struggle session: is WSB praxis? Their main thesis seems to be a rejection of the idea that capitalism is a stable system that will bring steady growth and instead a realization that money behaves irrationally and is completely dissociated from real material conditions. Upon this realization, disillusioned with any sentiment of a stable responsible retirement, they YOLO into meme stocks (toss large amounts of money into dumb companies that truly shouldn't pay off) but due to the stupidity of the market, often come out on top. And despite all of the talk about lambos and other materialistic dreams, as a recent lurker I mostly see people excited that they've paid off their student loans or that they can quit their soul sucking jobs and do something they're passionate about.

Sure there are a few people just trying to accumulate massive amounts of wealth, but my impression is that the majority of people are just trying to alleviate some of the crushing financial pressures of modern society.

The game of large returns has largely been gate kept behind institutional money, and it's these people that are paying for much of WSBs success. Take the current meme stock: Gamestop. Basically large investment firms bet big that they would go bankrupt and WSB is betting otherwise and apparently winning. If they make $ from this, it will represent a transfer of wealth directly from a multi-billion dollar investment firm to tens of thousands of everyday people. And at the same time, keeping a company employing tens of thousands afloat.

Edit: the narrative of people vs institutions I bring up in the preceding paragraph draws some parallels to populist movements in politics. The rhetoric I see on WSB about institutional investors is very similar to the rhetoric I saw on Bernie Discords/subreddits during the primaries about the establishment. There's an open recognition that the system is rigged in favor of pre-existing powerful players and disenfranchises everyday people. To be fair and balanced, you could also draw parallels to Trump in the 2016 primaries as an anti-establishment candidate, but I don't think that helps my thesis.

Of course I've only just started lurking there and I recognize they're in it for the money, not all fads fit that progressive-transfer-of-wealth narrative, and this is probably going to bring me some hate here. Plus they have some really problematic slang that I'm not even getting into. But fundamentally I think WSB is made up of people who are radicalized at the absurdity of modern capitalism. I've seen the question pop up here of people feeling guilty about investing into the market and profiting off an unjust system. More often than not, the responses can be paraphrased as " yes, the system sucks, but we all currently live under it. your own financial security should be prioritized." Us lefties often have to overcome moral reservations about investing while WSB is the jokerfied investor just waiting to become a leftist. Thoughts?