It's important to remember that for each individual person, the road through disillusionment of the entire system is a long and arduous one. For many, it is a total reversal of the way they have always seen the world.
Idk about the rest of you, but my path from advocate for capitalism to ML took years, and had lots of wonky pitstops along the way. From what I can see, the bulk of them are on a path that leads to us. Have patience, revolution isn't a year away and we all know that, so build our base. That means meeting people where they are, understanding why they are where they are, and addressing what you can. Let reality do the rest.
EDIT: Also, the US had a chance to raise an entire next generation of finance bro capitalist advocates, and instead they multiplied the community's numbers by ten and actively turned them against the entire economic framework. Ayyyy lmao
Ehh these are good steps, but they still would fundamentally reject any sort of third worldism interjected. You can see there's a decent amount of comments saying "First time, huh?" Most of these people will accept the contradiction of the stock market, fold it into their liberal worldview, and keep on being capitalists. It is still beyond the pale for them to recognize that by virtue of being able to play in the stock market at any level your profits are propped up by the global poor.
I mean the path to left revolutionary from a capitalist sympathetic is full of being the "First time, huh?" for a while and then getting the same in reverse from the next stage leftwards as reality exposes itself. The path down the chain takes a few years, at least it did for me.
I'll have to save the post and check back in on some of the usernames in a couple years if Reddit still exists.
I said "good steps", some people will surely go to the left from WSB. But if you look at things materially, WSB and the likes have limited ground for radicalization. Most of these people are stating dislike over the US market as an investment. They are completely uncritical about the profit motive, they just are angry at the government/corporate collusion boxing them out of profits. It's very different in sentiment compared to the 99% and Occupy WS discourse, these are people mad they don't get to be petty capitalists. Their class interests are more likely to push them into libertarian/neoliberal ideologies.
Eh I mean that's not really the character I've seen of most. Sure, there are those among them that get highly upvoted because of their obscenely large stakes in a position they share, but most of them I guarantee have $3000 or less in this, and for many of them that is a huge amount to risk. Regardless of good or bad, they fell into the community of wallstreetbets, and it just so happened to be the setting for a huge lesson on the disfunction of capitalist reality. Sure, this alone will not change them. They still likely mainly care about it as a lottery ticket, but every day that passes the small part of them grows larger that cares more about the rebellious/destabilizing nature of it (or at least intended) .
I know there's a lot of disgusting throwing around of obscene amounts of wealth on WSB, but the bulk of them are in similar financial situation to a lot of those here. Can't fault people for seeing a win-win of the chance to make much-needed money with the added benefit of it being at the expense of the ultra wealthy who nearly every single person on the subreddit absolutely abhors already.
Long ways to go for sure, and there's certainly potential for reversal or slipping back into their previous state, but given the dismal state of the left in the US I will take any opportunity as a win.
but most of them I guarantee have $3000 or less in this
Let me stop you right there. This article is from 2017 and I know it's only gotten worse, but most Americans can't afford a $500 surprise expense. The joke on WSB is they spent their stimmy on stonks, but most people need all of their stimulus for basic fucking needs. What I am saying is if you can afford to gamble any amount of money on the stock market above a couple hundred bucks, you are doing so from a place of privilege most Americans cannot.
For the record I'm not browbeating leftists who play the market or who are financially secure, I'm not even saying it's wasted energy to talk to WSB people. But I keep seeing people say "Yeah we're sticking it to the rich people!" and I just think it's a red herring. Until these people start losing their homes to the banks, they will be more materially aligned with the interests of capital and act that way.
These WSB people see themselves as the victims because they lost a little disposable income, but this viewpoint is liberal. It's based in the individual prosperity mindset and they will continue to justify that liberal mindset by saying "government intervention." Very, very few of them will look at the practice itself and say that capitalist investment as a whole is coercive and unjust. Go talk to a grocery store worker, an unhoused person, an undocumented person, etc. and they will be much more likely to come to the conclusion that capitalism preys on the weak. Those are the people who need class rhetoric. The lived experience of WSB people will be "I deserve more than I got" without recognizing their significant privilege.
We absolutely love to see it don't we folks.
Although I definitely see some sovereign citizenry going on in some of these comments so not all peaches and cream.
spoiler
Edit: Also what is the difference between this:
I agree. The blatant unpunished corruption in the US stock market is horrifying to see. The only US stock I own right now is GME, and after this saga is done, I'm probably not going to touch another US stock, unless they fix how corrupt the US system is.
and this:
So I've made the decision to never buy another game from EA/origin again. If they can ban at any moment for no wrong doing and not provide any information then why should I give them any more of my money. It's unfortunate because I've loved the past battlefront games and was excited to try out the new one, but there is no guarantee that this game will not be banned so why bother. Hopefully nobody has had my experiences and good luck to all of you that do purchase through origin in the future.
I mean the main difference is the EA/origin comment is basically "fuck this particular company, I won't buy their products", while the GME one is "yeah I bought a lottery ticket where if I win the engine of finance capital that has dominated the world for decades gets embarrassed worse than ever before (possibly even collapsing it)". They're also saying they see capitalism's crown jewel as a fraud, which is huge compared to "Fuk EA lolz"
I wonder if they're purposely pushing the do not sell sentiment so that they can cash out while all the gullible redditors hodl their stocks when GME goes back to being worthless.
