Bumping Geese 5.1: Mummies and Marxism

 Last time, on Bumping Geese...

"Uncle Ben, as it happens, has discovered a new chamber in the pyramids. And by 'Uncle Ben has discovered' I mean the diggers and students working for him discovered it and he's taking the credit." 

"So, let's get something out of the way about here. With the exception of poor Gabe, every fucking person in this book sucks. They are just the worst."

"This blog is feeling a little long, today, and I have stuff to do. I did have a Marxist take for this one, but I don't want to take up too much of your time and we've had a lot of tangents already. If enough people ask for it (drop a comment down below) I'll come back to it..."

And now, out thrilling conclusion...

Those of you who follow me on Twitter may have noticed I haven't been particularly active this week. I think I've finally broken my social media addiction and, honestly, spending less time on Twitter is absolutely the healthier choice.

Unfortunately, this was accomplished my developing a replacement addiction to World of Warcraft and I just spent basically the whole week playing that. This is absolutely not the healthier choice.

But it is a big part of why there's likely not going to be a new Goosebumps review this week and while I'll instead do two next week. It is, after all, already Sunday.

But the other reason for the delay in a Goosebumps review is because I reread 'The Curse of The Mummy's Tomb' this week. I didn't do this because it was an excellent, gripping, must-read entry in the series, but because there's a lot to talk about when it comes to this book.

'The Curse of The Mummy's Tomb' as a text doesn't have much to say for itself, but metatextually, we can use it as a chance to explore cultural appropriation, Orientalism, Colonialism, and global racial politics, for example. All of these things are fascinating and worthy subjects to explore and all of them are things I do not feel in the slightest bit qualified to dedicate a blog to.

But I am comfortable in taking the time to a Marxist hot take for this one, whether or not I'm qualified. And if it's going to be the subject of a whole blog, well, might as well go all in.

Photo manipulation is also something I am not qualified for
But would it surprise you to learn I already had a saved image of Marx ready for this?

What I don't want to do with this particular blog is preach. There are one-million-fucking-books in this series and I am sure I will have plenty of opportunity, as the weird-o I am, to use Goosebumps to explain why Marxism is correct and why you should also be a Marxist and seed the beginnings of revolution, one spoopy children's book at a time.

But for now, in this particular blog entry, is take a minute to clarify some basic Marxist principles. I am going to assume, for just a second, that you haven't read any Marxist literature, that you're not any kind of radical Leftist like me, and that the whole idea that we could get anything Marxist out of a spoopy children's book is a kind of silly idea.

And let me begin by saying: It is a silly idea. But I spent a lot of time studying literature and learning how to pull meaningful analysis completely out of my arse, and selling it in an essay. I need to do SOMETHING with that skillset, damnit, and here we are!

Anyway. Let's get Marxist!

Two Classes of People

The relationship between Uncle Ben and those around him, and between all those characters and the work of excavating and exploring a pyramid exemplifies an idea at the heart of the Marxist critique of capitalist society.

Uncle Ben is, in this scenario, what we call the Bu... Bor... The Berg... Boj.. Bougeoisioisieosiois... Damn it.

Uncle Ben is what we call the Bourgeoisie. A word which is a pain in the arse to spell for literally everybody. The Bourgeoisie are classically defined by Marxists as the people who "own the means of production". They are the boss. They are the owner of a factory or a store or some other business, or a significant shareholder in a company. The Bourgeoisie are one economic class in Marxism.

Marxists use the word Bourgeoisie as more-or-less interchangeable with Capitalist. And it is important to understand that for Marxists, a Capitalist is not just somebody who agrees ideologically with Capitalism. Anybody can, for example, adopt Marxism as an ideology and be a Marxist, but not anybody can be a Capitalist. Being a Capitalist - which, again, we're using as synonymous with Bourgeoisie - is a matter of economic class*. Capitalists can hold any number of ideologies. You can even be a Marxist and a Capitalist. The definition comes from the material fact that you own the means of production.

