Down with the Cities Part 10

In Marxist revolution theory, there is a surprising -- and actually quite fatal -- error in that it does not call for the dismantling of the city, that is, the liquidation of the idle and gluttonous. Without the overthrow of the urbanizing mechanism in human society -- a mechanism which cannot but engender the formation of the idle and gluttonous hordes -- we cannot achieve true revolution.

So just take a look, please, at where the spreading world socialist revolution is leading (even if it is but a precursor of the communist revolution): power, oppression, progress, expansion, modernization, urbanization, industrialization, militarization, destruction, contamination, prodigality, and corruption.

A Natural World in which All Till the Soil Directly, and There Are No Groups of Idlers

The "natural world" that Shoeki imagined had no exploitation or oppression whatsoever; its aim was a self-governing commune with common owners.h.i.+p, labor by all, and equality. It was a primitive communist society which could not be realized without, first of all, the overthrow of the bloodsucking ruling cla.s.s, and then that of the non-tilling idlers (those who contaminate and destroy). It was a society of contraction, regression, austerity, and one in which all practiced direct cultivation.

If one leaves the great hordes of the idle, plundering, and gluttonous just as they are, and then tries to achieve the transition to communistic society (of course, this a.s.sumes the abolition of capitalist society), can we really expect the establishment of a utopia in which there are neither the exploiters nor the exploited?

Sorry to say, agriculture has always had a relations.h.i.+p of confrontation with business and the manufacturing industries, as well as with the tertiary industries. The famous Meiji-era Marxist, Dr. Kawakami Hajime, lamented, saying, "If agriculture declines, how can business and industry prosper?" But in his book Respect for j.a.panese Agriculture he wrote, "The development of a healthy national economy depends upon the balanced prosperity of agriculture, industry, and business." Ever true to Marxism, he did not at all notice the antagonism between agriculture on the one hand, and industry and business on the other.

And so the modern socialist revolution, which does not include the dismantling of the urbanization mechanism, is not in the least what could be called a revolution, for it is merely a system in which the corrupt bosses plunder the produce of the regime in place of the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie, and this holds even if they are able to make the transition to the communist revolution, but have not dismantled the cities. In other words, we end up with a situation in which state power, in place of the bourgeoisie, carries out oppression and exploitation. This is a mere pa.s.sing of power from one hand to another (I will disregard here the relative merits and demerits of the various regimes), so that there is no real difference between the old regime and any new one brought to power by an election victory. Perhaps this is the reason that both the Socialist Party and the Communist Party switched their tactics to those of emphasis on election campaigns.

Military Power, Religion, and Money as Instruments of Domination

From long ago, force of arms and religion have been used as the means of domination. In a state governed by laws, it looks as though laws take the place of these, but behind the laws is the force of arms (the military and the police), and out in plain view is money, about which I shall have more to say later. And the backbone of laws is religion, which includes morals, ethics, tradition, and customs.

There is no need to say much about military power. Control and oppression by military force, a conventional technique, is very common, with just a few examples being the ancient attempts to subjugate the Korean peninsula, the struggles between the Taira and Minamoto, the Warring States, the feudalist military government, Manchuria, the China Incident, and so on without limit. In addition, as everyone knows, in between these big wars and incidents the dominators were constantly making use of military force to gain power for themselves. And the present military, though they call themselves the Self Defense Forces, will, when the time comes, point their guns in this direction.

I will have to say a little about religion. I speak here not only of Buddhism, s.h.i.+nto, Christianity, and the new religions, but also of all blind faith and superst.i.tions. There is no telling how, from ancient times, the blind faith of loyalty (originally Confucianism) has been an advantage to the dominators, and a disadvantage to the dominated. Good examples of this are the elimination of those in the way by harakiri, and the honoring of the war dead at Yasukuni Shrine. The dominators have always deceived us with superst.i.tions which say that if we are not perfectly loyal, we will be punished. And now the blind faith in the omnipotence of science [32] is making possible the augmentation of the city's functions, thereby inviting the growth of the plundering cla.s.ses.

