Can I be a happy socialist?

Arguably somebody who does what they want to do all day, not for the money but because they enjoy it is not much of a capitalist.

Especially not when they can give up work for a couple of hours or days whenever they want and concentrate on the richness of their quality of life instead of the size of their bank account.

The great victory of modern capitalism is that - at least on a personal level - you don’t have to be a capitalist if you don’t want to be. If you want to prioritise your own social concerns above your potential to earn capital, you can.

The biggest issue to my mind with things like mobile phones and blackberries etc. is that people don’t know when to leave them at home.

I don’t take my MP3 player everywhere with me, only when I want to listen to music when I go out.

I don’t take my camera everywhere with me, only when I want to take pictures when I go out.

And I don’t take my mobile phone everywhere, because quite often I’m happy not to be immediately contactable. When I come home I can check my voicemail at my own convenience. What could be more civilised and sociable and considerate to the friends I have been out spending time with?

and perhaps you’d like to read mr. hodgkinson’s book before you devolve into all your criticisms. actually mr. hodgkinson ( and i agree wholeheartedly) views the nasty work regimes under Communist Russia /as equally unpleasant. i know you like to view the world in these 2 polarities ( as does the US) but frankly i don’t. really the work/idling thing is about being your own boss, not slave to some master e.g. unpleasant corporate.

and i know you’re a writer - so you yourself have chosen not to go down the unpleasant stuck-in-an-investment bank route. which so many people have to suffer through.

why do you think communists are sad, anyway, as a sidenote? perhaps you ought to get intouch with some and ask them. if i meet any, i’ll send ‘em your way.

(p.s. i would say i’ve got socialist democratic-y ideas –AND i’m very much an individualist and all about individual liberties. also, i don’t believe in a paradigm where things are black and whit . i care about other people and am not selfish hence the socialist edge. i dont belive in schemes where things are forced on people top-down, i dont care if they say they’re capitalist, socialist, communist or whatever-ist you can come up with )

and you mr. indian capitalist - you sound far more fascist than anything you should just relax, and in the words of one of my colleagues, drink a nice cup of peppermint tea.

that is why the concept of capitalism is so important. in a capitalist society man is not a slave, rather he is the master of his own destiny, jobs are available aplenty, he can pick and choose, do what he really wants to do.

but even in a capitalist society some people might get stuck in unwanted jobs. Why? because these people lack the courage, the spirit, the enterprise to chart their own path. A silly person will forever be carping about this or job. But a smart person will go ahead and change the world to make it as he wants to be.

Now it is for you to decide what kind of person you want to be. A happy capitalist or a sad little communist.