/lit/ - Literature

>>21977168
A Marx/Engels podcast would be an instant classic, I'd unironically subscribe to their patreon AND substacks.

>>21977183
wtf is a substack

>>21977168
What? Thats literally capitalism, moron. You subconsciously understand capitalism is bad, but too stupid to consciously understand it.

>>21977195
>implying i'm not also a marxist who's just pointing out the elitist hypocrisy of the neoliberal "left"
ligma

>>21977187
It's where super nerds that can't get it all out on their podcasts put their intellectual spillover.

>>21977196
>Marxism is when vows of poverty

>>21977168
Was he giving out Rhenische Zeitung copies for free?

>>21977207
>Rhenische
*Rheinische

>>21977168
I hate when podcast race locks half of an episode behind a paywall.
I get that you need to eat, but at least just make some episodes wholly free and others wholly paid. I need something to put out in front of other people if you want me to spur interest.

Breadtube I’m a nutshell

Well what the fuck are you going to do? It doesn’t matter what anyone’s opinion is, the world is under a capitalist system and that’s that. There is not much we can do about it. You’re a fool if you think that discounts critique though.

why don't these communist podcasters just exist outside of global capitalism

>>21977168
>your donations help us fight capitalism
This faggot shit is always cringe. Go rob a bank like a real nigga if you need to raise funds.

>>21977195
Are you on 4chan for the first time?

Zoomer livestreamer-communism is the worst. Americans even made bloody class struggle shiity and gay

>>21977168
Meanwhile
>actively fights capitalist thought
>churns out banger after banger
>never begs for money, everything is free, but the option to donate is there
The only eceleb I will ever respect

>>21977217
i don't even want to listen to the full episode desu, seems fair to me

>>21977276
>joker lenin
zizek would be proud

>>21977317
>hello i'm a MARXIST with a PHD who WORKS AT A UNIVERSITY MAKING 100K A YEAR BUT LET ME TELL YOU HOW CAPITALISM IS BAD
look, YES CAPITALISM IS BAD, BUT THE POINT OF THIS THREAD IS THESE PEOPLE ARE FUCKING ELITIST HYPOCRITES

>>21977253
no i always fucks with the newest marxist literature, it helps me hope with being a fucking failure in life and i mean this unironically
>>21977256
it's just a lifestyle brand, it's a religion, i hate capitalism but i also hate elitist hypocrites

All communists deserve death.

you call yourself a communist yet you require money to survive. curious.

>>21977168
based and dengpilled

>>21977202
Based and Marxist-Franciscan pilled.

if you're a communist and you're not homeless and doing stuff for free, you're an elitist hypocrite.

>>21977195
>we must thrive under capitalism until it's destroyed
>our guest next week is Michael Moore

>actually it's NOT hypocritical that I live in a huge mansion, pay the minimum amount of taxes as required by law, and have built an audience on a platform owned by the world's richest man whose main company is notorious for exploiting workers and not only does this man pay me a salary, I also am funded by my viewers who pay me with the cash they make at their jobs that were created under capitalism
So what WOULD be an example of hypocrisy to these people?

>>21977168
Yes, it's greedy. But I can't really get mad at them. Podcasting is hardly the reason our society is the way it is.

>>21977334
Ugly as fuck

>>21978236

>>21978268
Wtf I love neo-serfdom and multinational corps and oligarchies now, thanks based /pol/nigger

>>21978276
Ironic because communism has offered nothing but worse options than what u say
>Legalized slavery
>No worker rights
>No property rights
Stop me when im wrong leftoid nigger.

>>21978075
>to survive
They (Hasan, Chapo, Bhaskar Sunkara etc.) are thriving, not just surviving.

>>21978192
>So what WOULD...
I can only speak for myself. I listen to Chapo Trap House (not so much these days), QAnon Anonymous and watch Contrapoints. Chapo are basically just infotainment comedians. They're good at finding the strange and funny things that conservatives think, say and write and making fun of them. They seem like a bunch off smug assholes who are funny and got lucky with their podcast. I don't expect anything from them in terms of "virtue". I'd only be annoyed if I found out they're using their patreon money to do something particularly egregious like using their money to become slum lords. The QAnon podcast is also a window into the freakshow that is QAnon. The hosts are not funny but their material is funny by itself. I don't really know what their politics are but they seem left-liberal. As for contrapoints, I watch her because I'm a normal white guy and listening to her gives me a bit of insight into the LGBTQ+++ world which frankly seems downright alien to me. I also don't expect anything from her.

You seem to be under the impression that these people are priests and that they should act a certain way, but the way I see it, they're just micro-celebrities who have an internet show. Like all celebrities, they are freaks who lucked out into making a comfortable living despite having no real skills.

it's so hard to have conversations with people who are basically retarded.

>>21977168
Private charity goes against Marxist principles

>>21977334
who?

>>21978322
>You seem to be under the impression that these people are priests and that they should act a certain way
No, I am under the impression that people should practice what they preach.

>>21978335
Don't respond to bait.

>>21978322
It's amazing how much of a culture divide there is now, your reference to that tranny Contrapoints as "her" and your general leftist podcast fan lifestyle seem more alien to me than fundamentalist Islam. It's like talking to someone from the 50s.

>>21978332
I know the feeling. Especially when u meet people who persist and refuse too see their failures and hypocrisies.

>>21978353
Soviet union was capitalist.

>>21978361

when did this place turn into facebook

>>21978365
that meme doesnt even make sense

>>21978372
>that meme doesnt even make sense
Maybe this one will make it more clear.

>>21978375
what system?

>>21978335
Socialism is not a lifestyle. It's a political system.
>>21978340
> leftist podcast fan lifestyle
What does that mean? Chapo and QAnon release an episode once a week or so. I listen to those while washing dishes and doing other chores. Contrapoints releases one video a year or something. I'm assuming that you, much like myself, is a white man in his 20s who is university educated and has a white collar job. Our lifestyles are probably quite similar and the fact that I spend 1 hour of my week listening to chapo while you listen to TheRedpillShoah1488 show or some shit like that doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things.