The traditional religions teach us not to become attached to material things, and as proof to that they tell us to make offerings. Show the extent of your belief, they say, with a widow's mite. And in this way, with each small drop adding to their ocean of wealth, they have built not only their head temples and headquarters, but boast of their branch temples, missions, and other splendorous buildings, ostentatiously display their decorations, feed their priests and officials, and scale the heights of prosperity with only contemptuous regard for the poverty of the people. And very important here is the fact that the dominators, in the shadow of religion, have used these religious teachings as tools for the placation of the people, and through exchange have offered the riches concentrated in the shrines and temples as the capital resource for domination. This is without a doubt the reason that the central government has, from the Tomb Period through the Nara and Heian Periods, helped the religions prosper.

If We Banish Money, the Cities Will Perish

In addition to the force of arms and religion, money has been an instrument of domination and exploitation.

Money: It would be hard to find anything else that is so convenient, so easily used, so powerful an instrument of domination. The arrogant belief that, as long as one has money, one can do anything, is not mere arrogance; money is in actuality the mechanism by which the functions and activities of the city are supported, and the means by which people so freely manipulate the city's functions in order to bring about prosperity. The reason burglars and thieves (in this case I am not referring to the dominators) always take money is because they too, as long as they have money, can get anything they want, be it goods or services. Big shot politicos get sweaty palms at the thought of fat bribes because as long as they have money they can feed great numbers of hangers-on and wield great power.

Simple logic, then (and here we at last come to the stage where we get rid of the cities), dictates that all we have to do to get rid of the cities is banish money.

This is not idle speculation, for the Cambodian regime of Pol Pot actually proved it could be done (forgive me for harping on this one example, but no other government has had the guts to do the same thing).

Proving no exception to the rule, the growing urbanization phenomenon in the developing countries has brought about unfavorable trade imbalances and the devastation of the countryside, as well as the importation of food, which engenders even more losses of foreign currency. No matter how high the government raises its voice and orders the citizens to till the fields, once the people have had a taste of idleness and gluttony they squat in the city and refuse to budge. The Pol Pot regime, which had come to the end of its rope, prohibited the use of money and made everyone barter. So the citizens, who could no longer get food with money, went from one farming village to another in search of food, and the capital of Pnom Penh immediately became a ghost town. This was a great experiment which proved that, without dropping a single bomb, and by merely banis.h.i.+ng money, the glory of the city can be wiped out in the s.p.a.ce of a day.

Criticism of the Productivity Remarks by Sony's Honorary Chairman

Ibuka Masaru, the honorary chairman of Sony, said, "There is a 1,500-fold difference in productivity between agriculture and industry." (A statement made during a committee meeting on the issue of internationalization in agriculture, and included in the book Food, published by the Asahi s.h.i.+mbun.) He also said, "Rather than having the farmers produce crops, it would be better to hand them money and let them be idle." And, "All agriculture should be transferred to Southeast Asia." [33] He even declared that "hanging on to an industry which has lost its compet.i.tiveness is none other than a big loss to the country."

A difference of 1,500 times -- this means that agriculture has but 1/1,500th the productive capacity of industry, and is therefore a great loss to the country. What a jump in logic that is. It is natural that there is a difference in the productivity of industry, which night and day produces things in time intervals of minutes and seconds, and agriculture, which harvests farm products only once or twice a year. So if we proceed along the same logical lines, it means that we must destroy all farmland in the world and build upon it efficient factories.

So, Mr. Chairman, let us a.s.sume that the cities of j.a.pan end as Phnom Penh did (ultimately it will surely happen when the food runs out). If you try to exchange 1,500 Sony transistor radios for one bag of rice, do you think the farmers will listen? Even if a farmer received 1,500 essentially worthless transistor radios, he would not even have a place to put them.

