#but the thing about the communist manifesto is true

[castielstwigandberries]

today is the 176th anniversary of the publication of the communist manifesto so how about we make swollins, our favourite communist couple, trend

[antihumanist]

Random Trivia/Facts About Pekka-Eric Auvinen:

He liked to go swimming, taking walks, and riding his bike for exercise

He never knew how to drive a car

He originally wanted to get a Glock but the police rejected his application because they thought a 9mm was too powerful for a starting firearms owner

He wrote in his diary he hoped to use a shotgun but obviously he never obtained one

He had been interested in things like history, political ideology, philosophy, etc since he was about 12 years old

When 9/11 happened, he was sad that it happened because at that time he admired America. He was still playing with Legos and would rebuild the twin towers over and over again

In the summer of 2006, he found a job working at a farm, but he left this job as soon ad summer ended. He also worked there with a friend from school if I remember right. It's not known what exactly he did at the farm

He was afraid in 2007 to find work because of his anxiety

Since a young age, he dressed formally/dress-like, which was one reason why he would get bullied at school. It's not clear if he wore things like button-up shirts and slacks because he wanted to or if his parents made him wear them.

He took school seriously, and wanted to try his best in all of his classes at Jokela High School. He usually got average to above average grades and was said to have been in above average intelligence compared to his classmates

When he was 14 years old, his social studies/history teacher remembers he was really opinionated about left wing and right wing ideologies, which was something he had never seen before In a student

When he was 17, in 2006, for a class discussion about North Korea, he told the class he thinked dictatorships were good because human beings didn't deserve rights at all

Even his parents say he was opinionated and stubborn, his mother said if you would try to convince him of an idea/ideology/viewpoint, he would go the opposite way of what said idea believes in

After graduation in 2008, he said he planned to go to a university to study either history, philosophy, or social psychology

He admired Hitlers leadership abilities and how he made the Third Reich a superpower, but he did not agree with Hitler ideologically

He hated racism and thought racism was stupid

In May of 2007, he and his English class watched a documentary about the Columbine Massacre (it's not known which documentary), classmates remember he was smiling and enjoying the documentary, he had already knew about Columbine by this point

He once asked his mother to go the library to get him a Finnish translation of the Unabombers manifesto Industrial Society And It's Future, but the library did not have one

In the few months leading to the Jokela Shooting, his grades had been dropping and was attending his classes less often

He got his computer in 2005 (iirc)

He took Lexapro but gradually stopped taking them by the time of his death

Whilst he may have had a few friends at school (although there is some debate of whether his in person friends were "true friends"), he probably felt he could relate and bond more with his online friends, so in a sense he was still a loner

He would blush whenever girls would say hi to him at school

Girls however, would sometimes take part in his bullying too

He once was a member of a forum called "SovietEmpire.com" but the site has since shut down

On the day of the shooting, he was supposedly seen on a supermarket CCTV riding his bike to the school but it was never released to the public

He had a knife on him, but he never used it. It was given to him by his grandfather

He was sad about the death of his grandmother

He had a mentally handicapped uncle, whom he cared about and loved

He had been accused of being a Nazi and a communist by his classmates

Somewhere around the ages of 8 to 12, he introduced himself by his name and that he loved democracy to his class on a first day of school

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The internet is not a (link)dump truck

Monday (October 2), I'll be in Boise to host an event with VE Schwab. On October 7–8, I'm in Milan to keynote Wired Nextfest.

The second decade of the 21st century is truly a bounteous time. My backyard has produced a bumper crop of an invasive species of mosquito that is genuinely innovative: rather than confining itself to biting in the dusk and dawn golden hours, these stinging clouds of flying vampires bite at every hour that God sends:

https://themagnet.substack.com/p/the-magnet-081-war-with-mosquitoes

Here in the twilight of capitalism's planet-devouring, half-century orgy of wanton destruction, there's more news every day than I can possibly write a full blog post about every day, and as with many weeks, I have arrived at Saturday with a substantial backlog of links that didn't fit into the week's "Hey look at this" linkdumps.

Thus, the eighth installment in my ongoing, semiregular series of Saturday linkdumps:

https://pluralistic.net/tag/linkdump/

This week, the miscellany begins with the first hesitant signs of an emerging, post-neoliberal order. The FTC, under direction of the force-of-nature that is Lina Khan, has brought its long-awaited case antitrust case against Amazon. I am very excited about this. Disoriented, even.

When was the last time you greeted every day with a warm feeling because high officials in the US government were working for the betterment of every person in the land? It's enough to make one giddy. Plus, the New York Times let me call Amazon "the apex predator of our platform era"! Now that it's in the "paper of record," it's official:

https://pluralistic.net/ApexPredator

Now, lefties have been predicting capitalism's imminent demise since The Communist Manifesto, but any fule kno that the capitalist word for "crisis" also translates as "opportunity." Like the bedbugs that mutated to thrive in clouds of post-war DDT, capitalism has adapted to each crisis, emerging in a new, more virulent form:

https://boingboing.net/2023/09/30/bedbugs-take-paris.html

But "anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop" (Stein's Law). Perhaps our mistake was in waiting for capitalism to give way to socialism, rather than serving as a transitional phase between feudalism and…feudalism.

What's the difference between feudalism and capitalism? According to Yanis Varoufakis, it comes down to whether we value rents (income you get from owning things) over profits (income you get from doing things):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/28/cloudalists/#cloud-capital

By that metric, the FTC's case against Amazon is really a case against feudalism. Through predatory pricing and acquisitions, Amazon has turned itself into a chokepoint that every merchant, writer and publisher has to pass through in order to reach their customers. Amazon charges a fortune to traverse that chokepoint (estimates range from 45% to 51% of gross revenues) and then forces sellers to raise their prices everywhere else when they hike their Amazon prices so they can afford Amazon's tolls. It's "an economy-wide hidden tax":

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/the-ftc-sues-to-break-up-amazon-over

Now, feudalism isn't a straightforward proposition. Like, are you sure you mean feudalism? Maybe you mean "manorialism" (they're easy to mix up):

https://locusmag.com/2021/01/cory-doctorow-neofeudalism-and-the-digital-manor/

Plus, much of what we know about the "Dark Ages" comes from grifter doofuses like Voltaire, a man who was capable of dismissing the 800 year Holy Roman Empire with a single quip ("neither holy, roman, nor an empire"). But the reality is a lot more complicated, gnarly and interesting.

