Sometimes when a socialist is lil’ booj/labor aristocracker, I see this canard used to console them that just because they’re a part of an exploiting class doesn’t mean that they can’t be a traitor to that class and aid the revolution. A similar sentiment is expressed when someone brings up that Engels, Lenin, and Mao all came from priveleged backgrounds, or when someone brings up the clapback that Zhou Enlai made against Kruschev. However, I really can’t shake the feeling that that’s just copium, especially in the context of the imperial core.
When not invested into making more money, the income of this strata goes into consuming treats. So, so many treats. Services like Netflix, YouTube, Twitch, and Steam are high powered treat beams aimed directly at their brains. On top of this, the places people own their own homes (or rent, but they make enough income that they don’t need to worry about not making rent) are invariably in white flight crackerburbs and gentrified parts of cities; I like to call such places the crackersphere.
Considering being an actual communist requires being among the masses, this presents a pretty big issue for would-be communists within the crackershpere. How is one supposed to relate and build comradery with proletarians when they share none of their struggles? Not many are willing to give away their things and become proletarians themselves. Hell, the most famous living socialist in the Great Satan is currently a millionaire parasocial treatboy.
If this post seems kind of half cooked and rambly, that’s because it is. This is a thought that’s been haunting my mind for awhile now.
Edit: I’ve read all of the responses to this post so far and you’re all right. I definitely have a lot of Christian idealism I’ve yet to purge from my mind, and it’s an individualist lens that ignores how to figure out how to collectively change material conditions in favor of individual moral pissing contests that are as connected to reality as debating the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin. This logic, if taken to its extreme, results in the kind of left deviationism perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge.
While this is a point often used as a purity test, I think I posted this as more of a call for help. The atomization and alienation of this society is literally driving me insane.
If you take this logic all the way you end up with purity tests that result in only the those living below the poverty line being “real socialists” and even those people seek after treats to soothe the alienation they feel, so not even them.
What you’re seeing is an emerging class consciousness in a context where those who are awakening to class war are finding themselves without any obvious movement to channel their energy. It’s the beginning of the process. That is why there is reaction happening now, because even this very weak and diffuse class consciousness is a precursor to a much bigger threat to the ruling class. They have to act now to disrupt it because from here it does slowly become a movement and then an organized movement.
If this was just performative copium the reaction wouldn’t be nearly this severe.
If you take this logic all the way you end up with purity tests that result in only the those living below the poverty line being “real socialists” and even those people seek after treats to soothe the alienation they feel, so not even them.
Exactly. Under this logic even a homeless sick person who uses the few dollars he gained from begging to buy a bottle of alcohol, a bar of chocolate or a small plastic bag of candy, would be a “treatlerite”, they bought treats made only easily available by the brutal extraction of the third world and unfit to led any socialist movement, nor be “untainted” enough to be “truly” oppressed and “deserve” liberation.
You can’t claim to understand that demographics aren’t strictly deterministic, then get mad at a hypothetical person for their personal consumption related sins based only on demographic assumptions .
Considering being an actual communist requires being among the masses, this presents a pretty big issue for would-be communists within the crackershpere. How is one supposed to relate and build comradery with proletarians when they share none of their struggles?
Building communism is a collective activity measured by its impact at successfully changing the material conditions of a society. The question of whether an individual is “being an actual communist” independent of whether that individual is part of a group that’s collectively building communism is just idealistic moralizing. It’s just asking “can a person actually be good if they sometimes do bad things?” with political trappings.
Whether the material conditions of a society are progressing toward communism is a question that can be answered objectively. Whether the strategy or tactics of a party have resulted in material progress toward that end can be answered objectively. Whether an individual person is a good party member can be answered somewhat objectively based on the collective consensus of the rest of the party. Whether a person is individually a “good communist” in an abstract sense is a subjective question. A person can only really answer it for themselves and they definitely can’t do it for strangers.
The question of whether The Human Giving Tree is a personally a better communist than Adolf Treatler is a meaningless question if neither of them are involved in collective action that’s measurably changing the material conditions of their society toward communism.
A lot of the people that you are observing (those who just get their bills paid and then fall into their entertainment addiction mills) probably have tried to become involved in social movements and either burnt out in so doing or failed to even find one to begin with. In the West sometimes it feels like all you can do is earn a paycheck and donate some of it to good causes. They are also inundated by their own familial and personal struggles - time is scarce in the West; many people in order to not be unemployed accept employment conditions which could be split into 2-3 full jobs just so that they can actually make enough $ to escape financial insecurity. All of this is by design. A society comprising over-employed and un(der)employed populations is a society that cannot find common ground to organize on.
