For your info, Janine, Matt is not exactly a pro-capitalist right-winger. I could argue that your ilk are the actual "invaders," but all are welcome to debate here. And that is what we're doing. I would never try to stifle your voice, but simply challenge it where I strongly disagree. Please keep in mind that the SJWs and the autocratic former Soviets would instead be demanding censorship. This should make it quite clear that Marxists and socialists of the classic variety actually believe in free speech and democracy. You are welcome here.
And you say it's these "cabals", not capitalism, i.e., the system itself, that is responsible for the state of affairs you decry? When a system runs on money, with competition in a dog-eat-dog race to the top is what the system thrives on, when it encourages rather than stifles greed/avarice, and when it puts a price tag on everything and allows a few to accumulate a vast fortune at the expense of everyone else and impoverishing millions, how is that not a feature of a system that runs on production for profit and money, let alone past a point where material inequality was inevitable due to technological limitations? What you see here is the end result of such a system. If we lived under an economic democracy that was not about production for profit and money, the tools used by this "cabal" would not have been in effect.
The "free market" ideology overlooks the point that only those who have the most money are "free" in such a system, because a few own everything, including the media that allows us to communicate and disseminate news and information. And such people have always been few in number, even though there are increasingly less of them with more and more concentrated power than ever before. This is a "free market" behaving as it should be expected to. It's not intended to create material prosperity for all, but only for a few.
Again, despite it being more and more clear that you will not listen, because once you hear words like "communism," "Marxism," "socialism," etc, you automatically think of Soviet-style autocracy, as the capitalist-controlled media has force fed all of us with throughout our lives -- I *do not* promote a state-controlled system that has all the basic features of capitalism -- money, a wage system, a price tag on everything, strict class divisions -- but sans any semblance of a nominal democracy.
Death of millions? Capitalism's need for constant expansion and competition causes imperialism and war on a mass scale, which results in the deaths and starvation of millions across the globe. And many, many in this very country cannot feed their families adequately not due to a shortage of food but because they lack the *money* to buy it. Poverty is a regular feature under capitalism, which I see simply by looking out my front window and view the inner city cesspool I live in, and trust me that poverty causes plenty of misery.
Giving up rights? If you actually did read the work of Marx and Engels, you would see that economic democracy is a fundamental democracy that lacks an all-powerful state run by a few politicians. A worker-run economy that rewarded all workers with material abundance would in no way be capable of imposing autocratic laws denying freedom of speech etc., because the media and news outlets would belong to the commons, not privately owned by corporations nor by any extant state apparatus. Nothing resembling an economic democracy has ever been attempted, but it's far past time that we the working class give up our stubborn love affair with capitalism and class divisions and establish a more free economic world order. Nothing about this in any ways suggests replicating what was done in the Soviet Union or China etc.
"Outed" me? Janine, I have been proudly and openly a Classical Marxist and Socialist on Matt's comment feed since he established it here on Substack. I "outed" myself, right from the start, and not only when I was engaging Libertarians like yourself. Anyone willing to actually listen and read what I say clearly, and actually read the works of Marx & Engels, can see what I'm actually talking about and promoting as opposed to what you're claiming that I'm talking about and promoting -- which is like comparing chalk to cheese. Or, insisting that chalk and cheese are the same thing if you constantly refer to chalk as "cheese."
A worker’s utopia will be possible when they come up with a vaccine for aggression and greed.
I’ve been around aggressive people for the last 15 years- they are not satisfied with ‘a share’ they want everyone else's share too. Which is why authorities are needed. Then the minute there’s such thing as a authority, they make sure it’s them, they start colluding and controlling. Then you have and elite. Every time communism is attempted, you end up with Super-rich people, dirt-poor people and dead people. Never give-up your personal autonomy for an ideal Christopher- it never ends well.
A vaccine for aggression and greed would be a system that does not encourage and require ruthless competition, have mass material inequality as one of its defining features (in an era where it's now technologically possible to produce an abundance for all), and defining "success" and the ability to live comfortably by the acquisition of more and more money and mad consumption for items you don't need but are told you do along the way by an advertising industry. Describing these aspects of human behavior as being biologically hard-wired into us makes no sense, as people behave the way the system they are compelled to work within requires them to. A system that ran on cooperation rather than competition and provided all workers with full material access to the vast social store we collectively contribute to, self-governing by the workers based on the interests of everyone rather than the profit requirements of the few, and using technology/automation to reduce & eliminate as much human toil as possible would produce very different types of behavior.
Such a thing is not a "utopia" as I believe you define it, but simply a much better world than what we have today, fulfilling the historic mission of capitalism and America's Founders by taking the next step in our civilization's social and economic evolution.
