Post Ahl4aD4s64PxMuADGy by sashin@veganism.social
(DIR) More posts by sashin@veganism.social
(DIR) Post #AhjMpb9GIInjE1miNk by Radical_EgoCom@mastodon.social
2024-05-10T00:00:56Z
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Workers are forced into wage slavery under capitalism, unable to escape the cycle of poverty.#communism #socialism #anarchism #libertarianism
(DIR) Post #AhjNu1UEPYQ01ZGbmy by janisf@mstdn.social
2024-05-10T00:12:55Z
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@Radical_EgoCom Unless you can find a PT job that actually pays the bills and you have enough time on the side to train for another job. This is why I insisted my kid get a free CNA certification (could have been welding or coding) before heading off to college.I'm not sure it's a wage issue so much as it is a housing-cost issue. Capitalism is *supposed* to be regulated so that those numbers realistically work. Reagan broke it.
(DIR) Post #AhjhpAPPoDT3KcyZc0 by lawas@mastodon.social
2024-05-10T03:54:45Z
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@janisf @Radical_EgoCom The problem with capitalism is not how regulated it is. The problem with capitalism is that workers are denied the fruits of their surplus labor. A business’s profits are stolen wages. From the communist perspective, it’s an unjust economic system by design. It leads to accumulation at the top and has a long history of creating major crises as a result. This has been true for as long as capitalism has existed and only gets worse with time. It’s unstable.
(DIR) Post #AhkEda7vf4606gse92 by janisf@mstdn.social
2024-05-10T04:08:48Z
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@lawas @Radical_EgoCom I'm not really an economist, or a political philosopher. I'm a dabbler, at most. My feeling is that we need innovative solutions that drive hope (HF do we need that). We need something to respond to the massive clog that happened in the "trickle down" fuck up that doesn't leave middle-income investors feeling sucker-punched.That system doesn't yet exist.
(DIR) Post #AhkEdb7xwPifD5uBqC by lawas@mastodon.social
2024-05-10T04:19:56Z
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@janisf @Radical_EgoCom I’m a Marxist, so I think that system does exist. It’s not just a change of economic system though, it requires a social revolution led by a class-conscious party of working people. Communism is the only system that actually addresses inequality at its root. We drive hope by liberating people from oppression and that comes by smashing capitalism. Personally I don’t care about investors, I care about the working class.
(DIR) Post #AhkElxppOoajx8PX7o by janisf@mstdn.social
2024-05-10T04:52:31Z
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@lawas @Radical_EgoCom Those small-time investors are all retirement accounts, and maybe a few small-to-mid-sized business owners. They are also the bulk of Americans. If you don't care about them, you'll just have their police, with the support of the big investors, shut you down.With all due respect, you're talking about at least 100 million people, probably a third to a half who own guns themselves.I'm not the one who's stuck in ranchville, but they are.
(DIR) Post #AhkElymfs1fAtdwWqe by lawas@mastodon.social
2024-05-10T06:04:58Z
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@janisf @Radical_EgoCom I really don’t think you understand where I’m coming from lol. Investments are profits derived from other people’s labor, that’s inherently unjust just like the rest of system. I do care about people, which is why I want to create a world free from the systems oppressing us. I also specified a social revolution, it’s something people have to be on board with. Socialism: Scientific and Utopian is an intro to these ideas. State and Revolution is good too.
(DIR) Post #AhkElzWP80F7BTL37w by janisf@mstdn.social
2024-05-10T06:11:17Z
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@lawas @Radical_EgoCom Then out yourself in their shoes. They negotiated some pretty hard deals, most of them, for those wages they painfully stashed, and now they've just retired, or their on there way there, inside the system. The fact is, most people work, have worked, and have tidy-but-tiny retirement nest eggs. They have literally spent their lives at it.How are you going to make it an easy blow to them when they find out that was for nothing? Think they'll cave?
(DIR) Post #AhkEm0YvG7qqPZWZgu by lawas@mastodon.social
2024-05-10T06:58:07Z
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@janisf @Radical_EgoCom Again, a mass of the working people have to want a systemic change. I’m not interested in forcing people to do anything, I’m interested in raising class consciousness so workers decide to seize the means of production and as a result the full value of their labor. The reason these people even have to scrimp and save for retirement and work into old age is because of capitalism. Toppling this system built on unequal distribution fixes that problem.
