not of my nightmares. If so, it would be something the world has yet seen, and were it not for my own view of human nature, I might concede, would possibly not be so bad. One last thing I have learned: my perception of Marxists as utopian dreamers is not one sided. When I asked him what he would like to tell my readers that may surprise them, Jason said simply "We think you are the idealists." Perhaps in a way, we all are.

If you'd like to learn more about this worldview, Jason recommends you visit www.socialistworker.org.

~kg

"When I disagree with a rational man, I let reality be our final arbiter, If I am right, he will learn; if I am wrong, I will. One of us will win, but both will profit from it." ~Ayn Rand

(p.s. Please leave comments, whether you are an ISO visitor, or one of my regular readers, I'd love love love to hear your feedback. Comments will not be censored for content, only if someone is being hateful.)