I have lived and worked around such aggressive people as you have described encountering too, and for all my life. And they all have one major thing in common: they are all compelled to work within the laws and rules, both economic and social, set up by capitalism. There is no evidence that they do this because of some inner nature that is not connected to the pervading economic world order surrounding them. If this belief in genetic determinism were true, then how would you explain socialists like me? How do we "go against" what is supposed to be an immutable genetic programming? And even if there was credence to a Social Darwinistic theory of genetic determinism for human behavior, then the existence of people like me would strongly suggest that our genetic nature is mutable with changing times, and the "greed" gene is now being challenged by what may be called a "social progress" gene. And we know for a scientific fact anyway that species *evolve*, and for complex organisms like humans, that means social as well as biological/neurological evolution. Hence, the world order has and can evolve just as organisms do, and in the case of human civilization, the level of technology at any given point in time is what makes that possible, even if it may take a while to happen with each new advance.
Authorities are needed in a class-divided system to literally force order, since a system based on ruthless competition, encouragement of avarice, and mass material inequality does not breed order on its own. Authorities of this nature would not be required in an environment of cooperation, collective ownership & democratic control of industry, and material abundance for all. People do not commit crimes or try to screw each other over "just because."
I agree with your concerns when you define "authority" as *a few* controlling everything and making decisions for everyone else, even on the so-called "behalf" of the masses. I agree that never ends well, which is why I have always been opposed to all forms of oligarchy, including Soviet-style autocracy with its bureaucratic class of privileged despots. The only major difference between it and the form of class-divided capitalism we know and live under was its total lack of a nominal political democracy and bureaucrats directly controlling everything rather than acting as a "middle man" for corporations controlling everything. The end result, however, is the same since we are now fighting the censorship and oppression of society imposed by the Extreme Left, with the Extreme Right also waiting in the wings as always to impose their brand of identity politics and oppression. And they are using the corporate controlled press and company HR departments and unions to do this too.
Yes, every time "communism" or "socialism" as defined by the Soviet or Chinese misappropriation of the term, which are actually variants of Leninism rather than Marxism, get tried, the end result is not good. Which is why I do not propose it, and never have. Saying that I do is frankly a Straw Man tactic, since an economic democracy has never yet been attempted and it bears no resemblance to the concept of state ownership and autocratic control.
And rather than giving up my personal autonomy I am seeking to increase it for me and *all* other workers by establishing an economic democracy that would not require us all to live paycheck-to-paycheck, compete with each other in a dog-eat-dog manner, have to pay through the roof for basic necessities, constantly count pennies for any form of recreation to meet our psychological needs, and seeing our personal relationships fray due to money issues and the impoverished, crime-ridden urban environments we have to live in since most people living there do not have enough money to enjoy life in a productive way and therefore turn to various addictions as a form of "escape."
Finally, for the record, since this is pertinent here, propaganda from Far Left voices did not turn me against capitalism. *Capitalism itself* turned me against capitalism. Living and working under this system all my life did this, especially since I started my work life and business ventures as a zealous supporter of capitalism, who believed the propaganda that if you work hard, take risks, study & learn the rules of marketing & retailing etc, and maintain a generally good character, you will go far.
Then reality hit me, just as I saw it hit most people who made the attempt, with the few who made it big doing so because they knew the right people, kissed the right asses, or got very lucky breaks. Then I saw how little honest work gets you in favor of the many I saw turn to illegal means, and how ruthless borderline sociopaths tended to rise higher than honest & ethical people to the extent it was possible for them with the right lucky breaks.
And I grew up and entered the business world devoutly in favor of this system based on a constant spoon-feeding of *pro-capitalist* propaganda during my formative years -- in the school system (where I was often disciplined for not obeying or respecting authority figures, btw, including once because I made fun of a picture of the sitting President), on television (you couldn't get more pro-capitalist than shows I grew up watching, like "Dragnet"), and pretty much everywhere else, as this was during the Cold War when "Marxism" and related terms were constantly bashed and misapplied to the Soviet Union.
I came to an anti-capitalist stance entirely on my own, based on several years of work and experience in business ventures. Only *then* did I seek out info to see if there were others who came to the same conclusions I did, and provide me with alternative views where I could weigh what they said with what the media, schooling system, and entertainment industry were saying, and *compare* the evidence to the assertions of both. Needless to say, at the time almost no teacher or professor was pushing or even giving any credence to those alternative views, and certainly none that I ever met. The closest to that I ever came was in college, when a history professor I had simply and accurately acknowledged that Marx's ideology was "not the philosophy of the Soviet Union." And this professor, whom I was on regular talking terms with since he was my faculty advisor, was *not* against capitalism -- he simply actually read Marx & Engel's books and honestly pointed out that what they described was not what the system used by the Soviet Union, plain and simple.
