Bonus points for implying Parenti is one too.
Another one:
Summarises it better than I could. I used to watch him, along with other content creators, but it's been a while so don't remember exact examples. The above hits the nail on the head when it comes to the overarching issue.
The fact Hakim promotes Parenti, if I remember correctly, is one sign of his liberalism. The fact he runs a sub like r/TheDeprogram which is one in a long line of western petit bourgeois leftist meme subs (succeeding MoreTankieChapo and GenZedong) and the fact many of his podcast's followers there are Dengists is another sign of his liberalism.
The fact he has a (fairly successful) YouTube channel where he makes relatively short, relatively shallow, "snappy" videos, as well as a podcast, is a clear sign of the petit bourgeois nature of the commodity production ("content creation") he's engaged in. And I think the fact he has a fairly successful Patreon from which he funds his own survival + the continuation of his petit bourgeois commodity production pretty much by definition makes him a fairly successful petit bourgeois. And the fact it is his political propaganda which directly affords him this class status is problematic to say the least.
E: Please keep in mind that me as well as many others are deriving this stuff from personal as well as collectively experiences and observations. I'm not just randomly thinking oh he's petit bourgeois so fuck him. I personally spent years consuming leftist content on YouTube and the like and did not learn shit about the philosophy and theory of Marxism or the history of communism. I had a very superficial understanding of things despite spending years watching this stuff and it showed when I started engaging with the sub we're on right now since people here actually have a more in depth understanding of Marxism. I've basically had to start over which is what I'm doing now, I've tried to put away all I think I know and started studying Marxist texts, starting from the basics, a few months ago. This is my own personal experience but if you talk to other people here you'll find it's not unique at all. Leftist content is legitimately not a good way to learn Marxism, at best if it somehow manages to be devoid of liberalism it's just an entertaining thing to do in your free time, but even then there's so little leftist content that is actually revolutionary, exactly for the reasons I described above, that leftist content creators work within the framework and by the rules of petit bourgeois production in the industry of content creation. They are by default driven to produce content that will appeal to western petit bourgeoisie and labor aristocrats since those are the people who consume things like YouTube and podcasts the most. If your concern is to just consume leftist whatever then okay, keep watching it. But if you want to become a Marxist and an actual communist, i.e. the vanguard of the global proletariat, you'll have to do better than that.
On my way to tell an American living in a tent city that they have more in common with the rich because they live in the West. Libs are so fucking sheltered and blind to the poverty around them. What part of 'economic crisis' and 'millennials are so poor that they can't afford to start a family even if they wanted to' do they not understand?
This idea that life would be harder under communism in the modern era is laughable. Capitalism is ridiculously wasteful, we could produce far less and still have everything we need if we did it within our means instead of the stupid shit capitalism does like throw out tons of food or build disposable single-use crap that breaks in five seconds because muh profits.
Not only would most people be better off, but our lives would be easier and more fulfilling under communism.
Poor liberals see their poverty but they can't imagine a better system so they think they gonna be as poor but without funkopop and camgirls from the third world
They'd rather communism be like a christian rapture separating the good people from the bad people (they're one of the good ones) than actually improve this current world.
You might enjoy this essay: Western Marxism, the Fetish for Defeat, and Christian Culture by Jones Manoel, if you haven't seen it already
Its like yeah sure maybe we dont have streaming services and cars for every single person but at least you have a free tram/trainline and free cable, with the time to enjoy it.
as westerners our class interests are aligned with the bourgeoisie
i will remember this as i choose once again whether to buy food or power lol
the fact many of his podcast's followers there are Dengists is another sign of his liberalism
there it is. fucking ultras
I've never understood the western ultra's obsession with poverty. They seem to love the idea of a society where everyone is equally destitute and owning anything more than the clothes on your back is bourgeoisie decadence. And I don't understand how they ever expect to get the people on their side with this attitude either. Are people, in the west especially, consumer-brained and obsessed with buying products? Absolutely, but you don't fix that by forcing everyone into the other extreme. Consumption in moderation is fine, it isn't a goddamn "sin" to enjoy things.