Mr. Chairman. If industry has 1,500 times the productive capacity of agriculture, then does it not make sense to say that agricultural products should have 1,500 times the value of industrial products? This is the reason that, if we were to barter, you would not even be able to get one bag of rice for 1,500 Sony products. This is a good example of how the interposition of money has evilly exploited farm produce.

There Are no Mice with the Requisite Bravery

We have seen that if we banish money, industry will perish, commerce will languish, the services will tread water, and the cities will die, but is there a mouse with the bravery to put a bell around the cat's neck? Outside of Pol Pot, there is probably not a mouse in the whole world with the bravery to try it.

As long as "the government" does not find the resolve to banish money, it will not be possible, but if we get rid of money, the first to be put out on a limb is none other than "the government" itself. Is it possible that any government in the world could find the guts to make the rope for its own hanging?

Money: The means by which domination and exploitation can be most easily and effectively achieved. It is inconceivable that people would abandon it, at least voluntarily. (Of course, if the situation grows objectively worse on a global scale, money will perforce change into worthless little pieces of paper and metal.)

Is Stopping the Food Supply Possible?

The reason that the city would perish immediately with the banishment of money is that the city would be unable to purchase food. (With the banishment of money the movements of raw materials, wastes, and merchandise will slow, and the functioning of the city will become paralyzed, but the city will not perish immediately.) But if we carry our thinking one step further, we see that, even if we do not get rid of money, we can get rid of the cities by merely shutting off the food supply.

There is no doubt that, if s.h.i.+pments of food stopped right now, the mountains of food in the grocery stores would not even last two days. No matter how badly the residents of the cities want to stay there, no matter how well they hunker down, no matter how many new and wonderful machines they make, no matter how rare the arts they display, no matter how far they pursue abstruse learning, they cannot do a thing on an empty belly, so they will all abandon the cities, crying, and go to the country in search of food. Thus the cities will become ghost towns.

Cutting off the supply of food is, at the distribution stage, known as s.h.i.+pping refusal. If the farming cooperatives would find the bravery to do this, cutting off the food supply would not be impossible. But sad to say, the co-op is on the side of the city; it is the city itself. Even if the heavens and the earth reversed themselves, it is doubtful that the co-op would ever stand with the farmers. The co-op makes it look as though it is the ally of the farmers, but this is a mere gesture. Anyone will tell you that, if there were to be a rice shortage, the co-op, which is the wicked agent for the city's plundering, would never let the city starve, even if it had to scratch together every last grain of the farmers' rice stocks.

So much for the co-op. There is no need to discuss the traders and the wholesalers. s.h.i.+pping refusal would, ultimately, end in total failure.

The Mammonistic Farmers Cannot Become Revolutionaries

Would it be possible, then, for the farmers to refuse to sell?

This would not be impossible if the farmers would not fear repression, if they would steadfastly refuse to supply the city with food even if the military came with their guns, and there was a little bloodshed. The city can live a bit longer by importing food (the president of Sony can take charge when the time comes), but that cannot be helped. How long the city can keep itself alive depends upon the skill of the president.

The real problem, as I see it, is that among the farmers there are quite a few mammonists who have for some time been nursed along by the money economic system. There are without a doubt great numbers of traitors. If there are many farmers who, taking advantage of a food shortage, sell food for high prices in secret deals, any efforts to stop the sale of food to the city are bound to end in failure. The "farmer power" of those farmers who gird their loins and go into Tokyo to demonstrate is actually greed power. It is their greed which gives the city a place into which it can dig its claws. The city then rips off great amounts of food for a mere pittance (or for loans).

Ah, the pitiful farmers! This greedy egotism is the (historically and socially inevitable) pathetic mentality that has been deeply implanted in the farmers who for generations have suffered from the poverty brought about by cruel plundering. Was this the reason Marx chose the city laborers as the soldiers in his revolution instead of the farmers?

To say "Refuse to sell food!" or "Down with the cities!" seems extremely cruel and subversive, but it is nothing compared to the unmitigated robbery and tyranny that the city has committed during the last five thousand years.

It Is the Plundering and Destructive Idlers Who Are the Subversive Elements