If you believe food comes from a field, you will defend the field. If you believe the food comes from the supermarket, you will defend the supermarket.
They don’t even know socialism exists in the US.
Also what you say is more tied to political identity instead of your actual beliefs whether or not the belief falls anywhere close to truth.
They don’t even know socialism exists in the US.
You don’t know that it doesn’t and never has.
Decades of intense cultural manipulation and suppression of any pro-communist media. Also, the whole economic base affecting the superstructure thingimajig.
or basically, we da baby and the ruling class are the fisherman:
Because the last 50-100 years of Western political-economic development (especially, but it goes back longer than that to a lesser degree, and is more prevalent in America) has “bourgeoisified” vast swathes of the population, to the extent that there is not even a handful of causes but an entire ecosystem of hundreds of them.
A proletarian is at it’s most basic a person who owns next-to-nothing. The archetypical proletarian rents an apartment, takes public transit, works without a contract, does not own his own tools, and holds no shares in stock. While peasant revolts did occasionally happen, even the minor allowances given to the peasant class in some countries - virtual land ownership; livestock, tool, and vehicle ownership; and a thriving middle class of landholding, employing peasants - were enough to completely neuter revolutionary sentiment among the peasants.
Policies which “buy common people into” the system of Capitalism are what lead them to supporting the system or, at least, opposing its complete dissolution. To avoid writing an entire essay, I’m just going to list some of the policies that I believe contribute to the bourgeoisification of Western workers:
(1). Invested retirement funds instead of pensions
(2). Suburban home ownership
(3). 13% of Americans are part of the employing class
(4). Car culture over usable public transit
(5). Valorization of the “small business owner”
(6). The death of shop-floor Union organizing in favor of “union-as-a-service”
(7). Domination of unions by labor-aristocratic forces, and the resulting ties to liberal political parties
(8). The offloading of economic extraction onto colonized peoples, including so-called “internal colonies” of racial minorities and immigrants, whose political rights are suppressed.
(9). Voter suppression more generally - it is more difficult for poorer people to vote than wealthier people
(10). Control of media, including social media, by the middle and upper classes. You are more likely to see bourgeoise perspectives reflected not only on legacy media but most forms of social media as well (think small business tyrants and their wives posting on NextDoor, Facebook, etc., or “influencers” on youth media).
And so many more reasons.
Those that benefit from it spend a lot of money on trying to make sure the majority of people don’t realise it’s fucking them over
They get told all those horror stories about ‘the others’ who hate us for our freedoms and want to rule the world, where they have to work real hard and still can’t afford a house, and the regeeeem is spying on them all the time.
We wouldn’t want to live like that would we?Because they think of themselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires rather than wage slaves.
Stockholm syndrome.
Ironically enough, I wish we had stockholm Democratic Socialism while also suffering Stockholm Syndrome.
same reason they defend religion, indoctrination.
The majority of people are resistant to change in general and can’t imagine a better world than what they know. The majority of people are focused on themselves without looking at the big picture.
Because they’ve been taught it’s the best system and only one that works.
People go with the information they are given. People don’t do academic research into these things before forming an opinion (myself included). Through cold war times, capitalism was advertised as a morally correct choice (and not just as one type of economic system). Even within this, the American flavour or neoliberal capitalism isn’t the only choice. There can be a more heavily regulated capitalism like in Europe with elements of strong social support. America’s economic success is taken as clear evidence that neoliberal capitalism is clearly the winning strategy and makes them the best.
These aren’t isolated economic theory concepts anymore. These are ideas linked to people’s identity, politics, social groups, morality and sense of justice/right and wrong. This is compounded by a false sense that we live in a meritocracy and just world. As if the world will give money and success to those who are right and good, so we shouldn’t stand in the way of that.
Because they benefit from it?
This is only part of it because the vast majority of people do not benefit from capitalism. Not anymore at least. Of those in the working class who defend capitalism I would say most are victim to the constant stream of propaganda that the media pumps out at the behest of the capital owning class. It’s something that starts from birth in most western nations and permeates into the narratives people are taught in school in a way that requires deliberate and consistent work to unlearn and break away from.