BTW, that totally equal redistribution of wealth wouldn't benefit workers in the imperial core only holds true for a small number of countries (Canada and the Nordic countries being the main example). In places like the US, the UK or Germany, wealth distribution within the country is so unequal that many, many people would profit signicificantly from an equal global distribution of wealth - not as much as somebody in the Global South, but it would still easily mean a doubling or more of the average Amerikan's income.
Also important to point out that communism doesn't just mean redistribution of wealth, it means taking political power. If the redistribution of wealth happens to harm some workers, a dictatorship of the proletariat is more fit to aid them and relieve those new contradictions as opposed to a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie which would only elevate wealth disparity to profit off of need.
Hi, Canadian here. Equal redistribution of wealth would greatly benefit the vast majority of people here too. Workers are getting fucking crushed here. Our 'free healthcare' we used to pride ourselves so much on is falling apart. Infrastructure is crumbling. The average worker here's life is getting worse and worse. The only people it wouldn't immediately materially benefit is a small number of tech fuckers (like me). And tbh that's only from a certain perspective. If we got thing's like Cuba's medical system reforms out of a revolution here, it would even benefit the techno-labor-aristocracy.
I'm pretty sure most Canadians would benefit too. It's like the study only accounted for "middle-class" boomer/redditor Canadians or something.
PSA: STANDARD OF LIVING IS NOT A MEASUREMENT OF SINGLE USE PLASTIC AND GASOLINE EXPENDITURE. THE VAST MAJORITY OF WESTERNERS CAN SEE MASSIVELY IMPROVED LIVES, WITH LEISURE AND HEALTHCARE, WHILE ALSO REDUCING THEIR CARBON FOOTPRINT.
If you had to buy 5 washing machines over a 20 year period, you're 5 times as prosperous as someone who only bought 1, right?
Where’s that map that shows that an even global distribution of wealth would still mean a net uptick for the average American?
I know exactly what you're talking about I think, I'm very confident I've seen this years and years ago.
It was pretty much the top result for "wealth redistribution map" too. Random blog post
Seems to be from 2019 so all the COVID financial market boom, all the new billionaires not accounted for. Funny that Canada/Europe/AUS/JPN would lose out, but not saying how much, even 10-20% is nothing really but in the current year 2023 I'm pretty sure everyone would increase.
Show
Funny that Canada/Europe/AUS/JPN would lose out, but not saying how much, even 10-20% is nothing really but in the current year 2023 I'm pretty sure everyone would increase.
I imagine a lot of this (definitely for Canadians, at least, from what I've heard from a friend up there) is counting the market value of their home towards their wealth. And yeah decommodifying housing would result in a lot of people losing "wealth" but who cares?
I don't believe that Canadians would truly lose anything by any sensible metric.
by definition makes him a fairly successful petit bourgeois
average salary for a doctor in iraq - ~65k usd per year after tax
1/3 of the estimated income from the deprogram patreon - ~59k usd per year before conversion fees and taxliterally not petit bourgeoisie
make the majority of your income through wage labour - you're working classplus he does good work anyway
Does he own his own office? I would accept calling him petit bourgeoisie if he does, but he's obviously a comrade either way and if he's bourgeois he's a very good class traitor.
a public one too, pretty sure he works for the health service/department
for real, there are lots of ways to have a relatively large salary, but not have a petit bourgeois relationship to the means of production. it has absolutely nothing to do with "salary number above certain threshold" and everything to do with using capital to extract surplus value from the proletariat. Hakim is using the artisan mode of commodity production. this sounds like a "maoist" pseudointellectual who's going to be duped into blowing up a swingset for the feds if they ever do anything at all.
