:porky-happy: is going :wojak-nooo: because her daughters have realised that she's a disgusting leech
I’ll tell my daughters that I will read every word of “The Communist Manifesto” — twice — if they will read Milton Friedman’s “Capitalism and Freedom.”
It is a dream of mine that one day, some libertarian bozo will tell me to my face that I should read Milton Friedman.
"Why yes, I have read that. I've also read plenty of Hayek, Mises, and Bastiat. My senior thesis in fact was specifically about the Austrian school of economics. I was an econ major and a dedicated libertarian. I also grew up sheltered and privileged and that libertarian pro-capitalist ideology lasted about 5 minutes once I was exposed to the real world and how things actually work."
This is why I still send people Richard Wolff videos, in spite of his shortcomings from the perspective of a communist. Nobody, in good faith, can argue that he doesn't understand economics or capitalism. The man has a Master's in history and a PhD in economics, both from Yale, which, from a Lib perspective, is hard to top as far as bona fides go
When a lib asks where you get your news, they're almost certainly expecting you to say some youtuber or The Grayzone or something - but bringing up Economic Update with Richard D. Wolff pretty much slam dunks them every time. Partly because it has such a boring name lmao.
Monthly Review is like this as well. Very tame name for a very based publication
"Why Socialism?" is an especially good Monthly Review article to send to people imo. The arguments are still relevant and the fact that it's Albert Einstein making them makes it hard to easily dismiss.
Yeah, while he sounds very angry, he is exactly in the position that people always demand of you: A professor of economics, who did all the obligatory study to be allowed to criticize capitalism.
He’s not angry, he’s just jewish
He’s got that old New York jew way of speaking like Bernie which many mistake for anger
He's Jewish? Huh.
Guess it's not that surprising since the only other person I know with 'Wolf' as a surname is this (half) Jewish chad.
(Yeah, I know it's more of a general German name)
Yes, I can nitpick Wolff but tbh he's really great for explaining things to people who want to get an understanding of economics from a Marxist perspective.
It is a dream of mine that one day, some libertarian bozo will tell me to my face that I should read Milton Friedman.
I got the "Why don't you try something a bit different and read Road to Serfdom?" Gave it an honest effort. Made it maybe a chapter and a half, before I had a notepad full of "Wtf is this shit?!" Took it to the guy who recommended it (incidentally, my then-girlfriend now-wife's father) and proceeded to ask him "Wtf is this shit?!" Couldn't get any kind of sensible response out of him. Dude had skimmed it.
My brother, if you're going to be a conservative at least do your fucking homework.
I also grew up sheltered and privileged and that libertarian pro-capitalist ideology lasted about 5 minutes once I was exposed to the real world and how thing actually work.
Absolutely my vibe. I've seen life from both sides now. Up and Down. And here's what I've found. :amerikkka: :hammer-sickle: :marx-joker:
Looking back on it, it's just amazing to me how shallow Road to Serfdom and the like are. None of those Austrian economists go beyond the superficialities of capitalism. I have told a literal capitalist that if anyone wants to actually understand capitalism - even if you think capitalism is great - they should read Capital vol. 1. I genuinely believe no bourgeois economist before or since has been able to so thoroughly dissect capitalism as Marx does there.
realize all the economists are stupid
write 3000 pages explaining how stupid they are
they get dumber to avoid being associated with you
:marx-goth:
You also can't criticize Dr. Professor Lobster without consuming at least 18 hours of his "Kermit and Ms. Piggy's messy divorce" Youtube audio drama series. :kermit-pain: :up-yours-woke-moralists:
Can you elaborate on your 5 minutes in the real world? What did you witness? What changed your mind?
The absolute shortest way I can explain it is I was literally in corporate boardrooms and seeing how the pursuit of short term profit at all costs, and how easily peoples' lives were thrown away while the CEO would be tooling around online for a couple hours decide what plane to buy next. There's a lot more to it but that's the most succinct way I can explain it.
For me, I noticed how the immigrant warehouse employees I worked with were treated significantly worse than the office employees despite the warehouse workers being the ones doing... everything?
My first exposure to any sort of theory was David Graeber's Bullshit Jobs and it really did put me to thinking what the point of the CEO/owner was. Him or his failson that headed accounting.
