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he went off on a mini-rant about South Africa and how they’re “a socialist country that shut down their police and now deal with mass rapes & crime
Ohhhh boy.
If your parents are ex South Africans, you’re fucked. No one else goes to South Africa as their go-to example of socialism.
The pitch I give for socialism is simple: political power gets used for people’s needs, not purely for what’s profitable. That means stripping capital of its political power, and removing the fake oppositional two party system that lets capital buy off parties. It doesn’t necessarily mean everyone being the same, at least not in the early stages, but it does mean capital has to adhere to the needs of the populace and directions of a party representative of the people.
If someone asks ‘well what happens if they fuck up or get corrupt’ the answer is ‘they get civil uprisings on their hands, which is the only thing that actually matters. Rioting, not voting, gave the USA the civil rights act.’
Anglos can sometimes be turned, but if they're spouting this then probably nah. Afrikaners are a lost cause from the start.
As a South African, South Africa is no where near socialist, we're a neoliberal hellhole that just accepted another IMF loan. South Africa also has private healthcare, schools, security, universities for the the rich and the lucky few that can get scholarships, bursaries or sponsorship. South Africa is also statistically the most unequal country in the world, I would like to know how the hell that makes it socialist by any stretch of the imagination. Maybe bring up that point to your mom, along with the fact that the rich and petit bourgeois had their wealth basically untouched during the transition to democracy. South Africa also never shut down the police, it's just now the police have to serve the entire country instead of white people. Crime has also statistically gone down since it's peak in the late 90's, but is still very high. Rape and gender based violence is also a huge problem still, but none of this is because South Africa is "socialist" or anything like that
"The current form of the economy allows business owners to conspire in an effort to raise the price of goods" is a nice jumping off point I find.
-> "Well we can just make laws to stop them!"
"Those people make those laws"
--> "Then we vote them out!"
"We can try but they also own most of the media and if all else fails they cheat"
When they finally get frustrated at you offer a solution.
"People can work together to counter it. If we don't buy in to the brands that cheat. If workers co-oporate through unions to get higher wages then we off-set the effects. If they're allowed to gang up on us, we gang up on them. "
If we don’t buy brands that cheat.
But that’s all brands.
If we buy and consume less and value people more.
It is, but you have to come half-way to get people to realise that.
It does get a bit exhausting to have to memorize ever fucking country’s history in relation to capitalism, but you start to notice patterns and themes the more you learn and the more conversations you have. Without out even knowing much about a certain topic you’ll see the angle they’re taking immediately. Like the billions who have died under socialism when they’re talking about a fucking famine pre industrial times. Which is total different than geocoding a whole continent. Or the common well that happens all the time throughout history. All countries go to war. They all torture and steal and cheat so what’s the difference when we do it. Oppressors number one tool is cognitive dissonance. Call it when you see it and if they bring up a subject you’re not familiar with. Let them know you don’t know and then reframe it to something you do. It’s sounds like that’s what you did with health care and such, but when you’re done with that conversation do some research so you’re more prepared for the next.
Start with Workplace Democracy. Democracy is good, right? We want the people in control of our nation and economy and taxes to be accountable, right? So why is it that the workplace, the area of life where we spend most of our time, where we are supposed to contribute to society is run as an absolute dictatorship?
Should not the people actually doing the jobs elect the leaders they think are most competent? Shouldn't ordinary people have some say over how to lead most of their waking lives, rather than slave as indentured servants?
Y'know I don't think that you have to explain it to your family. You can do your best to discuss workplace democracy, or talk in baby steps of how to achieve class unity, but ultimately you only have so much energy each day and you shouldn't give yourself the burden of changing the minds of people who don't want to change. Use that energy for real praxis
it's when you get to keep the full value of your labor. worker ownership instead of private owners that keeps all profit despite not having done any of the work.
there’s even this video clip from Disney.
haha, holy fuck that was bad.
the comments are fun though
Moral of the episode: If you're a successful socialist, a capitalist will come along and punish you for no reason.
I don't think you can. Any explanation isn't going to be sufficient without proper historical knowledge and an understanding of at least basic theory/dialectical materialism. Just too much propaganda.
I honestly have no idea. very slowly and subtlety I guess? but that might not be enough considering bourgeois cultural hegemony
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of government.
When Ho Chi Minh wrote the US asking for assistance, he quoted that document because it describes what socialists want to protect through structures they control. Everyone deserves life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The Marxist project is understanding the things which deprive people of those rights, what effect it has on those people, and what the alternatives are to achieve them. Not building those structures in a permanent, radical way will only allow them to be undone as the New Deal was while not challenging the injustices because they don't presently affect you is gambling on temporary social prestige when the social fabric will only continue to decay. By that document there is a moral duty to abolish government and institute a new one organised around new principles and new forms to guarantee safety and happiness.
i try to find little things that they like, are proud of, and i can show are a good example of core socialist ethics. being in a union for a long time, being proud of helping the homeless, hating people who litter, etc.