(DIR) Post #AhkFgvwL7KS8a8cbdg by Radical_EgoCom@mastodon.social
2024-05-10T10:15:39Z
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@janisf @lawas This is the same kind of horrible argument that people make against forgiving student loans: "People have worked so hard to pay off their student loans, so it'll be unfair to help other people not have to work as hard. Everyone should suffer because it'll make the people who've already suffered from feeling bad." That's sort of how you sound.
(DIR) Post #AhkGJ16ENmEJaWPLLU by nicholas_saunders@mastodon.social
2024-05-10T10:19:22Z
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@lawas @janisf @Radical_EgoCom Theoretically, everyone is self employed under capitalism. It ends up looking very like communism.In theory there's no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is. -Yogi Berra
(DIR) Post #AhkGJ248n29UaKRBj6 by Radical_EgoCom@mastodon.social
2024-05-10T10:22:31Z
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@nicholas_saunders @lawas @janisf There's nothing about capitalism that even remotely looks like communism. They literally couldn't be more different.
(DIR) Post #AhkHJi3Sm8bSlY0WBM by nicholas_saunders@mastodon.social
2024-05-10T10:33:52Z
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@Radical_EgoCom @lawas @janisf in the extreme, theoretical, yes, it's functionally indistinguishable.
(DIR) Post #AhkHa0ZHiABKoifC0O by Radical_EgoCom@mastodon.social
2024-05-10T10:36:48Z
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@nicholas_saunders @lawas @janisf I see no theoretical or real-world major similarities between capitalism and communism.
(DIR) Post #AhkJULSvInbtnf7DDk by nlupo@xno.social
2024-05-10T10:58:10Z
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@Radical_EgoCom @janisf @lawas It's the same garbage argument for taxes and work, but reframed for student loans.
(DIR) Post #AhkTGs0SWC4gDA0yEi by TessRants@mastodon.social
2024-05-10T11:58:38Z
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@janisf @lawas @Radical_EgoCom Most people, according to national polls for the last decade or two, do not have a tidy nest egg.The vast majority of Americans can't financially cope with a $500 emergency. As a nation, we financed wage stagnation with debt; from about 1975 on. The vast majority of Americans can't save money, for a number of reasons, including the aforementioned.
(DIR) Post #AhkvDVS2ic0Q6c6KmW by janisf@mstdn.social
2024-05-10T17:40:38Z
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@TessRants @lawas @Radical_EgoCom I know, I'm one of them. Unfortunately, the way things are set up, there are enough voters who poured themselves into the system for whom that worked. I'm not fighting on their behalf. I'm articulating what I see as the biggest obstacle folks like us face. Neither one of us has figured out how to tackle that.
(DIR) Post #AhkvDWcMNjqvitw5VA by Radical_EgoCom@mastodon.social
2024-05-10T18:00:53Z
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@janisf @TessRants @lawas One of the best things people can do to tackle this is to convince people to lose their trust in this current social/economic system and advocate for the creation of a new system (Libertarian Communism in my opinion) to replace it.
(DIR) Post #Ahkw3rpgkZdWZw83IO by lawas@mastodon.social
2024-05-10T18:10:24Z
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@Radical_EgoCom @janisf @TessRants This. I think the point I was trying to make that was overlooked is that we actually have to convince people to change the system. Educating the working class to prepare them for proletarian rule is a key part of Marxist thought. We need to convince working people to abandon the system and overthrow the class that work against their self-interest. I wish people would read theory, this has all been covered by thinkers much smarter than us.
(DIR) Post #AhkwxTHXDV3eeUfSlM by lawas@mastodon.social
2024-05-10T18:20:26Z
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@Radical_EgoCom Okay I’m done with this thread, not worth pouring anymore time explaining concepts basic to the communist worldview to people who keep acknowledging how horrible capitalism is but still want to keep it because some people will be able to retire one day? I just don’t get it. Bending over backwards to justify and perpetuate this mess we’re in. I’m just gonna keep learning, educating, agitating and organizing until we can smash capitalism and the bourgeois state completely.