It will make you alternately bored and angry as you read through it.
sounds about right. if he doesnt talk about 10 yards of Linen he aint worth listening to
I point out gently that her transactions with her favorite restaurant down the street — a sushi spot run by a local family — represent capitalism in its simplest form: voluntary exchanges between individuals that improve the lives of each party.
THATS NOT CAPITALISM YOU FUCKING WORM'S SHITPILE THAT JUST AN EXCHANGE OF COMMODITIES!
Proponents of capitalism not knowing what capitalism is. Probably the strongest accidental argument against them of all time.
Quantum capitalism. It’s either anything vaguely related to markets, trade or exchange, or it’s this utopic free market that has never existed (and thus can’t be blamed for anything).
you see people like socialism because everyone has a fixed amount of things and no one does anything with those things
Would love to hear her explanation of how a principled communist is to live within the imperial core
don't you know, capitalism is when buy things, communism is when no buy things. This is basic economics, try to keep up sweaty :maybe-later-kiddo:
TIL capitalism was invented when the first homo erectus exchanged some berries for some sticks
I point out gently
Condescendingly, as always, sweetie. :maybe-later-kiddo:
The fishing industry is heavily subsidized and their losses are socialized. If anything, the local sushi spot is an example of how socialism is necessary for smoothing out irregularities in scarce resource markets. Also how capitalism alone can't account for the externality of overfishing.
voluntary
It's always voluntary when economic pressure forces precariously situated young women to sign up for housing with sex pests, or for poors to go die for oil wars amirite? :sus-soviet:
Poor people under capitalism make voluntary choices in the same way that Jigsaw's victims do
She came home at the start of the pandemic, toting, among her other possessions, “The Marx-Engels Reader.” For Christmas last year, she gave everyone in the family a copy of “The Communist Manifesto” — ordered from Amazon with unintentional irony.
DAE ironic socialism amazon??? :very-intelligent: iphone venezuela???
Everyone was excited but me, and they would have all cracked them open and started reading right there under the Christmas tree had I not distracted them by presenting everyone with holiday gnome socks.
"everyone was excited to learn something new until i distracted them with treats. this proves capitalism is superior!"
If all else fails, I’ll take them shopping.
capitalist bootlickers' ideology is so separated from actual capitalists' ideology. It's literally just "everything is okay because you can buy treatos" vs "how can i make the most money without giving a shit about my workers?"
Author's daughter, if you happen to be reading this... give them a copy of Socialism: Utopian and Scientific instead. I think it's a little bit better than the manifesto for explaining things to people not familiar with communism. Also simply by not being the manifesto it short-circuits the automatic reaction Americans have to anything with the word "communist" in it.
It wouldn't work because this is either by Marx or has communism in the title but I found Marxs Value, Price, Profit is a good intro and Bukharins (regardless of what you think of him lol) ABC of Communism was able to get Russian serfs up to speed on theory.
as someone who loves treatos and is rather well off, treatos get old fast. Eventually you just desire time off work to enjoy said treatos.
I have no idea what became of the other three copies once the gifts were organized and put away. My manifesto sits now on the bookshelf, smirking at me. Even unread, I feel like it’s winning.
:specter:
The baby boomers have been there and done that. In fact, the baby boomers practically invented teenage rebellion with their shocking rock ’n’ roll music, long hair and hot pants. They, too, were rebels with causes: civil rights, Vietnam and free speech.
Love to present the civil rights movement and opposition to the Vietnam War as "teenage rebellion."
This is a shocking development in my parenting career.
This sentence withered me, I am now a raisin
E) This part is great too
While I wait, I may not be able to talk my children out of socialism, but I know how to make a deal. I’ll tell my daughters that I will read every word of “The Communist Manifesto” — twice — if they will read Milton Friedman’s “Capitalism and Freedom.”
How's this for a fair deal, I'll read your 23 page pamphlet TWICE EVEN in exchange you read this snooze fest capitalist rag that is a literal order of magnitude longer.
E2) Oh good lord there is a comments section
:data-laughing:
Thinking milton friedman will convince anyone critical of capitalism they're wrong
E2) Oh good lord there is a comments section
Let's have a look
Recently, another daughter, a freshman in college, came home and said, “No one likes capitalism anymore.”