>>21978400
>Socialism is not a lifestyle. It's a political system.
lol, based on principles that you can adhere to in your personal life.

>>21978287
I hope you suck globohomos cock so hard you choke on it and die, faggot.

>>21977195
Capitalism is when a state enforces exclusive and permanent private ownership of land and productive facilities

>>21977195
>communism is when you don't have any source of income

>>21978448
>Peasants and workers had more rights and owned more property before the Soviet union
>>I hope you suck globohomos cock so hard you choke on it and die, faggot.
Kek, make no mistake if there ever is a revolution i will gladly be the one that lines u up against the wall.

>>21978468
I don’t even give a fuck about the USSR or the PRC, I just think you capitalist bootlickers are vile retards who deserve what’s coming for sucking Larry Finks cock. The only revolution you’ll be on the side of is the wests further and further decline into despotic globalist technocratic oligarchicism.

>>21978322
Kill yourself

>>21978425
how does having a podcast violate the principles of communism?

>>21978481
>Larry Finks
Literally who?
>bootlickers
Ironic coming from a guy who wants the state to fuck him over and do everything for him.

>>21978485
no u

>>21978490
>doesn’t even know who his financial overlords are
I’m convinced anti-communism is just an euphemism for being a flamboyant retard

>>21978497
I just looked up who that kike was. Are all communists as retarded as you? You do realize while he is the CEO of blackrock the investment company he has to answer to other people who has invested into his company and other shareholders. He doesnt actually own those billions and cant even touch them. Heres a piece of advice for you get a job u fucking loser and stop being a lazy nigger that blames other people for his failures.

>>21978400
>Socialism is not a lifestyle
Um, yes it is. If a monk banged prostitutes every weekend and gambled at the casino, everyone would justly call him a hypocrite, but for some reason if a socialist loves money and consooms garbage, they should get a pass because that's just the way society works? No one ever said following your principles would be easy.

asking for money to support your content = loving money

>>21978488
you're right, it's not weird at all that self-professed socialist lives in a multimillion LA mansion while being on Jeff Bezos' payroll and also begging his viewers (who are much poorer than himself) for money

>>21978566
>it's not weird at all that self-professed socialist lives in a multimillion LA mansion
that's only weird if you think being a socialist means you have to take a vow of poverty. stop getting hung up on aesthetics.
>while being on Jeff Bezos' payroll
being an employee doesn't violate the principles of socialism.
>begging his viewers (who are much poorer than himself) for money
he doesn't beg viewers for money. his streams are free to watch, he doesn't paywall his vods, and the only time he talks about subscribing is when he has to run twitch mandated ad breaks. he even lets other people monetize content from his streams.

>>21978603
>that's only weird if you think being a socialist means you have to take a vow of poverty.
lol dude I've seen this take 200 times on twitter already, you're just recycling talking points.
yes if your entire ideology is based on helping poor people then it's a bad look to sit on a mountain of cash and do nothing for them and buy a mansion instead
>where does Marx say you can't own a Lamborghini and a diamond-encrusted Rolex???? checkmate

>>21978236
>>21978268

>>21978625
you don't understand, you can be a socialist *and* drive a Ferrari. the entire ideology is about how other people should behave (government and ultra-rich people (defined as people richer than myself)) so I don't have to do anything

It doesn’t take a genius to see that our current system has glaring flaws in wealth inequality, but to discredit the entire idea of communism is not the answer. Sure trying to apply the model on a national scale is a recipe for disaster but the idea of unions allows the working class the ability to use their main strength of numbers to rival the strength of the elite which is capital. The fact that organizations like the pinkertons and union busters shows that these organizations provide a genuine threat to capitalism’s current status quo and can provide change that helps the many over the few

>>21978638
kek history isnt your strong suit i see

>>21978644
>but to discredit the entire idea of communism is not the answer.
Wrong the only system which doesnt allow for private property rights is to be descrited and provides absolutetly nothing for the worker. The fact that the nkvd massacerd a bunch of farmers who worked their own lands with their own labour proves me right.

>>21978625
>>21978638
What you are doing is called "tu quoque", and it is the very first thing you learn about when you pursue rigorous reasoning. Like for real, elementary school shit. A smoker tells you smoking is bad. The meaning and impact of that statement does not change because a smoker said it.
I hate this. I hate your posts. I hate every single time I am reminded just how ill-equipped pseuds and normies are to engage with reality. Elementary school shit, unironically.

>>21978613
>lol dude I've seen this take 200 times on twitter already, you're just recycling talking points.
you keep seeing this take because people keep bringing up his house as a takedown.
>yes if your entire ideology is based on helping poor people
socialism isn't simply about helping poor people, it's about overthrowing the system that creates poverty in the first place.
>it's a bad look to sit on a mountain of cash and do nothing for them and buy a mansion instead
giving away his money would provide only short term relief to an incredibly small segment of the population and would do nothing to eliminate the systemic causes of poverty.

look, i'm not some dickrider who doesn't think his lifestyle is excessive. i just don't care because he's not making that money by exploiting the labor of others and he's done some good in promoting socialism.

>>21978675
>he's done some good in promoting socialism.
On behalf of his masters in amazon yes.

>>21978671
But those images are not criticisms of communism (or at least, they ought not to be). They are criticisms of a certain rhetorical tactic used by a certain type of person to defend his own hypocrisy

>>21978524
These people are not monks or priests of philosophers. Chapo is just a group of assholes who met on Twitter to talk about how awful American society is, and they all understand the world through a socialist lens. They have a show where they make fun of people and occasionally express support for the left-wing side of contemporary political issues like abortion, LGBT shit, and unions. I don't know much about them beyond how much they earn on Patreon. If you asked me what I would consider blatant hypocrisy, I'd say engaging in the worst aspects of capitalism that they routinely criticize. The slumlord example I used before applies here. They might be doing it. I don't know what they do with their money. I'm sure they're not paragons of socialist virtue. But frankly, it doesn't matter. I don't expect anything from these people. Their paypig fans don't because Chapo's earnings are public and yet they keep paying. Their vices don't invalidate the criticisms they make in their show, or make it any less entertaining.

