This question <86|86> overall <90|93> Hans: <90|94>.

Question 194: Someone says the commodity relation is fetishized because otherwise exploitation would not be possible without a police state. Comment.

[91] Hans: Transparency and Power   I am convinced that one of the reasons why the socialist regimes were so unpopular is that whenever something went wrong, people spontaneously blamed the regime for it. The regime served as a scapegoat for everything. Once I drove together with an East German through an East German town, and we had a red light at every intersection. He said: “They cannot even coordinate the traffic lights.” Even the traffic lights were used as an argument against socialism! In capitalism, much worse things happen than red traffic lights without anybody ever blaming the system. Whenever something goes wrong, people blame themselves, even when they are powerless to change it or it is not their doing. This is a consequence of the fetish-like character of the commodity, which makes the social relations invisible.

I think here I am in agreement with Martin [86]. Martin also seems to say that a socialist regime either needs a similar cover of mystification, or it needs much more transparency in order to be able to exercise its necessary coercive functions. Instead of glorifying power, power must be used transparently and self-critically. The system must say: “unfortunately we are forced to use power here, because the conditions are so and so, but we are developing in a direction in which such coercion will become less and less necessary in the future.”

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