this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2023
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Yesterday had a long conversation with a labor aristrocratic family member, age millenial and working in tech.

He announced things like: -China is a horrible Orvellian surveillance state, you (talks to me) have no idea how horrible it is there. Haven't you seen the videos?

I try to cautiously reply that surveillance capitalism is pretty intense in the West as well and that we don't really get good or balanced information from China. He goes:

-So you sayig something like Zero Covid was the right choice?

I am hesitant to reply with a yes as this person is clearly already very fired up and confrontational. But I try to point out things about how nobody in 2020 knew how bad it might and how many will die, how people in the West are still dying, how the virus isn't in any way bening even now and how it's pretty dystopian too that here we are just sacrificing people for capitalism now and choose to ignore it.

I did say I think it was better to save people to which he said that I am a nihilist.

I also tried to explain the State outside the capitalist project and protecting multitudes not individuals, individualism and such, but he was not receiving it.

He then told me how bad the country is as he saw in the Grand Tour how they have built a highway over a rainforest that nobody uses.

I asked him where does he think all the roads and buildings in the West are built if not on top of nature. The argument as critizism of China made no sense to me whatsoever.

Later this same person said to me that we as a society have no hope and there is no point in protesting, no point in doing anything but riding out the rest of our time to climate disaster. I tried to point out to him that a socialist state can be born from capitalism, but only if we the people develop initiative for it and understand our current condition.

Same guy also did admit that voting no longer works, the EU was a mistake and it's grim how all our state systems have been privatized and are now in the hands of corpotations like Microsoft.

Now, I don't even know where to start with this one. He very much represents his part of the population here and the deep apathy and negative thought that they harbor.

He still understands and thinks that the regulated capitalism of the 70-80s here (keynesian) was the best part of our history, but when I told him that it still was always going to lead to fascism and monopolies (told him to read Marx) he ignored this. Very much the "it's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism" mindset.

And my question is, how do we as communists reach these people? These people actually have power (capital), but the petty bourge status has made them like this. However climate chance does not discriminate so I feel this part of society is facing a new conflict from a historical standpoint where nature says no to exploitation. And this seems to lead to apathy.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thank you. This is probably it. He has never lost a job, but is in a position to bargain for the best spots and say no if he wants to. This makes for some interesting takes towards someone like me who has been poor for over 20 years and studies/works in humanities instead of tech.

If he's a millennial who has never lost a job, yeah he's a lost cause. He's a fascist-in-training as far as I'm concerned, and the instant he loses his first job is when he becomes a fascist for real. How can you have a 10+ year job history and not lose a single job? Either he is extremely lucky (and credits his outrageous luck to his merit within the meritocracy of course), he is a pathological liar, or he constantly shuffles between jobs created by his petty bourgeois small business owner parents like a petty bourgeois failson.

You need to write him off and move on. Imo, you've already said too much. He will 100% snitch on you if you try to organize your workplace. He will 100% be a scab and cross the picket line. He will 100% name your name and enthusiastically put you on the commie blacklist.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

He is like the entire IT sector here from the early 2000s up. I know several guys like him, they shop for jobs. Nordic country so this is a thing here, they have been on 5k monthly salaries since age 30 and buy houses with ease.

He has been able to develop many very unrealistic views of the labor market and worker power, told my partner who burnt out in a healthcare position that he should have voiced his complaints more, hahahaha. They live in a full bubble from everyone else here.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Oh, I didn't know you were from Northern Europe. I thought most Europeans use British spelling, so I just assumed you were from the US. I'll put the disclaimer that what I've said is applicable to the US but not necessarily applicable to anywhere else.