But is “oligarchy” truly an accurate name for the enemy?
Yes. Full stop - yes. A few hundred extremely rich people having massive influence over the society is an oligarchy and calling it anything else is imprecise.
this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2026
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because they mean oligarchy. I like capitalism when its taxed properly with social safety nets and highly regulated. Its great for things that don't matter like tvs or toys. provided there is competition. anytime there is no competition or for anything everyone needs. well that should be government run and avialable to all.
"I like feudalism so long as the nobility is properly regulated and the king is benevolent"
Because the brainwashing in this country by said oligarchs would have them killed for stating the problem truthfully.
When people here hear you say “capitalism is a problem” literally EVERYONE here knee jerks and goes “OH YOU WANT US ALL TO DIE IN POVERTY THEN? YOY WANT TO BE RULES BY DICTATORS WHO KEEP ALL THE MONEY FOR THEMSELVES?”
They are so used to the rhetoric, and so used to getting screwed by salesmen, that they think you’re a salesman and that your pitch to fix things must be a plot to pull one over on them. They take it personally.
Everyone in this country since the 1950s has been taught that we are better and smarter because we have the opportunity to gamble on a chance that our hard work makes us rich. In the past, the capitalists even did a good job of keeping that illusion going, by actually providing a good life for the middle class, even if it was predominantly white people.
But the same thing that they claim only corrupts socialist and communist societies has now happened here: the men at the top have become addicted to taking more for themselves, and now see us as a burden instead of something to protect.
So it’s fair to focus on the oligarchy: the economic model isn’t the problem, it never was. It’s always when then men at the top decide to fuck the country for personal gain.
Because alienating the majority of your potential voters isn't a good idea?
Because making a big promise is just going to lead to a massive voter backlash in 4 years when it isn't implemented immediately?
Anti capitalism was one of the reasons the FBI killed MLK. The others being a prominent black civil rights activist
MLK did black civil rights activism for a decade, but once he started pivoting to the "Poor People's Campaign" he was dead within months. Make of that what you will.
Overton window, or at least perceptions about it. We're getting closer to a culture where being labelled socialist isn't as politically poisonous as it once was, but they still think we're not ready for class consciousness.
You know why.
it's because of "PR".
it's because Average Alex
(or Pat, or Sam, or whatever name for whatever-/either-/neither-gender person)
has been trained since birth to think CaPiTaLiSm gOoD
and also reflexively feel scared, angry, and sometimes even a little bit nauseous when they hear big words that """capitalism""" doesn't like, such as bourgeoisie, proletariat, socialism, communism, anarchism, etc.
In a way similar to grievously unwell pets who won't swallow medicine until and unless it is hidden inside something else the critter actually wants to eat, the stressed depressed AnyPerson lacks a fundamental ability to ingest information that has been marinated in bitterness by the centuries of public relations campaigning that the rich have been waging against the poor since humans had the ability to count and one person had to come up with a plausible excuse for why they have more stuff than another person.
It's also similar to antibiotic resistant pathogens, that societies infected with capitalism witness this infection rendering rhetoric used against it useless. Pretending that anything else is the case is a fool's errand doomed to failure. Honestly the only thing socialism and communism and anarchy have going for themselves is how chuds keep pointing at literally anything good or beneficial that would improve the material conditions of the population and calling it "socialism", "communism", or "anarchy".
Hell maybe we should lean into that more, just labeling all kinds of objectively good things that people have a gut reaction to crave and protect "socialism" "communism" and "anarchy" and pointing out the actual ways in which capitalism wants to destroy it.
Do you love your children? Capitalism wants to take them away by incarcerating them for petty excuses and exploiting them for prison-based slavery; it's the entire reason there's an exception for that specific form of slavery on the law books. Do you love food? Sorry, getting to eat is socialist communism. Capitalism says you will own nothing and be happy. Capitalism says the food belongs to the company and you're only renting it. Do you like having somewhere to live? Wrong. Capitalism requires all property be owned by private corporate entities and you have to rent it from them. You think you bought your house? Not after Capitalism has its way with it, jacking the "value" of your property so high that you can't afford the cost they are charging you to maintain it but refusing to buy it at that price. Capitalism can afford to wait until you're bankrupt so big corpo can swoop in and buy it off an auction for peanuts and then not allow you to live in it. Because they want you to be a prisoner, in a prison, doing free labor for them. Do you like breathing air? Too bad! As soon as capitalism finds a way to bill you for it, you'll be paying a subscription to not suffocate. Don't you miss not having a gatekeeper looking to collect a toll on every little thing you do? Sorry, that's socialist communist anarchy and you can't have that!
