By criticizing an entire community as not completely, thoroughly materialist or not completely read in “intellectual tradition”, they’ve ironically gone completely around and become idealist.

It’s actually a non-criticism, since of course we are supposed to (and strive to) beat the idealism out of us that we grow up with. It’s already a given -everybody knows that.

So it looks like they are just using that and their “intellectual tradition” to pat themselves on the back.

I’ve read a bit about the transition to serfdom post-Rome and this is generally correct, and is certainly the correct way to think about it.

There are some additional concerns when it comes to large scale slave society like Rome was, among other things includes stuff like geographic and technological limitations (roads, ocean, ships, animal and human muscle power), biological limitations (slaves die under horrific conditions). Basically a web of things that long term suggest an expanding slave society (or slavery itself) is unsustainable, and that the transition to serfdom is based in the eventual material need of the ruling class to transform labor from slaves to serfs as slave influx becomes less, and thus they become more expensive.

Then there are things like debt that polarize economies and change human relations, and steer economic policy to serfdom as well. Geography can influence the policy towards emerging peasantry, too - like if there is too much free land then you’d want your peasants to bound to your land. And the opposite: if there isn’t free land then your peasants can have more rights and mobility.

Just thought I’d add these additional concerns to a really good post.

Do you have anything to read about Chinese “feudalism” or whatever Marx called the Asiatic MOP? It’s so hard to find anything and I basically know nothing at all about what is going on at that point in time/space. My hunch is that geography is really really important.

I floated around several different jobs. Never found anything I liked so I decided to move back in with my parents so I can do the last few things I need to change careers/apply for physical therapy school, and I’m older than you.

I don’t know if there’s any otherworldly insight to it other than I just really love exercise and training.

When I was working other jobs, I felt like two different people. I had my job that I honestly didn’t give a flying fuck about, had no motivation, made me depressed and just couldn’t force myself to be interested in. I had to pretend to care while surrounded by people who did care.

And when I was doing my physical training for the sports I love I was/am a completely different person- much happier and learning new things because I care.

On mental health: I think not being in a career adjacent to my passions really, really hurt me. It’s not like I’ve solved my depression but I can wake up now with something to look forward to, a path that I actually want to walk on.

It was passion that I had to build on but there was always an interest in exercise even before I can say I developed it into a passion. I was previously going to college for physical therapy, changed direction, but built my passion and now coming back to it, it all seems to make sense. Maybe there is something you have enjoyed in that past that you can return to build on?

And the big thing I can say is try not to get too down. This isn’t uncommon nowadays for people around our ages.

Don’t think of these years as wasted years, but learning years. I always felt like I was spinning my wheels and there’s a lot of truth in that. My parents always wondering what I was doing etc., is a terrible burden. But maybe in a way, I wasnt ready to go down that road since I hadn’t the passion for it yet, and the world didn’t make sense to my neurodivergent brain because I hadn’t learned Marxism yet, either.

And I suppose while we’re at it (to use Marxist terms), my experiences and internal contradictions weren’t strong enough yet that they’d need to resolve themselves by producing a new decision to go back to school.

I became an ML the day I found r/GenZedong lol. Didn’t get banned from anything.

I will disagree with this on my interpretation of “how the sausage is made”. I don’t think I’ve seen a fascist who understands how capitalism actually works.

Telling someone they’d be speaking German were it not for Lenin or Stalin usually shuts them up pretty quickly

There were many good arguments. Youre just ok with genocide and/or weren’t smart enough to understand them 👍

Even though sometimes it’s best to unplug from all social media (even lemmygrad) this place is an oasis. A place of healing and learning.

As much of a steaming heap of crap that movie was, there are worse movies.

I agree with some of what you said but mainly disagree with your analysis of poor libertarians. I will use the USA as a model for my post.

Historically we should expect to find more economic fluidity amongst white people, meaning they’d be able to move from worker to labour aristocracy/petty bourgeoisie. The classic example would be for a white worker to labour for a time at a decent paying job, save money, buy a house, and start a business.

So as we see, the class lines would be more blurred in the past because of the stronger wages and free time of labourers, and so there becomes no real need in the present to tie poorer libertarians historically to immaterial things since their interests in the past were absolutely material and aligned.

With the polarization of the economy the class lines become more defined. So then the poor libertarians, stuck without any mobility as workers, become very reactionary and oppose any groups that threaten their elevated or once elevated position. Those who are petit bourgeoisie themselves, even though they may not be poor, are threatened with becoming workers again.

