Convincing the upper and middle classes that capitalism is wrong

[aziraphale]

I know, you probably think that this is impossible. Why would they want to give up their power? Well, some of them do. For example, I was born into privilege, yet I believe that this privilege was unjust. I did nothing in order to be born into a then upper-middle class family. It was pure luck. On another note, my mother, who was born to poor parents, worked extremely hard to get into an advertising firm. When I was born, she sort of had an epiphany and she decided she wanted to help the world more. She became a college professor and started working to bridge cultural differences, help bring better civil rights to the Latino community, support the independent media and teaching about feminism, media literacy and cultural differences. She's still a capitalist, but it's still quite a turn-around. The upper class are not the devil. Most of them are just brainwashed. I think it is important to persuade the upper and middle classes about capitalism. Any joining of the numbers is a good thing. How do you propose we convince the upper class? I think it's possible, at least with many of them. I think that part of it would be to explain that while the self made ones may have worked hard they could have worked less hard to get so far and they could be in a job that would help more people.

[ComradeOm]

The upper class are not the devil. Most of them are just brainwashedNo, most of them are acting in the interests of their class. It is the exceptions, such as yourself apparently, that have an interest in socialism. There's no reason why the odd individual born 'into privilege' cannot contribute to the socialist movement but the latter must be based on the working class and represent their interests. These interests are diametrically opposed to those of the bourgeoisie

[Mendax]

I think turning the young middle class isn't much of a challenge - I have some very middle class friends with strong socialist/leftist views but once they stop living with there parents and they become independent they tend to drift away from them a bit but they still stay pretty leftist just with a kind of "I think there should be no rich or poor but I don't want to do anything to change it and I want to keep everything I've got" Kind of mentality.

[MarxSchmarx]

All it takes really is a realization that they too could personally be on the receiving end of poverty.

The middle class is easy - their progeny do not usually enjoy the economic security their parents have, convince them with enough horror anecdotes about people without connections ending up doing low wage jobs or being unemployed inspite of their solid backgrounds/trainings.

The so-called "expectation gap" between a person's education/social background and income is one of the greatest predictors of support for leftist causes in the global north.

As far as the upper class is concerned, the parasitic class is a lost cause, yes there is a moral appeal to some and that is all well and good, but if they are personally basically indifferent to the "suffering of the less fortunate" or insist on rationalizing economic disparity, there really is little persuasion you can have.