So keep that in mind for later when I get tired of writing Bourgeoisie and decide to just use the word "Capitalist".

Everybody else in 'The Curse of The Mummy's Tomb" falls into the second class in Marxism, what we call the "Proletariat". This group is basically everybody else** in the world. The Proletariat do not own the means of production, and instead work for those who do. Basically, if you work for somebody else and earn a salary or a wage, you are part of the Proletariat.

Proletariat is often used interchangeably with "worker" by Marxists but I, personally, dislike that. It muddies the water and makes the conversation hard because the truth is there are Capitalists who work. It is really important for everybody that we understand that the Bourgeoisie aren't all corporate billionaires who passively collect money from their tropical holiday house. The Bourgeoisie can and do work jobs and if they stopped, their businesses would fail and they would stop having money. And that is a lot like the Proletariat who, because they are wage earners, must work to earn money. But just because that is true, it does not make those working Bourgeoisie part of the Proletariat. We'll come to why in a little while.

Again, Proletariat is an economic class and not a matter of ideology. There is no shortage of Proletariat who believe completely and enthusiastically in Capitalism as an ideology and as a way of organising society, but they don't become Capitalists (in the Marxist definition), they are still Proletariat.

In 'The Curse of The Mummy's Tomb' Uncle Ben has workers who work for him in excavating and exploring the pyramid, and so they are obviously the Proletariat. But for our purposes, we're also going to include Sari and Gabe as the part of Proletariat.

All right. So now we have the skeleton of the framework through which Marxists view society. Two classes. One who owns the means of production, and one who works the means of production. Why does this matter? Why do Marxists object?

Class Struggle

The Bourgeoisie and the Proletariat are in opposition to each. We call this opposition Class Struggle or Class War. This struggle arises because the relationship is innately exploitative.

The Bourgeoisie, as owners of the means of production, make some or all of their money by exploiting the work of the Proletariat for their own profit. They do this by paying the Proletariat a sum of money, for their work, that is less than the total actual value of their work.

Is this sounding jargony, again? It is, isn't it. Let's have a really simple example. Don't think too much about this example. It is supposed to be illustrative, not to reflect a nuanced vision of reality.

Let's say you work in an office and your job is to sit at a computer and create documents that say "I am doing my job." You open it up a document, type that phrase, save it, repeat. Eight hours a day, five days a week. At the end of the day, somebody buys these documents for $10 a piece. Why do they do that? I don't know. Didn't I say not to think too long and hard about this? Ugh. Fine. They do it because they like to print these documents out and then throw them on a fire. That's just their kink, I guess.

Happy?

So you make these documents, and each one is worth $10. You work for eight hours, and you create, I don't know, ten of these documents an hour. And then at the end of the day you take home $640. What a fuckin' great rate of pay for an easy job. This is six figures a year. Damn, son! What a job.

But hold on. You might have noticed that if you create ten documents worth $10 each every hour for eight hours, then you've created $800 worth of value. What happened to the other $160?

Well, those are the company's profits. For every document you type, $2 of the value you created are taken and put into the company's bank account. And your boss, the owner of this company, pays himself $1 from every document. So at the end of the day, $80 of value you created goes to the boss.

Of course, you still get the lion's share. So what if the boss is taking that pittance?

But you don't work for him alone. Your boss has 100 employees all making these documents to sell. So at the end of the day, he has taken $80 from every one of them and he pays himself $8000 a day.

When we Marxists talk about the relationship between the Bourgeoisie and the Proletariat as being exploitative, this is at the core of that idea. Even if your boss is working beside you, even if they're typing ten of their own documents an hour, they still take home a piece of every one of their employees' value which they didn't earn.

And we can't forget about that other $8000 a day that is going back into the business' account. While you might say that money isn't being paid to the boss, that it is there to reinvest back into the company, maybe to hire more staff, maybe to pay for Friday pizza lunches, keep in mind that it is the boss that decides what to do with that money. A corporation is not a democracy and a corporation has no agency of its own. The corporate owners decide what to do with it. Which bank account that money is in is really just a technicality. It is the boss' money. He has complete ownership over $1600 of value, per day, that you the worker created.