You should remove her from school and cut off all financial support and force her to go work on a communal farm for two years.
I'll agree to this if and only if everyone has to work in a coltan slave mine for two years before they're allowed to support capitalism
Here’s a deal. She reads Marx’s Kapital v. 1 and in exchange I will huff gas and speculate on cryptocurrency
She came home at the start of the pandemic, toting, among her other possessions, “The Marx-Engels Reader.”
aww yea I've read that one it's a good overview
edit: anyway this article is just pure infantilization of her children's political beliefs, equating the Communist Manifesto to kindergarten crayon art.
this article is just pure infantilization of her children’s political beliefs, equating the Communist Manifesto to kindergarten crayon art.
You get that a lot from boomers who can't accept that their kids may be downwardly mobile. A youthful rebellious phase that will pass as time goes on and they see how the world "really" works. Hell, the kids might think of it that way too eventually, if they end up buying houses or inheriting a lot of money.
the article literally says she's waiting for them to buy a house for them to come around to her way of being
Even boomers who say "when you're young you're a socialist, and when you're old you're conservative" realize that the difference is the housing market and marketized housing.
Turning the only valuable asset that most people will ever own into a speculative commodity makes people more self interested and blind to the system they participate in.
When your ability to retire or live comfortably it's linked directly to the market price of your home, you will align your interests with whatever actions are needed to increase there value of that home.
Straight up, parents don't want to be told how shit works by their kids, boomers or not. Doesn't matter how right they are or how wrong the parent is, a kid will always be fighting an uphill battle to try and change their parents' mind about anything - which is why its best to just kinda throw ideas out there and try to get your parents to investigate them on their own.
"Okay, so you are not allowed to see your grandchildren until you've read these 3 books and give me a 5 page essay on each"
She came home at the start of the pandemic, toting, among her other possessions, “The Marx-Engels Reader.” For Christmas last year, she gave everyone in the family a copy of “The Communist Manifesto” — ordered from Amazon with unintentional irony.
Oh yeah, I'm sure there are PLENTY of socialist bookstores in rural Utah that carry the Manifesto. They're just down the street, surely
Actually she should have printed copies of the manifesto from marxists.org on the library printer
that would also be criticised as evidence socialists are slovenly hippies
If you aren't a wild woman sitting in a sleigh pulled by feral cats can you even call yourself feminist
:sicko-fem: :party-cat: :party-cat: :party-cat: :party-cat: :party-cat: :party-cat:
There is much to be admired about the zeal of youth, and the determination of every generation to overthrow the assorted idiocies of their parents and improve their own lot. The baby boomers have been there and done that.
BULL SHIT
In fact, the baby boomers practically invented teenage rebellion with their shocking rock ’n’ roll music, long hair and hot pants. They, too, were rebels with causes: ***civil rights, Vietnam and free speech. ***
YOU KNOW WHO WAS AT THE FOREFRONT OF THOSE ACTUAL ISSUES?
THE COMMUNISTS!
YOU KNOW WHO'S STILL AT THE FOREFRONT OF TODAYS ISSUES AFTER YOU GOT TIRED OF EATING POT BROWNIES AND TALKING ABOUT FIGHTING AGAINST "THE MAN" AND WENT TO BRUCH TO TALK ABOUT FIGHTING FOR "THE MAN"?
THE COMMUNISTS!
YOU SMARMY SMUG SHITLIB YOU PROBABLY SPENT "THOSE GOOD OLD DAYS" JUST LIKE THE FUCKING CLINTONS: PRAISING THE REPUBLICANS AND WONDERING WHEN THEY WERE GONNA SHOOT THE HIPPIES
Moreover, the anti-capitalist impulse is nothing new, and it’s just as likely to be inspired by Henry David Thoreau as by Karl Marx.
THOREAU WAS A FANCY LAD WHOS MOM COOKED AND CLEANED FOR HIM WHILE HE WAS "THINKING DEEPLY"
ABSOLUTE FAILSON
Thoreau was the age of my oldest daughter when he first went to Walden Pond to live in a 10-by-15-foot hut. He, too, decried the hamster wheel of the capitalist workweek, believing that people should order their lives so that they work one day each week and take six off.
