On my way to tell an American living in a tent city that they have more in common with the rich because they live in the West. Libs are so fucking sheltered and blind to the poverty around them. What part of ‘economic crisis’ and ‘millennials are so poor that they can’t afford to start a family even if they wanted to’ do they not understand?

This idea that life would be harder under communism in the modern era is laughable. Capitalism is ridiculously wasteful, we could produce far less and still have everything we need if we did it within our means instead of the stupid shit capitalism does like throw out tons of food or build disposable single-use crap that breaks in five seconds because muh profits.

Not only would most people be better off, but our lives would be easier and more fulfilling under communism.

as westerners our class interests are aligned with the bourgeoisie

i will remember this as i choose once again whether to buy food or power lol

the fact many of his podcast’s followers there are Dengists is another sign of his liberalism

there it is. fucking ultras

BTW, that totally equal redistribution of wealth wouldn’t benefit workers in the imperial core only holds true for a small number of countries (Canada and the Nordic countries being the main example). In places like the US, the UK or Germany, wealth distribution within the country is so unequal that many, many people would profit signicificantly from an equal global distribution of wealth - not as much as somebody in the Global South, but it would still easily mean a doubling or more of the average Amerikan’s income.

PSA: STANDARD OF LIVING IS NOT A MEASUREMENT OF SINGLE USE PLASTIC AND GASOLINE EXPENDITURE. THE VAST MAJORITY OF WESTERNERS CAN SEE MASSIVELY IMPROVED LIVES, WITH LEISURE AND HEALTHCARE, WHILE ALSO REDUCING THEIR CARBON FOOTPRINT.

Where’s that map that shows that an even global distribution of wealth would still mean a net uptick for the average American?

by definition makes him a fairly successful petit bourgeois

average salary for a doctor in iraq - ~65k usd per year after tax
1/3 of the estimated income from the deprogram patreon - ~59k usd per year before conversion fees and tax

literally not petit bourgeoisie
make the majority of your income through wage labour - you’re working class

plus he does good work anyway

I heard that “Neoliberalism is rational fascism”, but here this person shows that “Fascism is the logical conclusion of neoliberalism”

I am begging people to actually read Marx or Proudhon. There are way more classes than just proletariat and bourgeoisie. Hakim does not fit the class description of either (even though he is closer to being a proletarian than bourgeoisie).

He is likely what Marx or Proudhon would consider to be a ‘skilled or professional artisan worker’, the class that Proudhon saw as the primary revolutionary class, who would lead the social revolution because proletarianization would upend and degrade their living standards, but they also had the systemic knowledge to ‘separate from society’ and live within a social and commodity production amongst themselves. Marx believed that only when they were proletarianized would they be able to achieve the nessecery class consciousness that is required for a social revolution, otherwise they are too ingrained in the competitive logic of their class, competing for the larger scraps at the table of the bourgeoisie.

That and he is also a working doctor, so definitely in the skilled professional category, regardless of how you slice it.

It is in this precarious class state that people like Hakim find themselves in, and why they have a class consciousness, but one that expresses itself through works of artistic documentation, not direct organization or class struggle.

Also, it is amazing how much economic and political illiteracy is required to have that understanding of Marxism. It is in fact possible for most people in the world to have a low-end non-precarious Western middle class commodity life, provided that efficient public services are developed and available. You will lose out your high-end western luxuries, but let’s be fair, do we really want to live our lives of toil for a couple days of happiness, if that?

This is something I’ve been thinking about. I think it depends on your definition of “quality of life”. Imagine a world where you never had to worry about housing, medical care, or even food, where you have democratic control of your workplace and work fewer hours allowing more time for hobbies and side projects, but in exchange things like coffee, exotic fruit, chocolate, etc. go from every day commodities to once in a while treats. I think most westerners would take that deal.

I think it may be a side effect of capitalist realism where it’s easy to point out all the unsustainable excesses that need to go, but hard to imagine all the possibilities for things to improve.

Please keep in mind that me as well as many others are deriving this stuff from personal as well as collectively experiences and observations.

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I had a very superficial understanding of things despite spending years watching this stuff

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I’ve basically had to start over which is what I’m doing now, I’ve tried to put away all I think I know and started studying Marxist texts, starting from the basics, a few months ago.

If this doesn’t sum up the “breadtube” mindset I don’t know what does. Wait until they learn they’ve gotta study history and do praxis to properly understand the theory, too. My buddy who attends his factories union meetings and keeps up on labor news has a better understanding of this than anyone who’s exclusively been consuming Marxism as a product-identity-brand via YouTube and Reddit. That doesn’t make Hakim a liberal.

Whitest reading of Settlers

I think we finally found the one true leftist

He’s correct in that ending exploitation will make life less cushy for westerners for a while. I mean look at France and Niger. Niger is no longer selling uranium for pennies, and France is talking about military intervention. You don’t do that unless you know your people will become unruly because you refuse to give in to the ‘others’ demands for fairness. You don’t see frenchies rioting in support of ending French imperialism, so yes, communism will be a hard sale for citizens who directly benefit from the suffering of others.

And I think the fact he has a fairly successful Patreon from which he funds his own survival + the continuation of his petit bourgeois commodity production

Hakim probably owns a nice PC and a microphone lol. People really read Marx one time and think “damn everyone’s a business owner because they also make money outside of being bossed around.”

They are by default driven to produce content that will appeal to western petit bourgeoisie and labor aristocrats since those are the people who consume things like YouTube and podcasts the most. If your concern is to just consume leftist whatever then okay, keep watching it. But if you want to become a Marxist and an actual communist, i.e. the vanguard of the global proletariat, you’ll have to do better than that.

I agree. I like the boys, but even their podcasts can be tiresome to listen to because they usually only have on American guests or other westerners and talk about American topics despite it being an international podcast.

I actually agree with this guy for the most part. Hakim and Parenti are definitely not liberals lol, but there is some wishful thinking when it comes to the lead up and outcome of communism.

A majority of people living in the West would immediately benefit from the kinds of reforms we’ve seen after the revolutions we got, in previously colonized/poorer/agrarian societies. There will be more “losers” than there were in eg Cuba, sure, but there’s more to life than consumer goods…