That's where medievalist Eleanor Janeaga comes in, and her "Against Voltaire, or, the shortest possible introduction to the Holy Roman Empire" is a banger:

https://going-medieval.com/2023/09/29/against-voltaire-or-the-shortest-possible-introduction-to-the-holy-roman-empire/

Now, while it's true that Enlightenment thinkers gave medieval times a bum rap, it's likewise true that a key element of Enlightenment justice is transparency: justice being done, and being seen to be done. One way to distinguish "modern" justice from "medieval" trials is to ask whether the public is allowed to watch the trial, see the evidence, and understand the conclusion.

Here again, there is evidence that capitalism was a transitional phase between feudalism and feudalism. The Amazon trial has already been poisoned by farcical redactions, in which every key figure is blacked out of the public record:

https://prospect.org/power/2023-09-27-redacted-case-against-amazon/

This is part of a trend. The other gigantic antitrust case underway right now, against Google, has turned into a star chamber as well, with Judge Amit P Mehta largely deferring to Google's frequent demands to close the court and seal the exhibits:

https://usvgoogle.org/trial-update-9-22

Google's rationale for this is darkly hilarious: if the public is allowed to know what's happening in its trial, this will be converted into "clickbait," which is to say, "The public is interested in this case, and if they are informed of the evidence against us, that information will be spread widely because it is so interesting":

https://www.bigtechontrial.com/p/secrecy-is-systemic

Thankfully, this secrecy is struggling to survive the public outrage it prompted. While the court's Zoom feed has been shuttered and while Judge Mehta is still all-too-willing to clear the courtroom during key testimony, at least the DoJ's exhibits aren't being sealed at the same clip as before:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/27/23892215/google-search-antitrust-trial-documents-public-again-judge-mehta-rules

In 2023, the world comes at you fast. There's an epic struggle over the future of corporate dominance playing out all around us. I mean, there are French antitrust enforcers kicking down doors of giant tech companies and ransacking their offices for evidence of nefarious anticompetitive plots:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/28/23894863/nvidia-offices-raided-french-competition-authority

As ever, the question is "socialism or barbarism." But don't say that too loud: in America, socialism is a slur, one that dates back to the Reconstruction era, when pro-slavery factions called Black voting "socialism in South Carolina."

Ever since, white nationalists used "socialism" make Americans believe that "socialism" was an "extremist" view, so they'd stand by while everyone from Joe McCarthy to Donald Trump smeared their opponents as "Marxists":

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4066499-trump-paints-2024-campaign-as-righteous-crusade/

As Heather Cox Richardson puts it for The Atlantic, "There is a long-standing fight over whether support for the modern-day right is about taxes or race. The key is that it is about taxes and race at the same time":

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/09/american-socialism-racist-origins/675453/

The cruelty isn't the point, in other words. Cruelty is the tactic. The point is power. Remember, no war but class war. All of this is in service to paying workers less so that bosses and investors can have more.

Take "essential workers," everyone from teachers to zookeepers, nurses to librarians, EMTs to daycare workers. All of these "caring" professions are paid sub-living wages, and all of these workers are told that "they matter too much to earn a living wage":

https://www.okdoomer.io/praise-doesnt-pay/

The "you matter too much to pay" mind-zap is called "vocational awe," a crucial term introduced by Ettarh Fobazi in her 2018 paper:

https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2018/vocational-awe/

Vocational awe is how creative workers – like the writers who just won their strike and the actors who are still fighting – are conned into working at starvation wages. As the old joke goes, "What, and give up show-business?"

https://ask.metafilter.com/117904/Whats-the-joke-thas-hase-the-punchline-what-and-give-up-show-business

In this moment of Big Tech-driven, AI-based wage suppression, mass surveillance, corruption and inequality, perhaps we should take a moment to remind ourselves that cyberpunk was a warning, not a suggestion. Or, more to the point, the warning was about high-tech corporate takeover of our lives, and the suggestion was that we could seize the means of computation (a synonym for William Gibson's "the street finds its own use for things"):

http://www.seizethemeansofcomputation.org/

We are living in a lopsided cyberpunk future, long on high-tech corporate takeover, short of computation seizing. This point is made sharply in JWZ's "Dispatch From The Cyberpunk City," which is beautifully packaged as a Hypercard stack that you run on an in-browser Mac Plus emulator from the Internet Archive:

https://www.jwz.org/blog/2023/09/neuroblast-dispatch-from-the-cyberpunk-city/

Cast your gaze ahead, to the near future: Public space has all but disappeared. Corporate landlords use AI-powered robots to harass the homeless. The robots, built slick and white with an R2-D2 friendliness now most resemble giant butt plugs covered in graffiti and grime.

Science fiction doesn't have to be a warning. It can also be a wellspring of hope. That's what I tried to do with The Lost Cause, my forthcoming Green New Deal novel, which Bill McKibben called "The first great YIMBY novel":

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865939/the-lost-cause

Writing a hopeful novel of ecological, social and economic redemption, driven by solidarity, repair, and library socialism, was a powerful tonic against despair in this smoke-smothered, flooded, mosquito-bitten time. And while the book isn't out yet, there are early indications I succeeded, like Kim Stanley Robinson's reaction, "Along with the rush of adrenaline I felt a solid surge of hope. May it go like this."

And now, we have a concurring judgment from The Library Journal, who yesterday published their review, which concludes: "a thought-provoking story, with a message of hope in a near-future that looks increasingly bleak":

https://www.libraryjournal.com/review/the-lost-cause-2196385

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/30/mesclada/#melange

[delicatelystrangepolice]

Another thing is, I never read YR as a political/cultural commentary piece because I believe it was way subtler in the first two seasons. Maybe it was easier for me not to read into it since I watched the show without any major context in the beginning.

What I saw were just the characters in this story, behaving pretty believably in their environment, their actions logical for their context, and conflicts coming just from circumstances.

I never read Wille any other way than just a teenager – I saw people using very strong words about him, from ‘helpless damaged baby’ to ‘spoiled and selfish brat.’ Since the story was immersive enough for me to see him like a real person, I never liked the simplifications of his character. Maybe I come from very specific experiences, but partying and acting up teenagers is nothing new to me. Being dramatic, neither. Those behaviors are not exclusive to rich/privileged kids. I mostly saw him as just a little troubled, trying to orient himself in the situation he found himself in.

