At what point did the final straw finally break?
At what point did the final straw finally break?
My radicalization was as unremarkable as my lived experience, or lack thereof. I and my family all work for a living but we have been lucky to be reasonably comfortable. Gradually went down the leftist pipeline, first as a left-liberal, then demsoc, before I read Marx and realized that the obvious problems with society are not due to campaign finance or electoralism or individual bad actors.
So I’m in the awkward, probably common, position of being a leftist without any immediate “need” to be, outside of an awareness of the fragility of my own position. While I’m comfortable now, it would not take much to put me on the streets. This is further strengthened in interacting with leftists, befriending people who are genuinely screwed by capitalism, and hearing perspectives I have not lived.
I try hard to listen to others experiences, not to prioritize my experience above theirs which is common for Western leftists. It has been a process to hold my tongue, to realize that my initial idea of how things work is from a middle class perspective. The last few years especially have opened my eyes to significance of imperialism in propping up my Western standard of living, whereas before I was focused more exclusively on domestic exploitation.
One memory that sticks out to me is, I was reading some comment thread about like unemployment or something, and somebody wrote a comment that was something like the following:
"Republicans dream of a country where everyone is their own small business owner, but that's literally impossible to achieve because then there wouldn't be any workers. Capitalism needs workers."
Suddenly a lot of things about the economy started to make more sense. I became a socialist not long after that.
I think it was an r/politics thread, strangely enough
I’m pretty sure an r/politics thread I saw back in 2018 linked to r/chapotraphouse, which was maybe the most important factor in my radicalization. This is probably why r/chapotraphouse no longer exists and why r/politics is now so meticulously policed.
Realizing capitalism is fundamentally incapable of even mitigating climate change. I'd rather we not all die in the water wars.
This is a big reason for me too. All the suffering that will be caused by their negligence is something I will never forgive.
It's the same for me. Even trying to appeal to liberals' self-preservation instincts (even if someone doesn't care about the natural world, we all still need to eat food and for that we need a stable climate) doesn't work.
When I discovered that communism has and does work (i.e. learning about the achievements of USSR, China, Cuba, DPRK. Never hated any of these countries, I just knew nothing about them)
Pretty much always had the same values as I do now but I was extremely captured by capitalist realism and believed only through that system could anybody escape wage slavery
Pretty much always had the same values as I do now but I was extremely captured by capitalist realism and believed only through that system could anybody escape wage slavery
Relatable. Marxism gave me language to better express things I had already known for a long time.
That was always the fairy tale expounded, that whatever the flaws of Capitalism, that it ultimately created so much growth in the economy that it would eventually eclipse any of the accomplishments of a Communist system. But in order to make that lie work, they needed to either just lie about the accomplishments under communism from the 20's to 80's... or just straight-up take credit for communist accomplishments from the 80's to the present.
The overall feeling I had as a kid that our society is inherently unfair came to an explosion when I was 13 and became friends with someone from Gaza and learned about Palestinian oppression.
I worked at a giant News Media conglomerate in 2014-16.
I can say with absolute certainty that the Bernie ratfucking was an actual conspiracy from things I heard from producers and on air reporters off camera. They also very much enjoyed Trump for the ratings.
I then worked min wage jobs to get into a new career and meeting working class people for really the first time in my life
I worked at a giant News Media conglomerate in 2014-16. I can say with absolute certainty that the Bernie ratfucking was an actual conspiracy from things I heard from producers and on air reporters off camera. They also very much enjoyed Trump for the ratings.
You should write something long-form about this. I’d be interested in it.
Can't say I ever had faith in capitalism. Started listening to anti-capitalist punk music when I was fairly young and was like "yeah that makes sense to me".
But I guess my best answer is seeing homeless people living in tents on the streets of San Francisco, probably before I even knew of the word "capitalism". I didn't know how the world worked but I knew however it worked wasn't the right way.
Many things, but here's one that's fairly unique:
I was fixing some C-level executive's email, and somehow wound up with that person's email password. Since I didn't get paid that much, I started snooping in their email to see that's up. I focus on their sent email because people usually don't pay attention to their sent box, but since people are usually replying to other people, I could still see the conversation that's happening.
And what did I find? Absolutely terrible spelling and boomer ellipses for one. Like "r u serious...that was r biggest cleint." level of misspelling. A complete cold disregard for the people who are actually doing the fucking work. So many emails of them rejecting someone asking for a raise. I also got payroll records and that pissed me off. Seeing the owner give himself a Christmas bonus that was more than double my annual salary plus my Christmas bonus pissed me off. Every C-level asshole acted like a big baby and are constantly having emotional meltdowns and temper tantrums. That really burst my bubble of capitalists somehow deserving their spot because of their genius compared to us unwashed workers who should know our place and grovel at their feet.
Not being able to hold down a job because of mental illness and depression but not being able to get any kind of assistance because I didn't have a medical history or a doctor to confirm I had any problems but not being able to see any doctors because I couldn't afford one since I could hardly hold down a job. Having to pick between being homeless or having to live in abusive situations and was constantly having suicidal thoughts. Covid was the best thing that ever happened to me because that two grand got me a shitty car and I milked the rent relief they had in my state for as long as I could until I found a job that doesn't immediately make me want to die. Also I'm pathetically allergic to work and I hate nap times.
This is nearly identical to my own story. For me, severe depression and autism basically determine what I'm able to tolerate. I've found that out over many painful years. The jobs that are typically easiest for me to get, for example bottom-tier factory/linework and customer service shit, I literally cannot bear mentally. I just can't fucking do them. I borderline lose my sanity and cannot control my anger under those conditions, wondering how the fuck the majority ever allowed the abusive minority to herd so many working class into such inhumane conditions.