>>21978661
Fair, but that’s throwing the baby out with the bath water. Capitalism has gone through evolution as well when in the late 1800s to early 1900s the book “the jungle” portrayed food companies prioritizing profit over quality resulting in rotten food being given to the masses. This resulted in the government creating the FDA and thus regulated capitalism in order to ensure the safety of the people. Ideas can be changed rather than utterly dismantled

>>21977276
thats what these faggots will never get, mainly because theyre just simply poorly-read but also because they have no real convictions in the first place. Stalin and Lenin were robbing banks and breaking out of prison in the frozen siberian wastes just to do it all again. Mao led a decades-long insurrection until the KMT couldnt take it any more. THATS how they managed to accomplish successful revolutions, by having actual balls of steel. These people can't even be assed to be arrested over the weekend for loitering too long outside of a bank HQ. its been so fucking over from the very start of their podcasts and shitblogs, and they either dont want to accept that fact, or they know full well what they're doing and just enjoy the lifestyleism and financial well-being their little carved out niche gives them.

>>21978703
This is the most delusional post i have ever seen.
Lenin was funded by the German empire and the kaiser to destabilize Russia in order to remove the eastern front. Mao was born into a richfag farmers family and the only reason he won was because the nationalists had suffered massive casualities fighting the japanese imperial army while Mao and his fag gang hid in the mountains. But you keep on coping with ur fantasies. You are idolizing oppurtunists not actual heroes.

>>21978683
amazon loves socialism, that's why they constantly fight against unionization of their warehouses

>>21978729
Its a good thing they have their little pet socialists spokeperson in their pocket to control any union and keep them in line if they get uppity. Do you actually buy any of the crap u write down? You do realize they can turn any of these streamers into poorfags anytime they want to.

>>21978740
>Its a good thing they have their little pet socialists spokeperson in their pocket to control any union and keep them in line if they get uppity.
i don't know why i waste my time talking to people who are actually braindead.

What color is your lamborghini, comrades?

>>21978748
>Is unable to refute anything i said
Y-youre b-braindead.

>>21978717
You suck fat cocks as a hobby, don't respond to my posts ever again you inconsequential retard

>>21978758
everything you've written in this thread is basically just
>here's some shit i made up. now prove me wrong.

>>21978740
>Its a good thing they have their little pet socialists spokeperson
Something tells me that most Amazon warehouse wagies are too old and too brown to watch shit on twitch.

>>21978761
Get a load of this seething nigger.

>>21978729
>Socialism is when Unions
Guess America is socialist because it has unions that prevent the revolution.

>>21978740
you have no clue on how unions work, please seek employment.

>>21978773
socialism is not when unions but if amazon takes issue with even labor unions, do you really think they would be okay workers owning the means of production? or is jeff bezos actually an ultra leftist who fights against unions because they don't go far enough?

>>21978778
I have probably have much better idea than you do if u are a person who actually takes advice on socialism or unions from a faggot streamer or any kind of e-celeb in the first place.

>>21978794
I learned about unions from being in a union, you neet slime

>>21978794
He says, while posting le based black man epically owning the libs

>>21978864
>I learned about unions from being in a union
Congratulations u learned how to pay ur monthly admission fee, AkA ur bills.
>>21978868
Thomas sowell was a marxists and became a liberal after he realized what bullshit and garbage that marxism spews. But then again explainig economics to a marxists is like wrestling a pig, even if you win u will be covered in shit and pig will walk away still being a dumb ignorant animal that doesnt care.

>>21978671
Damn I didn't know leftist podcasters were addicted to buying million dollar homes

>>21978779
But that isn’t Socialism, socialism is a theoretical stage, what you’re describing is a bump for sure, and that can annoy the shareholders, but a bump they can definitely mediate and conform, since "Communism" in reality is just rhetorical window dressing for global technocracy, it doesn’t help that you have the same liberal sensibilities that prevent any repeal economic or even communal outcome. Hell — you probably diversity is a le good thing too.

>>21978888
>dumb ignorant animal that doesnt care
lel youre clearly some unemployed loser, what are you acting superior about?

>bullshit and garbage that marxism spews.
Sowell had a great deal of respect for Marx' work, but of course seeing as youre too much of a lazy neet to actually read him, you wouldn't know.

>>21977168
Capitalism won
Liberalism won
Private Ownership won
Marxist-Leninism lost
Maoism lost
Socialism lost
Zoomies think leftism is just capitalism but with some social policies
Leftism has been completely subverted.
I am sorry leftbros, you are fighting a battle lost decades ago. My condolences.

>>21978703
Do you really believe this lmao. Stalin and Lenin were funded by Jews. The bank-robbing thing was just them being criminals.

>>21977334
It's funny that you can do a Ringo Starr impression and sound like his Irish accent.

>>21977334
I started watching his video on ecological collapse but I closed it as soon as I realized that he's going to spend most of the video babbling about spirituality.

>>21977317
Is the American in the room with us right now, anon?

>>21978400
Socialism is whatever I say it is

>>21978519
Jews really never have to answer to anyone, afaik

>>21977276
Raising donations isn't even bad, they don't actually do anything with them though except consume them and occasionally make some donations themselves to charity.

Capitalism and communism are both gay shit for faggots. It's no secret that the biggest economists of both theories were open, notorious, and sadistic homosexuals with a taste for catamites.

Wow imagine giving a shit about the system's efficacy and well-being
News flash assholes: the system will NEVER care about you. EVERY interpersonal interaction INHERENTLY DEHUMANIZES you as an individual by making you a PAWN in the social-societal chess match. Only by valuing your own perception of reality and consciousness above the lives of others can you achieve "success".
Morality is a HOAX, socialism is the dying breath of Abraham's creed.

