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Theodric's avatar

There’s an even lazier form of “late-stage capitalism” discourse, ubiquitous on places like r/AntiWork, that basically collapses to: “My boss is an asshole, therefore down with capitalism”.

As if assholes and petty tyrants are a uniquely capitalist feature!

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Stony Stevenson's avatar

Wow, you must really be an alien if you have (at least) 19 fingers to count on 🙃

I became vocally pro-capitalism in liberal circles around 2015 (i.e., the primary of no return) almost as an act of rebellion. I think this helps expose the ways that anti-capitalist signaling is more of a polite social agreement, unlike conventional beliefs, which are meant to be open to impartial evaluation. As you mentioned, there's perishingly little nuance to it, and it shows when we're forced to categorize various countries as either "capitalist" or "not". A lot of social democrats laud Scandinavia, Canada - or when they're feeling lazy, just "Europe" - even though citizens therein don't tend to consider their countries to be socialist. Generally if you live under socialism, you should be able to organically form thoughts such as "yep, I live under socialism".

I'm of course fine with thoughtful opinions that run contrary to all the dogmas I hold, put people have to put more effort into it than just "noun, verb, late-stage capitalism". It also helps to check whether the thing you're criticizing exists under socialism/communism. I'm reminded of a meme that said poetry doesn't exist under capitalism (or something like that); if not, does it exist under communism? The fact that poets living under communism were often dissidents who wanted to be liberated from it shouldn't escape our attention, nor should the fact that student movements historically protested the communist regimes they suffered under.

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