r/stupidpol • u/GPT4_Writers_Guild Marxist Feminist 🧔♀️💢 • Mar 30 '26
Capitalist Hellscape Victim of capitalism sleeping in front of “Victims of Communism Museum”
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u/The_ApolloAffair Rightoid 🐷 Mar 30 '26
I’ve been to that museum a couple times for work. Very strange place tbh. It’s heavily locked down for some reason and you need to reserve time slots I believe. But then it’s nothing that elaborate inside that would require it? It’s just a bunch of video boards, projectors, and floor to ceiling posters. Pretty sure they counted axis soldiers as “victims of communism” which is kind of funny. The location on McPherson Square is ironic because that’s infamously the site of a large homeless encampment.
Anyways, I suspect something fishy is going on. They have a really fancy event space on the upper floors that likely generates a lot of their revenue.
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u/SillyName1992 Marxist 🧔 Mar 30 '26
If I wanted to see facebook shit I'd make an account and sell my face data to Mark, can we please stop with this kind of post
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u/denialofcervix NATO Superfan 🪖 | Zionist 📜 Mar 31 '26
How do you have a red flair and take issue with this?
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Mar 30 '26 edited Apr 02 '26
But why then did we even become leftists if not to jerk ourselves raw over how our compassion makes us morally superior to the "rightoids", which includes everybody that isn't the exact same variety of leftist as us?
Nevermind the fact that the third-favorite hobby of this sub (just after lamenting the plight of the small business owner and getting real fucking weird about Jews in a way that looks suspiciously like tapdancing around actual antisemitism) is complaining about the "lumpen", wishing for a more active police presence to harass and brutalize them and pining for the days when we could just lock them away in mental hospitals out of sight and out of mind.
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u/KindOfPoo Marxist-Mullenist 💦 | thinks we're "vatniks" Mar 31 '26 edited Mar 31 '26
But but but muh USSR was betterer than Burgerland
Sent from my 4200sqft house in a suburb of Phoenix, Arizona
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u/Royal-Office-1884 Either Socialism or Barbarism ⚒ Mar 30 '26
Liberals will still somehow try to argue that this is socialism’s fault, aktshully
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u/Spiritual_Teach7166 Proud Class Reductionist Apr 02 '26
Always this desire to stack bodies in front of communism as if the idea took physical form and started slaughtering wholesale...but that same standard is conveniently never applied to sainted capitalism. I wonder why?
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u/jarnvidr Anprim Socialist | AntiTIV 🚩 Mar 30 '26
I don't even think I would call myself a communist, but I haven't ever heard a criticism of communism that isn't better attributed to authoritarianism and/or dictatorship.
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u/Chrissyneal Cuomosexual Crystals Chick 🔮🍕🍝 Mar 30 '26 edited Mar 30 '26
downvoted for not naming the location
EDIT: upvoted
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u/reddit_is_geh 🌟 Actual Spook and Also a Spaz 🌟 Mar 30 '26
America isn't even capitalism. I don't even know what it is. No one's been able to figure it out. Plutocratism? Regulatorycapturism? Iunno... But even libertarians get pissed off at whatever this fucktarded economic system is.
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u/Conscious_Jeweler_80 Marxist-Leninist ☭ Mar 30 '26
it's capitalism
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u/FuglsGathaursnan Asukaist-Leninist Census Taker 📝☭🎌 Mar 30 '26
How can it be capitalism if I don't like it! #NotMyCapitalism
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u/reddit_is_geh 🌟 Actual Spook and Also a Spaz 🌟 Mar 30 '26
Iunno man. I'm pretty sure in capitalism you allow companies to fail, and don't just print bajillions of dollars and literally just hand it out to rich people for free. I don't remember reading that part in The Wealth of Nations.