>>21977168
>And of course Karl Marx put the final touches on the edifice by providing the theoretical justification for what was as yet only emotion, impulse, need. Marx is truly a bourgeois thinker when he explains all of history by work, when he formulates man's whole relation to the world in terms of work, when he evaluates all thought in terms of its relation to work, and when he gives work as the creative source of value. Although he did not believe in values, he implies that work is a virtue when he condemns the classes that do not work. He was one of the most articulate interpreters of the bourgeois myth of work, and because he was a socialist and a defender of the working class, he was one of the most active agents in spreading the myth to this class. Besides, it was through work that this class would one day win power and freedom. For the post-Marxian working class, therefore, work meant both the explanation of its condition and the certainty of seeing it end. Once the motive of doctrine had been added to the motive of necessity, how could the workers fail to be imbued with this ideology? It was the bourgeois who invented the dogma of the eminent dignity of the worker, but it was Karl Marx who led the proletariat to this thenceforth ineradicable conviction. From then on, the myth of work became a myth of the left, and the bourgeois and the worker were united in the same commonplace: work is the be-all and end-all of life. The only difference is that for the bourgeois, work tends more and more to be the work of other people, while for the worker only he himself can bear the noble title of worker. Anyone who does not belong to the proletariat, being a nonworker, is a parasite.

>>21978675
>giving away his money would provide only short term relief to an incredibly small segment of the population and would do nothing to eliminate the systemic causes of poverty.
True, it's more important to have nice clothes and a nice house than it is to try to fund things that could help people. The money could easily not just go to "short-term" relief. One of the largest cooperative funds in the country only has about $30mm in outstanding loans and the gross annual lending it undertakes is less than $10 million a year, some years in the recent past it was just $5 million. Hasan probably makes around $2mm+ a year going by subs and just rough guesses at what his special advertising contract is with Twitch. If he lived on a salary of even $100k a year and used the rest to fund cooperatives, which could be housing or workers cooperatives, he could represent a not insignificant amount of funding in those spaces, and it could result in enduring relationships to property for people that reduce their costs of living and increase their incomes.

But that's not ending capitalism tomorrow, so who cares. Not my problem, I'm going to buy one of the most expensive sporty electric cars I can find and a nice house in one of the most expensive markets in the country. I want to give my money to the state to do that stuff, but I don't want to do that stuff on my own until the implicit violence of the state is enforcing it on me. Until then it's my money.

why would Marx need a Patreon when he has a reliable simp in Engels?

>>21979648
Incidentally Hasan is completely aware of this and is clearly concerned by the appearance because while he regularly deflects criticism around his consumption by calling his alternatives "charity", which generally I'd agree is going to be less impactful than something like funding cooperatives, I've heard him at least once anxiously list cooperatives as a possible thing he could use his money to fund even though nobody else had mentioned them in that instance, so he has thought of it and associates it with the topic. At best I think he is just lazy, but really I think he is probably opportunistic and so are the other big left online media people. Hasan has an internet history of trying to make a successful media brand for himself, and that was before his socialist phase. He also admits he likes luxury consumption. I don't actually doubt that he holds socialist policy positions or whatever sincerely, but I do think he is in willful denial of what he could do with his money because he just wants to enjoy it, and he actively tries to deflect those conversations. He frequently says that his side podcast is structured as a cooperative and really promotes that decision as an example of him living by his principles, but that immediately begs the question if choosing to forgo income in a profit sharing cooperative relationship in your podcast is admirable and good, why wouldn't you want to do more of that in general? Why is setting up one cooperative outside of your cash cow twitch channel good, but not funding 3? 8? 20? Why not fund dozens of such cooperatives?

>>21979685
The answer is that he thinks it's his money because he "doesn't exploit anyone". But that isn't as pleasant of an answer, it makes him sound like any other rich guy. That's why he thinks there is a substantive difference between him being in a cooperative podcast and him spending effort and money on funding cooperatives for other people rather than consuming, because it's not his problem and they don't have any claim to his money. He is like an inverted libertarian, he is in principle OK with the government taking his money to redistribute for "good things" even if he believes that it's his money that he earned without exploiting anyone, but ask him to do it on his own and he gets irritated at the claim he has any such responsibility. It's not ending capitalism don't you see? He'll give that money over to spreading ownership among the working class when the state forces him to, but not before! That is just "pocket watching", you're being a right wing loser for expecting him to do exactly what he thinks the state should make him do. What do you want him to be performatively poor? Should he just live on $80k and be in the top 20% while he spreads ownership among working class people? That would be like wearing a potato sack in feudal Europe, absurd!

>>21978464
damn

Id they aint stockpiling guns then they aint serious.

>>21978400
>Socialism is not a lifestyle. It's a political system
It absolutely implicates the lifestyles of the rich. The emphasis on "systems" or "modes of production" by Marx itself has a funny bit of meaning when you consider the fact that Marx was an impoverished philosopher supported by his rich friend Engels while they both wrote screeds attacking the revolutionary politics of other left thinkers for not focusing enough on the historical role of the proletariat as the subject of social change etc.

Shockingly few Marxists tend to look at the material facts of the relationship and consider whether or not Engels, who was a rich kid that liked to slum it with working class women in Manchester and hated his dad's social circle, might have not found Marx's ideas so delightful because they allowed him to validate his rebellious feelings towards his father and his upbringing while also not having to actually take much personal responsibility? Engels helped his friends, but that's easy and can be typical even of ideologically right wing business magnates. He sold his inherited stake in his father's business when his father died, but then he effectively retired in a well-to-do home in London and played in the stock market, as well as hosting parties at his house to drink and talk with significant people in left wing politics. Well we can see why Engels might be personally interested in an ideology that gives more weight to his rebellious attitude while also not overtly judging him for being a womanizer that loved to party and go on rather aristocratic hunting trips, but what about Marx? Marx was an egghead, a liberal Hegelian from a protestant household that became an athiest when he felt the church wasn't fulfilling its principles, and turned against Hegel when he felt the liberal state couldn't fulfill its principles either. But he kept his pattern of thought and continued searching for some real dialectical process that was approaching something, with a preference it be something good. Why did he think it existed? Because he was taught that, but since religion and state disillusioned him he fixated on classes as world historic subjects changing society between "systems" of social reproduction. The proletariat becomes the subject of historical change at this moment.