The money that the Bourgeoisie takes is money that the Proletariat earned but were not paid. Even those Bourgeoisie who work, whether that's productive work like making documents-to-burn, or doing work like negotiating contracts with document-burning-kinksters to buy more documents, the fact that they are taking money earned by the work of others means that they are not part of the Proletariat.

They have not earned the total value of the money they are taking in, and they are getting that extra by skimming it off the top of those who work for them.

And allow me to take the time that this still isn't Marxist propaganda. Ask a Capitalist to explain how they make their money and if they're honest, they'll give you the same break down of how they collect money off the labour performed by their employees. They'll use different language and they may come to different ideological conclusions, but we'd both be describing the same basic principle. They probably wouldn't like the word "exploitation".

But in the end, we'd be describing the same relationship between two economic classes of people.

Hey, wasn't this about Goosebumps?

Yes. Yes it was. And now you've had your crash course on what all the words mean, let's look at 'The Curse of The Mummy's Tomb' as an example of how class struggle might play out.

When we first meet Uncle Ben, we're told about his work in the Pyramid of Khufu and the discoveries he is making. I can't give page references because I'm reading e-books, but here is how it happens in the text (this book is written first person POV from Gabe, by the way):

'"Daddy’s discovered a whole new burial chamber,” Sari broke in before her dad had a chance to tell me himself. “He’s exploring parts of the pyramid that have been undiscovered for thousands of years.'

'... we archaeologists thought we’d uncovered all of the tunnels and rooms inside this pyramid. But a few days ago, my workers and I discovered a tunnel that isn’t on any of the charts. An unexplored, undiscovered tunnel. And we think this tunnel may lead us to the actual burial chamber of Khufu himself!” “Outstanding!” I exclaimed. “And Sari and I will be there when you discover it?”'

In this example, rather than talking about money explicitly, we're going to examine the more nebulous idea of who gets the credit for a discovery. Sari immediately credits her father for the discovery, but Uncle Ben is a little more sharing by saying it is a discovery made by himself and his workers.

The next day, Gabe, Sari, and Uncle Ben visit the dig inside the pyramid. When they arrive, a number of workers are already there working (RL Stine is vague on what the work actually is. I'm not sure he understands how pyramid exploration works but, to be fair, neither do I) and we see the dynamic between Uncle Ben (the Bourgeoisie) and his workers (the Proletariat).

'Uncle Ben turned to his workers. “So? Any progress today?” he asked. “We think we’re getting real close,” a young red-haired man wearing faded jeans and a blue denim work shirt replied. And then he added, “Just a hunch.”'

...

'After a while, three other workers entered the chamber, carrying shovels and picks. One of them was carrying some kind of electronic equipment in a flat metal case. It looked a little like a laptop computer.'

And to Uncle Ben's credit, he does get more personally involved:

'We both gave one last glance back to Uncle Ben, who was down on his hands and knees, picking away at the stone wall.'

Let's unpack this.

We can see in no uncertain terms that Uncle Ben is the boss here and there is a clear hierarchy between him and the works. He calls them "my workers", and when he arrives to the work site, they report to him. They are not all equals in a team.

Gabe and Sari both refer to the discoveries in the pyramid as something Uncle Ben is discovering, but we can see his involvement in the actual work is evidently pretty small. This is the only time we get any indication Uncle Ben is getting his hands dirty in the digging. If not for the kidnapping that happens, there's no indication Uncle Ben was even going to be at the pyramid the next day. He had a meeting at the museum scheduled for that day.

And you might say, "Okay, Carl, but just because two children are giving Uncle Ben all the credit, doesn't mean he is claiming it for himself. If we go along with you and treat "credit for discovery" as a stand in for the money that the Bou-- that the Capitalist usually takes from their Workers, there is no indication from Ben that he's going to personally take more than his share."

And you might be right. It is not until much later that Uncle Ben gives the game away.