(DIR) Post #AhkxsiLTsny5sSoE8e by janisf@mstdn.social
2024-05-10T18:30:45Z
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@Radical_EgoCom @TessRants @lawas yes, taht's one way. The hard part, though, is getting people to trust that you have something better to offer.
(DIR) Post #AhkyCSuuxHaroonoJ6 by Radical_EgoCom@mastodon.social
2024-05-10T18:34:21Z
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@janisf @TessRants @lawas Yes, it will be hard, especially with how stigmatized communism has become, but it is a necessary component in bringing about significant change in the world.
(DIR) Post #AhkyrmFLzcdrdp3nDU by janisf@mstdn.social
2024-05-10T18:41:47Z
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@Radical_EgoCom @TessRants @lawas the Republican vilification machine is something else,. isn't it? Too many people still confuse trash-talking with accountability.
(DIR) Post #Ahkzhd23UtIk7aZ4LI by sashin@veganism.social
2024-05-10T18:38:05Z
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@janisf @Radical_EgoCom Capitalism is deeper than this. Reagan and his friends became rich and powerful because of this. Labour laws were for a long time a bottleneck to the accumulation of more wealth and power for the richest, a Reagan was bound to come. Class war is a dynamic thing, there is always a tug of war happening in the background between the wealthy and the parts of the proletariat that haven't fallen for their propaganda. Our systems, laws, institutions and the way we do things are not static but are constantly shifting in response to this perpetual class war. There is a constant effort by the rich to be able to squeeze more out of everyone else, and I am hoping, a growing pushback and an increasing awareness of this.
(DIR) Post #Ahl4UX7Agd6Zm6X4zI by sashin@veganism.social
2024-05-10T18:53:17Z
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@janisf @lawas @Radical_EgoCom This is an extremely old problem.People are told the system works a certain way, and that it *needs* to work a certain way. They are lied to. They believe those lies, they act on those lies.They try to build a life in that broken system, carve out a comfortable space in the midst of this capitalist hellscape. They engage in the rat race so as to slowly build themselves a safe haven from it.But money isn't real. They are really earning the entitlement to the labour of others and the fruits of that labour. For that money to have worth everyone has to be competing for it, they need to have the threat of destitution continually above their heads.Why do most people spend most of their waking lives in soul sucking jobs? Because they don't have a choice. The threat of poverty gets people to gain the "privilege" of spending their lives serving capital.The comfy nest egg that a minority get is a bribe, and it's not one that everyone can get. If everyone were to apply themselves in the way the system wanted, not everyone would get it, rather the "price" of that nest egg would increase. After all the reward is the labour of those that lose the game.The system, *depends* on the hardship of the people.There's a line in L'internationale about this:"Don't cling so hard to your possessions, for you have nothing if you have no rights"https://invidious.perennialte.ch/watch?v=3sh4kz_zhyo
(DIR) Post #Ahl4WzAHMruHLl9hw0 by janisf@mstdn.social
2024-05-10T19:06:30Z
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@sashin @lawas @Radical_EgoCom The knot I'm trying to untangle is how digital devices, cars, and housing are all essential to social participation (no, you really can't support a kid in most public schools without a car), and that's all most folks are trying to protect, or get.I wish I had an answer.
(DIR) Post #Ahl4X063u27yEyBr04 by sashin@veganism.social
2024-05-10T19:07:45Z
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@janisf @lawas @Radical_EgoCom The fossil fuel industry and the car industry worked together to make it very hard to exist without a car.https://invidious.perennialte.ch/watch?v=WKiUk4vqxu0
(DIR) Post #Ahl4aBzW8UXa00eQHw by janisf@mstdn.social
2024-05-10T19:35:36Z
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@sashin @lawas @Radical_EgoCom It made jobs?
