Mad Marx: Frederick Road (5/5)

Note: This is the final post in a series analyzing Mad Max: Fury Road. Links to previous posts can be found at the bottom of this one.

One of my favorite lines in Mad Max: Fury Road comes when The Dag says that because the dictator Immortan Joe owns all the water at the Citadel, he owns everyone who lives there. This speaks to the Marxist in me (previous post), so I can’t refrain from taking a closer look.

 

Class Struggle

When, deep in the desert, a ragtag band of escapees from the Citadel finds their green paradise has succumbed to the desert, Max suggests they go back and seize the Citadel:

The Vuvalini: What's there to find at the Citadel?

Max: Green.

Toast the Knowing: And water. There's a ridiculous amount of clear water. And a lot of crops.

The Dag: It's got everything you need, as long as you're not afraid of heights.

Keeper of the Seeds: Where does the water come from?

Toast: He pumps it up from deep within the earth. He calls it "Aqua Cola" and claims it all for himself.
The Dag: And because he owns it, he owns all of us.
Keeper: I don't like him already.

In Marxist theory, every society throughout history has been divided into oppressors and oppressed. Ancient Rome had its patricians and plebeians, and the Middle Ages had its lords and serfs. In Marx’s day, the masters were the bourgeoisie and the slaves were the proletariat. The bourgeoisie owed their status to being capitalists--those who possessed the means of production. Proletarians had nothing but their labor, so they worked for the capitalists. Marx predicted that one day the proletariat would revolt, resulting in a society in which the means of production are owned by all and used for the equal good of all.

In Fury Road, the oppressors are Immortan Joe and those who appear on the Citadel balcony with him. It is they who possess and control the water. The oppressed are everyone else who must work or beg for water from Immortan Joe. They are the haves and have-nots in George Miller’s post-apocalyptic vision. Since water is necessary for life and the have-nots have none, their lives are no more their own than a factory worker’s life was his or her own in Marx’s day. In our own day, the 99% are slave to the 1%’s dollar and generally grateful for the opportunity, for the oppressed must always rely on their oppressors for what little they have.

In “The German Ideology,” Karl Marx and Frederick Engels explain how material circumstances such as the division of labor give rise to inequitable social divisions supported by a superstructure of religion, philosophy, ethics, etc. The oppressed exploit this situation to preserve their own status, and because material circumstances and superstructure (diagram) are a kind of matrix within which everyone exists, even the oppressed accept the status quo. One of the most depressing observations of the Marxists in the Frankfurt School was how even criticism of the status quo is often carried out according to the paradigms of the status quo. Thus, the status quo always wins (previous post).

From “The German Ideology”:

“The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas: i.e., the class which is the ruling material force of society is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it.”

Immortan Joe, like any good oppressor, plies ideology. Early in the film, he briefly opens his aquifer, raining water upon the people who have gathered to catch it in tin cups, earthen bowls and open mouths. Within moments, he cuts off the flow and declares:

“Do not, my friends, become addicted to water. It will take hold of you, and you will resent its absence!“

In other words, “Trust me, you’re better off this way.” The oppressor always tells the oppressed this. The Nazis hung signs reading “Work makes you free” at the entrances to concentration camps. Christianity teaches that “the love of money is the root of all evil” (1 Timothy 6:10) and “blessed are the meek” (Matthew 5:5). In America, we learn as schoolchildren that while capitalism does result in economic inequality, it is the best way to ensure a rising standard of living for more people. Despite the obvious falsehood--American society exhibits rising income and wealth inequality, stagnant wages coupled with increasing prices, a shrinking middle class, and swelling ranks of the poor--few today, even those who still claim the labels Marxist, communist or socialist, can see a way to seriously undermine the system.

 

Division of Labor and Commodification

The film holds much more that makes Marxism an incisive interpretive tool. For example, the division of labor in Fury Road is stark, with some serving solely as soldiers while others are mere child-bearers and milk producers. We also see a military general, an accountant, a medic, slaves and the work of agriculturists. Any film’s characters would have professions, but not any film would show with such clarity how their fortunes in society and their worldviews stem from their professions.

