thing is, as Karl Marx decreed, determined by the labor required for its production. The amount a thing sells for, minus the amount paid to the workers who made it, equals the capitalist rip-off to which all good socialists are so strongly opposed. The Theory of Surplus Value means that anytime you hire someone, you are exploiting him. If you pay someone to fix your automobile, he has the right, by virtue of being your mechanic, to steal your car. The terrific corruption that now exists in Russia was not caused by the collapse of Marxism-Leninism. It was caused by Marx and Lenin. Well, sort of. Russian authorities had been inclined to steal everything in sight at least since the reign of Ivan “Moneybag,” 1328–41. Until Peter the Great, Russian officials were paid no salaries. They were expected to “feed themselves from official business.” And when the Marquis de Custine traveled through Russia in 1839, he encountered a member of the czarist aristocracy who said, “They tell me that in France, at present, the highest noble can be put in prison for a debt of two-hundred francs; this is revolting: How different from our country! There is not in all Russia a tradesman who would dare to refuse us credit for an unlimited period.” The world’s corruption, incompetence, and rudeness can’t all be blamed on socialism. In fact, to be fair, a socialist society seems to produce solidarity among people. It does so in Sweden. And it does so in Cuba, even if that is a solidarity of suffering and anger. Socialism, however at odds with economic sense, engenders brotherhood. Or so I was thinking as I arrived in the Siberian city of Irkutsk. The twentysomething Intourist guide who met me at the airport certainly seemed a younger-brother type. Ivor was affable, outgoing, and . . . “You’ll notice there are no niggers here,” said this product of socialist childhood and schooling. We’d been standing in the dumpy baggage hall, waiting for my suitcase and talking about the elections and Ivor’s great good fortune as a translator. He’d never even been to Moscow, and he was now going to Atlanta with the Russian Olympic team. “Jesus Christ, Ivor!” I said. “You can’t use that word. It’s a really serious insult.” “Don’t black people commit a lot of crimes in America?”
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online