(DIR) Post #Ahl4aD4s64PxMuADGy by sashin@veganism.social
2024-05-10T19:43:53Z
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@janisf @lawas @Radical_EgoCom What making cars? Making and maintaining roads? Looking after the victims of car crashes in hospitals? Or taking care of those with weakened lungs because of the increased pollution?There's a cost too, even strictly economically speaking, the public infrastructure was taken down. Businesses are much less accessible when cities are no longer walkable.To me it seems like a massive transfer of wealth (and power) to themselves.A job is just a chance to work for a small fraction of the profits.Companies do very bad things and then promote themselves as "creating jobs".But anything will create work. Work is the allocation of human time and energy. There's always meaningful work to do.There's no need to "create jobs" so that people engage in meaningless work like making everyone dependent on cars.Unemployment exists not because of a lack of work to be done. With all the problems our society faces, we need more hands on deck. It's because it needs to exist for the rich exploit their workers to the highest degree. An army of desperate souls vying for a worker's job make it harder for that worker to have any leverage or bargaining power and forces them to take whatever they can get.Ideally though, we get over the "work" framing. We feed, house, clothes and provide medicine for everyone and when we do, we can all just have more free time (rather than create nonsense work).It's arguable that work is the cause of all our problems, this is David Graeber making this point in a *really short* piece. https://davidgraeber.org/articles/to-save-the-world-were-going-to-have-to-stop-working/
(DIR) Post #AhlIDTABWVObxHhRKa by antics@mastodon.nu
2024-05-10T22:12:26Z
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@lawas @Radical_EgoCom @janisf @TessRants yeah, good luck with that. Still need to replace it with something more operational than books and theories. That's how you reach the hearts and minds of the workers; and create something worth upholding.
(DIR) Post #AhlIDTyAWfNWSJ5MEy by Radical_EgoCom@mastodon.social
2024-05-10T22:18:38Z
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@antics @lawas @janisf @TessRants Political theory is very important; it's what does and will motivate the actions of the people who actually want to create a better system to replace this one. Real-world action is obviously important, but a blueprint is necessary in order to succeed, and that blueprint is theory.
(DIR) Post #AhlK2Gdjwb9hq0JHlo by janisf@mstdn.social
2024-05-10T22:39:00Z
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@Radical_EgoCom @antics @lawas @TessRants The blueprint we need is for conversion. I was just contemplating how communism is an economic model more than it is a political one. Capitalism appeals to our basest nature, there isn't even a parenting book that's got tips on how to talk people into leveling up.
(DIR) Post #AhlM5b0irY13nFm6YS by Radical_EgoCom@mastodon.social
2024-05-10T23:02:01Z
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@janisf @antics @lawas @TessRants One way to convert our capitalist society into a communist society is by increasing the amount of workers' unions and workers' cooperatives to increase the amount of control workers have over their lives and society at large while simultaneously convincing workers of the goal of creating a communist society where they'd collectively have complete control over production and society. This will take a long time, but I see no reason why it wouldn't work.
(DIR) Post #AhlMOc07PB4eMnYlnc by janisf@mstdn.social
2024-05-10T23:05:28Z
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@Radical_EgoCom @antics @lawas @TessRants right, which involves legislation to limit corporate interference with unionizing employees, which is what Democrats do, not in small part because unions are a democratic organization.
(DIR) Post #AhlMvQj8LHeIxQGRM0 by Radical_EgoCom@mastodon.social
2024-05-10T23:11:25Z
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@janisf @antics @lawas @TessRants Yeah. I'm not against voting for politicians in the interest of workers and workers' rights, I'm only against the mentality that voting alone will solve the working class's problems. Voting is a means to an end, the end being the abolition of capitalism and the construction of a communist society, which will ultimately rely on the efforts of the working class to construct this new society from the bottom up, and likely against the wishes of the capitalist state
(DIR) Post #AhlOLgXIHrXrTIoFbU by janisf@mstdn.social
2024-05-10T23:27:18Z
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@Radical_EgoCom @antics @lawas @TessRants Yes. It is but one bit of the fight. If you parse it, we have four means to power: the work we do, speech, dollars, and the vote. I'm just confused why it's so hard to get people to inform their vote, and to do it. They want every candidate to perfectly match their goals or they flush that power down the toilet. What is that?
(DIR) Post #AhlP2fJchV6e8duSn2 by Radical_EgoCom@mastodon.social
2024-05-10T23:35:08Z
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@janisf @antics @lawas @TessRants People are understandably fed up with politicians and mainstream politics in general since they are primarily interested in serving the ruling capitalist class instead of serving the people. This is why I suggest that people view voting as a means to an end instead of a solution to all their problems, then they won't get so upset with politicians that they won't use their voting power as a means to a greater end independent of the goverment and politicians.