At the end of the novel, after Gabe has used his mummy-hand-good-luck-charm to summon an army of the dead to crush his enemies, Uncle Ben is looking at the magical artefact, this happens:

'He took it from me and examined it closely. “Better not play with it,” he said seriously. “We must treat it carefully. He shook his head. “Some great scientist I am!” he exclaimed scornfully. “When I saw it, I thought it was just a toy, some kind of reproduction. But this hand may be my biggest discovery of all!”'

I'm sorry. What was that, Uncle Ben? Gabe's mummy hand might be whose biggest discovery?

And lest you think maybe I'm leaving out some part of the text where Uncle Ben gave the hand to Gabe as a present, or that its powers were unknown before Uncle Ben came along, here is how the hand is introduced to the story, way back at the start, while Gabe is alone in the hotel room.

'It was small, the size of a child’s hand. A little hand wrapped in papery brown gauze. I had bought it at a garage sale a few years ago, and I always carried it around as a good-luck charm. The kid who sold it to me called it The Summoner. He said it was used to summon evil spirits or something. I didn’t care about that. I just thought it was an outstanding bargain for two dollars. I mean, what a great thing to find at a garage sale! And maybe it was even real.'

Uncle Ben's contribution to this "discovery" is literally nothing. He just happened to be there and in a position of authority to claim it. And do you really think that if he's going to try to claim he discovered something Gabe has been carrying around all this time, he's not going to claim credit for what his workers inevitably dig up while he's not here because he's too busy letting his daughter and nephew get kidnapped by cultists?

And if you do believe that, I have a bridge to sell you.

Wrap Up (again)

The fact we're talking about credit for discovery and not money is - and I'll be the first to admit - a reason to call this an imperfect analogy. But the way Uncle Ben takes what those beneath him have worked for is still a close match to the exploitative dynamic between the Bourgeoisie and the Proletariat. 

And if you feel a slight tinge of moral outrage that Uncle Ben could look his nephew in the eye and say "This amazing thing you have, I'm going to say it is mine and act like I discovered how amazing it is" because it is unfair, because that is a poor way for an adult to treat child they have complete authority over, then I'd tell you that response is reasonable.

And I'd then point out that the workplace, that the relationship between an employer and employee, between Bourgeoisie and Proletariat, is also a relationship with similarly one-sided power dynamic. That taking value that one person earned and giving it to yourself does look a lot like taking a child's good-luck charm away from them to benefit yourself.

And maybe, if you don't feel the same sense of outrage, even a little, maybe it's worth examining why that is.

And here I should stress, again, that this blog isn't for preaching. This is for education. I'm not going to tell you what conclusion I think you should come to from that examination of your own outrage of lack-of-outrage.

I'm also not going to tell you that Uncle Ben, or any capitalist, is a bad person because they are a capitalist. Marxist critique isn't actually about individuals. It's about the system. Marxists don't want to replace the mean-bad-exploitative-nasty bosses with nice-generous-buy-you-pizza-on-Friday bosses. We want to completely remove the role of Capitalist from society and once we've done that, ex-Capitalists are welcome to keep living their lives free of class struggle with us.

Uncle Ben just happens to be a Capitalist AND a bad person. But him being total shit is a coincidence.

*Marxists typically avoid the terms "lower", "upper", and "middle class" and may even hate those terms. I certainly do. These terms, in how they are commonly used, really describe an aesthetic of wealth and status and are not at all helpful. Marxists may use the term "working class" but that is synonymous with "proletariat" and not "lower class" as is commonly the case. Wealth exists on a spectrum and just like not all Capitalists are billionaires, some of the Proletariat are leading very comfortable lives with large salaries.

**Largely removed from modern Marxist discourse in the Anglosphere is the feudal class, or the monarchy. We have a lot less of them and they are of less importance in our context, compared to when Marx was writing. But the monarchy is another class that exists within the Marxist framework as separate from Bourgeoisie and Proletariat. This isn't hugely important for this discussion, it's just a thing you should know.