A 17-year-old kid started working with me, and he was talking politics with another co-worker. I was staying out of it, but then he asked me what I consider myself to be, politically. I hit him with, “I’m a pretty hardcore communist, actually.” His jaw dropped and he laughed, and he was like, “No, really. What are you, actually?” When I told him that I was a Marxist-Leninist, he responded with, “Dude, that’s terrible. Why?”
I’m normally not super open about my politics unless I gauge that someone is accepting to hear some theory, but I just wanted to fuck with this kid lol. I told him that the incentive for ever-increasing profits in the interest of a small group of elites is destroying the planet and exploiting people all around the world. He came back with, “You really need to read more. If you understood more about what you were saying, you wouldn’t support such a violent ideology.” I’m literally twice his age, lmao.
Then he asked me if I ever read 1984 :michael-laugh:
He asked what led to me becoming a Marxist. I told him that I used to be a libertarian like him when I was his age, but as I grew older and started learning historical materialism, my worldview changed.
We went back and forth a little over the next 20 minutes. I kept it cool and respectful because I wasn’t super invested in debating him. But he was getting all flustered and started playing all the hits, like workers not being entitled to owning their work because the boss took all the risk. Humans are naturally greedy, so socialism could never work. Marxism is responsible for over 100 million deaths. I rebutted what I could when I felt like it, but I’m not a debate bro and I didn’t really care what he had to say. I just thought the whole thing was funny.
My favorite part was his face when I told him that I don’t support liberal democracy, and that a one party state is actually far superior. :che-smile:
Imagine believing that people are inherently greedy and selfish and believing an economic system that expressly wants to prohibit governments from limiting those behaviors is the way to go.
… responsible for over 100 million deaths.
Yeah kiddo, but how many of them were Nazis? :maybe-later-kiddo:
I’m too chicken to be out, so I actually tell people I’m a libertarian when they ask about my politics, mostly cuz (1) they’d hopefully get annoyed/cringed and stop the convo, or (2) if they do ask why the fuck I am a libertarian, id say I believe in the freedom from exploitation, from alienation, from slavery, from commodification, from colonialism, from imperialism, from bourgeois ideology, from false consciousness, etc, and, you know, in the American political calculus, freedom = libertarian.
Humans are naturally greedy, so socialism could never work
Reminding lolbertarians to stop projecting their failures as human beings onto the rest of us
He did the thing where he said, “If money didn’t exist and people had no incentive to work, they would all sit at home on their asses.”
And I responded with, “Well, maybe that’s true for you. If money was taken out of the equation, I think most people would finally be able to put their efforts into the things they’re passionate about, without having to worry about paying their rent.”
He didn’t have a comeback for that one.
A big reminder that the USSR, for all it’s many failings, had extensive movies, sports, music, dance, theatre and writing programs that produced some of the most influential worldwide non-Western art. The sheer cultural output of the USSR was unparalleled in relation to GDP, it’s just that most of it wasn’t commercialized and sold to Western audiences.