Of course, this social metaphysics and ontology is all made up and unscientific despite how much Marx and Engels liked to deploy the word. But lucky for Marx he never had to be disappointed in his lifetime by his ghostly proletariat. We have more historical perspective, so it's unfortunate so many Marxists are still mentally engaged in the sisyphean task of "educating", "organizing" and ultimately waiting around to be saved by the "united proletariat".

>>21979972
>>21978400
But i suppose in the meantime we still have various Engels type people enjoying their pools and their joints in the middle of the day (>>21979648) while they feel satisfied that they believe in the right thing, they say the right thing, so really all they can do is wait around for the proletariat to no longer be afraid of its shadow. And other people nod and agree with them and generally absolve them or anyone in particular of responsibility for anything, because it's all systemic and so on. It's fine to just consume and enjoy yourself in this playground for rich people, as long as you say the incantations to summon the proletariat. The real world doesn't matter, all just so many specific instances of variables you could plug anyone into. A poor family here, a rich one there, structurally necessary you understand. What does it matter if I have over a million dollars a year at my disposal? That "person" is just an insignificant instance of struggle and suffering necessitated by the system. I care about the system like a smart person, not real people. Which is why I spend all of my money on myself, because I can't change the system, so what do you want me to do, spend it on random people struggling? That's crazy, I really want a nice car. Those people don't even matter in the grand scheme of things. I'm thinking of the big picture, I care about real stuff, like the liberation of the proletariat. That's what makes me different from other rich guys with nice cars.

>>21978192
Hasan is a hypocrite, but I think he's somewhat of a different kind of hypocrite from Alex Jones or Tucker Carlson. This is because Jones and Carlson present themselves as serious truth-tellers, while falling back on saying "I'm an entertainer" when there are consequences to their sayings. Hasan says he's an entertainer up front and doesn't pretend to be serious, but that's a mask to disguise the fact that he is serious.

--

There was an excellent article awhile ago on the political economy of the ex-bohemian leftist turned reactionary. Essentially the tendency of formerly "left" creative types to reaction is due to the "crisis of overproduction" or declining profitability of media, comparing the media figures and scene today to those in France during the Third Republic, many of whom started off as left-wing radicals and morphed into reactionaries/nationalists with the passing of the creative scene of cafes and theaters and the dwindling of creative opportunities, also like almost everyone in the right-wing pundit media industry is like a failed actor or comedian. But say what you will about Hasan, he isn't a loser of his industry. For the others...

>an attempt to create a kind of avant-garde academia, a contradiction in terms that reveals the paradoxical type of recognition a lot of these figures seek: at once old-school, establishmentarian, hide-bound, and respectable and radical, outré, and daring. Red Scare is the product of a fading downtown scene that no longer provides either a sense of exciting place and zeitgeist, viable artistic careers, or much cultural relevance, despite desperate attempts to keep it going. (Funnily enough, one person who I know who loved their provocation is an aging habitué of this downtown bohemia.) Their idol is Camille Paglia and their highest aspiration seems to be to be guests on Bill Maher, figures that belong to the 1990s cultural pantheon. All of these people sort of imagined themselves places in the old bourgeois cultural cursus honorum.
https://johnganz.substack.com/p/the-political-economy-of-reaction

>>21980567
(Also, when I mean the entertainment disguises the fact that Hasan is serious, or at least semi-serious, he gave a decent chunk of money to the Amazon Labor Union, like one of its top three donors. Because Amazon isn't gonna do it...)

>>21979972
>>21980004
I think another example here is Roger Waters, whose father was a member of the Communist Party of Britain and he is basically in that political tradition if you pay attention. And Waters is apparently worth several hundred million dollars, and does he give it all away and live like a monk? Hah, no. But does he give some of it away? Yes. Do I know where some of it goes? Yes. Am I going to say? No.

And that's way more than what Hasan is worth.

The other part of this equation is that even that amount of money isn't very much in the grand scheme of things. The amount of money stashed in offshore tax havens numbers at least $32 trillion. It's a nice chunk of global GDP that's just. sitting. there. and is not being put to much productive use and is instead accruing more wealth for their owners. But instead we're going to moralize over some internet streamer who owns a Porsche and calls himself a socialist?

https://youtu.be/LnRXVt1UFrQ?t=169

>>21978322
ew. what the fuck are you doing here faggot?

>>21980610
Personally I'm just annoyed by Hasan, I don't really intend to "moralize". I don't care about the morality of it, or even the hypocrisy. I think people like Hasan, to the extent they are sincere, are deluded. And what makes it more annoying is how much they insist they're just focusing on the reality. If I were to get on my drunk rant, the "materialist" reality of the world is not that there are phases of history or big systems moving according to laws. That's all idealist nonsense. There are power relations that have existed as long as our histories where people dominate others using their leverage over land and resources. There isn't anything else, it's a power struggle you can constantly witness and engage in if you choose to.

