anaphalaxis

Update time!

My god I'm up early. Usually this time of year I start to. Isn't it nice to wake up with the sun, start your day at the very beginning? All the potential layed out in front of you like fresh snow...

Hmmm... It seems I woke up uncharacteristically poetic today. Here's a rare moment of self reflection.

Profit:
I'm a terrible uncurable marxist. This pleases me. It pleases me because while I was growing up all anyone told me was "oh yeah, it sounds great, but the world doesn't work like that", followed quickly by "and as soon as you're earning your own money and have to pay taxes you'll change your tune".
This always annoyed me because it seemed to imply that I was as shallow and morally bankrupt as the people who manage to wreck this beautiful world of ours. I thought mere self interest could be seperated from moral judgement, and that it was possible to soldier on through life and do what you had to do to survive without getting your "rough edges", the freshness and inscisiveness with which a young person views the world, knocked off.

I won't lie. I was never going to soldier on as a class warrior, fighting the evil machine of capitalism by living in a squat, refusing to wash because it was "bourgeois" and singing revolutionary songs. Frankly I consider that kind of political masturbation to be as worthless as the unceasing search for profit for it's own sake.
I grew up accustomed to certain comforts in life. I travelled extensively as a child and was certainly used to the better things in life. I always knew I had to re-create the manner of lifestyle to which I was accustomed. And, of course, this involves money.
On the other hand I knew I was never going to conform to a traditional carreer. Slight digression: a few years ago I ran in to the mother of an old schoolfriend of mine who I hadn't seen in 15 years. She asked me what I was doing and had done in that time, and when I replied said "J, you were always going to be successful, and you were always going to take the least conventional route to get there".
My parents were wealthy enough to show me the better things in life, but by no means wealthy enough (or willing even if they were) to give me a financial prop to get there. Some of my freinds have had mortgage downpayments handed to them, jobs organised for them, investment money handed to them etc. So, young passionate red flag waver that I was, I was still in possession of the knowledge that I would have to make my money.
And it is here that all the voices which said "you'll soon drop that marxist line when you're in the real world" echoed uncomfortably around my skull.

My opinions have changed. I feel them changing. But they've always changed and refined as I've got older and seen more of the world. Am I less of a fervent communist than I used to be? Probably. But only because I don't have the time or outlet to enthuse, study and think as much as I used. I can feel myself judging other people's search for profit less harshly than I did as well. So then, has an entry into the real world changed my understanding of captialist economics? Not at all. Do I think it is ok for multinationals to make the sort of money they make? Definately not. Do I think capitalism works on a microcosmic level and it's just new aggressive global capitalism is the problem? Do I bollocks.

So the conclusion I have come to is this: self interest can be seperated from moral political judgement. It should be. It's ok to look after yourself in the world that is around us. You have to play by the rules.
I can seperate my daily activities from my political beliefs provided they don't conflict. I play by the rules to the extent I find morally comfortable, but that doesn't mean I suddenly accept the rules as right or good. They still stink.
I always used to think the people who told me they were left wing when they were younger but they "grew out of it" simply didn't have the same understanding of left wing politics and economics as I did. How can you "grow out" of an understanding of economics? You can decide it was wrong or had an incorrect emphasis, but you can't grow out of it. What you can grow out of is the moral underpinnings which determine the way you view that ecconomic understanding: the moral conclusions you draw from it.
To put it another way, unless you just weren't paying attention while you were soldiering through all that marxist material at univerity, has self interest changed your moral judgement? Have you aligned your understanding of right and wrong with your own self interest on the political sphere?
I'm happy to say that's not happened in my case. At least not yet.