YOU KNOW WHO WAS ALSO ALIVE WHEN HE WAS BUSY CAMPING? KARL FUCKING MARX!
His first foray into transcendentalism began with him moving into the spacious house of a friend (Ralph Waldo Emerson) and ended with him moving back in with his mom and dad, who’d been chugging along on the capitalist train, making the finest pencils in New England while their boy was thinking deep thoughts in the woods. (The pencil trade would eventually provide Thoreau with the funds to self-publish his first book.)
GUESS WHO ALSO SELF-PUBLISHED, WITHOUT USING MEE-MAWS AND PAWP-PAWPS CAPITALIST BLOOD MONEY, BOOKS AT THE SAME TIME?
YOU GUESSED RIGHT KARL FUCKING MARX
GUESS WHO ALSO SELF-PUBLISHED, WITHOUT USING MEE-MAWS AND PAWP-PAWPS CAPITALIST BLOOD MONEY, BOOKS AT THE SAME TIME?
YOU GUESSED RIGHT KARL FUCKING MARX
Well... he was using Engel's money but still... :blushing-engels:
Has there even been an investment with a higher return on investment than Engel’s funding of Marx? Is Engels the ultimate capitalist?
"We ended... collectively we ended that god damned war in Nam' so guys like you could be free."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKHDVt9UDnE
Deseret News
This is a Mormon magazine, isn't it? Why the hell would the author care about capitalism? The earth is just a dirty shit pile covered in demons until everyone wakes up in the spirit world, which presumably doesn't use money. It doesn't matter what economic system exists, what matters is you wear the special underpants.
Mormons have the easy version of the afterlife too where hell doesn't exist and virtually every person goes to one of the three heavens. What do Earthly economics matter? Is good heaven the capitalist one?
Extra funny, cuz the original "Deseret" in the Salt Lake region was about as close to "theocratic communism" as it comes
Much of the westward expansion was in effect done to escape encroaching capitalism in the east. It was the pressure relief valve. Why be a factory worker with gout when you can go live on stolen land with your own house?
the trouble with capitalism is you run out of other people's land
Frederick Jackson Turner's Frontier Thesis and it's Consequences
oh no, you're missing the whole point of Mormonism, which was to reify the soulessness of protestantism into into the most capitalist form of christianity possible. the afterlife doesn't matter so now you can go be brutal capitalists without feeling bad. unlike a pretty broad swathe of american evangelicals, mormons are fully cognizant that they love capitalism.
I think there's something here. I would add that major themes in Mormon doctrine are transformation/transcendence. Humans can become Gods. Material Planets can become Celestial Planes.
Most humans feel an intrinsic compulsion to improve oneself or the situation around them. Mormons have offloaded this impulse onto an external narrative construct so that they can avoid changing themselves at all. They obsess so much over transformation for the very reason that they are obsesses with staying the same, staying complacent.
Just like poor Catholics take solace in being able to be rich and relaxed in the afterlife (so they don't need to now), Mormons can take solace in being able to transform in the afterlife (so they don't need to now).
There's something in the Mormon belief called "feeling the spirit" which is feeling the Holy Ghost. This is a basically what they believe to be a Mormon Superpower that gives them hints and guides them to finding their keys and knowing when something is true. I believed in it too growing up, because how could you not? You know it's true, you feel strong feelings in your bosom undeniably. Only later did I realize that everyone feels this, and it's just certain positive emotions. Mormons also know when something "Drives away the spirit" and it's ALWAYS something that challenges them or makes them uncomfortable.
Swearing, unclean hygiene, unkempt facial hair, exposed ankles, rock music that's too rockin'. These things all drive away the spirit. Because they make the Mormons feel uncomfortable. This is why, despite being a total patriarchy, the religion still is extremely feminine coded in all of its aesthetics and customs. Other religions often have challenging themes or macabre themes, everything in Mormonism is pastel and covered in flowers. Everything is spoken of in soft tones and euphemisms, to not "drive away the spirit".
