We have lost all sense of self preservation. Almost like we the gipity. Which came first the gipity or the ape? I swear chain smoking monkeys driving cars.
It’s not crazy, you just have to examine who is telling you it’s crazy.
Just this morning, I took my kids to a restaurant and was seated near someone who I know for a fact has a net worth well into 8 figures - a bourgeois business owner who sold his business for a fortune (it’s a small town). He was complaining to his friend about how Mamdani was about to “ruin NYC” and how the DSA wants to “indoctrinate kids” into socialism. Most of what he said was just boring Fox News talking points. But really what struck me (and I thought this before I saw this thread) was just how completely shocked he was over the idea that anyone was even considering socialism. It’s like, the fact that right here in capitalist America where “anyone” (i.e him, because these people don’t care about anyone but themselves and maybe their family) can get filthy rich, to advocate for socialism is like saying there’s cheese on the moon, in the bourgeois mind.
If you’re one of the few winners at capitalism, then socialism really does seem crazy. Not only do you have riches beyond what most humans have ever dreamed of thanks to capitalism, but you have likely insulated yourself in a bubble that reinforces the idea this is the best system - the only economic system possible is the one that has enriched me. These capitalists (and maybe some of their acolytes) are the only ones who really think socialism is “crazy”. Seeing socialism as the rational way forward is understood by those who actually examine the economic systems we live under, or those who experience its cruelty.
Don’t let them make you think YOU are the crazy one. The only ones who think capitalism is a good and sane system are the capitalists themselves.
Entrenched positions of power and hierarchy self perpetuating.
Because the people who own everything want to keep owning everything and because they own everything they have the resources to propagandize the idea that them owning all the things is actually good.
I think a good question worth asking yourself when it comes to evaluating claims made by someone is “Would they still have a reason to say this if it weren’t true?” Would rich people, the politicians whose campaigns were backed by rich people, and media outlets owned by rich people have a reason to support the system which makes them rich even if their claims about it being good for everyone else were not true? Yes.
Its not, the people working to convince you that it is have an obvious interest in maintaining the status quo, and they’re probably not gonna let things get better until and unless there’s a gun to their head
You might find Gramsci’s concept of cultural hegemony interesting.
tl,dr: The ruling class and its institutions influence perception and values. Cultural norms become so ingrained that they become “common sense” and “what’s natural”.
It’s not a crazy idea. It’s the one true, undeniable, self-evident truth that has always been hidden by the greedy and the powerful, and all of the smoke and mirrors they possess.
Because the ruling class ideas are the ruling ideas, they control education, public spaces and media (and also the repression apparatus in case the former is insufficient). It’s not about the sense of self preservation, we are not so different than ancient or medieval commoners who found questioning the divine rights of kings to own everything, a crazy idea.
The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas.
― Karl Marx
The people who currently own the means of production really really like having control over everything.
🤠 they sure do
on paper it sounds legit, but eventually it comes down to who has control of it.
Speaking of USSR, there’s going to be responsible person assigned for that place, whether it was collective farm or any manufacutring plant. And everyone who is in that place will have an personal interest in abusing that power. Ordinary workers took whatever they could find to home, it was known that if everything is owned by everyone, therefore it is also mine. I think shared ownership goes against human nature and to live in altruistic and self preserving society would mean to overcome it. When we think of ourselves part of humanity and not part group/nationality/political view or individual maybe we will be one step closer
Human nature is to eat, fuck, reproduce, and work together in small tribes of 100 people. We are hyper social apes, almost as social as ants.
I think shared ownership goes against human nature
I think the vast majority of things are shared. Air, water, soil… roads, schools… your education… the bathrooms at the supermarket… the murals/sculptures that make your town look less like a shithole…
It’s perfectly in line with human nature, actually, to share things. People who amass hoards of wealth and fight for power and control… those are the weirdos.
How can you say this about industry, but not something already publicly owned, like police, fire departments or military? And yes, yes, I know how well some of those are run, BUT, would they be better under private control? Hell no. In fact, I’m pretty sure they’d be better without the corrupting influence private wealth has on our political system.
Who’s this “public” guy?