Personally I think the pseudo-religious method of raising funds from believers is a fine way to start engaging in power struggles, but the way you really leverage that (in the colloquial and financial sense) is translating it into non-believer funds, by accumulating power over land and resources to extract funds from people who don't believe or aren't interested in paying for their marginal belief. That's what taxes are, that's what rents are, that's what profit is. That's how you grow power. Leftists are often afraid of that kind of power, they reject accumulating it out of some principled belief in diffuse power, or democratic power, or whatever. I just think that is ultimately, ironically a self-serving disposition. They reject responsibility for actualizing their principles directly, and justify it by talking about immaterial concepts of what is necessary to end social domination forever. That stuff is made up, it's just faith. What is actually real is that a person like Hasan could both build loyalty and funds by leveraging the freely given money of believers right now to accrue property, for instance housing, which he could rent at a deep discount to the market rate with only a small fee (the tax) for growth. No excess profit for consumption. The operating expenses of an owned multifamily property are often estimated at 50%, but can get as low as 30%, and this is usually assumed to cover maintenance. That means the typical assumption is at no profit, rents could be cut 50% on an unencumbered multi family property. The average reinvestment rate is around 50%, so you could cut rents about 25, maybe even 30% and be matching the savings of a typical real estate investment fund.

>>21978239
extremely cute and valid in video form

>>21980667
try to keithpill me
seems kind of pointless talk after five minutes of listening.

I have always wondered out of those who both criticise and uphold Marx, how many have read one of his books.

>>21980662
At that point I'd say your building both loyalty and legitimacy to yourself as a leader, which is political/social capital, as well as growing a basis for cash flows to fund your political project. And these aren't just donations from communist party members or people who call themseleves socialists on Twitch and twitter, now you're getting money from tenants who may not believe in "socialism", but they pay you rents regardless and hopefully have some sympathy for you because you give them cheap rents and treat them well. But you've taken on the odious signifiers of power, doubtless there will be some principled leftists that will accuse you of being a landlord regardless of the fact you charge below market rents and don't take a profit share.

But you can use the cash from continued believers as well as your growing tenant base to fund acquisition of commercial property along with the residential, and you keep business rents the same. Now you can use those market rate commercial rents to potentially fund programs for your tenants, like a small unemployment fund that acts as a kind of pseudo strike fund, or maybe child care services. The point is you're simulating a tax on profits by taking rents from your commercial tenants and redistributing it to your residential tenants in the form of beneficial programs. If you reach a large enough scale in a local market, your impact on residential rents will actually cause vacancies to rise amongst the landlords who need to charge market rents to cover their mortgages. That means they'll be losing money, and some of them will start wanting to back out of the market at the margins. This would cause downwards pressure on multi family real estate prices, which would benefit you because you're the only one in the market who is charging low rents because you specifically are avoiding making a profit share. The problem is having enough liquid cash to snap up the properties that are being shed.

But in this kind of fantastic scenario you run against the limits of proletarian unity as a concept. The working class politics of Marxism tends to assume that their enemies already have everything they could want. But even in the heyday of the unions, union pensions were massive. There is a lot of savings in the working class, savings that could be used to outright buy a lot of assets if the working class cared to coordinate on that project. But the working class hasn't coordinated on that project, because rather than seek stability and power they crave returns. They act like capitalists. Leftists should treat them that way and stop assuming they are waiting to be awakened. They need to be bargained with for their loyalty in a power building project, and that involved things leftists often think of as ignoble. Like forming funds that offer the constituency an interest rate for their risk.

>>21980707
Nigger he is buying overpriced sneakers and laughing at you

>>21980705
pro-tip: just read and quote from the grundrisse, even an abridged version of it. grundrisse is high-tier marx. second best would be paris 1844 shit, followed by first volume of capital. only plebs quote communist manifesto except the line where they call homosexuality "bourgeoise decadence"

>>21979652
lmao did you just draw that?

>>21980707
Of course, political or religious belief does offer a discount on compensation for risk. That's why you get free money in campaigns, parties and churches. But to expand the depth of funds you can offer a small interest rate, and the people who are very sympathetic but don't want to outright give away their money are in. Personally I think this is easily in the hundreds of millions and potentially billions of accessible funds. That is formidable money, but the only way to access it is to accrue a political and social legitimacy, which is achieved by your actions and your power. The populist elite type leaders of history understood this. Caesar went into deep debt on his campaigns, but he came back with a loyalist army and he threw gold at the plebs to gain their devotion. Of course Caesar was still an elite patrician that wanted wealth and glory for himself, but he is one well known example of that kind of populist power building, and usually they have been elites seeking a different kind of status, a different manner of "winning" over their peers. He did promote some popular policies, but that wasn't how he won loyalty and accrued power. He promised his soldiers spoils and land. The more you want people to risk, the more you want them to engage in a risky project with you, the more you have to commit to compensate them, and the more you make good on it the more they will adore you.

But anyways, like I said I just deeply think the Marxist left is flawed and it's because there is a rejection of the plain power relationships that exist in favor of an ontology of classes and mass movements that have subjectivity of their own. Ironically, the rather successful Bolsheviks managed to resolve some of this ideologically by vesting agency in the "vanguard party" which now had the theoretical sanction to speak for and act on behalf of the proletariat. And the party can be structured however, and naturally some core leadership formed that exercised power. But so long as leaders and talking heads just propagates this idea of the mass political subject and reject responsibility for power, they'll keep waiting for the second coming of Christ. And in the meantime they'll continue making money and being very comfortable while people pay them to regurgitate the line that effectively, they should also wait around for the mass subject to appear.

i wonder where in-depth reading of the communist ouevre would lead me.
would it show the problems with the make-believe class system and lend me the arguments to break apart any commie?
would i, except some problems, like the idea?

who knows.

also an interesting question for any other stance in financial matters and politics.

>>21980739
i think you're too stupid for philosophy, economics, and economics altogether, anon

>>21980714
I don't watch Hasan, I'm just saying anyone who buys the line that people like Hasan can do nothing and are just spreading knowledge are being credulous, especially when the reality is pretty plain to see if they stop trying to be so clever. Hasan really is just a dude buying expensive sneakers. There isn't anything more profound to it, him telling his audience that it'd be cool if the state forced him to give them his sneaker money to fund Healthcare doesn't change what is happening. It doesn't mean that it is even possible to get the government to do that. It doesn't mean anything, it's not actionable by anybody in particular. But what is true is Hasan has managed to build a little church, he has money flowing into it, and he is in a better position than probably 99.999% of his viewers to leverage that and produce more cash flows for his people and their shared political project. But he renounced that whole approach as unserious, which should show that he is unserious.

