this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2023
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Free education would be great. I am not saying I don't want free education. All I actually did was challenge the notion that education is unattainable for the working class financially. Our student loan system in this country is much better than the system in the US which is downright predatory. Here even people from working class backgrounds can go to University provided they are smart enough. The vast majority of students loans in this country are never repaid in full or at all, it's simply written off. Therefore it wouldn't actually cost much more to give free tuition.
Something else you should probably understand is that almost all money is debt. Over 90% of it. The rich create a lot of their wealth this way. Student loans are another type of loan you can exploit to become richer in the long run. The difference is even poorer people can exploit this type of loan for their benefit rather than it being detrimental and predatory like payday loans or US student loans.
My parents don't live in the UK anymore but I fully get what you are saying. They could indeed be called parasites and I have had a similar discussion with them about this. The thing you should probably understand though is they both came from poor single parent house holds where they struggled to afford proper food to eat (I remember my dad telling me about having blamonge on toast because they couldn't afford anything else). Capitalism for all it's flaws is a lot better in terms of social mobility than feudalism. Socialist models are actually worse in this department, though this need not be a bad thing if there is enough for everyone.
I don't want anyone to have poverty wages. You on the other hand seem to want that when you talk about bullshit jobs and the people who work them. It's not the people who work these jobs fault that those jobs exist. They go to work just like anybody else. I treat lesser skilled jobs better than you treat bullshit jobs, even though bullshit jobs aren't the fault of people who work those jobs, wheras anybody can work to increase their skill level.
Edit: Also the middle class make up half or more of the working population according to some definitions. You're saying that more than half workers shouldn't be part of the socialist movement. Think about that before you answer.
Liberal definitions.
How do you define if then?
With the marxist definitions. Class is determined by your relationship to the mode of production, they are extremely specific because that is literally a requirement of doing anything scientific with them. A simple explanation is here: https://www.reddit.com/r/socialism/wiki/class/
I personally wrote the first iteration of that page when I was a moderator there.
Then why are you trying to call out "champagne socialists"? There are parts of the working class that have more than enough money to buy champagne and generally live a comfortable (or even affluent) lifestyle. There are even people who have made millions through labor alone, more rich than the petty-burgeoise. You've talked yourself into a contradiction.
I've also literally made the arguement that you are now making about working class not being how much you earn. I had to do this when someone tried to claim that programmers and police officers are not working class cause they earn too much. The difference is I don't go around accusing people who work full time of being "champagne socialists" whatever that term means.
I called you a champagne socialist for being obviously full of shit, spending your time doing anti-communism with this "tankie" bollocks instead of actually trying to make the world better in any meaningful way. Not because some workers are high earners.
All this shit does is amount to actively punching left. All punching left does is move the political dial rightwards.
Mate your from a regime that failed every single time it was tried. You're existence makes the whole cause look bad and is why the left has recruiting problems.
The best thing I could possibly do for socialism is get rid of Stalinists and Maoists. These leaders were about as bad as Churchil. There are plenty of anarchists that want rid of you too, who I am still considering joining. The anarchists were the ones that invented the term tankie to begin with!
Nobody will take the far-left seriously until we come up with something that isn't Marxist-Leninism. Even Trotskists have some clue about this problem, and Trotsky was more radical than Stalin by some accounts.
Honestly I don't know why I bother. As you have pointed out my parents are petty-burgeoise. I could probably become a petty-burgeoise or at least a high earning member of the proletariat if I put my mind to it. I have more chance of that happening than you guys actually causing a revolution and not have it collapse afterwards. I mean I already have a Master's degree, it's really not that difficult to move up in the world provided your not starving to begin with and you're not an idiot.
You are demonstrating precisely why we say that class determines politics rather than anything else. You lean decidedly right, not left. Because of your class background.
I'm quite bored with this conversation. You will grow into a libdem or a tory. It is a waste of my time.
That's rich coming from someone who will likely kill other communists if a revolution is successful. That's what MLs always do. Time and time again.
Also Lenin was born upper middle class. So clearly what you are saying is false if you actually follow Lenin.
Grow the fuck up
No. If you have to resort to that it shows you lost. How old even are you to be telling me to grow up? You're edgy enough still to support a dictators that killed real leftists. That's why everyone calls you tankies. You can't deal with the fact that your leaders come from middle class backgrounds either.
I've actually had enough of this now. Thanks for reminding me why people hate tankies.
I'm close to twice your age. When you've actually joined a union, grown up and realised real life isn't like this terminally online shit hit me up again.
You don't even know my age. I could be older than you for all you know.
Gives me plenty.