howdy dudes

is this a pretty active discord channel?

ok cool I post on /leftypol/ a bit

the only board on 8ch I post on really but I post on /k/ and /v/ on the old 4chins

yo if you profit off capital you own and gain from workers labor that makes you no longer a prole right?

I am no expert on marx but isn't anyone who has a bank account profiting from the labor of workers but in a very minor way

like I have a bank account and they require me to keep a 5 americabux min in it but they loan out money to capitalists to create businesses and if successful they extract labor from workers giving some of that capital to the bank and then a bit to me via interest

like I am a dude that makes min wage, but since I have 5 bucks in my savings account am I no longer a prole and now a petite petite bourgeoisie

?

what is the line between petite bourgeoisie and prole? is it the amount of capital you own, or how much of your earnings come from the exploitation of labor?

yeah I think that is what he meant when talking about them

what about people who invest in businesses like individuals who buy and sell stocks and commodities?

yeah because he is a wage worker, and not an owner of capital

my place of work is very hard to improve the standards in because most people that work there are people who are on the bottom of american society like felons and immigrants from SE Asia everyone is too afraid to lose their job to demand better conditions including myself

yeah I only really have job at my work because the light duty workers there aka the injured can't do the work because you need to speak english, read and write, and move around a bit which is hard for the injured

pretty much because it is agricultural work they fuck over the workers, like it is legal to not pay overtime and pay the standard wage for people working over 40 hours a week

well I kind of live check to check and only have a bit of college education and okish work history also I am lucky and I do security so my job is much easier than most peoples, it pays my bills so I stick with it

like I have to work less to qualify for medicaid in my state so I had to drop 4 days a month to fall into the income range but that leaves me with about 300 bucks less money per month

yeah I think I am much better off now that in the past

I used to be on neetbux having to resort to crime to have enough money to live

yeah I got 2 roomies and have a surprisingly cheap apartment for the area

like my family signed me up for neetbux when I turned 18 because I am kind of a nervous wreck with anxiety but got kicked off last year and found a job the next day but I was homeless for a bit because I couldn't afford rent losing my neetbux and it was a while before I got payed at my new job

but eventually I landed my current job it is min wage but we have a high min wage in my state thankfully and it is a full time position

well I was lucky enough to have friends that let me stay on their couches and floors

but when I got neetbux I only got 740 monthly but with rent, utilities, bus fare, internet, and phone bills it really doesn't cover it so I saved some money to buy a bit of grass to sell

WA

I sold cannabis when I was younger in TX, it is not a crime I feel too bad about considering I think cannabis is less harmful than booze and fast food

I was from Austin originally but housing prices increased dramatically where I couldn't afford to live there and my neetbux were not enough to get a lease I was stuck homeless being a drug dealer for a while

but I am older got a more stable life for a real job and don't have to do any crimes to supplement my income

yeah I am happy my life is less stressful living on that knifes edge really makes you dread waking up sometimes

it is weird here because I live in a super leftist and liberal city but most of my friends are young leftists obsessed with idpol and less about class

also they aren't ever motivated to do anything

I will be back I need to back some cookies

yeah they are nice and mean well but go to a super SJW uni

sorry I am just greasing my cookie sheet

holy shit that is hilarious I used to be a crazy anprim and read zerzan and TK's work mainlly industrial society and its future

let me look that up since that image is small and hard to read

I think he was right about some things, like him talking about the alienation that comes from division of labor and his theory of the power process is interesting but I am not sure how well it really maps on to humans and psychology

I just googled the title

is it this? https://genius.com/Unabomber-the-danger-of-leftism-annotated

yeah I think TK talking about the failures of leftists resonates with my beliefs but I am not sure how to evaluate how true they are

but I gave up my anprim beliefs for two reasons mainly people will never abandon technology as long as it allows them to meet their evolutionary goals nobody is going to roll back agriculture to pre green revolution ways because it feeds most of the world

the reason I gave up on anarchism is because I think when leftists gain real autonomy and political power in an area they are often under military threat from preexisting states and needs a state to have a functional military to resist agression

when you look at the paris commune, ukranian black army, korean anarchists all crushed by outside states

yeah I feel there is an appeal of anarchism but I am doubtful in it's application both currently and historically

my question is with a super powerful military and a wealthy western democracy is there any reasonable alternative to reform through electoral politics?