Many of the teachers and professors I met and studied under were certainly Leftist, but their views were kept firmly within a pro-capitalism framework, focusing on racial & gender equality *within* the context of capitalism rather than class consciousness & unity. I do not even recall any of them simply promoting social democracy (i.e., liberal capitalism, which is also often mistakenly conflated with Marxism/socialism/etc). Some of them were the prototypes of today's post-modernist SJWs, but most certainly not of actual socialists or students of what Marx & Engels *actually* proposed.
"if you work hard, take risks, study & learn the rules of marketing & retailing etc, and maintain a generally good character, you will go far. "
The reason this STOPPED working after 1970, is not because "capitlaism". It's because of a combinations of 1. The privately owned Federal Reserve ponzi scheme. 2. The mafia morphing into an untouchable administrative layer of federal and state government. 3. Capture of our state and federal legislatures by global interests via globally-coordinated a.) bribery b.) blackmail scheme [yes, that sounds unbelievable- and they've all TOLD you it a conspiracy theory, but it's why nothing around the Jeffrey Epstein (who did not kill himself) and Ghislaine Maxwell cases makes any sense..why has her list of pedophile clients not been released? Kind-of a big deal, wouldn't you say. And what of those flight logs to Epstein's (pedo) Island?] It all seems a universe away until you start getting your news away from Mainstream Media. Why is the Justice department's website FULL of child trafficking arrests, and none of it is EVER reported on the Mainstream Media. HUH? Child trafficking is an issue in America??! What?
Then ask yourself why the "reality" presented on Mainstream News differs so VASTLY from the real reality.
You dislike capitalism because they've made damn sure it doesn't work anymore- so that you'll become demoralized and frustrated and start to blame the wrong things, and reach for the wrong solutions- the ones that FURTHER benefit them.
"Describing these aspects of human behavior as being biologically hard-wired into us makes no sense, as people behave the way the system they are compelled to work within requires them to."
This statement above by you is abject propaganda that you have obviously swallowed.
Think of it this way, if you were a wolf, wouldn't it reward you greatly to persuade sheep that there are no wolves, and that they can relax and not take normal life saving precautions? Yes, it would completely behoove you and you would try it. Which is why the sociopaths that created Marxism did so.
"Give up your property and guns, we'll all live together in peaceful shared harmony. Those dastardly rights which allowed a level playing field for competition will be gone, and we all can get on with mutually beneficial non-competitive peace." -said every scheming sociopath ever.
Look, I'm a non-competitive, non-aggressive person; I get the appeal. As history has shown us, we may be in the majority, but we do not roam this earth alone. We live among people who's drive toward domination and acquisition make no earthly sense to us. So we need rights to protect ourselves from them. Can our rights completely stop them, NO, but we are in much better shape with those rights than if we were to be duped into handing everything over and TRUSTING them to play nice. THEY WILL NEVER PLAY NICE- they are pathological liars for whom "winning" is breathing. They laugh at your notion that playing nice is even a worthy goal, that telling the truth is better than a well conceived lie. It's not "the system" that makes them this way, it is in their blood. And they wrote the book on Marxism with the hope it would lay you defenseless at their feet. And they have murdered tens of millions using that crafty tool.
I'm sorry to have to be the one to break it to you, but Satan's own dwell among us. Whether you are religious or not, it's a reality that cannot be changed.
The Prussia Gate series here on Substack will go a long way towards helping you to understand the pathology of those who we are all forced to wrestle with on the daily. And how they have made the damaging incursions and perversions that they have to our system, in order to make it unfair to the sheep amongst them. But we will not let them corrupt us, and we will prevail. Exposure has hurt them greatly and we are in the process right now of throwing them off.
Reject CBDC., and turn off ANY mainstream media. The truth is out there if you look for it. And it's most certainly NOT the Marxism ploy.
Human adaptability based on environment and changes within it is not "propaganda," but a readily observable phenomenon. If it wasn't the case, humanity would not have survived and acclimated itself to this planet as well as we have, let alone did what was required to rise to the top of the food chain, so to speak.
"Give up your property and guns, we'll all live together in peaceful shared harmony. Those dastardly rights which allowed a level playing field for competition will be gone, and we all can get on with mutually beneficial non-competitive peace." -said every scheming sociopath ever."
Sociopaths who are scheming never say that, and that alone. They ultimately say, in some form or another, "give the power to me or my group and I/we'll make that happen." I am saying nothing of the such. I am saying the working class as a whole must do it, without masters or a small group of privileged or armed individuals forcing us to do it.
