I want to start off this rant by mentioning a book called "Come the Comrades" by a revolting woman who lived through the Soviet invasion of Hungary. She was an aristocrat married to an aristocrat. They lived in a Manor House with its own private park. Not bad, except the people who lived right next to the park couldn't even enter it.
The author, a snotrag if I ever saw one, always was talking about the stupid, simple peasants and how they didn't have the sophistication to understand how to deal with the Soviet soldiers. Of course, the "stupid, simple" peasants had the sense to bury anything of value so that it wouldn't get stolen. This lady didn't. Despite that, the insults towards her neighbors continued without the curse of self-awareness.
She describes the Ukrainian soldiers: not one of them being "what we Europeans would call a person of breeding." Charming, eh? Then she goes into a diatribe on how even the dullest European could outwit Soviets while being interrogated. She described how startled her family was to see that a peasant soldier was sent to school for engineering. They all stared at him.
After the Soviet Army leaves their house in ruins, they 'get a dozen women from the village' to clean their house. She then complains that they stole everything that the soldiers didn't. Then follow the obligatory laments about how life was no longer the same. At that is when one realizes that she wasn't paying these women to clean the house. My, how life was different then. No wonder she missed it so much.
At this point I am only reading the book to see her ass get kicked. Something rotten has to happen to her. It has to. Communism is dead, and good thing it is, too. Capitalism rules. Not the
hampered Capitalism with the rigid social hierarchy that this horrid woman describes, but the U.S. kind.
The thing about Capitalism is that you really need to own the means of production. Not work for someone else. That is where Econo-Girl is caught in the crosshairs of her mid-life crisis. I am sitting in a cubicle now, working for someone else. Am I a Capitalist, or aren't I?
I want to be a Capitalist. I want to be a small business owner. I want to live and work in the same community. It's just hard to shake off all the programming that says "prestige" and "security" are laudable life goals. Prestige? My dogs think I'm great! And there is no real job security anymore.
That is Econo-Girl's personal crisis. At least for now. The curse of it is that we prepare children to be worker bees in the paperwork factories of our economy. We do nothing to prepare them to be true Capitalists.
2 comments:
Be careful of what you ask for.
Working for someone else has benefits. For one, you just put in your hours, then go home. Every 2 weeks you get a check. And you can rack up sick time and vacation time.
working for yourself is not like this. You only get paid IF there is any money left after you pay for everything else, including employees. You never get vacation time. You can not get sick. You work harder than anyone else, and unless business is good you get paid less.
I was interviewed for a job working at a major airport. If selected I will work for the county. I might not "get rich", but I could make a decent civil service career out of it if I play my cards right.
But I will get paid vacation. And helath insurance. And a pension plan. And when the day is over, I go home. If I work more than 8 hours on any day I get overtime.
Who needs the stress of "being a capitalist"?
Ahh, the voice of experience. You are right, of course. But damned if I'm not going to do it anyway. Let you know how it goes.
Econo-Girl
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