Everything starts to make sense when you realize the entire religion is a construct intended purely on maximizing the comfort of those within it and leading it. This comfort is very nice for alleviating the discomfort from a guilty conscience, Mormons can be the most cut throat soldiers, spies and businessmen on the weekdays but they are pure and comfortable every Sunday to offset it.
thank you for sharing your experiences, I don't hear from many ex-mormons
Swearing, unclean hygiene, unkempt facial hair, exposed ankles, rock music that’s too rockin’. These things all drive away the spirit. Because they make the Mormons feel uncomfortable. This is why, despite being a total patriarchy, the religion still is extremely feminine coded in all of its aesthetics and customs. Other religions often have challenging themes or macabre themes, everything in Mormonism is pastel and covered in flowers.
That's the pure distillation that American Evangelicals can never quite squarely land on. The need for comforting consumption and lack of introspection are there, but not expressed quite as simply.
The mormon churches are all cookie-cutter simple layouts with carpet on the walls. It's literally babycore, a daycare for adult lawyers and dentists
Hell exists, it’s called outer darkness. But it’s reserved specifically for ex-Mormons (Joseph Smith invented it in the Doctrine & Covenants to threaten high level Mormon "founding fathers" of the church who threatened to take their resources and leave, or who turned on Joseph Smith and called him a con-man after personal fallings out). Basically, he made it canon that being a Mormon traitor is the worst crime possible and the only thing that will get you sent to hell. Worse than murder, genocide, SA, all that can be forgiven through Jesus' atonement. Knowing God and rejecting him is worse and unforgivable.
At least, ex-mormons are the only people with mortal bodies who will get sent to Outer Darkness. Satan and his hosts will as well, but they were never given bodies and are incorporeal spirits.
Well in deep Mormon doctrine, Elohim’s (god) HQ is a literal planet called Kolob (maybe where he had lived as a mortal before becoming a god, but perhaps not because it’s also taught that Elohim created this universe, so he presumably came from the universe of an older god).
It’s also taught that the planet Earth will be re-made into a celestial heavenly plane, Celestial Kingdom will exist on Earth itself while other heavens are possibly lesser planets or moons.
Since heaven and god’s domain are all literal physical planets or locations, it would follow that outer darkness is just space/lack of a planet. So it’s essentially banishing immortal spirits to infinite void
oh yeah, I forgot to mention these parts. Some sectors of Mormon theology somehow have a materialist conception of the universe and that God is a physical being living in the same plane of reality as us.
Brigham Young taught that Elohim literally fucked Mary and she wasn't a virgin
banishing immortal spirits to infinite void
Sounds like the Phantom Zone from Superman
It's not described much in Mormon theology other than it's where Satan and the rest of the fallen angels go. The only humans who go there are those who deliberately and repeatedly reject becoming a Mormon, even after dying and going to the spirit world, and after they get a personal meeting with Jesus himself who gives them one last chance to become a Mormon.
It's just a generic bad place where God isn't and everyone's sad because they can't go to heaven. I guess the idea is the residents will all ferociously attack one another and themselves for all eternity, because God's not there to give them moral instruction.
with Jesus himself who gives them one last chance to become a Mormon.
I would literally choose oblivion over being told by Jesus Christ to become a Mormon.
You get the meeting with Jesus after 1000 years in "spirit prison" so I guess the idea is your will has been erased by that point
1000 years as a brain in a jar won't deter me from spitting in Mormon Jesus' face when I get released
Idk if an eternity of solitary confinement in the void is the alternative, I'll tell anyone they're god
Its the same magazine that boosted those Peter-Thiel backed eugenicist yuppies as a counter to decreasing birth rates.
So much ideology in there. It really is sad there are adult humans who have that shallow of an understanding of how the world works. I think its the proud ignorance that is so distressing.
There's probably a vein of sunk cost fallacy buried in there, too.
this article isn't even bad in an interesting way, just pure ideological slop for lib/Mormon parents who hate that their kids aren't exactly like them
Psychologists used to believe that kids started becoming more like their parents when they have children, but now they think it starts when they buy their first house.
Wow it's almost like financial security makes people comfortable!
I wonder if anyone ever wrote about how peoples' material conditions shape their interests and behaviors
:grillman: shouldn't be surprised that their kids don't act or think like them if they're unable to have the economic security and comforts that the :grillman: had throughout life. :think-about-it:
The usual format: "Um, sorry, but your desire to improve society somewhat is irrational and emotional and here's why." :maybe-later-kiddo:
