As someone who did a degree in a STEM subject, this chapter particularly hits me in the feelings. More than anything, it's the sense that science is the project of the whole people, that everyone deserves and is encouraged to have an interest in it, that society owes everyone the chance to participate and that the opportunity for participation is repaid in the form of valuable knowledge - and the breaking of human records, just for the sake of it - contributed back to society and which then becomes the property of all.

This could not be more different from my experience at a university under capitalism. I had (mostly) good professors, and I (mostly) enjoyed my classes, but over my whole time studying, there was the stifling atmosphere that all of this was not to improve me as a person, or give me the ability to contribute to real social good, but rather just so I could earn a certificate to get a higher paying job afterwards. The only point was to make me more attractive to employers, so that when I went to the market I could seek out a more premium boss to work for. And as such, the people of my cohort who I was working and studying alongside, and making friends with, would not be my comrades in pushing the limits of human knowledge, they would be my direct rivals in the competition for a job.

Furthermore, the majority of the research projects I saw or heard about going on in the department were not pure research, or aimed at solving some practical problem facing humanity in general, but instead were partnerships with specific companies to improve some specific aspect of their product to make it more profitable. Even useful innovations to certain globally-important technologies were locked behind the fact this work was being done for the sake of one specific company, who could then hoard those advances behind intellectual property laws. In hindsight that's completely obvious, because increasing profits is the primary function of science under capitalism, but at the time, for the younger liberal me, it was extremely disillusioning. I went in truly wanting to spend my life and talents doing something that would help society in a meaningful way, and after working and studying and sweating through exams year after year, the reward was a license to become a better class of mercenary.

For that reason as well, it always felt like there was this pervasive air of, ultimately, indifference to whether I succeeded or not. Because I was paying the price of admission myself - already a fact making it clear that society as a whole didn't care about me doing this - and because the rewards would only belong to me, even though individual lecturers might be passionate about their students succeeding, the institution itself understood that it was just a business and if the customer wanted to waste their product, then so be it. Compare that with the socialist scientific system's exuberant embrace of everyone with the desire to improve their learning and advance the limits of science, as shown in this chapter - it's so clear what an absolute waste capitalism makes of the enthusiasm and desire to do good of those trapped within it. That's not to say it seems like the Soviet system was unconcerned with the skill of the scientists it was producing, but rather that no matter who it was that wanted to participate, they would be welcomed in and encouraged to become the best they could be - because it was in all of society's rational material self-interest to do so!

Reaching the hallowed halls of the academy and finding them a complete wasteland, seeing it in person and feeling that sensation viscerally, was probably the most important cornerstone of my eventual radicalization, even though it would be a long time before I had the theory and vocabulary to properly analyze my experience there. So with this chapter even more than the others, I can feel how radically different my own personal history would have been in a socialist society, in a way that's hard not to mourn for. And to hope that some day we can bring about such a society once again.

Again, I'm struck by how art is the interest and treasure of the whole of society. Under capitalism, people who want to become artists are mocked and belittled, until they become successful, at which point they are celebrated and envied. Capitalist culture is obsessed with the most successful (highest earning) singers, actors and artists, who become important public figures, even as there is a permanent undercurrent of revulsion for artists as people who don't really do 'real work'. And by the very nature of how storing wealth works under capitalism, even if you succeed, the greatest possible reward for creating art is... to become a capitalist. So while some artists may fight against the worst commercialization of their work, or try to use their platform for social good (usually limited to radical-liberalism at best), or choose to live more modestly or give to charity in some way or another - the intrinsic nature of capitalism punishes and suppresses any behaviour outside the path of least resistance.

And for those who never get to be professional artists, unlike the description of Soviet society, where amateurs are encouraged to create things for a purpose, to be displayed somewhere or to liven a specific place up, so that every artwork is in some way contributing to society - or at the very least is produced under conditions of social engagement - under capitalism you either create artworks to try and sell them, or you create art just as a hobby to keep for yourself. (Or if you're really lucky and somehow have a surplus of free time and energy, and live in the right place, you may be able to create art to share with a community - which is ultimately just an echo of the conditions of socialist art.)

I have a hobby making small art pieces, which I do enjoy, but it's like... I create something, I finish it, I get to enjoy it for a while, and then it just becomes this dead thing that takes up room and collects dust, which I either have to store away indefinitely, or find some way to get rid of. Sometimes I find I can't be bothered to start something new, because after all the effort I put in, after many hours of care and work, it's just going to end up in a box at the back of a cupboard. The art that should connect me with humanity becomes just another vector of solipsism and alienation - or, if I was really lucky and skilled, in the best case scenario, it would be another way to become a mercenary. Whereas art created under socialism is, or can be, a living thing to be enjoyed by everyone, and as this chapter shows, was clearly valued as such by Soviet society. Like, I had never considered the idea of acting in an amateur play before now, and in this life I don't think I'm any more likely to do so now, but I did feel a sudden pang of loss for a way of relating to society I didn't even know was closed off.