According to “The German Ideology,” division of labor and specialization result in a work force of people who feel alienated from their own major lifetime activity and its produce. Once upon a time, a mason, for example, was privy to a craft and accompanying secrets that bound him to his work, made him special, and rewarded his effort. By contrast, the unskilled laborers that so concerned Marx could do little more than perform a narrow band of rote tasks and were therefore expendable and replaceable by just about anybody. In today’s world, most workers, skilled or not, are of no value whatsoever when the company’s profits or a superior’s own job are on the line. This takes a psychological toll on workers, separates them from their own lives, and makes them less than a whole person:

“ . . . man’s own deed becomes an alien power opposed to him, which enslaves him instead of being controlled by him. For as soon as the distribution of labour comes into being, each man has a particular, exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape.”

Fury Road illustrates this wonderfully. The War Boys are little more than living weapons, showing slight emotional depth beyond the desire to kill for their lord. The Mothers, in order to produce their milk, have lives restricted to a cell and connected to machines. And is it reaching too far to say that Imperator Furiosa symbolizes this, having lost her arm in service to Joe?
 
Commodification is another Marxist theme detectable in Fury Road. In Marxist theory, the forms of economic intercourse in any given epoch greatly influence how people treat each other. Commodification describes how we treat other people in these modern times. We treat each other like things from which we derive profit or suffer loss, rather than as the rich individuals we actually are. In this light, the Wives’ message “WE ARE NOT THINGS” holds import beyond that of a feminist declaration.

I have discussed the feminist slant in Fury Road in previous posts, and even this theme works synergistically with a Marxist critique, for radical thinkers have long connected patriarchy and capitalism. This, however, is something about which I know too little, so I end this series of posts here, feeling as if, despite the film’s minimalism, I have barely scratched the surface of Mad Max: Fury Road.

Previous posts in this series:

Mad Max Feminista (1/5)

Jennifer Blood Feminista (2/5)

Mad Max: Of Hawks and Doves (3/5)

Mad Max: Out of Eden (4/5)

Toward No Ideology

Ever since the 2008 financial crisis, I’ve been increasingly suspicious of capitalism, and one strain of my reading has been in revolutionary history and leftist strains of thought. Obviously this means engagement with Marxism, and I have developed some sympathy for many of its concerns. So when it comes to ideology, where does this leave me?

Unsatisfied with the dark side of American capitalism, skeptical that alternate forms of capitalism can make a significant change, wary of drastic solutions of an anarchist or communist bent, and still trying to figure out what socialism could mean in an American context, it leaves me a pragmatist seeking any improvement--even a tweak--that can be made at all, and a philosopher willing to keep thinking, to keep looking for a new big answer to social and economic injustices.

Concerned with ideology, I subscribe to none. Dissatisfied with current options, I seek another. There is no reason that the dichotomy drilled into us by the Cold War--no-holds-barred American-style capitalism versus Soviet-style totalitarian communism--should present the only two possible arrangements for society on a national, international or global scale.

I’m reminded of one of my favorite YouTube clips of Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek--someone who appears frequently in this blog and who identifies as “some kind of a communist”--in which he says that in light of all the messes in the 20th Century that arose from attempts to implement big solutions, maybe it’s time that, instead of doing something, we sat back and thought for a while:

Sometimes it’s okay just to think and to leave the perfect, big solution for later. Meanwhile, however, smaller actions can be taken for more modest improvements. And in some places of the world, such as those touched by the Arab Spring, imperfect change may be substantial indeed.

Forgotten Calls for Equality for All

I stumbled across a gem from Dover Publications the other day that is a collection of revolutionary writings from such diverse thinkers as Thomas Jefferson, Lenin, Gandhi and Mao. Reading these primary texts on revolution, I was struck by the concern they all express for equality--a concern that has largely disappeared from American discourse.

