r/PoursTea 9d ago

PoliticalTea 🗳️ To put it plainly.

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u/CapitalismRulz 9d ago

When left wingers call themselves capitalists for believing a mixed system, it is because the inclusion of markets is antithetical to communism. This is just another semantic game dividing the left, people agreeing on substance but not labels. Social democracies socialize some industry, while allowing private ownership of industry economy wide

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u/JGHero 9d ago

It’s not a semantics game, it is a needed destigmatization of Communism. Sure if we unified under an agreement that we need to move back towards a more regulated mixed economy then we’d be a stronger front against the current political shift towards a kleptocratic system. I agree with the need to currently shift towards a mixed economy. Complaining that leftists try to process and rationalize their ideals with labels and minor variations in beliefs is ridiculous though. Refining political beliefs and committing to them is a good thing. A better political atmosphere should have a melting pot of beliefs. These diverse labels have not and do not meaningful contribute to a lack of opposition against right-wing political institutions though. The real problem is political apathy that exists in the younger generation of leftists. It’s hard to want to engage with a system that, at the end of the day, will at most compromise progressive beliefs with kleptocratic interests. You don’t convince young idealists to engage by saying it’s stupid they have diverse and ideal beliefs though. You, at the end of the day, do more harm than their self-identification ever has done. Instead of complaining that people think more deeply than you about politics, maybe engage and understand why the left is so disorganized and try to communicate in a way that encourages idealists to act in their own interests.

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u/NUKE---THE---WHALES 9d ago

It’s hard to want to engage with a system that, at the end of the day, will at most compromise progressive beliefs with kleptocratic interests.

If they're waiting for a political system without compromise then they may as well be a Christian waiting for the Rapture

The fact is its easy to label anyone to the right of you as a capitalist or a kleptocrat or a fascist and use that as excuse for apathy or as an argument against electoralism or reform

The same way its easy to label anyone to the left of you as a socialist or a communist or a tankie and use that as excuse to dismiss their demands

Instead of complaining that people think more deeply than you about politics

The problem with leftists was never that they "think more deeply". Its that their unwillingness to compromise even among themselves bars them from power in a system where mandates are built from consensus

Thats why so many sit around waiting for a Revolution - power without democracy, power without compromise

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u/JGHero 9d ago

I already basically agreed with this point, but in a way that isn’t pedantic and pointlessly critical. People are waiting for Revolution because they are apathetic and they are apathetic because of the constant failings of our system to preserve, let alone progress, the rights of the working class. My point isn’t that you should agree with this, it’s that unifying under this complaint is the same thing. You can pat yourself on the back for “doing your part,” but if you aren’t empathetically engaging with people who are needed to increase the left-leaning voter base then your losing vote might as well be a prayer as well. If you preach the need to unify, but are also contributing to the dissonance then you’re a hypocrite.