No Longer Lost in the Supermarket

When you fly over the landscape and look down at the patterns of the roads, especially in the American West—a city looks something like a computer circuit. Lines and gates control the flow—in one case of electrons, in the other case of metal vehicles. The impulses flow through the circuit and their interactions cause larger patterns to emerge and move through the system as a whole. The chips in a computer, or the cities in a nation, are all connected together—multi-tasking to support the operations of multiple processes simultaneously. Some processes were some designed specifically for the system, others imported from elsewhere. Currently many of the most powerful networks operate according to scripts written in modern English—although many of these include areas, such as a Chinatown, where designs in older social programming languages are also being compiled.

When the Berlin Wall fell, the Soviet Program, which was installed after the 1917 revolution, and been running on the Eastern European network since the Second World War, was in the process of a radical system failure, as leaders rallied political structures which had dematerialized while leaving their human hosts alive. Afterward the political network was rebooted with scripts formulated in the United States, but without much consideration that the software might function when overlaid with the Eastern European culture and language. Meanwhile older elements of the cultural matrix, such as literature and the Russian Orthodox church, continued to function as they had for centuries.

Here in China, a crash of the governmental operating system was averted—the government functions with a unified political party and a single source of corruption instead of an antagonisic network of two political parties with separate sources of corruption as in the United States. Over time however, the economic program has been redesigned to provide a better interface with the programs running on other networks. The bills used for the capitalist economy, however, all bear the picture of Chairman Mao. And one of my students has showed me a book of Mao's sayings which they are still required to memorize. The Chinese Network has preserved the emotional value of Mao as an inspiration for its citizens, while the Russian network has allowed references to Lenin and Stalin to fluctuate between the extreme poles of positive and negative, as the United States did temporarily with the "dead white males" who were our founders. One thing which interested me in Honduras was running into Spanish-speaking businessmen who spoke of being inspired by Che Guevara. And young businessmen here in China also speak of being inspired by Mao, the Chinese-speaking guerilla, as they set out on their campaign to aquire large piles of the pieces of red paper with his picture on the front.

European Revolutions have often overlooked the value of continuity. In 1649 a Revolution beheaded the King of England and survived for eleven years until the restoration of his son. In 1789 a Revolution beheaded the King of France and his wife and lasted for twenty-six years until the restoration of his brother. This has led to periodic spasmodic reboots until the current, French Republic 5.0. In 1917 a Revolution executed the Tsar of Russia and his family. This time the Revolution used bullets instead of knives. It managed to survive for seventy-two years, and did not end in a restoration. In North America, a European-style Revolution had goals which allowed George III to retain both his life and his throne and it has survived more than two centuries. Here in China the last human cast in the role of Emporer was permitted to live his natural life for forty years after giving up his throne. The Revolution in Iran was not directly responsible for the death of the Shah. This is not to speak of Revolutions, such as that in Mexico, against men who styled themselves leaders without claiming divine right. This is to note the record of those revolutions which have made flesh culpable for a claim of transcendental legitimacy.

Whatever one thinks of divine right, processes working to solve the problem of just governance seem to do better when they do not make themselves too deliberately incompatible with those running on the network previously. As with Cromwell, Napoleon, and Stalin, revolutions which are too disdainful of previous programming decisions often end up needing to create paralell structures differing in name, but equally or more oppressive. In the US the Revolution has allowed people to identify with the dilemnas faced by those in the King line, without having to obey their servants, or their Red Guards. This is why, when it comes to alterations in the governmental matrix, I favor creating a network of people empowered to write patches for particular errors, rather than awaiting a centrally-scripted Messianic reboot.

No Revolutionary program successfully aggregates the views of all the citizens of a Nation where it takes hold. The Tories who fled to Canada in the 1770s—the first to cross the Northern border in response to the crazy war started by their countrymen—did not view revolt against a lawful King as justified. William Cobbett came to praise the young Republic in the first two decades after the Revolution, and ended up returning to England and endorsing the Monarchical system. The process of creating a more perfect union has unfolded through time, and a young Republic shortly after its Revolution, like a young child shortly after its birth, may be prone to temper tantrums, and disdainful attitudes which are imperfect formulations of its mature identity.
One thing which is interesting to note about Capitalism in China—like Guatemala—is the persistence of small-scale vendors, selling in market stalls the size of office cubicles, or from shopping carts, or bicycles. In a market or on the street there are dozens of market stalls, supervising an area and an inventory which might employ one or two Wal-mart sales associates. There is a definition by which this is inefficient—the assumption that economic transactions should create as few jobs as possible. But it is much more efficient from a spatial perspective. And if economic transactions obey similar rules as floorspace (increasing with infrastructure construction) there may be another defintion by which they are efficient. It is interesting to note that while capitalism in the West has often been associated with the destruction of the niches occupied by the small merchant, it hasn't happened here. Even with Walmart there are still people buying their duck, or eggs, or potatoes, or lotus roots here on the streetcorner. No matter how much education people have, it is unlikely that we will ever create a society in which everyone grows up to be a lawyer or accountant working in an office. And I wonder whether being a vendor in your own tiny shop is more fulfilling than being a factory worker or a sales assistant—or even working in your own tiny cubicle. And the ideas which make sense in a roomful of small vendors may be different than the ones which make sense in a roomful of lawyers, like the current Democratic party.

And calling a market like this capitalism may be a misnomer. Capitalism was invented with the industrial revolution 200 years ago, shortly before the invention of socialism. Outdoor markets are thousands of years old and on every continent except Australia, they have more claim to cultural continuity than either capitalism or socialism. These small-scale vendors don't need the start-up capital it often takes to start a business in the West. They may not have control of the means of production, which for a large factory could only amount to a small voice in a chorus anyway, but they do have more ability to create a job for themselves than in the US, where this sort of street vending is illegal, or requires expensive permits, and most stores are much larger.
There are lots of vehicles on the streets here in China. Buses, trucks, minivans, and sedans in the shapes and colors you find on the streets of the West—though there do seem to be more street trees. Parked at the entrance to an alleyway, I see a three-wheeled bicycle, with a wooden cargo box between the rear wheels. I turn and walk past a row of market stalls—people standing behind their wares. This time, the blue plastic boxes are full of something I have never seen before reptiles: snakes, lizards, turtles, alligator meat—along with fish and scorpions. It is enlightening to observe these living survivors of the older ages of evolution here, a few hundred yards from the minivans and supermarkets of China's modernization program.