We might expect such concern from the orators of the French Revolution, which began the process of raising the Third Estate (the commons) to a modern representative legislature and which ended with the beheading of the Bourbon dynasty, and they deliver. Point 10 of the “Analysis of the Doctrine of Babeuf” declares that “The end of the French Revolution is to destroy inequality, and to reestablish general prosperity.” 

The preface to the "Analysis" identifies Francois Noel Babeuf as one of the founders of French socialism. His manifesto was accepted by his group the Society of Equals, but he was one of many to be executed by the government later.

Leave it to the anarchists, however, to go even further. Pierre-Sylvain Marechal’s “Manifesto of the Equals” was so radical in its call for equality that, according to the same preface, even Babeuf’s Society of Equals would not endorse it:

“Let there be no difference now between human beings but in age and sex! Since all have the same needs and the same faculties, let there be for all one education and one standard of life! They are content with one sun and the same air for all, why should not the same portion and quality of food suffice for each? . . . Open your eyes and hearts to the fullness of joy. Recognize and proclaim with us THE REPUBLIC OF EQUALS.”

Another anarchist included in the collection goes so far as to blame God for inequality-- and for Mikhail Bakunin, God and State often go hand in hand, to Man’s detriment:

“For, if God is, he is necessarily the eternal, supreme, absolute master, and, if such a master exists, man is a slave; now, if he is a slave, neither justice, nor equality, nor fraternity, nor prosperity are possible for him . . . if God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him.” (from God and State)

Even Lenin, a figure much feared in the popular politics of the West, displays a moving concern with equality, and is ready with specific measures. One such measure in “The Tasks of the Proletariat in the Present Revolution” is equal wages for all--bureaucratic officials and the average worker alike. 

In “Declaration of Rights of the Working and Exploited People,” Lenin and the Provisional Government declare that the fundamental aim of the Republic of Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies is “to abolish all exploitation of man by man, to completely eliminate the division of society into classes.”

I am reminded of one of my favorite quotes from George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia, which describes his experience fighting with the communist P.O.U.M. in the Spanish Civil War: “Socialism means a classless society, or it means nothing at all.” 

Homage to Catalonia contains alluring descriptions of the egalitarian society that actually existed in the early months of the revolution:

“Many of the normal motives of civilized life--snobbishness, money-grubbing, fear of the boss, etc.--had simply ceased to exist. . . ‘Smart’ clothes were an abnormality, nobody cringed or took tips, waiters and flower-women and bootblacks looked you in the eye and called you ‘comrade.’”

Yet in America today--a nation generally believed by its citizens to be founded on equality--passionate calls for equality are largely absent from the narrow left-right spectrum embodied by Democrats and Republicans. The far left is reduced to making grand pleas for equality that it knows the media, politicians, big business and the populace will ignore.

In mainstream debate, you may hear about equality with regard to specific civil rights issues--equality before the law, say for gays and lesbians in marriage; equality between the sexes, say in executive pay; equality between races, say when a public figure makes a gaff touching upon race; and so on ad infinitum--and you may even hear about economic inequality and the need to help those in need through charity and welfare, but calls are lacking for positive preventive action, for significant reform of the system, to establish equality across the board.

As a culture, I think we don’t even want equality anymore. We have accepted the capitalist assertions that the playing field is level and that people rise or fall according to their merits, even though we all know that the system plays favorites and the rise to success is often inversely proportional to competence.

Besides, we like our hierarchies. They're flattering. We can always point to someone beneath us to whom we are superior, while believing that we deserve and may indeed someday attain a higher spot in the order of things.

We certainly want to avoid the mistakes of the past in creating a new social reality, but I am coming to agree with Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek's assertion, in In Defense of Lost Causes, that there are parts of revolutions past that are worth reviving. The crises of capitalism are many, and in addressing them, we should remember to call for, to insist on, greater equality for all.