I dont want to interrupt but im still waiting on my money from the election in Berlin. We were promised a bonus if you win.
What do they have to do with that?
this. i remember a few years ago i was somewhere that folks had put on the macy’s t-day parade. it was the first time i’d really noticed the intensity of the propaganda. most of the themes and music were just about acquiring material things and how good and normal that is. the propaganda was so strong it made me viscerally uncomfortable to watch.
Even more benefit from a social market economy, which might be an optimal sweet spot if done right.
Capitalism with a larger social safety net is still capitalism, and it relies on the exploitation of workers in the Global South to function. As the Global North’s capacity to imperialize the Globe South deteriorates, so too does its ability to bribe its own workers at home with treats.
That’s why I wrote “if done right”.
A truly social market economy also has to make sure that workers along the whole supply chain have to get similar rights and treatment as local workers.Besides that, centrally planned economies (being the opposite to plain free market capitalism), also don’t really shy away from exploiting the resources of poorer countries.
(Looking e.g. at imperialistic China here).China isn’t exploiting anyone. You really need to start questioning what your own empire accuses its enemies of. Previously:
- The Atlantic, 2021: The Chinese ‘Debt Trap’ Is a Myth
- Jason Hickel, 2026: Is China doing “colonialism” in Africa?
- Deborah Brautigam, 2019: A critical look at Chinese ‘debt-trap diplomacy’: the rise of a meme
- 📺 Michael Hudson & Radikha Desai, 2024: The truth about China’s economy: Debunking Western media myths
China isn’t exploiting anyone.
Total Imports 2025 EU / China:
Mineral fuels, oils, distillation products $467.75B / $442.95B
Plastics $68.38B / $56.48B
Pearls, precious stones, metals, coins $56.12B / $118.02B
Articles of apparel, knit or crocheted $53.13B / $3.74B
Articles of apparel, not knit or crocheted $48.56B / $5.79B
Iron and steel $44.08B / $30.86B
Edible fruits, nuts, peel of citrus fruit, melons $31.17B / $20.69B
Fish, crustaceans, molluscs, aquatics invertebrates $29.23B / $19.93B
Rubbers $26.46B / $20.57B
Footwear, gaiters and the like $26.30B / $5.70B
Copper $18.63B / $74.63B
Oil seed, oleagic fruits, grain, seed, fruits $18.63B / $57.02B
Pulp of wood, fibrous cellulosic material, waste $11.87B / $21.98BSo, looking at the absolute numbers, China is eploiting the world’s resources in a similar fashion as the old style European Union, so I have to disagree.
I won’t comment on the content of your provided reports and youtube videos (of which at least two look a little… juicy… at first glance), as me just providing you with a bunch of counter-reports and videos, whose reliability you would question in a similar way as I am questioning yours, won’t change anything.
Country X importing from country Y doesn’t magically equate to country X exploiting country Y. Exploitation is a matter of unequal exchange, and not every exchange is unequal. Exchanges coerced through classical imperialism or through neoliberal debt trap peonage are unequal.
Looking at the top 3 exports of China (by a wide margin before anything else):
Electrical, electronic equipment $1016.58B
Machinery, nuclear reactors, boilers $603.82B
Vehicles other than railway, tramway $248.31BThat’s all high price stuff.
Combined with its huge trade surplus, this is a classical “Buy cheap resources - sell expensive highly processed commodities back” scheme, the same as e.g. the uprising European industrializing nations employed as a strategy during their colony exploiting times (and to some degree still do in a similar fashion as China).
No, there is nothing equal here.
No arguments there
EDIT: I mean “can’t argue with that”. Just incase what I wrote originally didn’t make sense
I think a lot of people does fine under it. They are also very vocal, because they are in a relative position of power. For example, little bosses in front of a couple of employees will make more noise than their employees regarding capitalism and entrepreneur values, while the employees will basically survive.