But there comes Simon. Now I get that people accept he was just a plot device the reason for Wille to throw away the crown, but I firmly believe he was not written that way in the beginning. Simon felt as real as Wille. He had his own huge context, his troubles and characteristics – I always saw him as a real person as well. Also, I never saw him as a victim either. Again, that’s probably both because the show was written subtly enough and because I don’t have a simplistic worldview.

Social injustice is naturally a very close matter to my heart. I keep myself hopeful about the world, despite seeing some devastating shit in my life, because I believe in change. I believe in people working together, I believe in communities and parties willing to compromise for a cause.

I can’t comment much about the monarchy aspect of it, but what I gathered is that people don’t like the very concept of it. The right to be born in the right family and so on…

Well, the realist in me knows that people will always be born into something. It doesn’t matter that it’s not written in the law – countries without monarchies have some biggest social inequalities in the world. Russia is a great example. But the USA doesn’t fall far back behind either. Nowadays the inequalities come simply from being born into money. And it’s always going to be a thing. All around the world. I wish people understood that.

Inequalities aren’t diminished by revolutions, I don’t think (pretty sure some historians would agree with me although they are very welcome to correct me) They can be reduced however by the whole community working together. By stopping multiplying divisions and starting to talk. By listening to understand and not just to argue against.

I can’t help being angry at the message from YR because Sweden is one of the most progressive and developed countries in the world. Their social system is admired around the world, I think. Even their education system is the model others can only aspire to. I’m not saying they don’t have problems, but you know, in the bigger context…

Maybe it takes someone raised in a post-communist country to see those things that way.  I just know that, deep down in my soul, destroying something is rarely the way. Building on that thing, adding to it, changing it to include – that’s how things are done to improve.

True both for countries and for worldviews.

Now, you started to read it because you thought I was talking about the show, and by the end of it you realized you were just reading my socialistic manifesto? Good. That’s how I felt watching Young Royals. But since the big media creators can do it on mainstream platforms, I figured a simple person could do it on their weird blog too.

[naturalselection09]

introducing myself ehehheeheh

block don’t report pls

erm…haiiii. my name is violet and uhm here’s a few things about myself

i’m interested in true crime. like a lot. religiously. i’m planing on becoming a criminologist so that’s quite logical innit? ><

im communistic. yeah u heard it right. prolly because my country was in ussr before so that’s pretty self explanatory

my favorite book is ,it’s kind of a funny story’ by ned vizini. go read that book. or watch a movie. both are great eheheh.

also my favorite book is communistic manifesto by karl marx.

i read a lot so there’s never just one book that i liek in particular. they’re all great :3

my favorite movie is called ,brother’ it’s like a russian movie about russian gangsters in the 90s. i feel like tcc people would love it.

on my daily basis i usually daydream,read,sleep, think of different ways to kms, watch movies, and play minecraft :3

bands i listen to: kmfdm, rammstein, icp, gojira,kino, molchat doma, MSI, mastodon, sektor gaza,hole, bikini kill, six feet under, cannibal corpse, scorpions,valentin strykalo, STUTTER,blur, misfits, la dispute,SOAD,candlemass,syphilic,weezer, the cure, the doors, radiohead, psychonaut 4 (my faves atm) and much more :3

i play piano, guitar and bass. know a little bit of drums and violin

i know russian, english and georgian. lowkey wanna learn polish

if you don’t agree with something i wrote down here just remember that it’s your opinion and i won’t even listen to it sorry not sorry

englaish is not my langueage so sowwy in advance)))

love y’all

(this is walter white by the way say hi to him)

[steppingstonesuniverseguide]

Deleted Scene from One Step At a Time Ch 36: The Curator

I'm going to be posting a One Step At a Time entry soonish and I'm deleting a bunch of things because it got very *silly* and kind of interfered with the whole *vibe* of the chapter. That being said, I do love the silly, so enjoy an exclusive Ch 36.0 from One Step At a Time.

(Also Techno does say a thing that's might come off as way too rude, but, like, Wilbur doesn't mind. He watched his dad mourn him for years. He knows he's wanted and both he and Techno are 100% aware of this.)

“We are we going?” Tommy asked for the 5th time in as many minutes. This trip was always too long even without a Tommy in the car.

"We already told you,” Wilbur said, sounding grumpy. (Probably because he’d been demoted to backseat. Usually, they’d make Phil sit in the back during civilian outings in revenge for all of the years they had to allow him to drive, but Tubbo was also sitting in the back seat and putting Phil back there seemed like a poor decision.) “We’re going to the library.”

“We are not going to the library,” Tommy said. “All three of you brought your costumes and you brought us masks.” He reached forward to poke Phil. “Phil where are we going.”

"We’re going to the library, mate,” Phil said with more patience than the child deserved today. “It’s just a special library.”

“Is it a crime library?”

“It’s a…” Phil said.

“Yes. It’s a crime library,” Wilbur cut in.

“Technically, it does house books considered illegal in current society,” Phil said.

“Like Animal Farm and The Lorax,” Techno contributed.

“What is a Lorax?” Tommy asked.

“We’ll check it out for you,” Techno said.

“Will you read it to me?”

“I promise you can read The Lorax yourself well enough at this point, but I will read Animal Farm to you if you’d like.”

“Anti-government bedtime story with Techno hour is starting up again.”

“Eventually we’ll get to The Communist Manifesto and What is Property?”

“God please, I don’t want to hear any more about 1800s relationship drama between Marx and Proudhon. This is all your fault.” Techno didn’t see it since he was driving but considering that Tommy make a squeaking sound and having sat in the backseat with Wilbur himself plenty times, he assumed Tommy had just been elbowed in the ribs.

He then heard various slapping sounds.

“Boys, please stop fighting,” Phil said.

“He started it,” Wilbur claimed which was not exactly true, but also Tommy had been being annoying for the entire car trip.

“I didn’t start shit. I just asked a normal fucking question about where we were going.”

“You-”

“Tubbo is sitting in the front on the way back,” Techno said just to Phil. “There is no other option at this point. We have to have an adult sit between them.”

“I’m older than you!” Wilbur declared, too close to Techno’s ear. Luckily, they were at a stoplight and Techno could reach back blindly to shove his head back into the backseat where it belonged.

“Phil,” Techno said. “explain to me again why you made him.”

“Tech-”

“Oh, that’s right,” Techno said, glancing into the backseat. “You were an accident.”

“Unlike you,” Wilbur said, “who he consciously decided to adopt as his itty bitty baby child.”

“Fuck you.”