>>21980739
i think you're too stupid for philosophy, politcs, and economics altogether, anon

>>21980744
>economics and economics
huh.

why be unnecessarily rude? just doing a pretentious blogpost for a change.

>>21980746
you could've owned the mistake instead, nerd.
you just made chinkmoot a few cents richer for posting twice

capitalistchads stay winning

>>21980752
>>21980755
sorry i was busy playing a video game online against someone, still won while shitposting at the same time

>>21979648
>when I think about socialism, I think that everyone should be able to do stuff like this. that's all it means to me, not just the freedom from the pain and worrying that people experience around their basic needs, but the truly fun and stupid shit I get to do. no luxury is too great for the working class

>>21980571
>he gave a decent chunk of money to the Amazon Labor Union
Dems circling money around. Watch him donate money to an Omidyar NGO next.

>>21980796
>stealing your passed out friends winnings is socialism
women logic

>>21980725
alas no, but someone on leftypol did using their oekaki and I done saved it. I can't draw

>>21980880
it would have been cool if you'd drawn it specifically for this thread lol

>>21980943
there's been a drawfriend making rare spurdos lately

>>21977202
>Marxism is when $1 million dollar mansion

>>21977334
fuck you keithspammer, you made me hate keith until i happened upon an antifa twitter thread showing all of his supremely based posts

>>21978671
you fucking idiot, the case of "socialist" influencers isnt a smoker telling you smoking is bad its a person who eats healthy telling you eating healthy is bad

Marxian analysis is epistemologically valid but their insistence on destroying art is unfortunate.

>>21978717
To be fair the gommies also fought the japanese and it was Mao who pusehd for a chinese united front between all warlords when the KMT didn’t want to.
And the germans sent Lenin to Russia but they didn’t help him win his revolution and the freikorps fought the bolsheviks everywhere in eastern Europe

Congrats you realized leftists arent serious people.

>>21980796
God, did Felix actually post that? At least it was 6 years ago, but the GQ quote from Will Menaker was late last year. I think Matt is the only one from their group who seems like he really gives a shit. In the GQ interview he was the one who was expressing some kind of internal conflict about what he does for money, that he has had to come to terms with the fact people pay him to tell them stories of political visions he truly cares about but ultimately isn't doing anything substantial to fulfill. But he reconciles it by deeply believing there is nothing he can do, and the fact so many of the Marxists have this comfortable do-nothing attitude is a part of why I think the social conditions that reproduce that ideology are that it absolves many people of responsibility. I don't think that was what Marx "intended" by his philosophy, but it's what a lot of people who are animated by its goals actually take away from it. Of course, really average people don't need Marx to tell them they're powerless, they really do lack options. It's not a matter of what they believe, insofar as they have neither money nor social capital to source funds for building power they are truly lacking moves in their lives. But it's the people who have built up potentially 10s of thousands of followers and significant cash flows that are deluding themselves with Marxism. They could definitely undertake projects that many people can only dream of, but instead they give excuses to everyone else and to themselves for why it's better to get high in their pool or to go party in Vegas. They make a virtue out of saying they can't do anything but enjoy themselves, that's just how the metaphysics of historical change works. But meanwhile you can hear their defensive tone when they resort to "what do you want me to do, be poor?", as though the only option between deep 6 figures and even millions of dollars of income is being under a bridge. Deep down I think some of them really do feel nervous about appearances, so they have to make the option of taking responsibility for power look patently absurd.

>>21981489
A lot of them also resort to the refrain "I'm an entertainer", and by invoking the role of the jester they make clear that their sincere critique is unserious for purposes of claims against them. But paradigmatically the jester tells the powerful monarch what he is doing that is stupid while socially absolving himself of sincerity, to offer the king the service of a truth teller, and in return the king agrees to consider the jester insincere.

But the big entertainers of left online media are speaking to the powerless, and in a sense the roles are reversed to the jesters benefit. They act like a comedian, like an idiot, while telling the powerless how they're being fucked, and when the powerless turn to the big entertainer and say "well you have more power than us, can you be a leader" the big entertainer acts indignant and says "that's absurd, I'm just here to give you a show! Let's be clear, the funds you give me are mine to enjoy because you give me them for a performance" and an unfortunately significant amount of people say "oh! Ok, I made the mistake of thinking you were serious" and the big entertainer says "no no, I AM serious, but in an unserious way"

>>21977168
You don't understand communism.

>>21981489
>>21981524
I think you're making this all way more complicated than it needs to be. These people are deliberate grifters, and have been since the beginning. They present a product that appeals to the resentment of middle class white kids who don't have quite as much as they would like to have, and who daydream of taking it by force. That's all really.

There is no internal struggling going on about the meaning of socialism and how their conspicuous consumption somehow fits into that. They need to give the appearance of a struggle in order to keep the grift going. A dead easy tell that they are fake is the fact that they are all promoted on major corporate platforms, while their "fascist" counterparts have all been booted off. Hmm I wonder why that is?

>>21981579
I don't think they're manufactured, or at least I don't think most of them are. That's just a guess because I've had personal proximity to some of the mid-tier podcasters and they're sincere. But their motivations really aren't dissimilar to a preacher looking to start a church, they dislike their life as an office worker or service grunt and dream of making a living in a more enjoyable or meaningful way. Producing political infotainment appeals to their personal desires in that way. But all of my long winded stuff is just about how Marxism clearly lends itself as raw material for this kind of product, even as many of those people sincerely believe in it. They deflect and their followers deflect from the real, obvious financial incentive they have to produce infotainment influenced by Marxist ideas, because Marxism already has mechanisms to deflect responsinility baked into it that many Marxists don't like to think about in that way. They take those deflections very seriously, the main one being that political and social change occur through big systems of production that produce mass historical subjects in the form of economic classes in conflict. For the sake of socio-political change, every individual person is properly just an instance of their class, and the best thing they can actually do is to try to get other people to properly understand themselves as instances of a class and to contemplate their activity in that way (essentially, "what would the proletariat do?").

