My friend is relatively progressive (pro LGBTQIA+, anti-racist, etc) but he fails to have more than a surface level analysis of things.
Example:
I don’t remember exactly what we were talking about in the first place but we ended up in some dumb debate about whether ethical companies exist (AriZona tea and Tony’s chocolonely specifically), because some are ‘progressive’ and apparently don’t do ‘bad stuff’ like others do… I immediately replied to him that these companies inherently uphold the capitalist system and operate within its exploitative structure. And that just because a company is pro LGBTQ, doesn’t use slave labour (lmao), pays their workers slightly more, etc, doesn’t mean theyre progressive. He, of course, completely ignored me, either because he didn’t understand what I was saying or was just wilfully ignorant (I’m in favour of the former).
It’s just so tiring talking to people who have no understanding of how these processes work. No matter how much I try to ‘deprogram’ these kinds of people, they just block it all out.
I think it’s good to remember that “progressivism”, at least as it exists in the US, is not a left-moving political force, but a cutout of liberalism designed to capture anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist (left) political movement, and push them back into liberalism (right). It’s structured to be a specific counter-force to socialism. Progressivism offers superficial appeasement on a variety of humanist-sounding issues which are not in conflict with the interests of capital (until they are). It is one half of the culture-war treadmill that redirects people’s political energy away from addressing their material conditions and onto cheering on rainbow capitalism and voting for liberals. Reaction with cute stickers.
As much as you think you’re trying and failing to move your friend left, they’re also trying and failing to move you right.
I think my approach is “idc if a couple companies are slightly less bad than all the others. Companies by nature are driven to exploit people and resources in order to increase profits. Individuals can vary, but by and large that is the incentive of the system. Most of the products everyone relies on from day to day are completely unethical, and the “more ethical” ones are more expensive and only people who benefit from this exploitative system can afford them and do to feel better.”
I’d recommend sending them this crash course.
And if they’d prefer a video, this one:
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
The thing I wonder is if we get to caught up in the details. Like your example about AriZona. Ben and Jerry’s is another example. These are details that miss the forest for the trees. These are like anchors for people.
I think to admit that everything needs to be reset and rebuilt is hard for those without even the slightest idea of an alternative. They don’t want theories, they want to know realities.
So they think “But AriZona seems to be going it right, we just need more of that and we’ll be OK.” Because they do not know or understand the alternatives.
Looking at how other AES countries were structured can help with this. China being in our current time should be your primary reference because they’re doing it right now and being extremely competitive.
The other reason we should avoid the details is because so much of what needs to change is structural. No one single policy in a vacuum will make sense and only lead to a place where you don’t have “answers”. Socialism will required a massive audit of our legal code, a massive restructuring of political organs, the dissolution of problematic political organs, and the creation of whole new political organs.
Lastly, we need to focus on the larger picture. How the way our economic system (the way we produce and consume) is structured defines our social and political structures. The demands of capitalism warp and shape our relations all the way down to our sexual relations. This is why under population and over population become such a “problem” liberals need go solve.
What does it matter if there are “ethical” corporations when capitalism will strip away your right to contraception, abortion, or push queer people back into the closet and into heterosexual relationships so they are forced to take part in the process of reproducing labor power?
That’s my thinking anyway.
Opening your mind to a completely new worldview is not easy. It has taken months for my closest friends to be convinced that capitalism is the problem. That doesnt mean they are convinced of socialism however.
