I have been called a communist before. Most recently it was by a drunk guy who kept telling me to go to China. It was almost comical the way he rang of the Red Scare in the fifties. This is emblematic of a difficulty with the perception of communism. Quite often people mistake Maoist China and the Soviet Union under Stalin as representative of Marxist theory in action. The communist utopia of Marxist rhetoric never has been and perhaps never will be. With the advance of what has been termed "America™" - being the U.S.'s particular brand of capitalism and its accompanying cultural imperialism across the globe it seems the best that one who is bothered by this can hope for is a compromise between socialism and capitalism.

I harbor many Marxist sentiments. I will joke with my co—workers about how one day the pizza deliverers of the world will unite and rise up against their capitalist oppressors. However, my pinko—commie urges are tempered by my ability to make the distinction between different types of capitalism and the inherent difference between profit and exploitation. Using this distinction I have no problem with capitalism as such, but rather with its different manifestations. Herein the mom and pop capitalism of small business is less of a concern to me than capitalism on the corporate level.

Exploitation is not present in profit alone. Rather, it can be found in both the quantity and quality of one's profit. Quantity exploitation can best be characterized in the relations between capital and labor. Corporate lawyers are not going to have as strong an argument for their exploitation as the sweatshop slave laborer might. As such, a lawyer is more than adequately paid for services rendered. However, the shoes and clothing that the people working in the sweatshop produce will turn a profit much larger than a worker may likely see in quite some time. As such, quantity exploitation occurs when a person's labor is not adequately rewarded compared to the profits that capital draws out of what is being sold. The solution to this is rather straightforward. It would seem that establishing a global minimum wage, if not a living wage, would be necessary to avoid quantity exploitation. In doing so it would also reduce the concern of capital flight and threats to domestic labor. Now some have argued that if sweatshop laborers were paid what they're worth, then a sweatshirt would cost $80. This assumes that corporations have some unquestionable right to maintain their exorbitant profit margins.

In limiting profits in relation to specific goods and services one will also find the solution to the problem of quality exploitation. This is built on denying consumers the access to sufficient means to exist because it is not deemed profitable enough. There is something rather perverse in denying a person adequate food, clothing, shelter and so on because they can't pay what the capitalist demands. Ideally the answer to this is that through price controls basic, subsistence housing, healthcare, etc., would be available at cost, if not for free to those who need it. I am not talking about the finer things in life, but a simple place to live or semiannual checkups for those who can't provide for themselves or their families.

The root of my concern about capitalism is an existential one. If we are here for any reason at all it seems that we are here to become, not to merely subsist. Animals subsist, humans become. Yet all too often I find that American capitalism is built on the groundlessness of subsistence. Basic human dignity is sacrificed in pursuit of the almighty dollar. What is even more disturbing is when one becomes not who one is but what others would have them be. To unabashedly quote one of the truly great movies I have ever seen in my short existence, "You are not your khakis." R.E.M was right in stating that what we want and need has been confused. For in this confusion, it has become possible for capitalism to reduce humans to animals and, even worse, illusory disembodied consumers. Though I may want a Benz I will not die without one. However, if I am diabetic and am denied my insulin because my bank account is running low, it becomes difficult for me either to subsist or become.

In a counterstrike to the march of American capitalism over the planet there needs to be a tide built on a socialist undercurrent. In this one can find a happy medium between the mercilessness of capitalism and the painful bureaucracies of Communist Bloc-as in the conjunction of capitalism and socialism in many European countries. Here, one finds that a human is valued as a human, and not merely as something meant to consume. In this, one can explore the upper reaches of existence rather than being pinned down by the base drives of subsistence. And thus one can more effectively become.

This has been my sometimes less than humble opinion.

Stonegarden Grindlife is a senior in the School of Liberal Arts.