The rage I've accumulated through years of being forced into whatever coercive, low paying, dead-end jobs I was barely able to get hired for where the workers are treated as disposable trash to be used like slave mules could ignite a new fucking sun. Trying to simply exist and not be homeless (which I have been, more than once) under capitalism is a living nightmare.
When I realized how expensive a medical emergency would be while I was working an unpaid internship.
The answer is naturally "lots of little things", but I would like to mention in particular:
Not all of these were necessarily major factors, but some of these I think are more unique grievances.
I have faith the damn thing is writing it's own slow gradual ending and I'm gonna do my best to make it work double time.
Doctor Stone says: Der Antz colony is run by all der Antz not just the queen.
I have faith the damn thing is writing it's own slow gradual ending and I'm gonna do my best to make it work double time.
Senku being a lib technocrat drives me crazy, especially since I think the author has communist sympathies (Sun Ken Rock is among the strangest ecchis ever in terms of writing)
Ironically, I got radicalised by a book written by a Milquetoast centrist, Capital In The 21st Century.
It's essentially a capitalist thinking through the fundamental implications of capitalism, especially that the market demands that the rate of return must be higher than the rate off growth. Piketty goes through the history of the 20th century and how the post-war boom came about, and how it's equality was dismantled in the eighties in order to fuel greater returns.
Then he comes up with his policy recommendations, and it's.... a wealth tax. Which you know, I'm not opposed to, but the idea that's going to have the same sort of impact as the creation of the welfare state and WW2 is insane. Never mind that there's nothing in place to prevent the rise of austerity again. At that point I knew the only way to proceed was to dismantle the capital class in it's entirety.
Piketty proved empirically what Marx proved theoretically 150 years ago.
What zero theory does to a mf.
Incredible how he walks through the implications of Capital. And then, when he puts everything together pointing to the political necessity of revolution to stave off complete economic and civilisation collapse, he can't imagine the first and the second is bad, so he makes up some liberal story that won't solve it and can't happen because of what he's just said, but sounds nice and like it's not too much work.
You can't prove human behavior theoretically, you can make predictions, and you can measure reality to see if it matches. Both are critical.
I mean "prove" in the common usage, not as in mathematical proof.
If Piketty read Marx he wouldn't be astounded to find that indeed r > g, wealth accumulates and one class enriches itself at the expense of the rest.
If Piketty read Marx he would not be lost about interpreting his own data, suggesting a wealth tax as if that would reconcile the contradictory nature by which capitalist wealth is produced in the first place.
I actually started reading it recently! I saw hype a while ago and it was in my reading list and the cover was pretty.
I uhh, yeah there really doesn't seem to be that much substance to it? I check out the database to see if there was anything I could do with the data, and after I checked it didn't seem all that great called the World Inequality Database, link here.
I'm not sure if I'll finish it, like you said the authors centrist and so far appears to be milquetoast. I just, I think honestly I thought the data-driven aspect (quantitive) would be cool but there's not realy sophisticated modelling going kn as far as I can tell.
I don't suggest anyone read it... maybe flip through the first ~20 pages to get a feel for how the largest problems of our day are whittled down to narrow and eventually single issues. It's an interesting piece of rhetoric I'd say, how the author & people reading it come to believe in such a solution.
Your point on class resonates. Everyone I know claims they grew up “middle class”, or if they are summer house rich they say, “upper middle class”.
I’ve never met someone who says “I am rich” or “I come from wealth” or anything like that. It’s always I grew up “upper middle class”
I mean, the global wealth tax would work, but there's no way in hell the capitalist classes in each country would agree to it
O'Bummer's drone strike on al-Awlaki was the last individual straw. "But how could hope and change guy murder and american citizen without trial!?." I knew about all sorts of bad shit Murica did but i bought Obama's propaganda line and though he'd be different from bush and turn things around and blah blah blah blah.
Not the final straw, but the first thing that shook me out of “capitalism is great and leads to the best outcomes thinking”… in the span of a couple weeks, I took a flight on Frontier Airlines and a train ride on Amtrak.
If you’re not familiar with Frontier… it’s one of the airlines that has “cheap” tickets but they get you on a lot of small charges. Flight was miserable, mainly because the flight attendants were kinda pushy about selling beverages and snacks. And more than once, they got on the PA and you were forced to listen to their sales pitch for the Frontier credit card. All around miserable experience.
Then shortly after I took my first trip on Amtrak - the US’ government supported train network. People always shit on it but it was actually kinda nice. Affordable ticket, comfortable easy to get on/off compared to flying. There wasn’t a bunch of ads plastered inside the cabin. Overall a very nice experience.
It seems small but up to then I had a firm belief that the private sector always did things better than the public sector. Losing that helped shake other things loose later on.
I'm not sure I ever had faith in capitalism. There's just some shameless and obvious wrongness about it, like watching the Disney dog skinning movie and believing Cruella de Vil is the protagonist. It's always felt like thinly veiled post-hoc justifications/cover ups for might makes right, victim blaming, kleptomania, etc.. Lot's of mental gymnastics for "it's in my hands, therefor should be mine" and "there's nothing wrong, you shouldn't do anything to fix society". It's like having faith Santa Claus is real, past the age of children, you just have to be gullible or benefiting from others being gullible to believe this.
Although in debates most people argue like they have this weird idea that capitalism means personal freedoms like the right to flea markets, as opposed to the ideology that justifies the authoritarian control of society's capital concentrated into the hands of the capitalist class.
Moving back to France and seeing hundreds of homeless people, everywhere, all the time. Yellow vest protests crushed by the militarized police, essentially ignoring and suppressing poor people. Retirement reforms protests also crushed and bypassed by the state using 49.3 protocol to force the reform into law. Those protests getting ridiculed and activists patronized by french mainstream media, most of em owned by 10 billionaires who are all friends.