This plays out nowadays as the libertarian to fascist pipeline, though American libertarianism is already inherently reactionary by being supported by colonialism and imperialism (as opposed to, for instance, a petit bourgeoisie in another country trying to rid itself of the shackles of colonialism).

In the American case libertarianism is a petit bourgeois (and white i.e. settler, very key here) ideology that fits very well with the standard Marxist model of the petit bourgeois being the source of fascism.

Hope they were allergic

Whilst saying this cannot bring back everyone that has died, like a whiny athlete that doesn’t play fair, the empire lashes out the most when it knows it is going to lose.

Yeah fetishizing philosophy is fairly common in western spheres. But we Marxists are not philosophers, we are scientists and with that comes observations and experimentation (real world implementation, praxis, etc ).

I come from a natural sciences background so my honest feelings is that a lot of that pre Marx stuff is, while nice to know, not particularly necessary.

Economically they are rent seeking. You pay a subscription to them for further access to their brand. They also fill the market niche created by alienation, serving a social and economic function here. They qualify as petit bourgeoisie I think.

😂 so smug yet so incorrect

If you love your family and they are good to you then I suggest not broaching this stuff with them very hard. Reality of the world vs the reality of being a social animal. Your relationships are still the most important thing even though we live in capitalism.

Work slowly on moving them over time. Make sure you’re not actually damaging your relationship to win an argument. You said you’ve only been doing this less than a year and that’s a crazy short amount of time to be engaging so actively with this stuff with your family.

I recommend starting with distrust and more neutrality (ex just say Russia is another country on the other side of the world defending itself, why are you scared? Or why is the US surrounding China if the US is defending itself?)

As for sources to back up this line of questioning, many people are distrustful of “breadtube” sources like secondthought because it’s a young white guy on YouTube so if they need a white guy with a PhD talking to them, I always recommend Jeffrey Sachs for things about China and Russia, Ukraine war etc. Guy was an advisor for Russian shock therapy in the 90s, PhD etc, so there is no possible way any liberal can dismiss his opinions if they’re engaging in good faith.

And don’t press all the time. You don’t want to make communists appear annoying. If you look at it from your family’s point of view, You’ve changed so radically and are always arguing for something so bizarre, of course they’d liken you to joining a cult!

You want to appear like what most people in the world want to do: just someone who wants enough money to put food on the table and relax at the end of the day. Couple that with being well informed and it’s a winning combination.

I don’t know if there is any important or necessary conservation of gorillas done by this zoo in particular, but it is as barbaric to have these animals in captivity for amusement as it is barbaric to kidnap people from far away lands and use them as entertainment.

And even if their goal is conservation, there is still a contradiction in having to display the gorillas for human entertainment to make money to support them.

Harambe is a victim of capitalism no matter which way you slice it.

Maybe have a look at Jeffrey Sachs interviews on Ukraine. Certainly, as far as I know, not a “leftist”, being the guy known for shock therapy economic doctrine, but that also means he’s had an intimate history with that area of the world and he presents the history of this conflict quite plainly for Americans to digest.

Personally speaking, and I have experience with this sort of thing, often times you just have to lay low as a Marxist. My job does not allow me to express my actual opinions and I am surrounded by non Marxist, politically active people.

There are things in the world that constantly bombard us at every second and it feels like you are under siege. It’s a valid feeling, but ultimately we have to learn that we cannot expand our emotional energy on everything that goes on - it’s just not possible. It might seem crass, and I’m really not trying to be, but you have to detach and observe the world and events in the third person, as if you were a scientist. Do that whilst staying in touch with your feelings of indignation.

This may well be something you’re willing to invest in and so that’s up to you. But for future conflicts you find yourself potentially a part of, you’ll need to consider if you want to shoulder it. You have to learn to observe things dispassionately, but it gets easier the more you do it, and you will find optimism in the scientific unfolding/direction of history.

Hate it. Pretty sure its why I dont like to be touched, or be physically close, hugs, etc., among other things I struggle with, like mental health.

yeah it seemed pretty pointless as i went through deleting stuff (anything containing key words related to geopolitics, like capitalism, etc. at least - i never talked too much about that stuff on reddit so others may find doing even this to be time consuming). rather, i edited them and replaced them with 1s and then deleted them. but it gave me more peace of mind and at the least perhaps made it a bit tougher for background check companies if their data gathering and capabilities advance to being able to piece stuff like that together.