Marx said the workers would rise up and break their chains; yadda yadda yadda; and peace and prosperity would reign in a communist paradise.
Lenin figured out that the workers wouldn't rise up on their own and decided to be the vanguard of the proletariat and lead the revolt in their name. They never did get to the paradise stage.
What Mao did to Lenin with his universal find and replace to get rid of "worker" and substitute "peasant" is another issue altogether. The vanguard of the pre-proletariat, I suppose.
But Russia and China are no longer communist--just ordinary autocracies.
So the last hold outs of communism in the Western world--our "intellectuals"--have descended to making excuses for why the people have not followed their well-educated, caring vanguard forward to their proletariat paradise.
We've been confused by too many consumer choices:
Salecl argues that choice offered in a capitalist society "also sort of in some way pacifies people." She went on to say that capitalism leads to delusion when "at some point this subject starts believing that he is not simply a proletarian slave, but that he is a master, that he is in charge of his life." She sums up by saying that "the ideology of choice is not so optimistic and it actually prevents social change."
Why do I get the feeling that Salecl is parading personal shortcomings masquerading as political thought in public?
But the essence of her thinking is really quite hilarious. If you went to the store and they just had bottles of "shampoo"--when they weren't out completely--you'd be upset and turn to the likes of Salecl for leadership.
The obvious explanation that our capitalist and democratic system has succeeded in providing choices for inexpensive and good quality goods for more people than any other system we'd tried, and that these choices are a feature and not a bug is not considered.
But I am comforted when the Vanguard of the Pathetic Losers is reduced to making excuses about why the revolution isn't imminent here.
Tip to Mad Minerva, who chooses to ignore Salecl.