Not trying to justify it, but that is my perspective on the matter. I have been both unemployed for periods of time and I have also been deeply over-worked. The few jobs that aren’t chronically under-staffed are reserved for the ultra-skilled, coupled with a hefty salary, in order to align their sensibilities with liberalism.
Ownership class traitors do exist and even if they are rare they can be super helpful to the cause. Looking at Engels here. Treatlerism is when people ignore the suffering of others in pursuit of treats. It is not just when people enjoy life.
Ideological purity is not helpful. Communism won’t get any closer if enough of us think the right things. Communism requires action and money is a way of pushing actions. We shouldn’t care or even think about peoples intentions or motives if they are doing things that help communism come sooner.
Instead of berating people for their wealth and questioning their dedication encourage them to show their commitment to communism with actions. Show them a cause that needs funding. Even if they are just faking their leftist cred to assuage their conscience you can still milk them for cash to help the cause.
Ideological purity is not helpful.
If marxism is a science then may be the ideology needs updating. I think we all have our purity filters or litmus tests of what is acceptable. The question here is does our filter allow for revolutionary pragmatism, as you have rightly pointed out.
And for me it hinges on measurable objective development; the development of China with 800 million lifted out of poverty with ongoing rapid progress - and using the bird-in-cage model to be able to do this for their material conditions, and in sharp contrast to India - is a shining example of this.
What are the strategic consequences of decisively rejecting the tripartite social theory advanced by Orwell, and adopting Marx’s all-encompassing one instead? The basic call to action looks something like this:
Stop accusing the masses of being “brainwashed.” Stop treating them as cattle, stop attempting to rouse them into action by scolding them with exposure to “unpleasant truths.”
Accept instead that they have been avoiding those truths for a reason. You were able to break through the propaganda barrier, and so could they if they really wanted to. Many of these people see you as the fool, and in many cases not without reason.
Understanding people as intelligent beings, craft a political strategy that convincingly makes the case for why they and their lot are very likely to benefit from joining your political project. Not in some utopian infinite timescale, but soon.
If you cannot make this case, then forget about convincing the person in question. Focus instead on finding other people to whom such a case can be made. This will lead you directly to class analysis.
There is not “moral” purity or higher rate of virtue in poverty and struggle. It’s a negative phenomenon, that exists to be solved and can be regarded as entirely negative if given any sort of value (to us as communists). This is just unexamined Christian idealism common in the western left.
The goal of revolutionaries and communists is to emancipate the working class and oppressed of society. “Moral” Virtue and “Goodness” only exists as a subjective byproduct of our actions and goals, and are not our motivation.
Hell Lenin had to deal with idealist cosplaying as poor people (actually giving up their wealth and living amongst the serfs in the countryside to become “purer” communists). It was not very successful.
Any american mass movement will include these people, whose status is rapidly dwindling. But they should not be the strongest pillar and not be the one “tailed” after.
Considering being an actual communist requires being among the masses, this presents a pretty big issue for would-be communists within the crackershpere. How is one supposed to relate and build comradery with proletarians when they share none of their struggles? Not many are willing to give away their things and become proletarians themselves.
to what end? suffering for the sake of suffering? for some vague notion of “the masses” and “camaraderie under shared struggle”? i have many issues with westerners and western leftists, one of them being the rampant treatlerism. i am afraid not enough of us will make the necessary sacrifices when the time comes. not enough of us are making the necessary sacrifices now. but suffering is not in and of itself holy. if it one day becomes necessary for us to lower our living standards to those of the worst-off person, then that’s what we have to do. it just seems like a flimsy rationale to suffer for the sake of being able to relate to other people who suffer
capitalism is a poverty cult
I’ve been thinking of writing a critique of the Settlers thesis, but I’ll try to reply with some thoughts here.
Communism is “from each according to his abilities to each according to his needs.” Entertainment and food are needs. An immense amount of competing commodities produced with only ‘taking advantage of needs to get money’ in mind is not necessary. Capitalism perpetually creates more and more use values but each can make less profit. We get cheaper and cheaper goods yet have to work more and more. Living in the US sucks for a lot of people. That’s why we have Trump. “Everything is fine” doesn’t make sense to millions of Amerikans living paycheck to paycheck. The problem is how they explain this suffering. If they understand the problem inherent with working for a wage to produce commodities then they can seize power and build a more rational society. If they find immigrants a good enough explanation then they’re nothing but bootlickers.
A lot of leftists are intellectuals. Their class interests are opposed to the bourgeoisie and proletariat. If they understand what’s actually wrong with capitalism instead of succumbing to the moralism of their own elitist outlook then they can learn to communicate the necessary understanding for realizing working class interests rather than preaching about their “duty” to own up to all the evil in the world.
The “cope” is thinking our problem is that people are just “too well off.” There are many worse off countries that are less revolutionary. We need to criticize the errors in our movement so that we can be ready when the next crisis hits (and it will). “The masses” need to know that they don’t have to endlessly consent to different bosses.