Holy shit Iraqi doctors are killing it Jesus
Insane to think about how Hakim makes literally over 10 times the average Iraqi salary yet he had his house blown up by an American missile
it's why i'm a lot softer with privilege (compared to average in their country) when it comes to people from the global south
it doesn't mean dick when the evil empire comes knocking
I've never understood this western ultra perspective of "if you make $1 more than X amount, you're petite bourgeois." if someone is a socialist, it doesn't matter if they are relatively well off under capitalism, because they still see the issues with the system itself. Are these people going to decry Engels because he was a factory owner?
if someone is a socialist, it doesn't matter if they are relatively well off under capitalism
there are some arguments to be made about low revolutionary potential and out-of-touch-ness that comes from being comfortable, but broadly i agree, mostly
Oh for sure, I don't mean someone can't be suspect for being a member of the petite bourgeoisie, but class traitors do exist, and as they have access to the resources most of us lack under capitalism, they can be quite valuable in organizing.
make the majority of your income through wage labour - you're working class
This gets into why I think wage versus capital is such a limited model for a class dichotomy. Pick any arbitrarily high wage, and the worker will have more in common with old money, and also have the ability to easily pivot into capital. Some workers are paid arbitrarily high wages, and that's balanced out largely by underpaid workers. Someone who earns almost as much in capital gains (note: patreon is not capital gains) as they do in wages, and has zero rents extracted, is still a "worker".
What really stratifies people economically is not how "proximal" they are to capital, but the objective rules of how that capital operates: interest, credit, and debt. If across your lifetime you pay more debt and rents than capital gains, others are impoverishing you by financial means. If across your lifetime you have more capital gains than debt and rents paid, you are impoverishing others. A star athlete or actor who makes millions of dollars a year is closer to the ruling class than a business owner being squeezed into bankruptcy by banks, or a pensioner. If a business executive was paid the same money in salary rather than stock options, they wouldn't stop being part of the ruling class.
In an age when the plurality of people were factory workers and only a small minority took out loans, "access to MoP" made sense. These days, with a financialized economy, it's all credit and debt.
I heard that "Neoliberalism is rational fascism", but here this person shows that "Fascism is the logical conclusion of neoliberalism"
I am begging people to actually read Marx or Proudhon. There are way more classes than just proletariat and bourgeoisie. Hakim does not fit the class description of either (even though he is closer to being a proletarian than bourgeoisie).
He is likely what Marx or Proudhon would consider to be a 'skilled or professional artisan worker', the class that Proudhon saw as the primary revolutionary class, who would lead the social revolution because proletarianization would upend and degrade their living standards, but they also had the systemic knowledge to 'separate from society' and live within a social and commodity production amongst themselves. Marx believed that only when they were proletarianized would they be able to achieve the nessecery class consciousness that is required for a social revolution, otherwise they are too ingrained in the competitive logic of their class, competing for the larger scraps at the table of the bourgeoisie.
That and he is also a working doctor, so definitely in the skilled professional category, regardless of how you slice it.
It is in this precarious class state that people like Hakim find themselves in, and why they have a class consciousness, but one that expresses itself through works of artistic documentation, not direct organization or class struggle.
Also, it is amazing how much economic and political illiteracy is required to have that understanding of Marxism. It is in fact possible for most people in the world to have a low-end non-precarious Western middle class commodity life, provided that efficient public services are developed and available. You will lose out your high-end western luxuries, but let's be fair, do we really want to live our lives of toil for a couple days of happiness, if that?
i will give up every scrap of my human dignity before i allow the flow of funko pops to be interrupted
Where do sandwich artists fall into this class analysis?
You will lose out your high-end western luxuries, but let's be fair, do we really want to live our lives of toil for a couple days of happiness, if that?
People brought guns to protest masks during a pandemic, so the answer seems to be yes
tbh the process to make the US socialist would require some very old fashioned methods to crack down the neoliberalism into nonexistence
This is something I've been thinking about. I think it depends on your definition of "quality of life". Imagine a world where you never had to worry about housing, medical care, or even food, where you have democratic control of your workplace and work fewer hours allowing more time for hobbies and side projects, but in exchange things like coffee, exotic fruit, chocolate, etc. go from every day commodities to once in a while treats. I think most westerners would take that deal.
I think it may be a side effect of capitalist realism where it's easy to point out all the unsustainable excesses that need to go, but hard to imagine all the possibilities for things to improve.
He’s correct in that ending exploitation will make life less cushy for westerners for a while. I mean look at France and Niger. Niger is no longer selling uranium for pennies, and France is talking about military intervention. You don’t do that unless you know your people will become unruly because you refuse to give in to the ‘others’ demands for fairness. You don’t see frenchies rioting in support of ending French imperialism, so yes, communism will be a hard sale for citizens who directly benefit from the suffering of others.