If you are a non-competitive and non-aggressive person who sees the appeal, then you should realize that it's not hard-wired into our neural biology. You should know that we have a choice, that human behavior is not fixed but mutable. And that when technology permits it, as our current level of it now does, we can collectively choose to use it to create a better world that does not appeal to the worst aspects of our psyches.
One thing you continue to ignore when you mention history, Janine, is the very important point that prior to the Industrial Revolution in the relatively *recent* past, humankind did not possess the technology or level of production to produce an abundance for all. There were no class divisions for the longest time in human history, but everyone had to deal with a material equality of poverty due to low productive capacity. Once technology progressed to the point where only a small surplus could be produced, a few people acquired it and created the class-divided societies that went through a few forward progressions, leading to capitalism. Capitalism eventually enabled the Industrial Revolution to come about, which advanced technology to the point where we can now produce an abundance for everyone, and therefore a system based on equality of abundance.
But as the Founders of America discovered, and Thomas Jefferson lamented in the Declaration of Independence, once the technological advances occur that enable us to move to the next step, the masses do not immediately have the psychological revolution required to expeditiously bring it to fruition. It takes many, many decades of activist work by a minority of citizens combined with the previous system reaching the point of collapse to make this clear.
The Founders and the minority of American revolutionaries were the ones to do this when the previous economic world order, feudalism, became archaic and regressive and needed a change, but the masses were not yet willing to give up what they were accustomed to, making it an uphill struggle for a while. But history was on their side and they eventually succeeded, replacing feudalism with capitalism, the most advanced system possible with the technology of that time period. Socialists are the ones doing this in the present era, and the burgeoning collapse of capitalism in its twilight years is gradually making progression to a new economic system more appealing to the masses, most of whom are struggling for some type of "change" but do not yet understand how to do that beyond the context of the present system. This is why they presently often vote for either a Democrat or Republican in a revolving fashion.
Yes, they do too often fall into support for fascist orgs & ideologies masquerading as populists, and the SJWs are an example of this. You are correct to be concerned about it. The problem is that not all revolutionaries are fake or proposing a fascist system in sheep's clothing. You just need to get past a stubborn loyalty to what you're accustomed to and discern the wheat from the chafe. You cannot do that, however, if you resist *any* type of change and perceive all talk of revolution as coming from fascists waiting in the wings. We need to keep in mind that all new and progressive systems, including America and capitalism, were conceived by revolution. Fundamental change is scary, but it is sometimes *necessary.*
"We live among people who's drive toward domination and acquisition make no earthly sense to us. So we need rights to protect ourselves from them. Can our rights completely stop them, NO, but we are in much better shape with those rights than if we were to be duped into handing everything over and TRUSTING them to play nice."
What rights did I talk about taking away, Janine? You sound like you're debating with an SJW or Extreme Right fascist who claims that we need more authority. I have continuously been talking about expanding our democratic rights to the economic field, not removing rights. And I contend that the "right" to become as disproportionately superior in terms of material access to others, a feature of capitalism and call class-divided societies, is not freedom for the vast majority but totally invites fascism since in a plutocracy the wealthiest few make the laws.
"And they wrote the book on Marxism with the hope it would lay you defenseless at their feet. And they have murdered tens of millions using that crafty tool."
You clearly did not read that book, Janine. What you are doing is confusing Marx for Stalin. I never supported Stalin and I detest all autocrats. Once again, you're debating not me, but a Straw Man you project onto me.
"Reject CBDC., and turn off ANY mainstream media. The truth is out there if you look for it. And it's most certainly NOT the Marxism ploy."
As you can plainly see, being here on Matt's Substack makes it clear that I do not adhere to the narrative of mainstream media. That doesn't mean you will get lockstep agreement with me, as we clearly do not have that. What it does mean, however, is that I am very open to alternative views. Nothing like actual Marxism is promoted in the mainstream, because the mainstream media agrees with you on one big solid point: maintaining capitalism indefinitely. And despite the empty rhetoric of the autocratic SJWs, they are a product of capitalism, and corporations love and endorse them for good reason. Remember who owns and controls mainstream media.
You are suffering from a misunderstanding of the cause of the effects you hope to cure.
Corruption of our system started when we cam off the gold standard- that’s when our destiny was handed to the globalist/bankers/cabal. The USA currently doesn’t even control it’s own money- we are debt slaves to the Federal Reserve. We can and will turn that around WHILE you keep your freedom and don’t have to give everything you own away to the government for the favor of a shoddy room and stale bread 4 times a week.
This series explains how we were fooled and betrayed. I believe you will come away with a new understanding of where America currently finds herself- but rest assured, though battered, we are not defeated- nor will we be.