Not quite considering conditions, even someone that’s unemployed, homeless, in the most precarious of jobs etc wouldn’t be able to escape some of the labor aristocracy bourgeoisification of the proles and lumpenprole logic in the core.
Biggest issue I think is not only failure to relate to the prole at large but fail to capture their imagination and inspire/create hope in something beyond fascism and the abuses of brutal capitalism that doesn’t wait until the afterlife. There is no movement that reaches out to them, or frankly anyone atm in the imperial core that provides this; at best its a sort of education by outrage and shock, which don’t get me wrong is useful and required, but there needs to be this other optimistic area as well. A full pessimism run mopes too hard to move a mountain, though inspiration and hope maybe can.
My experience in the west is movements are focused on endless purity tests only accessible by the petite bourgeoisie if not outright bourgeoisie, not just in entry education level to join, dues and such, you have to earn a way afterall, but in structure and time. Content almost feels somewhere between old school churchy in Latin and college lecture if you’re not super familiar with theory. On the other hand education by meme has its dangers as well, but I’m sure there’s a balance. Then you’re fucking fried if you’re doing prole tier work, its hard to attend a meeting considering 12hr night shifts no holidays and such.
Then let’s assume you live among the prole, join the most precarious of work as one of the lil boojies, everyone is going to lose massive respect because you took a paycut, you purposely lost money, even your fellow max exploited workers will not totally be with you. Anyway, I think this part will naturally happen and adjust as conditions worsen in the core.
Then let’s assume you live among the prole, join the most precarious of work as one of the lil boojies, everyone is going to lose massive respect because you took a paycut, you purposely lost money, even your fellow max exploited workers will not totally be with you.
While I knew my post would reek of idealism and individualism, this was an angle I completely forgot to anticipate. If someone did deliberately take a worse job or refuse a paycut without some kind of insurmountable external pressure forcing them to do so, I (and I reckon most people) would think they were insane.
I don’t see a purpose to this line of thinking outside of shaming consumerist lifestyles. Which, while absolutely worth denigrating, are imposed on and used to pacify. I think it fails to address the unique conditions in the west. Outside of the west, I think you have more of a leg to stand on.
When western countries hover between 50-70% in ‘white collar’ work, it’s debatable exactly what masses you’re talking about. I don’t think the struggles for socialism can be or should be experienced only by those in poverty. There’s an obvious contradiction in building socialism in the west at all, but that doesn’t mean we still don’t need to do it as a moral imperative.
consumerist lifestyles…absolutely worth denigrating
Why? Some puritanical ritual? What’s the point of attacking people for looking for their own enjoyment through commodities in an alienated society? Can you really build a movement based on shame? The problem with capitalism is that people are poor in spite of the abundance of private wealth. We want to end poverty, have workers turn production towards their own needs/desires. We might need to ration and remove excesses, but you can hardly blame someone today for pursuing their own interests. Socialism is about pursuing our own interests as a class.
Yes, it kinda is like that. However, I’ll just ignore what OP posted in the body because it’s not the way to view this problem and I don’t have much else to say about that. And it is a problem. Those who claim otherwise look up, shake their heads and put the blame on a fetishism of Christian martyrdom. And by up I mean the specific quote above Lemmygrad. They should read Losurdo but these nerds can’t hold a consistent thought for more than 5 seconds. It’s funny because the book non-violence by him speaks about this and it mainly related back to the importance of improving the productive forces as quickly as possible, which doesn’t concern us yet. Now, shaming them without a way to channel this into something positive will surely do nothing good for anyone. It’s a very frustrating contradiction, one where the West got their prosperity from imperialism, and to build a movement on class suicide is obviously difficult.
About elitism, an accusation from a comment here in this thread, I read the book on psychology they recently recommended and it reeks of Nietzschean philosophy all the way to the end (The book is Psychology of the Private Individual) Many sentences and opinions are virtually identical from Beyond Good and Evil and it’s vile elitism. All this to say western leftists’ consciousness is polluted by Nietzschean thought. As for this “purity testing” BS, it doesn’t mean anything. We can still work together in any organization, but you are not immune to criticisms and if you’re offended because you got criticised, who’s doing the purity testing here?
Barely started Losurdo’s Class war the other day, do you happen to know when/where he takes down Nietzchean will to power in particular? I’ve read western leftists far back as 100yrs ago abandon all of Nietzsche but they won’t abandon that concept proposed by him and try their best to spin it as useful to the movement.
He has a whole book about Nietzsche and it’s his most thorough study. It’s called Nietzsche, the aristocratic rebel. I highly recommend the book but be warned, it’s extremely dense and complex lol
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