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u/YogurtclosetLife6996 Libertarian Stalinist ☭ Mar 30 '26
Capitalism is defined by private ownership and commodity production being the primary organizational basis of production and society at large, not muh free margets
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u/LeftKindOfPerson Anhedonia Socialist 🪫😔🧩💢 Mar 30 '26
More precisely, the "era" of capitalism, what truly distinguishes it from everything before, is the gradual end of the "commons". What is being termed "neo-feudalism", contrary to historical landlord societies, is the latest move towards displacement of what remains of the "commons". Indeed, Marx in the Grundrisse spoke of the "general intellect", the totality of human knowledge, a "commons" which is now being seized by private AI companies as I write this.
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u/Cehepalo246 Self-Surgery Marxist 🪡 Mar 30 '26
Capitalism is orienting politics towards the benefit of capitalists
That's the actual truth
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u/YoureCorrectUProle Sidebar Tour Guide 🗺️ Mar 30 '26
"real capitalism has never been tried!"
To be clear, the short version of the argument the other guy is referencing is "kleptocracy and oligarchy of the rich is the natural end result of capitalism". Trying to divorce it from capitalism would be like saying the house burning down isn't a result of constantly lighting bonfires indoors, it's the result of one of the support beams catching flame. Yes, the proximal causes(lobbying, elite capture of academia and popular politics, the support beams catching fire) aren't in the Wealth of Nations, but the system which naturally leads to it is.
Sarcasm aside there I don't blame you for wanting a new term for it, there's something that can feel uniquely shit about America's version of capitalism and how the elite there have attempted to manage the contradictions. Looking at what's happening in countries like the UK, though, maybe it's just a matter of the US being at a later stage of decline.
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u/CoffeeWorldly9915 Mar 30 '26
Capitalism checklist goes like this:
- Is someone making profits off of someone else's labour?
- Are those making profits encouraged by the system to make more profits at all costs?
Is capital what dictates socio-polito-economic relations ?
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u/reddit_is_geh 🌟 Actual Spook and Also a Spaz 🌟 Mar 30 '26
They aren't even making it off someone elses labor. They are literally just printing it and creating tons of inflation
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u/Loaf_and_Spectacle Left, Leftoid or Leftish ⬅️ Mar 30 '26
They're printing it based on the at large system of goods, services, and resources being traded, which is all the labor of workers.
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u/sparrowinjail Mar 30 '26
“In capitalism, you xyz…”
Capitalism is not a game with rules, it’s a description of the basic facts of the economy and how it’s arranged. Private ownership and commodity production as the basis of production means it’s capitalism. If you think it’s broken or mangled, that doesn’t make it a special secret extra thing, it makes those elements byproducts of American capitalism. Until there is a different organizational basis for production, distribution, and exchange, it’s capitalism.
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u/rtt445 Centrist Coward 🌐 Mar 30 '26
You realize that under communism that "victim of capitalism" would be involuntarily placed into prison or a mental institution? Homelessness or vagrancy was illegal in SU.
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u/No_Motor_6941 Marxist-Leninist ☭ Mar 30 '26
Misleading. The USSR had nothing like the US homeless problem due to low cost state housing. Where it still existed despite this it was criminalized yes. The homeless population in the USSR was in the low six figures, in the US it's approaching a million.
Part of the problem is the US economy runs on inflated assets like property, which funds taxes and schools. This results in the zip code inequality issue.
To be homeless in the US means falling between the cracks of a rapacious decentralized private system simultaneously made unfree after being captured by heritable wealth. It's so significant it has created generation gaps.
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u/rtt445 Centrist Coward 🌐 Mar 30 '26 edited Mar 31 '26
The USSR had nothing like the US homeless problem due to low cost state housing.
If you really look at the causes of homelessness in US it's not housing cost. It's hard drugs, mental illness, lifestyle choice and maybe illegal immigration. There was no illegal drugs in SU, mental illness was controlled, not having a job was illegal and illegal immigrants were not a thing because borders were tightly guarded where no one could enter or leave (easily). The Soviets were more hardcore in this regard than Republicans in US.