“Fuck you!”

“Boys do I need to turn this car around?”

“How?” Techno and Wilbur said as one.

“This is why we don’t go on road trips anymore,” Phil sighed.

“Yes,” Techno said.

“Exactly,” Wilbur agreed.

“Also, he almost drove us off the Grand Canyon.”

“That too.”

Phil just rolled his eyes and turned to look out of the window.

“Okay, but are we almost there yet,” Tommy asked.

Wilbur groaned. “You’re such a child.”

“I’ve never been on a car ride this long,” Tommy complained. Which… now that Techno thought about it was a good point. They probably should have thought of that before putting him in the car.

“Tubbo’s fine.”

“Tubbo’s been asleep for an hour.”

“We’re almost there,” Techno said. “10 minutes.” Well, it was about 10 minutes to the entrance of the library, but he thought Tommy would probably be entranced by that.

[alexanderpearce]

many are saying this

this is my a tale of two labo(u)r governments manifesto concerning the respective governments of bob hawke and paul keating in australia and tony blair and gordon brown in the uk. i promise im still a communist im just obsessed with the psychodrama of the westminster system. the cycles.

both paul keating and gordon brown had been living labo(u)r politics since they were in their early/mid teens, where bob hawke and tony blair swept in and managed, a lot because of their sense of populism, to win a labo(u)r victory after years and years of liberal/tory rule. one of the insane things with hawke and keating is that at the point hawke entered politics, keating had been there for 13 years or so, and at this point keating was 36 and hawke was 50. keating was of course pissed off to have the premiership stolen by some 50 year old relative novice.

anyway in 1983 hawke becomes prime minister with keating as his treasurer in a landslide victory after years of liberal rule, and in 1997 blair becomes prime minister with brown as his chancellor in a landslide victory after years of tory rule (chancellor and treasurer are basically equivalent roles in their respective governments). both are pretty powerful treasurers/chancellors and see themselves as running the country more than the PM, though brown was way more proactive in uh. using his power to block money and fuck with the PM.

my understanding is that both labo(u)r parties got in and stayed in on ‘modernising’ the labo(u)r party, which essentially meant becoming less labo(u)r-y. this was especially true for the hawke-keating government, which adopted policies and actions people saw as much more liberal, giving the government less power of some parts of money. who is up floating the australian dollar. who is up giving the bank of england operational independence. idk i wont compare economic or other policies between the two governments too much because i dont really feel like i know enough to do so. there were obviously at least as many differences as similarities between the two.

both sets of men had a deal that the prime minister would step down and let his treasurer/chancellor take his place after a few terms – the kirribilli agreement (confirmed, done before witnesses, solid) for hawke and keating, made at kirribilli house (after some informal agreements years before) and the granita pact (alleged, nebulous) for blair and brown, made at the granita restaurant (after some informal arguments and threats and agreements over years). i think the main difference between the two is that hawke and keating seemed more explicit and solid in all their dealings together, with a deal in front of witnesses, hawke explicitly reneging on the deal, and keating stabbing him in the back (or the front) openly with a vicious off-the-record speech and multiple spill attempts, where blair and brown's dealings seemed to me a lot more indefinite. this may have been purposeful on blair's part.

also blair and brown also LITERALLY WENT TO KIRRIBILLI HOUSE TOGETHER IN THE EARLY 1990S AND MET HAWKE AND KEATING THERE to talk to a successful labo(u)r government about getting into power. like what kind of Premiership Succession Deal Cinematic Universe is this. hawke and keating should've had dinner at granita together too.

another difference is that keating won himself a second term after his half one, making his premiership last from 1991 until 1996, while brown never served a full term, lasting from 2007 until 2010. imagine the sting. everyone was just sick of labo(u)r. i do also think (and this will be influenced by the end of the party being one of my main sources, so i say it with a pinch of salt) that keating was a better prime minister than brown was. he truly had a vision for australia, and worked to try and implement it, where the people around brown often said that he didn't seem to have an overarching plan once he got into power.

both couplets of men were successful precisely because of their partnership, with a populist, smiling frontman in hawke and blair, and an economic thinker propping them up on policy and desperate for power in keating and brown. keating and brown, when they finally got power, were tired already and felt they had gotten it too late. both pairs of men were described as brotherly, but the grip of their respective deals broke down their relationships into deep bitterness and antipathy. i will say that (despite keating acting like the lodge was haunted by hawke after he left and saying all that shit about how he should have been on his hands and knees about keating even being around him) hawke and keating’s relationship never seemed to reach the same heights (or depths) of homoeroticism and hatred that blair and brown’s did. i think this maybe also allowed hawke and keating to be more direct with each other than perhaps blair and brown were.

(all of this has happened before, and it will happen again)

[jacensolodjo]

This might be completely off but as a white gen z american i think that white gen z americans tend to see the idea that everyone gets paid enough to live and latch onto that so hard that we don't care about the implications of the rest of communism. Like we can't really imagine what another political system is like for whatever reason (for me it was a language disorder but ik there's something structural going on, same reason so many usually white americans forget that there are people in other countries). and we don't have relatives who survived communism so we're just like "hey, something that claims to give you livable income, it's different than what we have right now which sucks so fucking bad, i like that" cause we're not even told to read the communist manifesto. we're told what capitalism and communism are on paper and then asked which we would prefer (this was literally a history class exercise i had that took the whole period). Ik you don't need me to explain it to you since you've seen people defending it for so long and I'm DEFINITELY not trying to make excuses for anyone because there aren't any, it just clicked in my own head that this is a *trend*. It's fucked. We aren't told that you can consider or theorize a society outside of either system. So we don't. And then we're told to pick.

Yeah. See, I have a problem with that if true (and in fact it ISN'T the first time I've had someone say that because of a few key points about communism and it sounding better than the experience with capitalism it was decided hey we should all be commies). Because the problem with that is the same problem as deciding because a bunch of boomers hate communism, and clearly the Red Scare was a bunch of (often antisemitic) hogwash on top of that, that communism really isn't all that bad after all. Which then turns into 'we support any country that isn't the US through the virtue of not the US even if that country is a genocidal hellhole'. (See the uptick in support for China, North Korea, russia of course is an obvious one. All of them are guilty of genocide in the present day, none of them are innocent or worthy of support. Citizens of those countries have been begging Westerners to stop supporting them, in fact.)