Enjoy. (and burn those socialist texts you’ve been consuming, they are lying to you, as history shows) https://prussiagate.substack.com/
For your info, Janine, Matt is not exactly a pro-capitalist right-winger. I could argue that your ilk are the actual "invaders," but all are welcome to debate here. And that is what we're doing. I would never try to stifle your voice, but simply challenge it where I strongly disagree. Please keep in mind that the SJWs and the autocratic former Soviets would instead be demanding censorship. This should make it quite clear that Marxists and socialists of the classic variety actually believe in free speech and democracy. You are welcome here.
And you say it's these "cabals", not capitalism, i.e., the system itself, that is responsible for the state of affairs you decry? When a system runs on money, with competition in a dog-eat-dog race to the top is what the system thrives on, when it encourages rather than stifles greed/avarice, and when it puts a price tag on everything and allows a few to accumulate a vast fortune at the expense of everyone else and impoverishing millions, how is that not a feature of a system that runs on production for profit and money, let alone past a point where material inequality was inevitable due to technological limitations? What you see here is the end result of such a system. If we lived under an economic democracy that was not about production for profit and money, the tools used by this "cabal" would not have been in effect.
The "free market" ideology overlooks the point that only those who have the most money are "free" in such a system, because a few own everything, including the media that allows us to communicate and disseminate news and information. And such people have always been few in number, even though there are increasingly less of them with more and more concentrated power than ever before. This is a "free market" behaving as it should be expected to. It's not intended to create material prosperity for all, but only for a few.
Again, despite it being more and more clear that you will not listen, because once you hear words like "communism," "Marxism," "socialism," etc, you automatically think of Soviet-style autocracy, as the capitalist-controlled media has force fed all of us with throughout our lives -- I *do not* promote a state-controlled system that has all the basic features of capitalism -- money, a wage system, a price tag on everything, strict class divisions -- but sans any semblance of a nominal democracy.
Death of millions? Capitalism's need for constant expansion and competition causes imperialism and war on a mass scale, which results in the deaths and starvation of millions across the globe. And many, many in this very country cannot feed their families adequately not due to a shortage of food but because they lack the *money* to buy it. Poverty is a regular feature under capitalism, which I see simply by looking out my front window and view the inner city cesspool I live in, and trust me that poverty causes plenty of misery.
Giving up rights? If you actually did read the work of Marx and Engels, you would see that economic democracy is a fundamental democracy that lacks an all-powerful state run by a few politicians. A worker-run economy that rewarded all workers with material abundance would in no way be capable of imposing autocratic laws denying freedom of speech etc., because the media and news outlets would belong to the commons, not privately owned by corporations nor by any extant state apparatus. Nothing resembling an economic democracy has ever been attempted, but it's far past time that we the working class give up our stubborn love affair with capitalism and class divisions and establish a more free economic world order. Nothing about this in any ways suggests replicating what was done in the Soviet Union or China etc.
"Outed" me? Janine, I have been proudly and openly a Classical Marxist and Socialist on Matt's comment feed since he established it here on Substack. I "outed" myself, right from the start, and not only when I was engaging Libertarians like yourself. Anyone willing to actually listen and read what I say clearly, and actually read the works of Marx & Engels, can see what I'm actually talking about and promoting as opposed to what you're claiming that I'm talking about and promoting -- which is like comparing chalk to cheese. Or, insisting that chalk and cheese are the same thing if you constantly refer to chalk as "cheese."
A worker’s utopia will be possible when they come up with a vaccine for aggression and greed.
I’ve been around aggressive people for the last 15 years- they are not satisfied with ‘a share’ they want everyone else's share too. Which is why authorities are needed. Then the minute there’s such thing as a authority, they make sure it’s them, they start colluding and controlling. Then you have and elite. Every time communism is attempted, you end up with Super-rich people, dirt-poor people and dead people. Never give-up your personal autonomy for an ideal Christopher- it never ends well.
A vaccine for aggression and greed would be a system that does not encourage and require ruthless competition, have mass material inequality as one of its defining features (in an era where it's now technologically possible to produce an abundance for all), and defining "success" and the ability to live comfortably by the acquisition of more and more money and mad consumption for items you don't need but are told you do along the way by an advertising industry. Describing these aspects of human behavior as being biologically hard-wired into us makes no sense, as people behave the way the system they are compelled to work within requires them to. A system that ran on cooperation rather than competition and provided all workers with full material access to the vast social store we collectively contribute to, self-governing by the workers based on the interests of everyone rather than the profit requirements of the few, and using technology/automation to reduce & eliminate as much human toil as possible would produce very different types of behavior.
Such a thing is not a "utopia" as I believe you define it, but simply a much better world than what we have today, fulfilling the historic mission of capitalism and America's Founders by taking the next step in our civilization's social and economic evolution.
