He keeps saying Capitalism is great even more after watching socialist videos because don’t have a example country it’s making me hating him which is not so good also he keeps saying the f slur

  • OrnluWolfjarl
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    1 year ago

    The trick is to avoid the buzzworks. Don’t hit them with any words like communism, socialism, Marx, Engels, Lenin, Soviet Union, China, labour union, etc. Don’t hit them with any theory either.

    Just point out how the system is screwing them. Let them talk about their financial issues. Don’t try putting them in a Marxist framework either. Just listen and talk about your problems too. Then ask them what they think should be done about it. THEN, you can start to:

    a) either point out how close that is to Marxism (if it actually is, don’t lie or manipulate obviously - but you’d be surprised how many people actually come to the same conclusions as the 2 bearded guys 200 years ago)

    b) deconstruct it first and then suggest why you think Marxism offers a better solution (you should probably be prepared for pushback in this case, but as long as you keep the tones low, you’ll be able to have a discussion).

    Most people have been conditioned since childhood to react adversely to the buzzwords. If you mention them, you’ll get eyerolls, sighs and defensiveness. If you want to go past that, you need to understand what kind of propaganda you are dealing with first and understand how to not trigger it.

    For your dad’s case, I’d say a good starting point would be to show him that he’s not a capitalist, and will never be, no matter how hard he works.

  • Spagetisprettygood
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    1 year ago

    You can’t start conversations on communism by using the word communism with reactionaries who lived an entire life under anticommunist propaganda.

    Assuming he makes a living as a worker and not by being a landlord or business owner, you can instead have discussions about how it’s in his interest to ask for more pay for less work while the boss wants less pay and more work this creating the class conflict and how the owners of companies make billions more without working a billion times harder and that’s how they exploit the worker.

    You can also point out how wages stagnate and inflation increases and nobody in the gov does anything about it and yet the rich get richer. Where does the money come from, from whose value is it stolen from, ect.

    Just avoid all mentions of buzzwords like capitalism, communism, ect as reactionaries have no values and operate entirely on buzzwords and what they’re told is good or bad without an ounce of critical thinking.

    • ArmthepoorOP
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      1 year ago

      You made a good point also I think it was partially because he was drunk and watered down by work also I think I need too just give a example country or even just leader that would help massively

  • Rania 🇩🇿
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    1 year ago

    Be patient, learn more about socialism, talk about small things in his daily life that could be improved through abolishing capitalism, like if he complains about inflations explain its causes, complains about new products being made to be broken, etc etc etc… Remind yourself that he probably has red-scare propaganda engraved in him. Also, try to not hate him, if we gave up this easily there would’ve been two communists in history.

    • ArmthepoorOP
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      1 year ago

      Yeah you’re right I should probably also instead of convincing him capitalism is bad I should try to convince him socialism is good

      • QueerCommie
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        1 year ago

        Maybe, but it’s usually easier to provide a solution if they’re convinced there’s a problem. A talking point if you choose the “socialism good” path that I can suggest is that IPhones and Space exploration technology were not created by capitalism or the private sector. The USSR created the first portable phone. The USSR sent the first satellite, man, woman, and dog to space. In response the US funded their own public sector to create better tech. You could also point out that millions are still impoverished in the US and globally poverty would be going up if it wasn’t for the Chinese government lifting millions out of poverty. However, it’s best to mostly focus on how they are personally harmed by capitalism or would be helped by socialism.

        Edit: for the iPhone thing, mention that even though it’s the government who made it outside of private markets it’s the companies that get to rake in massive profits and they use designed obsolescence to make their products fail after a few years so people have to buy new crap. In addition, reactionaries often like to hate on the Liberal media, so make sure you point out when they’re lying on AES, hiding union news, ignoring class, or something else.

        • ArmthepoorOP
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          1 year ago

          Yeah that’s a good point he also made a lot of red scare or cold war propaganda arguments like communism is when nobody gets compensation it’s also good if I’m going to go on the socialism good train is give examples instead of complaints about capitalism