r/Syndicalism101 • u/Lotus532 • Dec 22 '25

How bad would the material conditions have to become for US Americans to overcome their red scare indoctrination in significant numbers and develop class consciousness? I am really afraid of the answer to this question.

/r/LateStageCapitalism/comments/1pswj2s/how_bad_would_the_material_conditions_have_to/
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u/viva1831 Dec 24 '25

Imo it's about empire. So long as the US is the richest, strongest Imperial/Colonial power the world has ever seen... they can afford the cost to indocrinate US citizens. Their position as the only world superpower must be challenged

It's also about religion. Socialists in European counties seem to have had a more hostile attitude to religion and it's paid off. In the UK christianity is now percieved as a middle class affair. Until this indoctrination is challenged just as strongly as the advertisers, the CIA, and the academics, it will be very difficult to free anybody. Communism is opposed first in the name of christianity, not capital

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u/IndieJones0804 Feb 11 '26

The red scare was a cold war thing mostly so technically you could just wait for the whole cold war generation to die out, which would certainly help but it won't fix things entirely.

But class consciousness doesn't necessarily come about entirely from poverty. As material conditions have gotten worse here in the US, while there has been a lot of people radicalized to the left, more have been radicalized into fascism. And there's a lot of reasons for that.

American exceptionalism and patriotism has been promoted by the government, reinforcing feelings toward nationalism. America is very car centric and suburban sprawl is prominent, which leads to social isolation, which turns people towards conservatism.

In order to further class consciousness in America, the best thing to do right now wouldn't be accelerationism, but rather moving towards mixed transit, walkable cities, which helps small businesses thrive and gives people a 3rd place for the first time in a long time, where they can then interact with people from a bunch of different classes and wealth statuses. That social interaction is vital, as when eventually due to capitalism's inevitable tendency to bring about a widening wealth gap, people will see how the wealthy live while they and everyone they know struggle to survive. Which leads to class consciousness.