You (general you not specific) probably know people who have dealt with a communist regime, they just don't talk about it for myriad reasons (it was traumatic, they've tried talking about it before and had people--children-- shout them out about how they're totally wrong about why communism was terrible to live under, they don't owe anyone knowing where they came from, etc., or the big one: they learned not to talk about their opinions and experiences because that gets you sent to gulag).

Or the fact communism didn't die when the Wall fell. Even if places like China are tenuously considered communist, they are still using the same playbook. You have the russkis now completely believing they're bringing back the USSR (missiles, tanks, etc., have had CCCP painted on them). Which is, uh, bad. And you got western teenagers cheering it at the literal cost of Ukr life.

And I promise I am not trying to be condescending. You have a great advantage over many previous generations: you have grown up entirely with the internet and the tools to search it easily and quickly. (This is, of course, the big divide between Millennial and Gen Z. We watched computers and tech become ubiquitous. You have never known a time without a computer in every home.) You rebel against so many other things 'the System' tries to get you to believe. School doesn't or won't offer sex ed, you learn it on your own time anyway. School bans books, you find them and read them on your own regardless. There is no difference in doing that with pure politics (since book banning is political but 'softer'). Hell, you already do. You shine a spotlight on bigoted politicians all on your own. You argue for better gun control. You have an entire demographic scared of y'all being at voting age.

So, yes. It's hard not to feel a little frustrated when we're told to "read a book" (or any other comment we receive from people desperate to make us believe we are actually wrong and pretending we are the ones who need more education). When we've read more than we've ever needed to because some of us have desperately tried to figure out why. Why this political and economic theory. Why so many had to die. Why we're being told the ends justified the means when those means were mass torture and murder. Why it seems to be easier to say you're a communist than a socialist. Why it's as hard as deprogamming a cult member when it comes to making people understand the blood staining the word 'communism'. To say nothing of the fact that we don't need to read something when we have the experiences burned into our collective memory.

I've made posts about it before specifically pleading that people do their own research. You can and should look at communism just as critically as you do capitalism. Hell I have even shown how they aren't all that different after all. Communism actually lies to you more than capitalism. At least capitalism we know is built to exploit and yes even to kill. Communism is too but hides it behind 'proletariat' and 'bourgeoisie'. Or euphemisms like 'liquidate'. (Which is often where I know the other party has failed to fully read the book they claim to worship. There was no corruption of the message, mass murder was baked into it in the first edition. Either that or they want me to believe liquidate means something more benign.)

I am only a first generation American because my birth mother fled the Ukrainian SSR. My adoptive father is a McCarthy flavor anti-commie, unfortunately. There is a scene in 'For All Mankind' where the commie cosmonaut starts scoffing at a Vietnamese American about how she only hates communism because of her (white, adoptive) father. She puts him in his place by pointing out no, it is because she put in the work to research it and she is also only in the US because of communism. (I think this is my third time referencing it because it is THAT good. It is a vindication of everything people like me have dealt with our whole lives. And I have literally been told on this very same website I only hate communism cause of what the US govt tells me, or Boomers, or whatever else. Nevermind I'm a 34 year old Ukrainian American.)

This is all we want from people. To put in the work. We know you can. We know why you say yes to communism and we know you deserve better than both communism and capitalism. You have everything you need right here on the world wide web. You have us, fighting to get the atrocities out in the open. You have millions of people from former Soviet bloc areas who show you just by their culture the damage communism has done. Especially where that means they have LOST a connection to their culture. Or people who have fled China, North Korea. People who escaped the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge. Or floated in from Cuba.

(Note I am using 'you' in the general sense.) Also, there is something a tad bizarre to me about ascribing to a belief, an opinion, a theory, without doing your due diligence and learning about it as much as you can. I've mentioned it before about deciding communism is your political affiliation, and yet it seems you didn't look beyond a couple of bullet points in a presentation. We know you are capable of doing the research. So the question becomes: Why did you essentially stop? Didn't look any deeper after being given a short list of things communism does and capitalism does? That part is on you, not the education system.

It's like being told the Republican party says they believe in the safety of women and children in the bathrooms, lower taxes, and job security and since they all sound GREAT if laid out that way then Suzie Johnson who recently became voting age has decided she's going to be a Republican. But come to find out what they REALLY meant, which you'd find out after a bit of research is: they believe trans people shouldn't be allowed in the bathrooms that match their gender identity because 'rapists', they really mean they want to give tax cuts to people who don't actually NEED them and NOT Miss Johnson, and what they really meant by job security is that they want to make it so that anyone who isn't a cishet white man is less likely to get a job much less keep it. Essentially, only job security for the 'right' kind of person. None of that 'affirmative action crap'.

So essentially what I would and do say to any Gen Z (I also hesitate to just say 'white' because gosh I see so many kiddos of color who defend communism even tho statistically POC suffered so so much under communism just as much as capitalism and it isn't any better for them to defend it, either. Forever agog at 'you only hate communism cause you hate to see people of color winning'. It's been years and I'm still not sure what POC are 'winning' with communism) who labels themselves commie for the reasoning you mention: Do the work. Research the label you wish to attach to yourself. Ask questions. Do everything you already do for so many other things you rise up against. Don't politically label yourself something just because it might piss people off or because a couple things sound good. Because at best you look naive and at worst callous and uncaring about the victims of the people who shared the communist label. Which becomes heavily ironic when it seems the whole reason one decided to call themselves communist is they were told communism cares about the less fortunate and victims of people in power.

[ms-m-astrologer]

Was doing some research (as the buzz wears off) on Saturn going into Pisces. Neptune is already in Pisces - “heavy fog and water” is my first thought.

But the weird part is that the two will not be exactly conjunct until February 20, 2026 - at 0°43’ Aries. A very long build-up that has a surprise plot twist at the end.

Anyway, the last time both Saturn and Neptune were together in Pisces was intermittently between 1847-9. My friend Wikipedia provided me with some events which struck me as typical:

May 1847 - Architectural Association School of Architecture founded in London

May 7, 1847 - American Medical Association founded in Philadelphia

June 1, 1847 - first congress of the Communist League, London

February 21, 1848 - publication of The Communist Manifesto, London

February 1848 and onward - revolutions in France, Hungary, Germany, and elsewhere in Europe

March 18, 1848 - Boston Public Library opens

March 29, 1848 - Queen’s College, London, first to award academic qualifications to women

July 1848 - Public Health Act, England and Wales, begins to address sanitation issues

July 19, 1848 - first Women’s Convention in Seneca Falls, NY; introduction of “bloomers”

August 19, 1848 - first newspaper articles in eastern US about the California gold rush

January 23, 1849 - Elizabeth Blackwell becomes the first woman MD in the US

Looking up those years in art and music was disappointing, as there was a decided lack of definite dates. Grrr. But I found three representative things for 1848:

April 1 - disgusting POS of a human, composer Richard Wagner, first wrote down his intention to write what would eventually become his “Ring” cycle of four operas. Talk about a blend of inspiration (Neptune) and discipline (Saturn).