I have lived and worked around such aggressive people as you have described encountering too, and for all my life. And they all have one major thing in common: they are all compelled to work within the laws and rules, both economic and social, set up by capitalism. There is no evidence that they do this because of some inner nature that is not connected to the pervading economic world order surrounding them. If this belief in genetic determinism were true, then how would you explain socialists like me? How do we "go against" what is supposed to be an immutable genetic programming? And even if there was credence to a Social Darwinistic theory of genetic determinism for human behavior, then the existence of people like me would strongly suggest that our genetic nature is mutable with changing times, and the "greed" gene is now being challenged by what may be called a "social progress" gene. And we know for a scientific fact anyway that species *evolve*, and for complex organisms like humans, that means social as well as biological/neurological evolution. Hence, the world order has and can evolve just as organisms do, and in the case of human civilization, the level of technology at any given point in time is what makes that possible, even if it may take a while to happen with each new advance.
Authorities are needed in a class-divided system to literally force order, since a system based on ruthless competition, encouragement of avarice, and mass material inequality does not breed order on its own. Authorities of this nature would not be required in an environment of cooperation, collective ownership & democratic control of industry, and material abundance for all. People do not commit crimes or try to screw each other over "just because."
I agree with your concerns when you define "authority" as *a few* controlling everything and making decisions for everyone else, even on the so-called "behalf" of the masses. I agree that never ends well, which is why I have always been opposed to all forms of oligarchy, including Soviet-style autocracy with its bureaucratic class of privileged despots. The only major difference between it and the form of class-divided capitalism we know and live under was its total lack of a nominal political democracy and bureaucrats directly controlling everything rather than acting as a "middle man" for corporations controlling everything. The end result, however, is the same since we are now fighting the censorship and oppression of society imposed by the Extreme Left, with the Extreme Right also waiting in the wings as always to impose their brand of identity politics and oppression. And they are using the corporate controlled press and company HR departments and unions to do this too.
Yes, every time "communism" or "socialism" as defined by the Soviet or Chinese misappropriation of the term, which are actually variants of Leninism rather than Marxism, get tried, the end result is not good. Which is why I do not propose it, and never have. Saying that I do is frankly a Straw Man tactic, since an economic democracy has never yet been attempted and it bears no resemblance to the concept of state ownership and autocratic control.
And rather than giving up my personal autonomy I am seeking to increase it for me and *all* other workers by establishing an economic democracy that would not require us all to live paycheck-to-paycheck, compete with each other in a dog-eat-dog manner, have to pay through the roof for basic necessities, constantly count pennies for any form of recreation to meet our psychological needs, and seeing our personal relationships fray due to money issues and the impoverished, crime-ridden urban environments we have to live in since most people living there do not have enough money to enjoy life in a productive way and therefore turn to various addictions as a form of "escape."
Finally, for the record, since this is pertinent here, propaganda from Far Left voices did not turn me against capitalism. *Capitalism itself* turned me against capitalism. Living and working under this system all my life did this, especially since I started my work life and business ventures as a zealous supporter of capitalism, who believed the propaganda that if you work hard, take risks, study & learn the rules of marketing & retailing etc, and maintain a generally good character, you will go far.
Then reality hit me, just as I saw it hit most people who made the attempt, with the few who made it big doing so because they knew the right people, kissed the right asses, or got very lucky breaks. Then I saw how little honest work gets you in favor of the many I saw turn to illegal means, and how ruthless borderline sociopaths tended to rise higher than honest & ethical people to the extent it was possible for them with the right lucky breaks.
And I grew up and entered the business world devoutly in favor of this system based on a constant spoon-feeding of *pro-capitalist* propaganda during my formative years -- in the school system (where I was often disciplined for not obeying or respecting authority figures, btw, including once because I made fun of a picture of the sitting President), on television (you couldn't get more pro-capitalist than shows I grew up watching, like "Dragnet"), and pretty much everywhere else, as this was during the Cold War when "Marxism" and related terms were constantly bashed and misapplied to the Soviet Union.
I came to an anti-capitalist stance entirely on my own, based on several years of work and experience in business ventures. Only *then* did I seek out info to see if there were others who came to the same conclusions I did, and provide me with alternative views where I could weigh what they said with what the media, schooling system, and entertainment industry were saying, and *compare* the evidence to the assertions of both. Needless to say, at the time almost no teacher or professor was pushing or even giving any credence to those alternative views, and certainly none that I ever met. The closest to that I ever came was in college, when a history professor I had simply and accurately acknowledged that Marx's ideology was "not the philosophy of the Soviet Union." And this professor, whom I was on regular talking terms with since he was my faculty advisor, was *not* against capitalism -- he simply actually read Marx & Engel's books and honestly pointed out that what they described was not what the system used by the Soviet Union, plain and simple.