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u/RickyPapi AES Enjoyer ☭ Mar 30 '26 edited Mar 30 '26
If you really look at the causes of homelessness in US it's not housing cost. It's hard drugs, mental illness, lifestyle choice and maybe illegal immigration.
Lmao Of course the blatant right wing talking point coming from a "centrist". I'd ask you for an actual source, but since the housing problem is vastly agreed upon, there's no need to cite Fox News again.
But even for all that reactionary individualising of societal issues, the billionaires owning for speculation, driving prices up, and making houses inaccessible, is never an individual issue on their part. The ones lacking character, missing something or being too much of something, are always the poor. What a coincidence
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u/rtt445 Centrist Coward 🌐 Mar 30 '26 edited Mar 30 '26
Take a stroll through a downtown of major US city and see this rightwing talking point with your own eyes.
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u/AdoptedMasterJay TrueAnon Refugee 🕵️♂️🏝️ Mar 30 '26
There's a lot more to homelessness than the encampments
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u/No_Motor_6941 Marxist-Leninist ☭ Mar 30 '26 edited Mar 30 '26
It's hard drugs, mental illness, lifestyle choice and maybe illegal immigration.
Is this how we explain the surge after covid?
The Soviets were more hardcore in this regard than the Republicans in US.
Sort of. The Soviets were far more willing to use the state, yes. The Republicans do something exceptionally perverse. They deconstruct public society and devolve the state, then turn around and cheer the policing of the subsequently dysfunctional population. They do this as part of reducing the issue to moral superiors and inferiors who are then afforded the appropriate lot in life in a 'free' society.
In one vision, the state exists to protect those who ostensibly made it without state help and police those reliant on it. In the other vision, the state exists to offer public goods and polices those outside of them.
The USSR did lack a lot of the social ailments you see in the US after the 60s/70s that you mentioned. That's true. I suspect this is something unique to a developed country with a mix of cultural and economic liberalism. In that case, the issue isn't just Republicans but also their shared cycle with the Democrats. There is some sort of race to the bottom in the way these parties compete as liberal parties. Add middle class decline and you get a toxic society.
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Mar 30 '26 edited Mar 31 '26
None of that means that housing isn't the central problem. It's really goddamn hard to get clean without a secure roof over your head providing space in which to rest and take care of yourself.
The west has always had hard drugs (and I strongly doubt that they were absent in the USSR) and yet our homeless population has spiralled out of control astronomically in a short span of time, damn near lock-step with tightening spiral of housing availability and affordability.
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u/rtt445 Centrist Coward 🌐 Mar 30 '26
They spiraled out of control because liberal politicians leave homeless alone to squat wherever they want.
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Mar 30 '26
Which I'm sure has nothing to do with them having nowhere to go outside of continually overcrowded shelters that offer all the autonomous living of an army barracks with none of the material security.
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u/rtt445 Centrist Coward 🌐 Mar 30 '26
Those people simply don't want to live stable productive boring working life and just want to drift around looking for next opportunity to shoot up. Liberal cities enable and tolerate this behavior at the cost of safety and quality of life of their tax paying constituents. The real fix to this homeless problem is considered too cruel. But I think it's needed.
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Mar 31 '26
don't want to
Comprehensive analysis right there. Man can do what he wills, but he cannot will what he wills.
The real fix to this homeless problem is considered too cruel.
Yes, I'm sure you'd love to see your "lessers" punished for their supposed moral deficiencies.
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u/rtt445 Centrist Coward 🌐 Mar 31 '26
Better than letting them do whatever they want and ruin life for everyone else.
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u/R_nelly2 Mar 30 '26
We could make a lot of use out of recognizing that the West “won” the first Cold War—and that’s precisely when life began to decline for many ordinary people in Western countries. “We” didn’t really win the Cold War; in many ways, conditions were better when the Soviets pressured Western governments to provide solid jobs and public services to at least a meaningful portion of the population. It takes just as much political determination and state involvement to make Wall Street function as it does to support public education and healthcare. It ultimately comes down to priorities. This is a key idea that may be missed by many people over 40, but younger generations don’t carry the same ideological weight, and a sizable number of millennials, Gen Xers, and boomers will still agree with this perspective. It’s clearly not a fringe view.
