Socialist Choices

The very small and elite group of countries that constitute the industrialised world enjoy a level of freedom and self expression that is unparalleled in human history.

However, with the relentless increase in global social and political awareness of our international neighbours, there comes an uneasy feeling that perhaps a good deal of this supposed liberty is in fact a contrived and carefully stage managed version of freedom rather than containing the essence of pure free choice that many political thinkers crave.

Terrorism, racism, sexism, political unrest, corruption or substantial lack of social vision from governments are all elements that ultimately undermine the choices available to as individuals. As children of capitalism we are continually offered a carefully selected diet of media dishes from which to choose our pleasure. A virtual smorgasbord of delights from which we can select, with almost gay abandon, the particular delicacy that is suitable for us, that fits me just right, was just what I was looking for etc. Although this has a feel good factor that many find satiates their need for individuality, the tragedy of this grandly designed pick and mix affair is that it simply does not represent true choice, freedom of expression or individualism.

It's true that as a society we can choose what we wish, when we want it, however we want it but how many of us truly look beyond this veneer of choice to try to objectively assess the increasingly homogenous underlying set of options? One only has to look on a crowded subway train to see the level of choice that we actually choose to embrace. Even though there is a huge range to select from, the model of your smart phone really isn't important because you bought one because you were told to and so did everyone else. Despite this people feel their phone is personal to them, it really is, it's yours and you love it because it helps you through your day. It has all the phone numbers of all your friends' smart phones and all those wonderful aps you downloaded from the Internet that save you so much time and help you get things done that just three years ago you didn't have to do. This entirely homogenous piece of consumer gadgetry is a metaphor for the whole dilemma of freedom of choice and expression and indeed socialism as a whole. You made it yours, unique and individual but you did so only from the same building blocks as everyone else, so how unique can you be - how you really is you?

Ok, so it's only telephone, I guess that isn't really significant in the wider spectrum of choice - let's look at the positives. These, surprisingly, are the things you have probably never thought about much. If you come from one of the elite western countries it is highly likely you enjoy a level of freedom that is unprecedented in the world but it is also highly unlikely many of us have ever stopped to consider the value this holds. I imagine you ate today - I did too, I'll eat again today at least once more and I know with 100% certainty that I will eat tomorrow and next week and so forth. This is a privilege that is taken for granted in our small section of the global community but this is not the case for a significant percentage of the world's population who live in precarious conditions with unstable governments and social policy that is either non existent or so for removed from anything we would consider as being Marxist in stance that it serves no useful function at all.

What choice do you have when it comes to the way you live your life? Is a high level of choice something that can remain if we truly embrace the entirety of socialism? Should we not be striving towards economic equality and the ultimate blandness of collective decision making? This too is something we do not question, we simply accept that we can pursue whatever course of education we choose (and our ability allows) and we do so. You want to be a doctor, ok, how difficult is that actually? Well of course it's lots of study and you do need a level of intelligence to assimilate the vast amount of knowledge required but how difficult is it in real terms? In fact the average person can become a doctor, one simply signs on the dotted line, waits at the appropriate place in the station where the Medical Express pulls in and climbs aboard. Once there, diligence is required of course but for most passengers, most of the time, when one disembarks it is at Doctor Central and you are there. The journey was an interesting and enriching one for sure but at the end of it one can only remark on how unremarkable it was. The most important part of it was simply that you got on the train.

Many in the world do not have this; many people have not the means to get to the station, many do not know where the station is and many, many more have absolutely no awareness that the station exists at all. Although becoming a doctor does not in itself represent a huge leap of individualism, it does demonstrate that we enjoy a level of freedom to just pursue "normal" things that we don't question or consciously react to in any tangible way.

It is not only in the field careers that we have this choice, we are free to practice or pursue many other fields of endeavour in diverse areas such as politics, sport, relationships and sexuality. For so many people, in fact the vast majority of the world and particularly women, these are areas that are extremely problematic. The idea of political and sexual freedom is something that many people do not even view as a possibility. Even in counties such as Venezuela where this awareness exists, the struggle towards a form of Socialism that has a relevance and resonance in the west stands out only because of its uniqueness on the global political stage.

But just how confident are we that we have this in hand ourselves? To take sex and sexuality as an example. A number of European member states have legalized prostitution (some many years ago) and brothels are licensed and controlled by the government. There are many who argue that this liberalization of sexual politics represents a lowering in standards while others claim it affords a higher level of protection for sex workers and their customers because their interests are actively supported by a government that insists on regular HIV test and access at all times to sexual healthcare and social support of women in the sex industry.

The same can be said for the widely differing stances governments adopt with regard to the use of pornography and adult films. This is one area that sees a huge range of responses at all levels of society and these varied viewpoints often cause a vast and ongoing political power struggle even within national boundaries. Australia is a good example of this with a completely incohesive approach to the sale of adult DVDs. In some states and territories within Australia you can freely purchase and view adult movies and they are available to be watched in certain appropriately licensed adult establishments. In other states the sale and public viewing of pornographic films is prohibited but they can be watched at home. This lack of consistency is further muddied by the fact that there are a number of Internet based adult DVD shops that serve the entire country regardless of state level legislative differences. They try to avoid legal complications by dispatching the DVDs from outside Australia, thus trying to circumvent the grey areas of the law that are not even clear to the governing bodies that create them and much less to the authorities charged with upholding them.

So the question is that as a case study, does Australia think the use of adult DVDs is a good thing for society or not? If yes then why is a consistent policy of consumer choice not put in place to protect citizens from both a simple consumer viewpoint and a wider social perspective? Adult films could be more directly controlled and licensed if they are not a marginalized, underground product at the peripheries of polite society and if the true ideals of socialism were adhered to, state level production could be considered as well as basic governmental control. The truth in this particular case is almost certainly that the Australian authorities cannot decide on behalf of the nation if adult DVDs are a positive or negative influence on society as a whole. This is of course a matter of some conjecture and is something we consider further here in our article about sexual tolerance and the use of adult films and pornography around the world.

So what has this got to do with choice? Well the underlying truth is that the more economically disadvantaged you are, the less choice you have - less choice of education, less political freedom, less access to social justice, less sexual freedom and often fewer basic human rights are upheld. However, in the west where many of those things are a part of every day life, the level of choice that we actually have is either very narrow and drawn from an extremely limited pool of options or we simply do not need or want to follow any particularly original or ground breaking set of choices. In this regard we make a voluntary retrograde step backwards simply because a paint by numbers, pick and mix, off the shelf sub set of pseudo personalized ideals are normally about as much as the average person needs and the lavish and endless excesses of freedom and choice that we crave are not actually needed or even particularly wanted by the vast majority of individuals.