The Middle Class Roots of Communism

In order to avoid repeating it, we need to understand history. One misunderstanding that appears to be in the air today in the United States is that communism failed because of corrupt leaders who were only after power and luxuries. Another misconception is that being middle class is somehow a disqualification for being a "real" communist leader. A third point of confusion is the idea that people studying the law do so necessarily out of a "capitalist" desire to make a lot of money.

In fact, most of the most well known communist leaders of the 20th century came from the middle class and many of them studied the law. To learn more about this, listen to today's podcast on Pubwages:

http://www.pubwages.com/22/communist-leaders-usually-come-from-the-middle-class


You might also enjoy learning about my great uncle Julius Katz-Suchy, by reading this article:

Chocolate Under Communism

For a musical version of the story, you might enjoy this video:

Instead of Servants There Are Apps

Should you thank your app, the same way you would thank a servant? Or is the whole point of having apps to do away with gratitude and the need to interact with other humans who are serving you.

Every night I tell Siri: "Set alarm for six am." Most of the time, she answers: "OK, it's on." But every once in a while, she says "I'm not sure I understand." Or "You have three six am alarms. Which one did you mean?" Then I get a little testy, and I try different ways of saying it, like "Set alarm for six am sharp." And then finally she does it and says: "Okay, it's set." And then I say: "Thank you."

But always wonder, should I have said that? Is it wrong to thank an app?

In earlier blog posts, I have mentioned that the middle class used to be characterized by the fact that it employed servants, but now it does not. However, I may be very much behind the times, living in an isolated rural location where even Pizza Hut does not deliver. This morning I read an article that opened my eyes to how service from servants is now being obtained through apps.

https://medium.com/matter/the-shut-in-economy-ec3ec1294816

The washer and dryer did not solve the servant problem, but now there is an app that picks up your dirty laundry and then returns it folded to your drawer. And this can happen without ever having to speak to a human being.

No, robots have not gotten that sophisticated. There is an army of flesh and  blood people working for those apps. and the world has been divided, in this scenario, between shut-ins and shut-outs. The shut-ins have service without human contact, and the shut-outs get to serve people they never see,

It's a brave new world! What would Jean Laffite have thought about this?