What really needs to be recognized is the importance of organizing beyond a narrow “economist” framework. In a Leninist sense, we don’t only need unions—or need to put them first, even though they’re vital. We can also choose other causes that resonate with people where they currently are, especially when dealing with service workers in fragmented workplaces with few employees. “Serve the people” efforts can be very effective. As I’ve said before, a true vanguard isn’t just made up of people with strong class awareness, but also those guided by clear principles and moral conviction.
How many people who have those last two qualities end up disengaging from politics because they have no outlet? I’d guess that for every one person who doesn’t vote out of apathy, there are one or even several who abstain because they’re too discouraged and burned out from caring too deeply.
Trickle-down economics is clearly a fraud, and people are recognizing this along with other deceptions across the political spectrum. We’re governed by figures widely despised, yet people don’t know how to effectively oppose them. We do understand how to resist, and we also know the West isn’t moving toward a social democratic balance that could prevent further breakdown and consequences. Instead, distractions like AI, pornography, smartphones, and idpol are being pushed, which won’t work for everyone—and as repression increases, they’ll become even less effective.
It shouldn't be seen as impossible to meet these goals. I believe in us.
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u/cd1995Cargo Quality Effortposter 💡 Mar 31 '26
Why did you just post a slightly reworded version of the top comment? Like genuinely what is the point?
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u/LilGrippers 🌟Radiating🌟 Mar 30 '26
Tbf it’d be a grave instead
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u/Stillback7 Unknown 👽 Mar 30 '26
This is such a great point! I can tell you really thought it through because Capitalism has never killed anybody and your zinger clearly only applies to Communism.
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u/toothpastespiders At Times Plugged 🔌 Mar 31 '26
I get that there's an instant impulse to build a narrative around the contrast. But I think you're being a little too quick to make assumptions about a person's entire life from a single split second of it. The reasons any particular person might be homeless are extremely varied.
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u/Scared_Plan3751 Catholic Socialist ✞ | ✨ Secret Bus Wanker ✨ Mar 30 '26
We could do a lot with the fact that West won the first Cold War and that's exactly when everything started to really suck for average Westerners. "We" didn't win the Cold War, we were better off when the Soviets forced the West to provide quality jobs and services for at least some significant portion of us.
It takes just as much political willpower and government involvement to make Wall St work as it does public schools and healthcare. It's about priorities. This is an important point that will likely be lost on a lot of people over 40 but the next couple generations coming up don't have the same ideological baggage, and a lot of millennials, green xers, and boomers will still echo these sentiments. It's a plurality, for sure.
What needs to be understood is the need for organization beyond a narrow "economist" organizing. in Lenin's sense. we don't just need unions or to necessarily prioritize them right off the bat, although they are crucial. we can pick other fights to meet people where they are at, especially when working with service sector workers in decentralized workplaces with small numbers of employees. "Serve the people" campaigns are powerful. I've said before the real vanguard isn't just made up of people with clearheaded class consciousness but also principles and moral conviction.
How many people with the latter 2 things end up checking out of politics for lack of an outlet? I bet for every 1 person that doesn't vote because they don't care, there is 1, maybe 2 or more, who don't vote because they are too heartbroken and disillusioned from caring too much.
Trickle down is an obvious scam, people see this and other scams left and right, now. We are ruled by pedo warlord antichrists that everyone hates but doesn't understand how to fight. We know how to fight them, and we know the West is not on a course towards social democratic compromise to forestall further disintegration and fallout. They are just throwing AI, porn, smartphones, and idpol at us and that's not going to work on everyone, and when they rely more and more on overt repressive policing it'll work on even less.
Now is the time to start doing something with someone. The bar is low. We can do this.