Lol yeah that would be nice. I’ve heard of ppl playing it on emulator, but its always a streamer or modding micro celeb.

Wow how did you make that work?

I think there are some misunderstandings about what capitalism is and how it actually works as a mechanism of class rule and oppression rather than a neutral system. I absolutely think your heart is in the right place, but I’ll try to help clear up common misunderstanding.

First, you are confusing capitalism with markets. Capitalism isn’t markets, that would be like marketalism or something. Capital is assets that that produce more than they cost to maintain. Basically its stuff that creates profit, not stuff that is sold on a market, though it is the market where a particular transformation occurs, its where potential profit is transformed into real profit.

But what is done with the extra is the fundamental contradiction of capitalism. The production process is socialized, which means that it is many people involved. But the excess, the profits, are individualized, not socialized.

Because of this dynamic, capitalism is not an optimization. It is not efficient, it extracts social productive value, and shunts it into private coffers, or more accurately, private bank accounts. Those banks are part of a global system of finance, that every country in the world is paying into in various ways. In endless ways these banks distribute resources according to a particular set of rules that benefit a particular sort of set of incentives: the incentives of imperialist capitalism.

Every link in the chain of production bleeds money. A parts manufacturer has to turn a profit, those parts are shipped to an assembler that has to turn a profit, the assembled commodities have to be sold on a market that had to earn a profit. The shipping companies that are moving parts and commodities, has to turn a profit. The warehouses that store the goods have to be profitable. Does an object have to be profitable in order to exist in the real world? Absolutely not. Things have to be profitable in order to fulfill a certain set of obligations imposed on the real world.

You want to separate socialism from capital, the social from the economic. This way of thinking creates illusions. Capitalism is not rational, it’s anarchistic. Things are not created and distributed according to human needs, they are created according to the desire for profit. The competitive drive for profit eliminates firms who fail to take more profit, which leads to monopolization, vertical integration, etc., Large firms are able to influence legislation, to create laws which are enforced with violence to make the consequences real.

Your view is not unique. It was the view of the capitalist class during the heyday of the new deal. After pushing workers to the brink of actually overthrowing the capitalist system (see 1934 nationwide rail strikes) in 1935 we got our new deal, and the capitalists were all saying “we just need responsible, kinder capitalism. Social democracy will be a big improvement!” But 90 years later, the new deal is a done deal. Even European social democracies are at least majorly funded by defense industrialists that extract value from the 3rd world, and are experiencing waves of well funded and politically organized fascist movements, like ourselves. There is no profit in social democracy, and it only came about in the first place because of the global expansion of socialism, which actively fought to eliminate capitalism but was defeated in various ways.

Capitalism is in fact extremely wasteful, and is optimized only to move value from workers to owners. A recent study shows that a better way of life for everyone, secure safe housing, healthcare, quality education; could be achieved with 1/3 of our current global productive capacity. That means there is in fact room for luxuries! But not under capitalism. We will have to dramatically change the global order, by the workers coming together and organizing for our own benefit, at the expense of capital and private property. We will have to seize the means.

I think the sort of compromise that you are trying to make is actually a historically settled issue. Concern about what to do about demand for luxury goods is very correct IMO, as well as is the belief that the economy should be organized around human need rather than the hunt for profit. This is one of the pillars of socialism! And I welcome you as a fellow traveller in these spaces. But there will be no compromise with capitalism this time. The new deal saved the ruling class of capitalists from extinction. And that view of having a good capitalism was the justification of the ruling class for their own parasitic existence. The sun has set on even the feasibility of a middle way.

I think if you want to join the movement for democratic socialism, you’ll be able try and work with others for ways to make sure that human needs such as housing, food, education, healthcare are not commodified on a market. But there will be no compromise. That happened before we were even born. Capitalism is more than just markets, it is the way that the ruling class is organized against the working class. This IMO is the missing piece from your analysis, the class analysis. But we live in a time where the class character and distinctions between the owning capitalists and the workers is becoming clear to many many more people. I def sympathise with your urge to find a compromise, I think it is admirable and a quality that our movements desperately need.

But in this particular instance, it is not possible to strike a compromise between the people who get their wealth from stealing the value of others work, and the people who are having their work stolen.

Why are you calling me buddy? It comes off patronising, so i would love to hear about your involvement in left wing organizing, or any actual organizing. Are you in DSA? Or are you a democrat talking down to DSA, as dems do compulsively to the working class, telling us to stay in our lane? I honestly cant tell. DSA should run lower level campaigns in addition, i agree, and I think Mamdani is going to inspire much much more of that.

True but the problem isn’t just money, its private property. Money is how social relations under capitalism are managed. It isn’t the root of the problem, but it creates lots of avenues for exploitation. I would like to live in a world without money but we have to organize and fight for it.

Debatable, as you mentioned, but I love your energy. It was shocking how much of a party focus we had this year compared to 2023.

What a time to be a democratic socialist!