The progressive fixation on “oligarchy” is a diversion from class struggle.
tis exactly why America will never revolt.
they will never be conscious enough to say: “Wait, elections are diversions! Jiminy crickets! We have been fooled sixty times over!”
If voting didn't matter, conservatives wouldn't try nearly so god damn hard to keep you from doing it.
And yet Democrats join Republicans in controlling the debates through their bi-partisan corporation, the CPD. They join the Republicans in opposing ranked choice voting at every opportunity. They join the Republicans in confirming socialism. The join the Republicans all the fucking time. And then they tell the narrative that they are better for democracy. They aren't. They're lying. You're falling for it
And if all the people that agreed with you voted not just in the election but in the primaries, too, or better yet, helped build a new party from the local level up like the DSA is trying to do and voted for them, you might actually be able to do something about it.
Or you could accept defeat before you even try so you can wallow in how right you were about those parties.
If I am right about those parties, then voting wouldn't have changed anything anyway. That you think voting is resistance is exactly what I'm trying to disabuse people of. Voting does nothing except make everyone think we live in a democracy. It doesn't change anything. It never has changed anything. When the Ds were the racist fucks from the South they passed civil rights, with the Republicans necessary bipartian support because black people were rioting and threatening to raise class consciousness, not because people voted. The Ds also supported the Rs in creating the war on drugs to attack those very same black people, and they did it literally as part of the same administration that advanced civil rights, and they did that without voters.
Voting doesn't do anything and the more you believe it does, the further away from actually changing anything you will be.
Primaries do far more to shape the party than the election, which is why I suggest participating in them, and even if you think that's a totally lost cause, I think a better party could have a chance under the right conditions, but that party is going to have to be built from the local level up, not just foisted on people suddenly at the election. If you want to boil everything down to a single binary choice on national election day, yeah, sure, you're not gonna accomplish much. But if you leverage the greater system, you can position yourself to be ready for people when they're ready to abandon one of the current parties. Or do you think the DSA winning a bunch of seats at the local level is a waste of time? Ask the people of New York if they feel like voting is worthless when they're watching Mamdani work.
I don't really care what people believe about sewer socialists. We've had sewer socialists before in the US. They did a lot of good. And it all got rolled back by the red scares and the purges of communists. Because as it turns out, playing the game that was created by the power elite is not how you defeat the power elite.
Exhibit 61, AHemlocksLie rather play their demagoguery, than empower each other. When is outside the system thinking going to take place⸮
Why are they mutually exclusive? You can build new structures while simultaneously exercising your right to influence existing structures. If people who agreed with you would vote in both election and primary, or better yet, try to build a new party from the local level up like the DSA seems to be doing, you'd actually get somewhere.
Or you can give up ahead of time and wallow in how right you are about how shit the options you refused to influence are.
I'm finding it odd that now suddenly BlueMAGA is fine with third party voting. You're not the first I've been seeing suddenly say "actually voting third party is a good thing" (although hopefully you don't DM me telling me to jump in a woodchipper for saying this like the last person). I've been doing so in every election and primary at every level since I became voting age. However since I live in a deep red area it does squat other than give me a reason to get out of the house for a while. Personally I vastly prefer PSL over DSA. Mamdani is fine, but doesn't light the fire in me like Claudia De La Cruz did.
In my opinion, third party is viable if it's built from the local level up but not if just pushed in at the top in the national elections. That's why I would generally consider it not useful in the national election but would encourage it at local and maybe state level. As much as I'd love for the Democratic Party collapsed, I don't think that's really going to happen until people think they have a viable alternative, and that's most likely going to be built up from the local level. Once there's a more viable option established and widely known, then maybe it'll work out at the national level.
DSA seems to be doing
DSA is arming the public⸮
how shit the options you refused to influence are.
yeah boss, 60 elections. what makes you think the 61st is the one? Maybe instead of giving your power to authoritarians, you give me your taxes.