*in the US

It's ok we can always sell the Saudis bombers that use green energy lol

they can bomb and family in Yemen using munitions that are sustainably sourced

sorry will be back later tonight go to go to a dinner party

howdy fellow lefties

got back from my dinner get together

do you guys have any local leftist organization you dudes work with? I was looking into my local DSA but I never been part of any leftist group

I personally just consumed leftist media, donated to charity, and tried to vote in the best way possible as a leftist

I have never been part of any organization I feel kind of strange going into any formal thing like this I would hate for it to get back to my work

I have not read enough theory to properly define my beliefs like I am unsure about markets, and currency or labor vouchers, etc?

yeah I am not interested in losing my job or my license to carry a gun

I have been a left leaning liberal for a while just never read or listened to anything serious theory wise like never read capital from marx or any of lenin's stuff either

I was a person to confused the welfare state with socialism because that is an idea that is popular in mainstream politics

also that being against capitalism was being against trade or not owning personal property

the left is pretty hard at attracting average people because lots of leftist ideas are distorted to appear unappealing

why do people not make leftist theory easier to process the right seems to be doing a great job at breaking down their views to attract the white working class as they lose power

yeah I used to be a 19yo anprim and read zerzan and TK but I think it is a bit absurd

I read have been on leftypol for a while but it is not a very good climate to introduce ideas because they think giving people a PDF and saying they don't want to spoon feed people, but I think if you want to attract the general public the left needs to make things easier and more accessible

I read some austrian economics stuff when I was younger

is stuff like jacobin good because that is what the local DSA is promoting in their reading group

I only ready the super short communist manifesto which is interesting I am just not sure about a command economy because I have yet to see a functional one historically

how do you know what is good theory is there a way to test the validity of one mode of thought over another?

yeah I mainly approach the left because I am motivated by a moral philosophy that I think fits pretty well with it

yeah that's why I question anarchism because it appears every manifestation of leftism on a large scale seems to meet a violent end from outside nations unless they have a military

yeah I think they could have done that will out all the social repression but that is just my opinion on the matter

yeah both china and russia were transformed from dramatically poor agrarian societies to modern wealthy educated industrial ones in a very short time

I am not super well read but based on the outline in the communist manifesto I think not

has there ever been a command economy with democratic representation? didn't the soviet state replace capitalists with bureaucrats who controlled production, distribution, etc?

that is true every state trying to achieve leftist aims faces opposition from other forces

shit look and thomas sankara france murdered him pretty quickly to reestablish control of the former colony even in the 80s

is it possible to have a socialist state with a powerful enough military to hold out against outside forces while preserving human rights?

brb need to put some bread in the oven after I put on some egg wash

I will be back soon though I am enjoying hearing from you dudes

what about the great leap forward under mao I am not a person who thinks nothing done in china or russia at the time is totally evil I am just not sure if collectivizing farms was needed after giving land to the landless working peasants

sorry about taking so long had to put some egg wash on but had no brush so I did it with my hands, I am making some challah which I haven't made in a while

I am not a tankie but they aren't wrong all the time, but I am far from stalin did nothing wrong

my question is how do we know if a system is good unless we have a functional example in history?

that is my big question for the anarchist college kids that are my friends, they just go to the most super liberal college

I never read any mao how does he differ from his soviet counterparts?

I am far from educated on the subject but I feel the main thing that keeps people from leftist ideas is very wrong ideas about them that seem to be common

yeah his civil war from 1911 to 49 was interesting, poor chinese suffering 3 wars at once at some points in time then

a lot of my coworkers are very reactionary against words like communism and socialism

I work with a lot of people from SE Asia, lots of cambodians one of them survived pol pot

I think it is hard to know what products would be made with or without capitalism?

do you think there might be room for markets for certain luxury items in an ideal society?

like I can't see what a command economy would be like beyond what has happened in history but shouldn't there be an outlet for entertainment, intoxicants, etc that should be handled by the markets?

I am not sure if a command economy is the best system but how would I know beyond historical examples?

if you have markets but still have the workers own the means of production could you have a mixed economy that gave people their basic needs but allowed for competition between worker owned businesses making different products like movies, music, booze, tobacco, etc?

I still have a lot more to read before I develop any real concrete beliefs on what I think is best for society, I am still a babbie leftist despite being 30

that is terrible I had to cut my working hours because I couldn't afford private insurance and had to drop my monthly income to get medicaid instead, I think health insurance is terrible because it focuses on profit before providing the best service

yeah I was interested in Tito but I don't know the best way to learn about him I tend to watch documentaries and listen to podcasts and audiobooks for my info

if you could give me a single piece of leftist media that is easy to digest what would it be, I feel a lot of stuff I get told to read is long, dense, and time consuming I work a lot and have lots of things to take care of in life so I tend to not go after things that are harder to get done

I watched a recent BBC doc about the revolution in 1917 it was pretty interesting, exploring the people behind it. I had no idea Lenin's struggle to make it back in time for that pivotal moment in history of the role of the provisional governent

I hear people talk about state and revolution a lot, do you think it is the best of Lenin's work?