(DIR) Post #AhnWEeB5qNg453V4M4 by TessRants@mastodon.social
2024-05-12T00:04:04Z
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@antics @lawas @Radical_EgoCom @janisf Here's how we do that, w/out fucking about w/ theories:Stop buying shit. Start spending money in your own community.Get to know everyone who lives near you, as well as you can.Start figuring out who has what skills, who needs help, and who can be of help in what situations. Be a part of that system of community aid and advancement.Accept anyone who wants to belong & teach them.Weed out all the bastards just looking to make a buck.Be loud about it.
(DIR) Post #AhywDfFz58uygTXU8G by janisf@mstdn.social
2024-05-12T00:58:53Z
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@TessRants @antics @lawas @Radical_EgoCom Dude, you need to come to my neighborhood. Half of us are in wheelchairs, and the other half is embittered. If I went door-to-door for a couple of cups a bread flour (which I need atm), no one would have any--they all eat directly out of the plastic container. No, really. I've seen the waste stream.We ALL need help.
(DIR) Post #AhywDgNSuoUq9y2yQq by TessRants@mastodon.social
2024-05-12T17:53:05Z
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@janisf @antics @lawas @Radical_EgoCom Yes.Yes, we do.Connect with people near you.Do what you can, with what you've got...And ask for help; start nearby and widen your circle as you continue to search for assistance, community, and others who need your help.On an individual note:Think about the things that happen in the kind of world you want to live in...Then do whatever of those things you are capable of.Create parallel structures that make the current, inhuman system obsolete.
(DIR) Post #AhywDhA20FLQaall8C by janisf@mstdn.social
2024-05-12T18:13:56Z
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@TessRants @antics @lawas @Radical_EgoCom You don't have kids, do you
(DIR) Post #AhywDiA4Hay5gznIpM by TessRants@mastodon.social
2024-05-12T19:21:17Z
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@janisf @antics @lawas @Radical_EgoCom I don't, BUT I learned the on the ground stuff from people who do.Children are not an obstacle Neither are they a tool.If you think of them that way, they will notice, they will take it to heart, and they will remember.(they'll definitely be telling it to their therapists, if they can ever afford one.)If you think my lack of children is somehow a disqualifier, then you need to dace the fact that You Don't Want things to change.
(DIR) Post #AhywDj2f0cdYQJKtv6 by janisf@mstdn.social
2024-05-12T19:27:32Z
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@TessRants @antics @lawas @Radical_EgoComWow. That's a lot to make up. Parenting is complex, so complex people haven't ever been able to describe it so that people without children really understand it.I want things to change, therefore I seek to understand how they are.Both my therapist and my kiddo's say the relationship we have is rare. We can both afford to go because I spent 30 years working on MNCare coverage.Change is work.
(DIR) Post #AhywDjiqTmNgX94afo by TessRants@mastodon.social
2024-05-13T01:13:19Z
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@janisf @antics @lawas @Radical_EgoCom Ok, so this response is unclear.Please rephrase it to make your meaning and intent more apparent.(also, just to help you a little, the fact that, at this moment, I don't have children, in no way means that I have never raised any. I'm trying to assume positive intent on your part. Please don't treat me like an asshole for it.)
(DIR) Post #AhywDkV3aWwgwfd5ou by janisf@mstdn.social
2024-05-13T03:51:42Z
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@TessRants @antics @lawas @Radical_EgoCom I'm just saying the care needs of Americans is more than Americans can fathom, much less tackle (and it's a whole lot more than I want to get into). It's a similar situation to being financially underwater with kids. We're losing our heads.No one person can possibly know what they're talking about enough to make assertions on it. It's part of why big data is being collected.
(DIR) Post #AhywDlGYjuwXJzr1rU by TessRants@mastodon.social
2024-05-17T12:16:36Z
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@janisf @antics @lawas @Radical_EgoCom Thank you for clarifying...The 2 statements in your comment seem contradictory.One doesn't have to know everything, or even a 1/4 of everything, to identify persistent & fundamental problems w/ our system. If you can identify 1 problem, you can follow it to its root. You can work to fix or ameliorate it. You can teach others. You can, in whatever way your capacity allows, support the people in your community. Even small acts make a difference.