September 1848 - the pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood of artists, poets, and critics is founded in London.

And best of all, to me anyway: sometime before October 1848, Joseph Bracket wrote the song “Simple Gifts:”

'Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free

'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,

And when we find ourselves in the place just right,

'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gained,

To bow and to bend we shan’t be ashamed,

To turn, turn will be our delight,

Till by turning, turning we come ’round right.

Makes me feel better about what’s to come, to think about those words - set, of course, to Aaron Copland’s wonderful music.

[fluorider]

Marx, K., & Engels, F. (1848). The Communist Manifesto. Kommunistischer Arbeiterbildundsverein.

I have to confess that I have a very different relationship with this booklet than the rest of the people that have read it, as it was mainly for me a personal exercise of analytical scrutiny of the media I consume. Started after watching two videos about this booklet and both told radically different things of what "is it about". My blood boiled because i felt lied to so I just fucking read it.

True enough it is a booklet designed to raise class consciousness of the working class in the 18 hundreds specially to anglophone and germanophone countries, more precisely to illustrate a simplified version of the author's critique of capitalist proletariat/bourgeois dynamics. It is also important to understand that from this text you will not grasp Marxist theory in its entirety.

Furthermore it absolutely needs to be stressed that this book is not a guide for social reorganization in any way and anyone that claims such a thing either hasn't read it or has an interest in making people think that.

It is also important to note that to this day it still remains historically relevant and highly controversial thanks to the likes of Jordan B. Peterson who cannot give a press conference now a days without summoning the phantom of Marxist Postmodernism; a ridiculous term as both Marxists and Postmodernists hold intrinsically opposite and antagonistic ideas to one another.

For me this controversial and storied booklet was a mandatory reading as the first step in stopping myself from listening to thought-leaders to feel informed and just actually getting informed.

People in power will always try to influence our decisions, so for me this booklet was that lesson; trying to at least read the sources of what they are talking about once in a while.

There is no Big Other to impress. We are all alone, so at least we must be genuine to yourselves.

[smarterthantheaverageloser]

Thanks for tagging me @phantomxblood lol

Rules: shuffle your ‘on repeat’ playlist and post the first 10 tracks, then list 10 songs you really like, each by a different artist. then tag 10 people to do the same thing.

Shuffle songs:

Down, Down, Down to Mephisto's Cafe- Slaps, yes it is ska, most of these will be ska, but it slaps. It's Streetlight Manifesto, it always slaps

Question of Life- FISHBONE!!!! I was gonna put this on my favs list. One of the first USA ska bands and talked about a lot of racial/class issues with their music. Their music united ppl across racial lines in a contentious time in US history! Skatunenetwork has a good vid on it.

Sick and Sad- Catch 22. Yeah, I'm not even gonna apologize for still liking them when their music sounds like THAT

Point/Counterpoint- Streetlight Manifesto. My first ever introduction to ska. Ridiculously nostalgic. This song probably saved my life.

Noise Addiction- Pure Hell. Slaps harder than a wet fish on rice paper and the history behind Pure Hell as a band is fascinating and inspiring. One of the first black punk bands and one of the first punk bands in general! Originally the #1 in my top ten, but then it came on and I had to put it in my plays.

....Well, Better Than the Alternative- Will Wood. Makes me feel like a groovy inchworm. Real ones shake ass to this song.

Dear Sergio: I was hoping this one would come on! Streetlight Manifesto. Good vibes even though he's roasting the shit out of Sergio.

If I Could Only Listen to my Heart: Bruce Lee Band. For some reason, even though they are the best, I never see any fans of BLB. Pls contact me if you like this band I need to talk about Them.

The Earth- Isaac Turner. Does not jive with the playlist at all but I love it so much. It's like a vacuum for my brain.

One Foot on the Gas, One Foot on the Grave- Streetlight Manifesto. Gotta love ska and punk and its ridiculously long titles. Anyway, this song is amazing. Finishing off strong.

Songs I like most:

Well, I liked all of those, but here's my favorites from the playlist:

The Communists Have the Music- TMBG, true AND slappy.

This World is Not My Home- Specifically the Bedquilt Ramblers on this list, but the original is amazing as well and I highly suggest ppl listen to that one first to pay their dues to the first ones to sing it

Dollars and Cents- Ska, Bruce Lee Band, everyone go listen to Bruce Lee Band. Literally all of their songs are good

I'm Against the Government- Folkpunk I guess? It's Defiance, Ohio. This one just makes me smile for whatever reason. It's kind of nostalgic for me in general

Go Feet Go- Bruce Lee Band again, we love to see it. It just fucking slaps. Don't look it up without attaching 'bruce lee band' to it because. You will see foot porn :(

Man on the Street- Imperial Leisure. GREAT song to listen to while leaving work.

Dance, Dance Revolution- Bruce Lee Band. Listen to it. Sooo good.

Generations- Bruce Lee Band. Also sooo fucking good.

Healthy Body- Specifically the Jeffries Fan Club version. It's just fun!

KKK Highway- MU330. Short, sweet, and says what it needs to. Just listen, you'll understand.

Sat through a lot of ads for the authenticity lmao: Atting!

@somanyspoons @wannakissrobits @desolate-rose @blossombostonian @badscientist @glicoloidpocky but no pressure!

[starberrywander]

Something sad/frustrating/funny that I've been seeing more as I debate controversial topics more online is what I've been calling the "confidence citation." Basically, its when someone cites something as evidence for their position without having anything specific. Like specifically, they either haven't read/studied it or they have only done so at a very basic level. And the issue is that, rather than that genuinely being something specific that informed their stance, they have just assumed that their position is supported by it.

I think the logic is, "My stance is true. This source is also true. Therefore, the source must support my stance."