I'm positive many of them truly believe this, but I think it is apparent how one looking to personally benefit from establishing a church could have incentive to believe this, because it gives them a great reason to accrue social influence and money to themselves while preaching an ideology that says "I'm doing the work by preaching to you, I'm doing a service to history by broadcasting the good word of the proletariat". It actually becomes a heretical position to dispute their role, because that denies the primary historical agency of the class and confers it onto a guy that 40,000 people are watching and giving money to. It's against the ideology, you're accused of being a liberal or a reactionary by doing it. The obvious becomes profane.

Of course in some sense they are correct, to keep the church analogy it would be like asking a preacher to help build the kingdom of heaven, as though it were possible. It's not, or at least there is no reason to believe it is. And there is no reason to believe anyone or any group of people can "build communism". It's a made up goal, why is it just assumed to be achievable?

>>21981670
>>21981579
But if a person is serious about assessing what is achievable given their own resources, their own immediate conditions, a person with a large audience of eager followers that also has ample cash flow to begin accumulating resources can start building power for whatever their purposes are. Many people do it all the time, though often just for its own sake or because they have some idiosyncratic interest. Like Howard Hughes or something, there are visionaries who accrue power to themselves to fulfill some deep desire they have, the profit and such is just secondary. Look up Dee Hock, considered the primary organizer of Visa. He genuinely didn't give a shit about money, he had pretty whacky concepts of how an international payment system could change the world, and he wrote books on weird ideas of how to organize corporate structures to produce utopian outcomes. Or Marvin Bower, he catapulted McKinsey to its status as the shadowy consulting behemoth it is now, and he was a fucking weirdo that intentionally sold his shares back to the company at book value to set an example for the other partners that McKinsey wasn't about making money. Later in life he called his successors "greedy fuckers" because he continuously thought they were selling out his vision of a professional consulting class, like a bunch of mandarins that dutifully kept the king on the right path because it was a good thing to do.

Marxists focus so much on the end times and the "big picture" that it just becomes blasphemous to try to accrue power and shape the world to your desires, even if those desires are "good" like just taking care of your people and giving them security or even prosperity. That isn't how world historic processes of change work! You're going against the book, that means what your doing can't bring about communism because the proletariat aren't being awakened to their purpose and aren't weilding their political subjectivity. Basically, your project is doomed to insignificance and destruction by history. The fact is this is true of everything, the Marxist is in denial about it. There isn't a golden road to the enduring kingdom of heaven on earth. What we can see is time and entropy constantly changing things and eroding them to dust. If a single person cares about alleviating the struggles of people and giving them security, they may as well take responsibility for fulfilling it. There is no social substance destined or with the latent tendency or whatever to do it for you. There is just power and domination and struggle, and if you build your kingdom by all experience we have it will die one day when you are long dead. If that makes the project worthless then maybe you never really cared, maybe you just wanted to smoke a joint in a pool at 12pm and feel good about it.

>>21981166
i live in a shitty part of los angeles and my 2 bedroom home is valued at $700k

why are americans still obssesed with Marx and communism?
it died decades a go.
The cold war ended decades a go.
The "culture wars" bullshit has nothing to do with Marx or communism.

>>21981702
>>21980796
Fucking
>"I'm out here in Vegas playing slots and drinking with my buds, and I was just enjoying the thought that this is what I want for everyone! Anyways, good luck with that, thoughts and prayers, gonna go get high now and play Elden Ring for 16 hours. Hoping you guys can join me one day!"
Just impressive levels of childish narcissism. Sad that people are like "true Felix, we love you man, hoping to be a stoned gamer for a living in the promised land as well!"

Communism is clearly just going to be lower middle income standards for everyone if it actually works out for everyone. Just a boring conflictless world. Everyone cant get a beach house

>>21981714
>why are americans still obssesed with Marx and communism?
if anything the culture war bullshit exists precisely to distract from Marxism

Marx is based because he makes so much of this board seethe lmao

I might just larp as a commie on this board from now on

>>21981890
making people seethe as a commie is pretty based, it's insane how much people hate people who aren't insanely angry for no reason at anyone who isn't exactly the same as everyone else, they're all united in their hate for the enemy (minorities, commies, lgbtq, etc)

>>21981528
and you don't understand my post you fucking retard. i am a fucking communist, i'm just being critical. fucking kys retarded faggot bitch

>>21983102
anon if you're actually OP then it's lib tier critique

>>21983107
it's not, the point went over your head

>>21983107
since you view it merely as pointing out hypocrisy and not the left's blindness to our current cultural paradigm. at least you're not one of the dumb fucks in here thinking it's an anti-communist thread.

>>21983413
but anon it *is* our current cultural paradigm

>>21984679
>muh cultural marxisms
oh my god kill yourself

>>21984844
no anon what I'm saying is podcasting aint free

>>21985062
kek
the market is oversaturated now

>>21985303
>spoiler
perhaps. but you also don't have to give any of them any money
what OP does is problematize the fact that agitators are getting paid for agitating. something that is not a problem at all

>>21979164
Capitalism has entered it's final crisis in late 2019. Everything that has been done since is desperate measures to keep it artificially alive.

>>21979164
>I am sorry leftbros, you are fighting a battle lost decades ago. My condolences.

>>21977195
Pull out the stick out of your ass, cuz you clearly don't have any sense of humor

very reactionary vibes, OP. maybe consider communists dont listen to fascists

>>21986723
They should though because most communists nowadays are just navel gazing retards. Fascists actually want results.