And I think the fact he has a fairly successful Patreon from which he funds his own survival + the continuation of his petit bourgeois commodity production
Hakim probably owns a nice PC and a microphone lol. People really read Marx one time and think “damn everyone’s a business owner because they also make money outside of being bossed around.”They are by default driven to produce content that will appeal to western petit bourgeoisie and labor aristocrats since those are the people who consume things like YouTube and podcasts the most. If your concern is to just consume leftist whatever then okay, keep watching it. But if you want to become a Marxist and an actual communist, i.e. the vanguard of the global proletariat, you'll have to do better than that.
I agree. I like the boys, but even their podcasts can be tiresome to listen to because they usually only have on American guests or other westerners and talk about American topics despite it being an international podcast.
I actually agree with this guy for the most part. Hakim and Parenti are definitely not liberals lol, but there is some wishful thinking when it comes to the lead up and outcome of communism.
I agree. I like the boys, but even their podcasts can be tiresome to listen to because they usually only have on American guests or other westerners and talk about American topics despite it being an international podcast.
lol They actually have nonwesterners on their show and go to great lengths to talk about nonwestern issues, but go off.
I actually agree with this guy for the most part. Hakim and Parenti are definitely not liberals lol, but there is some wishful thinking when it comes to the lead up and outcome of communism.
I don't. Also, revolutionary optimism is a good thing.
Yeah, some non westerners. I can count on my hand. And I used to listen to it every day, and almost everything was US/Europe centric. Otherwise I wouldn’t be listening to other podcasts for news.
revolutionary optimism is a good thing.
Why? Optimism when everything is shit and has 0 signs of getting better is just religion.
Wait so you're criticizing a podcast you don't even listen to lol
Why? Optimism when everything is shit and has 0 signs of getting better is just religion.
You really showed your hand here. It just screams cynical atheist shit. Without revolutionary optimism, you just fall down into a nihilistic reactionary hole. Things ARE happening even if you want to deny material reality.
The fact that you defend small business tyrants further down the thread just adds onto it.
if you don't believe in things getting better then why be a socialist
also wanting people in the west to have shelter medicine and food is petit bourgeoise unlike supporting the actual petit bourgeoise
Why? Optimism when everything is shit and has 0 signs of getting better is just religion.
Undialectical. No condition is permanent.
Looking for some peoples' opinions on here. On a purely practical/strategic level, and not a moral level, do we have to sort of slowly coddle the west into gradually not exploiting the rest of the world, so that they don't just flip fascist and fucking glass the whole planet with nukes?
Been thinking about that. Are there enough labour hours and resources going to the rich to sorta divert that to all other westerners and make up for the lack of global resource extraction? Can we so dramatically improve lives in non-resource intensive ways, that people in the west feel fine about a lack of iPads or whatever?
20% of Americans are already salivating for a literal apocalypse. Obviously it'd be a lot funnier to just whip that rug out but I think their lack of treats would end carbon based life idk
there is definitely enough going to the super rich that if we cut them off there would be more than enough man hours and stuff to maintain average standard of living without exploitating the global south. Capitalists aren't known for their reluctance to cut labour costs
I'm betting on the prospect that we can present a better deal than driving from work to big box store to mortgaged house... to maybe 90% of Americans. Peel a large chunk of them off, and the economy will stall out.
Shit, if the Indus River Valley civ had improved sanitation, and if the classical Mayans figured out water filtration, and if permaculture can support 4 people per acre, it really can't be that hard to make it work.
We forget that so much of the product of exploited labor ends up as waste. This is why I find it really hard to take people seriously when they make the essentialistic claim that citizens of Western countries cannot have their quality of life without exploiting the global South. Maybe under the current structure, but we never wanted to keep that anyway. Or the claim that "Westerners benefit from imperialism so there's no incentive to replace it". China, more amd more with each passing year, is a shining counterexample. Their median quality of life has almost achieved parity with America's, and who are they exploiting?
They recently had a Russian marxist (Agit Prop) on, and in the comments people were calling for more Marxists from the periphery, like História Pública from Brazil. I hope this is a sign of them getting more “serious”, y’know.
