While the hypothesis of "fishhook theory" has long been held to scrutiny and doubt, a recent ground-breaking scientific breakthrough has been made by... two random pseudo-leftists on the internet... when they realized suddenly that the center-left has a strange history of allying with the far-right against communism.

True genius.

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  • UmbraVivi [he/him, she/her]
    ·
    edit-2
    4 months ago

    Socialism is in your self interest because it materially benefits the majority of people. Capitalism benefits capitalists. It benefits the bourgeoisie and nobody else, and as time goes on, the bourgeoisie shrinks in numbers but only grows in wealth. You don't have to be an altruist or even a kind person to be a socialist. It's not in your self interest that everything you consume is becoming a monthly subscription service, it's not in your self interest that the planes you ride on are falling apart mid-air to benefit the Boeing shareholders' bank account, it's not in your self interest that you have to pay off medical debt your entire life because your healthcare system has been sold off to private corporations and it's not in your self interest that the planet is heating up to the point where it will turn into a 2nd Venus.

    You can be a socialist for entirely selfish reasons. What capitalism has is the imaginary prospect of maybe, potentially someday becoming part of the oppressors. You can become the boot on someone else's neck, you can live entirely off the work of others and fly to Epstein Island to fuck 13-year-olds. There's a 99,9% chance your life will suck ass and you will forever be exploited and miserable, mostly depending on who your daddy is, but there is the 1 in 100,000,000 chance you will sell a jpeg of a monkey for $50M and become rich enough that rules and laws no longer apply to you. Socialism does not have this prospect, it promises a better life for everyone but no chance at becoming the next John McAffee or Sam Bankman-Fried.

    But here's the thing: I don't think most people who subscribe to this ideology think they actually have a chance at becoming omega rich. They know they won't be. But they believe that those who are, have a right to be omega rich and taking their wealth away would be unjust, since they're the winners of capitalism. It is not about self interest for those people, it is entirely subservience. They would rather have their place at the bottom of the hierarchy because that's "just how the world is" rather than making things more equal and better for themselves in the process. It's simple peasant mentality.

    • Moss [they/them]
      ·
      4 months ago

      Marx and Engels always avoided moral arguments and proved that communism rationally works in the favour of the majority of people. But obviously anti-communist have never read Marx and Engels, so they wouldn't know