you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2026
90 points (97.9% liked)
Soviet
446 readers
3 users here now
C/SOVIET
Celebrate the art, music, history, architecture, and glory of the Soviet Union.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
This is so true, and also what a great analogy! At some point, there is no explaining the rules, you just have to see them in action, or brushed up against them as you try to play the game. It is true that once you've understood just how much property regulates the way you live, it's impossible to ignore. Just as a small example from my own life recently: My SO was watching a YouTube video of someone house hunting, something on to pass the time while she worked, but it was almost impossible for either of us to enjoy because of just how extravagant the whole ordeal was. You can basically write off the entire HGTV catalog as a Marxist, all you see is wealth trading hands.
The line about truth is also one of my favorites.
Yeah, this is a real killer thought. I think about stuff like this all the time. What would I be like if I just had more time? What kind of son, husband, father, co-worker, friend, or community member would I be if the society I lived in [afforded me the time to/was centered around] [improve/improving] myself in each of those roles I play? How much more could I be doing, then what I'm doing right now? There is this ever-present feeling of ennui within capitalist life that I believe is created from this feeling of never having enough time for the things you need to do and the things you want to do. Mark Fisher describes this well in Capitalist Realism, when he talks about the "centerlessness" of capitalism.
It's this endless clerical work, a world of black boxes and rotating faces full of amnesia that drains minutes, or hours, of your "free time" each week. It's death by a thousand cuts, this endless tedium that bleeds your energy and will to seek your own personal improvement. You spend two hours driving every day to work and home, 8 hours minimum working (often more). Most of the jobs you do for those hours can amount to being a middle man between two other people, emailing back and forth, stitching two pieces of data together, so someone else can look at it. Only for you to spend your off time, calling insurance companies, calling doctor's offices, performing the maintenance of your own life. I think its part of the reason the capitalist world fears remote work so much. They know that the illusion of "necessary labor time" vanishes the second you can perform your assigned duties outside the confines of their controlled space, where the hawks circle over head. My SO can only garden in our front yard, because she has two work from home days a week, in the summer its three!
Anyway, I could keep going!