Many of the teachers and professors I met and studied under were certainly Leftist, but their views were kept firmly within a pro-capitalism framework, focusing on racial & gender equality *within* the context of capitalism rather than class consciousness & unity. I do not even recall any of them simply promoting social democracy (i.e., liberal capitalism, which is also often mistakenly conflated with Marxism/socialism/etc). Some of them were the prototypes of today's post-modernist SJWs, but most certainly not of actual socialists or students of what Marx & Engels *actually* proposed.
"if you work hard, take risks, study & learn the rules of marketing & retailing etc, and maintain a generally good character, you will go far. "
The reason this STOPPED working after 1970, is not because "capitlaism". It's because of a combinations of 1. The privately owned Federal Reserve ponzi scheme. 2. The mafia morphing into an untouchable administrative layer of federal and state government. 3. Capture of our state and federal legislatures by global interests via globally-coordinated a.) bribery b.) blackmail scheme [yes, that sounds unbelievable- and they've all TOLD you it a conspiracy theory, but it's why nothing around the Jeffrey Epstein (who did not kill himself) and Ghislaine Maxwell cases makes any sense..why has her list of pedophile clients not been released? Kind-of a big deal, wouldn't you say. And what of those flight logs to Epstein's (pedo) Island?] It all seems a universe away until you start getting your news away from Mainstream Media. Why is the Justice department's website FULL of child trafficking arrests, and none of it is EVER reported on the Mainstream Media. HUH? Child trafficking is an issue in America??! What?
Read it and weep: https://www.justice.gov/news?f%5B0%5D=field_pr_topic%3A1201
Then ask yourself why the "reality" presented on Mainstream News differs so VASTLY from the real reality.
You dislike capitalism because they've made damn sure it doesn't work anymore- so that you'll become demoralized and frustrated and start to blame the wrong things, and reach for the wrong solutions- the ones that FURTHER benefit them.
"Describing these aspects of human behavior as being biologically hard-wired into us makes no sense, as people behave the way the system they are compelled to work within requires them to."
This statement above by you is abject propaganda that you have obviously swallowed.
Think of it this way, if you were a wolf, wouldn't it reward you greatly to persuade sheep that there are no wolves, and that they can relax and not take normal life saving precautions? Yes, it would completely behoove you and you would try it. Which is why the sociopaths that created Marxism did so.
"Give up your property and guns, we'll all live together in peaceful shared harmony. Those dastardly rights which allowed a level playing field for competition will be gone, and we all can get on with mutually beneficial non-competitive peace." -said every scheming sociopath ever.
Look, I'm a non-competitive, non-aggressive person; I get the appeal. As history has shown us, we may be in the majority, but we do not roam this earth alone. We live among people who's drive toward domination and acquisition make no earthly sense to us. So we need rights to protect ourselves from them. Can our rights completely stop them, NO, but we are in much better shape with those rights than if we were to be duped into handing everything over and TRUSTING them to play nice. THEY WILL NEVER PLAY NICE- they are pathological liars for whom "winning" is breathing. They laugh at your notion that playing nice is even a worthy goal, that telling the truth is better than a well conceived lie. It's not "the system" that makes them this way, it is in their blood. And they wrote the book on Marxism with the hope it would lay you defenseless at their feet. And they have murdered tens of millions using that crafty tool.
I'm sorry to have to be the one to break it to you, but Satan's own dwell among us. Whether you are religious or not, it's a reality that cannot be changed.
The Prussia Gate series here on Substack will go a long way towards helping you to understand the pathology of those who we are all forced to wrestle with on the daily. And how they have made the damaging incursions and perversions that they have to our system, in order to make it unfair to the sheep amongst them. But we will not let them corrupt us, and we will prevail. Exposure has hurt them greatly and we are in the process right now of throwing them off.
Reject CBDC., and turn off ANY mainstream media. The truth is out there if you look for it. And it's most certainly NOT the Marxism ploy.
Human adaptability based on environment and changes within it is not "propaganda," but a readily observable phenomenon. If it wasn't the case, humanity would not have survived and acclimated itself to this planet as well as we have, let alone did what was required to rise to the top of the food chain, so to speak.
"Give up your property and guns, we'll all live together in peaceful shared harmony. Those dastardly rights which allowed a level playing field for competition will be gone, and we all can get on with mutually beneficial non-competitive peace." -said every scheming sociopath ever."
Sociopaths who are scheming never say that, and that alone. They ultimately say, in some form or another, "give the power to me or my group and I/we'll make that happen." I am saying nothing of the such. I am saying the working class as a whole must do it, without masters or a small group of privileged or armed individuals forcing us to do it.
