* You Love State Socialism (You just don't know it)
Tom Jennings 1:125/111

The essay below speaks for itself. It's not an exercise in
commie-bashing, in case you were wondering. Taken from a book of
essays written by Miklos Haraszti, a Hungarian dissident, it is
on the surface a harsh criticism of state socialism, told in
terms of western capitalism.

(The manuscript for the book was smuggled out of Hungary, to be
published first in France as "L'artiste d'Etat" then as "The
Velvet Prison: Artists Under State Socialism" in the U.S. (Basic
Books Inc, New York).)

                         *  *  *

"Outside the capitalist corporation's walls there is still an
ideal free market where total freedom of opinion and speech, the
right to assembly, and the freedom to organize flourish. Everyone
goes his own way and can become a proud and independent artist,
free of censorship. But inside the company it is a different
story. There; the employee must reckon with a microcosm of
socialism. His human rights are severely circumscribed -- except
of course, his right to work. He cannot go outside the walls,
cannot wander at will around the factory, cannot say, write or
organize whatever he wants. In these matters, it is the firm's
interests, conveyed by its owners and managers, that determine
right from wrong within the corporate culture. The employee may
love his work, but he cannot do what he likes *unless* his ideas
have first been approved by his superiors. His skills have no
value in themselves; they exists to sustain the fiscal health of
the corporation. His relations with other members of the company
are not strictly private; they are defined by the hierarchy of
professional skills. If he does not live for his work, the
company will let him go. As long as there are other corporations
for whom he can work, he is all right, even if he is fired. He
could even, if he wishes, leave of his own accord!

"How is this (admittedly simplified) state of affairs different
from state socialism? Only one aspect is truly different: the
existence of other companies. Under socialism it is the same
giant firm everywhere.

"Suppose that the company for which you work buys and sells art.
The board of directors, faithful to the owner's wishes, seeks
free and independent art. Anyone can come in from the street. If
his art is marketable, the whole company will work for him; no
one will intervene in his business. If his artistic freedom is
curtailed, he can threaten to leave the company and look for
another, or he can choose to become self-employed.

"Now consider the free artist who is asked by the company to
paint a portrait of the owner, or to create a sculpture that
symbolizes the company's ideals, or simply say something nice
about the firm on television. The money he is paid is not a part
of profits; it is renumeration for having complied with the ideas
of the firm's management. Creative freedom has undergone a subtle
change: the more successfully the artist has identified himself
and his ideas with the interests of management, the more creative
freedom he can retain. He has become a *directed artist*. He has
become a company artist.

"How is this state of affairs different from socialism? Only to
the extent that, under capitalism, the artist is free to resign
and go to another company. On our part of the world artists can
only find employment with the artistic department of the national
company or with one if its branches. All artists are the firm's
employees, and their colleagues (the other employees in other
departments and branches) are their audience.

"The distinction between directed and free artists, between
directed and free art, disappears at a stroke. The artists'
existential uncertainty is over. A steady paycheck is assured.
The rent will be paid, food on the table, and a roof overhead.
But artists' creative freedom is also over. Nevertheless they
have gained a great deal: by becoming state employees they are
given special attention. Their position is not competitive but
hierarchical: they gain a measure of control over the consumers
of their art in exchange for being controlled themselves by the
coordinating authority of the state. The company's neutrality in
the thorny question of aesthetics is over.

"The ethics of state socialism resemble the ethics of a large
company. Its discipline and freedom are like those of the
company's workers. Further, if you will imagine the greatest
possible "industrial democracy" that such a concern might achieve
within the constraints of its corporate culture, you will have
arrived at an almost exact model of freedom in today's modern
socialist society.

"Is it censorship that guarantees that the employees of Twentieth
Century Fox will create movies that serve the interests of the
entire company? Do relationships within the film studio require
censoring? Is the unavoidable process of creative compromise and
self-correction properly called censorship? Voluntary discipline,
identification, and devotion are essential elements in the
professional's acceptance of the company as his own/ Is this not
freedom? After all, didn't someone once observe that freedom is
simply the recognition of necessity?

"It does not matter whether the answer is yes or no: we know what
this is all about. This form of censorship is far more effective
than a negative, externally imposed restriction of private
freedom. It is quite irresistible when it bathes the employees of
the socialist supermonopoly -- the nation -- in its amniotic
warmth. Don't forget: under socialism, there are no longer any
owners."
