Many don’t even do it intentionally, they just don’t grasp concepts like Historical and Dialectical Materialism, which requires reading lengthy books to fully grasp. They may be anti-Capitalist at heart, but without a solid understanding of theory they play into bourgeois hands.
There’s also the fact that the ideas held by society are a reflection of the Mode of Production.
Pretty sure they’d take everything you just wrote and say, “that sounds like critical race theory, which Jesus said was bad.”
Sure. The de-industrialization of America has been devastating for class awareness.
What de industrialization?
US is second largest industrial output and it has been rising.
Unless you mean jobs after NAFTA and code changes… Which is true but manufacturing employment is on the rise post covid reforms
The US shifted the vast majority of its production overseas, which is why it’s seen as a “service economy.”
US did offshore no doubt but it was not a vast majority. You can check the numbers, there was some decline in employment but US has high tech factories and industrial base is now growing quickly even with job growth since covid.
The reason it is largely a service economy is due to growth in service sector after industrialization. Once people got all their needs with goods met, they started buying service.
Think about all the food joints we have now for example. This is fairly recent thing. Sure food out always existed but not like this.
Also, people have god walkers, people buy insurance etc all this is kinda recent in big picture thing
I am aware of the process, the US produces the vast majority of its commodities oversees before “finishing” or “assembling” in the US. It’s Imperialism in action, where it hyper-exploits the Global South for super-profits.
Right but we started this here with claim that US de industrialized which I saying is not accurate and it is a common misconception thrown around.
It doesnt even require that much reading of such subjects. All it takes is to not be brainwashed by media and politicians.
Critical thought and self awareness is all it takes
I’m sorry, but I entirely disagree. Dialectical and Historical Materialism are incredibly far-removed from standard American discourse and takes quite a bit to understand, oversimplifying it is dangerous. If all it took to be a Marxist-Leninist was critical thought and self-awareness, the US would have had a proletarian revolution already.
Regarding capitalism, in reality, it is the best system we’ve seen so far.
Yes, theoretically other systems could be better for the general public. But in reality, they never have been.
Bootlicker
Understood.
Please cite, with examples from reality, better systems.
1940s American socialism. Which lead to the greatest income distribution for American families
Many people do not grasp the sheer size of the disparity between the truly wealthy and everyone else.
Lack of good examples of countries that are successful without being capitalist?
Pretty ubiquitously non-capitalist countries have a pretty poor track record.
I often hear the phrase, capitalism is terrible, but it’s the least bad of the terrible options.
As an aside, I’m arguing here for capitalism, not billionaires. Supporting capitalism isn’t an endorsement of a complete lack of controls and safeguards.
Lack of good examples of countries that are successful without being capitalist?
There are many. The USSR, PRC, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, etc. Have all drastically improved on previous conditions, achieving large increases in life expectancy, democratization, literacy rates, access to healthcare, housing, education, and more. Read Blackshirts and Reds.
Pretty ubiquitously non-capitalist countries have a pretty poor track record.
This is false. What are you specifically tracking? Freedom for the bourgeoisie?
I often hear the phrase, capitalism is terrible, but it’s the least bad of the terrible options.
The phrase is typically used to describe democracy, not Capitalism.
As an aside, I’m arguing here for capitalism, not billionaires. Supporting capitalism isn’t an endorsement of a complete lack of controls and safeguards.
It doesn’t matter what you support, the Superstructure, ie laws and safeguards, comes primarily from the Base, ie the Mode of Production.
Markets move themselves regardless of people’s will towards centralized syndicates, monopolies over production. These make themselves ripe for siezure and central planning, markets themselves prepare the proletariat for running a socialized economy as they coalesce over time. This is why Marx says the bourgeoisie produces “above all else, its own gravediggers.” There is no maintaining Capitalism, it eliminates itself over time.
USSR starved ethnic minorities to industrialize. How is this success? or is that the price you can accept?
I’m confused, do you think the USSR’s economy was powered by starvation of ethnic minorities, and through this magic starvation power industrialization could occur? What point are you trying to make?
I cant tell if this for real…
But so we are clear… USSR had undesirable minority farmers who didn’t like collectivization.
They need hard currency to buy tooling and equipment to industrialize.
They took all crops from these farmers, sold it on International markets and kicked industrialization into high gear…
Millions died. So yes USSR industrial at expense of millions of lives. I don’t think there is much dispute here.
Do you think Kulaks were an ethnicity, and not a bourgeois class? Collectivization of agriculture was poorly done, yes, but it wasn’t what powered industrialization. This is a misanalysis of the USSR.
Weren’t they ukrainian?
I don’t think kazakhs were ever called kulaks, not sure tho
Collectivization of agriculture was poorly done,
And here comes genocide apologia … Again
You’re conflating disparate factors. Ukraine was the breadbasket of the USSR, that doesn’t mean there was a targeted famine towards them.
Kulaks were a group of bourgeois farmers that opposed collectivization. Many of these Kulaks burned their own crops and killed their livestock to avoid handing it over to the Red Army and the Communists.
The famine in Ukraine and parts of Russia was a separate but linked matter. The Kulak resistance to collectivization was multiplied by drought, flood, and pests, making an already low harvest spiral into crisis. The idea that it was an intentional famine and therefore a genocide actually originated in Volkischer Beobatcher, a Nazi news outlet, before spreading to the west. It isn’t “genocide apologia,” it was a horrible tragedy caused by a combination of human and environmental factors.
I think the “temporarily embarrassed millionaire” idea is overstated, most people I interact with have a somewhat negative outlook on the economy and their future wealth.
I think the real issue is that no viable alternative is presented to most people.
The alternatives presented are Russian-style authoritarian oligarchy, Islamofascism, or a Venezuela-style “socialism” in which the narrative only focuses on poverty.
I think the real issue is that no viable alternative is presented to most people.
As Marx said, “the ideas of ruling class are the ruling ideas”
The alternatives presented are Russian-style authoritarian oligarchy, Islamofascism, or a Venezuela-style “socialism” in which the narrative only focuses on poverty.
Funnily enough you are proof of your previous statement above. The ruling class is presenting any, both better or worse alternatives to you in such form that you immediately dismiss them.
What gave you the idea that I’m dismissing them? I think you’re confused.
Good quote tho
What gave you the idea that I’m dismissing them?
You, you said “Russian-style authoritarian oligarchy, Islamofascism, or a Venezuela-style “socialism” in which the narrative only focuses on poverty.”
This is blatantly false. And you don’t even know what the alternatives are or aren’t. Russia isn’t an systemic alternative, it’s the very same capitalist as in west, just 100 years late and too late to develop imperialism, it’s only a political alternative which forced them, after over 2 decades of trying to join the capitalist core, to finally oppose it. Islamofascism is such a fucking blatant Bush-era propaganda that i won’t even comment on that nonsense. Venezuela don’t even have socialism, again it’s not an alternative, it’s a capitalist economy which was forced into politically opposing capitalist core because of over century of brutal exploitation by that core.
All three examples your presented are the same narration (even more extreme in case of islam) than the billionaire owned western media oligopoly and their political arms like US DoS spreads. You don’t try to know more (some of examples are in this very thread, and the actual alternatives like China too), you dismiss them in the exact manner the capitalist core ruling class wants you.
My friend, you are still confused.
I was giving the framing that comes from the billionaire owned western media oligopoly position.
that isnt my position
