The Constrictions of Capitalism;

A Review of Bertell Ollman’s BallBuster?

by Tony Monchinski

In his Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, the former slave recalls the dehumanizing effects the “peculiar institution” of slavery had not only on enslaved human beings but also upon their masters. When Douglass is sold to a new master in Maryland, he finds the mistress of the house to be “a woman of the kindest heart and finest feelings.” But slavery soon “proved as injurious to her as it did to me.” When he met Mrs. Hughes, she was “a pious, warm, and tender-hearted woman.” With time and “the fatal poison of irresponsible power” imparted by slavery, Mrs. Hughes’ “tender heart became stone, and the lamblike disposition gave way to one of tiger-like fierceness.” Slavery, as a set of economic and social conditions, warped the lives and psyches of slave and master alike. Bertell Ollman, in BallBuster? True Confessions of a Marxist Businessman, shows that capitalism has a similar effect on both workers and their bosses.

Long before Amilcar Cabral explored the notion of “class suicide,” Marx and Engels wrote about “the decisive hour” when “a small section of the ruling class cuts itself adrift, and joins the revolutionary class, the class that holds the future in its hands.” What, on the other hand, are we to call the seemingly timeless phenomenon of the proletariat inculcating bourgeois values and aspiring to join this exploiting class? In the United States we call it the American Dream. Bertell Ollman, with the best intentions, bright eyed and bushy bearded, pursued the American Dream only to find that dream is more likely a euphemism for nightmare. Fortunately he survived the ordeal and was able to restore his “bourgeoisified soul,” with his story recounted in this wonderfully edifying book.

In 1978, Ollman started a business that produced and marketed the world’s first (only?) explicitly socialist game, Class Struggle. By 1983 when he first wrote Ballbuster? (under its then title, Class Struggle is the Name of the Game; this essay reviews Soft Skull Press’ 2002 re-release of the book), Ollman and his backers at Class Struggle, Inc. having sold 230,000 board games, parted ways with their creation but still shouldered $15,000 in debt. How was this possible? From Marxist professor at New York University to petite bourgeoisie and back again, Ollman discovered first hand that small business, “rather than a step up to big business … usually functions as a revolving door back into the working class from which most failed entrepreneurs have started out.” With nine out of ten small businesses in America failing within three years, with 95% of the 300-400 new board games introduced failing each year, Bertell Ollman’s story isn’t remarkable.

Yet it is. Ollman knew what he was getting into from the beginning. Just as Faust — Ollman’s own comparison — thought he could benefit from his pact with Mephistopheles and weasel his way out of his end of the deal, Ollman firmly believed “there was no chance that I would really lose myself in my new capitalist role, for, as a Marxist, I knew all about the effect of function on character. No, I might have to go along with what the part required, but I could extract myself from it at any moment.” Easier said than done. Over time, stressed out from his wheeling and dealing with manufacturers and distributors, facing constant personal bankruptcy if that next bank loan didn’t come through or if his distributors — including many radical bookstores — didn’t ante up and pay for the books they’d purchased, Ollman started to change. There were the common side effects of stress: teeth grinding, worrying and depression, stomach cramps, weight gain. But Ollman, as a Marxist, was in a unique position to illuminate the cost capitalism takes on the human psyche.

Two examples stand out. Ollman finds that no holds are barred in business. When one of their game manufacturers threatens to sue for money owed, Class Struggle Inc. finds an escape when it turns out that the latest batch of manufactured games did not meet the specifications of the stated contract. In this way Ollman is able to turn the tables on the manufacturer, Finn. What had started out as an amiable business arrangement soon gave way to the naked cash-nexus lurking beneath all transactions in the commodified sphere of capitalist relations:

On leaving his office, something in me rebelled against the strictures of my new role. Finn wasn’t a bad sort. We had shared some hopes and laughs together about his business as well as mine…. Wasn’t I just being a good businessman? … Finn, too, was just trying to be a good businessman. I mustn’t let any human feelings interfere with what business required. Unless those human feelings clear the way for more and better business…

When a handful of employees at a Brentano’s bookstore on Long Island go on strike, Class Struggle faces a serious conundrum. The strikers appeal to Ollman, et. al., asking them to show solidarity by refusing to market the game at Brentano stores nationwide. As much as the makers of Class Struggle might have liked to side with the Brentano workers, they felt they were in a position where they could not. “… [W]e went into business because of our politics,” Ed Nell, one of Ollman’s partners, explains to the Brentano workers. “Business is just a means to our end, but it’s a means that sets limits to what we can and cannot do. We can’t, for example, do anything that would make us go broke.” Again, the strictures of the roles capitalism thrusts upon those we who live within it become evident. Siding with the strikers would, in no uncertain terms, have spelt doom for Class Struggle. In Ollman’s defense, he did feel a great deal of “class guilt that was altogether new.” Furthermore, the Brentano strikers did not ask all radical distributors to join them in halting distribution of their products, but only Class Struggle. In the end, Class Struggle, Inc. decided that the long term goal of getting their game and socialist ideas out to a wider public was more important than going bankrupt lending succor to a dozen or so ill-organized workers.

Bertell Ollman represents all that is good in the Marxist tradition. Eschewing ossified dogma, Ollman embraces a Marxist humanism dedicated to a democratic communism aiming at a better life for all people. Throughout the book Ollman finds himself “developing … considerable sympathy for capitalists as human beings.” Capitalism, which is based on the private means of production, is necessarily immoral: some will own and exploit in order to survive, others will have no choice but to work and be exploited. Ollman, in his dealings with Finn, the Brentano strikers and his own workers, finds himself torn between his socialist ideals and the reality of capitalism. He “blushed at having … capitalist thoughts, but they came with the situation…. As a businessman, I didn’t so much originate these thoughts, as receive them and pass them along.” Inevitably, Ollman found himself “being drawn in and becoming part of the mechanism that I was trying to expose and explode.” Like slavery’s effect on Frederick Douglass’ mistress, capitalism worms its way into the core of humanity, warping the individual and rewarding anti-humanist impulses. As much as Mrs. Hughes was a victim of the slavery system, Ollman comes to realize that “capitalists, too, are victims of the system that carries their name.”

BallBuster? also chronicles the academic freedom battle (replete with lawsuits) Ollman was embroiled in with the University of Maryland. Ollman was nominated to head the Political Science Department at U of M, resulting in a firestorm of criticism, personal attacks, and behind-the-scenes political wheedling to keep him from the appointment. Identifying as a Marxist had put Ollman “beyond the pale,” but as he so clearly recognized, “the question was a simple one of freedom to teach as one wishes, and to rise in the Academy to the level justified by one’s abilities.” Class-consciousness is sorely lacking in an America where 80% of people identify as middle class. One goal of socialists is to get workers to put aside their differences (e.g., race, gender, sexual orientation) and look up the ladder at who is oppressing us all instead of down at who has it worse than us that we can oppress. Capitalists, as a minority in all societies, are incredibly insecure in their tenure and the moral bankruptcy of their own ideas. As Ollman notes, “… if they think that one or even a few Marxists could wreak such havoc on the minds of the young, what are they saying about the truth and power of their own ideas?”

BallBuster? is an entertaining, fast and illuminating read. Ollman has a wonderful sense of humor that is apparent on nearly every page. The Class Struggle game itself, which, although no longer produced by Ollman can still be found here and there on Ebay or at radical bookstores, is lots of fun and a great way to introduce students and workers to Marxism, socialism, and the better tomorrow that guides us.

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