For example, I was researching communism and joined a discussion in a youtube comment section (I know, youtube ugh) and this one person made the usual "communism goes against human nature" claim and I asked what made them believe that. Their source was, and I quote, "Read history and evidence based psychology." I asked for clarification and some specific sources (bc if this is really the thing informing your belief you would be able and probably eager to share the books/articles/studies/whatever that impacted your perspective so much) and they didn't respond until I started talking to someone else about the communist manifesto. I said something about how being raised in the USA may be making me a bit biased in my understanding (Bc I misunderstood something and they clarified), and Internet Bitch™️, who had said nothing for weeks, popped back in to say "you should stay biased."

Like bitch, I'm not following internet demands. The ball is in your court; if you want me to side with you you're gonna have to give me something to side with. I called them out on that and told them "I'm not gonna believe you just because you told me to, you're gonna have to do something to support your position and be actually persuasive," to which they called me entitled and have been radio silent for like a month at this point.

Anyway I guess my point is don't be like Internet Bitch™️. Don't cite sources you haven't actually read, don't cite entire fields of study as if that's a source, and don't assume that something supports your position just because you believe you are right. It's so damn irritating and it achieves absolutely nothing. Your persuasion skill is in the negative numbers and your confidence is outshining your competence. Go touch grass and read a book under a tree.

[vamptastic]

i think primarily the problem with me is that i would like to fix everything. i see communism primarily as like The Big Answer, the Right Way Forward, and i think in reality a true communist system would be better in most ways and better in terms of what i personally value (better wellbeing and happiness for all, equality and egalitarianism, the inherent goodness and value of human life), but much, much harder to implement.

the way i (in my extremely uneducated view ive like barely read the communist manifesto im 17 please feel free to talk about this with me but know i indeed have not read theory and mostly come up with shit on my own via unhinged rants) see it there are essentially two ways to achieve communism:

1. you establish an authoritarian government, one that is probably well-intentioned, but still at the mercy of a few people's capabilities. this is, thus far, the only way it has been done, and like any centralized government with few checks and balances you can get a lot of shit done very quickly. the problem, of course, is that individuals are highly susceptible to corruption and logistics are fucking hard, especially in a country that was likely in a VERY bad state to incite revolution, both agriculturally and industrially, and also has the powers that be actively trying to sabotage it. this is how you end up with resettlement programs, lines for bread, and catastrophic famine. it is also how you quickly give the homeless homes, establish supply lines and public transport, and give everybody a job. you also probably have to shoot some people in the head, ranging from monarchy and billionaires to college students who cannot resist the urge to dispute propaganda. i honestly feel the more i learn about political science the LESS qualified i am to evaluate how much of this is because of authoritarian government, in no small part because american polisci classes seem to hinge on democracy = good and evaluate from there (tbf, democracy usually rocks, but i would like to get into WHY a bit, you know?). i will say that i think a lot of the biggest failures in communist countries have come from a national decision that has catastrophic effects on local areas, which could be averted with less centralization. just realized i am essentially just advocating for a mixed federalist system fucking ap us government and politics is poisoning my brain dude. eventually i will achieve my life's work (a minor in political science) and will know the One True Answer to this.

2. you rely on the idea that people just like, will do communism on their own. the issue with this idea being that they havent. from the (again, not exactly rigorous) reading ive done, this is kind of what marx was going for, in that he believed communism was the inevitable result of industrialization and that it would happen no matter what, but should be sort of hastened along (you can blame this perspective on the foreward to my copy of the communist manifesto, which i fall back onto in times of need when i cannot understand the pamphlet itself, and its utter conviction that marx was a romantic). there is some validity to this in that a lot of pre industrial society was much more communal, ranging from indigenous agricultural towns to like, salem sharing their rye, or the many successful small-scale communist projects that have been created since then. and i do think that small groups of people, tight knit communities, embody the spirit of communism better than an entire nation working towards producing more coal. the problem, of course, is that if you got rid of nationalized infrastructure and just let everyone do their own thing our quality of life would drop significantly. you need things like pharmaceuticals and an energy grid to keep up our current lifespan and quality of life for the elderly, disabled, mentally ill, children, vulnerable people in general, which is kind of what communism is all about: that the QOL for the lowest rung of society is indicative of society as whole. also for how much this is predicated on the idea that people just will become communist on their owns if things get shit enough it does seem that outreach and education and distribution of propaganda are important even to people who believe strongly in anarchism. there's definitely an answer here i think i just need to Read More and Think Harder.

both of these methods are the Only Good Method, and both suck. communism, however, is pretty good. i am yet to reconcile this.

a neglected component here is also my deranged idea that it's my personal responsibility to figure out how to fix the entire world, or indeed that that is possible to do. i also think it is important to care about things and that too many people don't care about things beyond what brings them pleasure or greater quality of life as an individual. it would feel wrong to simply accept that i can go about the rest of my life being financially stable if i just stop caring about other people. i think the answer here can probably be found in that 'first they came for jews, but i did not speak out because i was not a jew' poem, firstly because i AM a jew, and because like, i kind of AM the Other People in a more general sense. but on the other hand it would be really easy to just stop giving a fuck and go get my free college degree in whatever is easy and makes me money and never care about any of this ever again, which many will tell you is the inevitable fate of happy people. sad people are like the old revolutionary in disco elysium, sitting on an empty island in utter conviction of their moral rightness and pursuit of am unachievable goal. they are also sometimes assassinated.

the use of metaphors is signaling that the point is REALLY getting away from me so i will be calling it a day on this one i think. if anybody has the definitive answer to how we Do Communism Right please let me know and maybe tell me what books i read to find out the answer as well.

[system-of-a-feather]

It's really become a meme that my fiance and I just go "Yes Johnny" and "alright Johnny" whenever XIV starts going on a total rant about capitalism or how fucked up society is. 9.9/10 times he is right but also 11/10 times it comes up because something vaguely reminded him about something that pissed him off and him - being the manifestation of piss and vinegar left to simmer over 12 years of trauma - at least needs to bitch about things that make him mad to me or him to "get it off his chest" so he could move on with the day.

So its just a pretty casual occurence to be like "Yep. You're right" but now just for the shitpost, meme, joke, and levity of the situation we tack on a "Johnny" cause its so reminiscent.

Yes XIV, we know how you feel about this. We agree, our lack of interest - which I know you know - is not because we disagree, but rather because this was the 5th time in the 4 hours we've been awake that you have gone on this, and thats a record low for the past year.