If you are a non-competitive and non-aggressive person who sees the appeal, then you should realize that it's not hard-wired into our neural biology. You should know that we have a choice, that human behavior is not fixed but mutable. And that when technology permits it, as our current level of it now does, we can collectively choose to use it to create a better world that does not appeal to the worst aspects of our psyches.
One thing you continue to ignore when you mention history, Janine, is the very important point that prior to the Industrial Revolution in the relatively *recent* past, humankind did not possess the technology or level of production to produce an abundance for all. There were no class divisions for the longest time in human history, but everyone had to deal with a material equality of poverty due to low productive capacity. Once technology progressed to the point where only a small surplus could be produced, a few people acquired it and created the class-divided societies that went through a few forward progressions, leading to capitalism. Capitalism eventually enabled the Industrial Revolution to come about, which advanced technology to the point where we can now produce an abundance for everyone, and therefore a system based on equality of abundance.
But as the Founders of America discovered, and Thomas Jefferson lamented in the Declaration of Independence, once the technological advances occur that enable us to move to the next step, the masses do not immediately have the psychological revolution required to expeditiously bring it to fruition. It takes many, many decades of activist work by a minority of citizens combined with the previous system reaching the point of collapse to make this clear.
The Founders and the minority of American revolutionaries were the ones to do this when the previous economic world order, feudalism, became archaic and regressive and needed a change, but the masses were not yet willing to give up what they were accustomed to, making it an uphill struggle for a while. But history was on their side and they eventually succeeded, replacing feudalism with capitalism, the most advanced system possible with the technology of that time period. Socialists are the ones doing this in the present era, and the burgeoning collapse of capitalism in its twilight years is gradually making progression to a new economic system more appealing to the masses, most of whom are struggling for some type of "change" but do not yet understand how to do that beyond the context of the present system. This is why they presently often vote for either a Democrat or Republican in a revolving fashion.
Yes, they do too often fall into support for fascist orgs & ideologies masquerading as populists, and the SJWs are an example of this. You are correct to be concerned about it. The problem is that not all revolutionaries are fake or proposing a fascist system in sheep's clothing. You just need to get past a stubborn loyalty to what you're accustomed to and discern the wheat from the chafe. You cannot do that, however, if you resist *any* type of change and perceive all talk of revolution as coming from fascists waiting in the wings. We need to keep in mind that all new and progressive systems, including America and capitalism, were conceived by revolution. Fundamental change is scary, but it is sometimes *necessary.*
"We live among people who's drive toward domination and acquisition make no earthly sense to us. So we need rights to protect ourselves from them. Can our rights completely stop them, NO, but we are in much better shape with those rights than if we were to be duped into handing everything over and TRUSTING them to play nice."
What rights did I talk about taking away, Janine? You sound like you're debating with an SJW or Extreme Right fascist who claims that we need more authority. I have continuously been talking about expanding our democratic rights to the economic field, not removing rights. And I contend that the "right" to become as disproportionately superior in terms of material access to others, a feature of capitalism and call class-divided societies, is not freedom for the vast majority but totally invites fascism since in a plutocracy the wealthiest few make the laws.
"And they wrote the book on Marxism with the hope it would lay you defenseless at their feet. And they have murdered tens of millions using that crafty tool."
You clearly did not read that book, Janine. What you are doing is confusing Marx for Stalin. I never supported Stalin and I detest all autocrats. Once again, you're debating not me, but a Straw Man you project onto me.
"Reject CBDC., and turn off ANY mainstream media. The truth is out there if you look for it. And it's most certainly NOT the Marxism ploy."
As you can plainly see, being here on Matt's Substack makes it clear that I do not adhere to the narrative of mainstream media. That doesn't mean you will get lockstep agreement with me, as we clearly do not have that. What it does mean, however, is that I am very open to alternative views. Nothing like actual Marxism is promoted in the mainstream, because the mainstream media agrees with you on one big solid point: maintaining capitalism indefinitely. And despite the empty rhetoric of the autocratic SJWs, they are a product of capitalism, and corporations love and endorse them for good reason. Remember who owns and controls mainstream media.
You are suffering from a misunderstanding of the cause of the effects you hope to cure.
Corruption of our system started when we cam off the gold standard- that’s when our destiny was handed to the globalist/bankers/cabal. The USA currently doesn’t even control it’s own money- we are debt slaves to the Federal Reserve. We can and will turn that around WHILE you keep your freedom and don’t have to give everything you own away to the government for the favor of a shoddy room and stale bread 4 times a week.
This series explains how we were fooled and betrayed. I believe you will come away with a new understanding of where America currently finds herself- but rest assured, though battered, we are not defeated- nor will we be.
Enjoy. (and burn those socialist texts you’ve been consuming, they are lying to you, as history shows) https://prussiagate.substack.com/