Capitalism needs homelessness, joblessness and poverty in order to function. Probably preaching to the choir, but it doesn’t create poverty because it is bad as an economic system, it creates poverty because it works so well.

The Democrats aren’t a party. They’re a voting blob. When DSA becomes an actual party it will shake the foundations of the whole political system.

80000 members, and they’re terrified. Not because we are socialists, but because we are organized. Wanna scare the ruling class, give em a taste of DSA derangement syndrome? Join.

nothing being done

Yeah that’s its own sort of doomer individualism. I wish I could tell you, as someone who teams up with others to do things that the view disappears in practical work, but tbh it seems like it only increases. Idk. There are def lots of young people joining the movement. Hasn’t reached a critical point but it’s growing.

I wish we had more artists since most are like political sickos

So I’m a socialist, in that I go to meetings voluntarily and get in trouble all the time. I spend a ton of time heavily invested in this political stuff. And one thing that is like desperately missing from our movements is any kind of culture. So that’s something that I’m also thinking about a lot, and I think a lot of people are. Not sure what to do really, still trying to figure that stuff out, but I’m actively trying to figure that out.

Run the Jewels def have some overtly political stuff, a few tracks with Zach de la Rocha even, although Killer Mike is a little disappointing politically, but many artists are. They have newer stuff but I just really like this song

Another group to check out is the Coup. Been making records since before the gangsta rap come up in the 90s even. Their newer stuff is pretty popular with young people too.

Both these songs are over a decade old, fuck me

I took my daughter to a concert some years ago, when she was in middle school, and before any bands went on, “Killing in the Name Of” started up. I told her “at the end of the intro when the song starts up, everyone in the audience over 30 will start bobbing their head” and sure enough, thousands of adult chaperones all at once just start grooving

Well recession pop is back, check out the new Lady Gaga or Kesha albums. So there is that sort of dissonance and syncopated funkier rhythms in pop music which can usually be connected to economic and social downturn.

I know that shit is worlds away from what you’re referring to, I think you’re looking for something more aggressive.

I think the 2022 Every Time I Die record Renegade goes pretty fucking hard, I listen to Planet Shit about once a month and just rage.

Planet B by King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard goes pretty hard.

You can always check out whatever Napalm Death is doing, much of their stuff is political and social commentary, in fact I love ND lyrics.

No one has the " popular understanding of ‘transgender’ didn’t really exist for gen x but whatever it’s going to be, these songs are mostly about needing to transition but feeling unable to" that Kurt Cobain had, but Kurt did once say that early Nirvana was an attempt at copping Gang of Four, and Go4 is very political, critical and high energy. esp their first album “Entertainment!” and “Solid Gold”. After that they become kinda disco.

Also consider diving into the incredible wealth of protest music produced before the 60s. The 60s is kind of understood as a high water mark for protest music, but IMO a lot of Dylan and stuff was promoted more because he was actually less political than like Phil Ochs. Woody Guthrie, Victor Jara, The Almanac Singers, Odetta, etc., had much sharper politics than most well known artists who came after.

Finally, last but best, not new but largely undiscovered and forgotten, the Swedish RATM: the 1998 album The Shape of Punk to Come by the Refused. By far, one of my absolute favorite left wing records

Individualism is a dead end, the forces you describe are powerful because society is organized for their benefit. The cruel and psychopathic have avenues to make themselves useful to the ruling class. This is a social construct not an individual virtue or vice.

We can only make changes together. I def think people need to be more individually courageous, but the most common source for courage is social support, not some inherent trait. Some people are oppositional defiant in a way that can make them practical for a time, but without something larger steering circumstances then these individuals end up becoming tyrants all the same.

Hypothesiseses

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I also have an inkling in that direction too, and I’m just not an economist. But when he says deporting immigrants will raise inflation, he is saying it will raise wages based on these same mechanics

It’s so funny, because it means it will raise wages. I will never understand why these people wont just be honest. Economists will go to whatever lengths necessary to avoid making a class analysis.

increased wages leads to inflation, according to the rules of capitalist profit accumulation. Its what happened during covid, when so many people died the “surplus population” that keeps wage growth stagnant was depleted by a meaningful degree. Wages went up, then inflation followed. And we saw that most of that inflation was just companies raising prices so they could make more money.

Obviously the mass deportation of workers is an act of class war, and should be fought against. But it will increase profits for his buddies in the short term, and buy him some political clout among his base in the shorter term. The problem is, who will do those agri jobs which rely on hyper exploited labor, and why? It is going to cause mayhem for masses of workers.

But also, that is the point. He wants to crash our economy on purpose. The endgame is to force an asset bubble onto China and the EU, through a long painful global recession.

So the problem isn’t Trump, he is a symptom, an accelerant. As always, the problem is capitalism which dominates every part of our lives.

Look up “reserve army of labor”, called “surplus population” by mainstream economists, and the stupidly named “Mara-Lago accords.”

Are…are women bourgeois?

Based on your username, it brought you no joy to find the answer