OVER EXAGGERATION, but not by as much as I wish XD Like, between him and I he has shit he calls his 'communist manifesto' which are really just repeated core principles that he feels should be common sense principles people living iN a sOCieTy should live by and I hate that some of them I unironically have memorized and have recited back in an interview and complimented on how well I understand the true nature and reasoning behind people, clients, and customers getting angry and how it was a very mature and insightful take on it.

And Im internally just like

Thanks, I have a guy whose personality is 95% made up of nothing but anger and hes my best bro and my life body-partner. He doesn't shut the fuck up about it. 100% right and I do agree, but thanks - I can call him up next time if you really like to talk about the function, value, and meaning of anger and real meaning behind displays of anger cause I'm just regurgitating his usual rambles I hear 24/7

-Riku

[deviantartdramahub]

Before I begin, I just want to say, I've recently been hearing/seeing a lot of instances here where you have the following exchange go on.

Person 1: *explains a situation that happened, using only mildly vagueness*

Person 2: *says something like "wat" or "are you drunk or high" or "come back when it's not jibberish" or "I found the lost ChatGPT", stuff that implies they claim to speak for an audience who they say doesn't understand person 1*

Person 1: "What part don't you understand?"

Person 2: *dodges the question*

Person 1: *speculates more and more about whether people are claiming not to understand them to escape a burden in an argument*

Don't people know there are AI stuff anyone can access that can determine if something would be comprehensible to a modern audience?

There are three kinds actually, 1) a regular AI made specifically for measuring comprehensibility 2) word counters and other autocorrect tools which can tell you if something you're saying is structurally sound, and 3) things like Siri, Cleverbot, and PI, who, by virtue of being inevitably programmed that way, won't respond to you as intended if you aren't being comprehensible (with similar technology made to determine if people have a similar enough speech style as each other to determine if they're one another, with the technology never giving a yes answer because it's false "science" like horoscopes are and thus a stupid question).

Recently I tested this out with specimens and a control group. I repeated the two messages we often talk about here that are most called out for being incomprehensible in all three methods and they turned out to be completely and correctly understood. I then proceeded to put four of the most incomprehensible passages from different political manifestos, two from the Communist manifesto and two from the Libertarian manifesto, and they all were deemed incomprehensible.

The proof is in the pudding, people who claim to not understand someone are just being fallacy-loving babies who can't choose between necessary alternatives, full stop. Or in the very least, understandability should be seen as relative, though I've noticed this has become a problem ever since pot became legal here. Coincidence?

One example anyone can see is a gem from an earlier comment in reply to a certain other gem (and you can probably guess who posted it, wink wink), which inspires me to take back what I said before, with the bots just doing a little exploration and looking out for me based on such non-logic from the other end which is getting more and more tiring. Nevertheless, I continue to get responses in this back-and-forth going on in the form of vagueposts. Responding to these now, with another reminder that simply saying someone is being manipulated into doing something or that someone is a certain gender doesn't make it or anything else true, as an individual is the authority of their own intentions in the same way an individual owns their own body, and (I don't see an Adam's Apple on any pictures presented of being of Tri for one thing, and everything else seems to check out both in her photography which she has a method for and me chatting with her at events, which side note also allows me to confirm her underweight self doesn't qualify to be a sad bloated fish) and that only I've been concerned with alts because you carry a persona in all but name, with Triagonal being more cautious, not that the person I'm addressing has been, or most people (consider people are still outed for merely resembling something Triagonal would sign up as even by the likes of the former second mod of r/DeviantArt who was banned from Reddit by Triagonal which caused her to be banned from r/DeviantArt in delayed fashion), though most people don't have an obsessive nature that drives them to this, especially the kind that has ramped up with the banning of DABewareHub and their senior spokesperson.

Neither of them being new, my response to them is more or less similar, though a more complete version of my message has already been said in my links above. Nobody reading this is some kind of championed dragon slayer because nobody cares enough to idolize you, and people are less recruitable than many give them credit for. And that's how it should be. Club-Dreamiverse, GellyGirl, and Triagonal, in all sites they're in, show every adaptibility and satisfaction in simply being friends with people, unlike the antagonists at play.

You typoed with the "and" and then the parenthesis and didn't notice until I got the second message what you were saying (not that I didn't figure). Extremely small mistakes like these might be what causes big comprehension issues. Which is why it's good to ask about.

[plesstandby]

🎤 Communist Manifesto points

(if i made any mistakes, feel free to respectfully point them out. i didnt proofread this)

/ the base definition of the bourgeoise and proletariat have been witnessed across history whether it be in feudalism or aristocracy, to refer respectively to the wealthy upper class and to the poor lower class. /

Modern Bourgeoisie

- the death of feudalism was marked by the epoch of Modern Industry which witnessed the birth of the proletariat (working class), globalization of cultures, trade and market (discovery of America, rounding of the cape, suez canal era).

- The bourgeoisie was a distinct class defined by their desire to acquire more capital and use any means necessary to safeguard their hold on society. They own the means of production. This deception manifested itself in 3 diff ways: Feudal Socialism, Petty-Bourgeoisie Socialism and “True” German Socialism.

- bourgeoise is able to acquire capital from proletariat’s labor

Flaws of Capitalism

* wealth inequality is an inherent part of capitalism because of the class distinction wherein one class (bourgeoise) owns and grows their own capital, while the other (proletariat) doesn’t.

“The rich get richer and the poor get poorer”

* as capitalism tightens its hold on society,

Private Property

- refers to anything that produces capital.

One of the tenants of communism is the abolishment of private proverty, which may come across as a surprise to most people. But this simply means that the personal ownership of a means of production will be transformed into a communal ownership.

How will this affect us?

- Everyone now becomes equal parts owner and worker.

- Fairer mode of product distribution intended to benefit everyone.

i thought to mention this one “successful” example of this which is: Cabet’s experimental town of “Icaria”, in which everyone worked for capital and shared it equally amongst everyone. It lasted 50-60 years which is honestly not so bad for a utopia.

- Equity; Another thing is that since this is ultra-Socialist, it is given that if anyone has more needs than the average person (like a PwD) they will be attended to and be given the necessities.

Further Reading (to-do)

- The Liberal Movement

- French Revolution (1830)

- English Reform

- “Travels in Icaria” by Etienne Cabet

- Owenites, Fourierists, Reformists, Chartists, Agrarian Reformers, Social-Democratics

- Babeuf (wrote about the worries of the proletariats)

- Writings of Saint-Simon, Fourier, Owen on Socialisr-Communist systems

- School of Socialism ~ Sisimondi