Communists in Capitalist Society

[Comrade #138672]

How do you "survive" in capitalist society when you are a communist? Of course, everybody should make his own decisions, but what is a reasonable and non-hypocritical attitude for a communist in this society? Some problems I'm experiencing are:

Money. Communists and money?! I have a part-time job as a programmer. I was already performing poorly because I kept getting distracted by personal programming projects of mine. I still needed the money though. Since I started to become a communist, my performance is suffering even more. I prefer to read about Marx, while the boss is not watching, than fixing some stupid uninteresting bug. So how do you keep yourself motivated to work for money? I'm starting to care less about it every day. I also have a girlfriend who does not seem to like this trend, and from her point of view I can't really blame her for not liking it.

I also care very little about appearance. Never really cared much about clothes and the like -- even less since I started to become a communist. I never buy new clothes (shopping is a capitalist act) and when I do buy new clothes I just want to be done with it as soon as possible. I do not care about old and ugly shoes as long as they're functioning. I do not care about "non-matching" clothes. Colors don't match? I don't ever see the mismatch and when I do I shrug. I don't care personally, really. I ignore it so that I can focus on what is really important to me. Even though it seems selfless to me, it may actually be very selfish now that I think about it.

In the process I'm becoming an "outcast" (according to my girlfriend) and I'm disappointing her (which I do not want). Perhaps this behavior is selfish and doesn't serve my purpose as much as I'd like to think. Is being a social outcast necessarily bad? Is this behavior indeed hurting my "social status", which in turn could hurt the cause of communism?

Or am I right to continue this behavior? To be honest I suspect I'm overdoing it a little.

[RedHammer]

The important thing to remember is that being a communist is not a lifestyle. As long as capitalism exists, we must live within the capitalist mode of production, much as the serfs of feudalism still had to live under feudalism even if they fought it and hated it.

Your concerns are more personal than ideological. Don't feel guilty about shopping or living; you shouldn't stop living. Like I said, communism isn't a lifestyle. For now, do your best at work (or whatever you can get away with), shop, take care of yourself, and live your life.

People will point to Che Guevara drinking Coca Cola as an example of "hypocrisy", as if communists are supposed to be hermit men living in the mountains. That's not the case. We live like everybody else.

Just make sure you show compassion towards people, and goodwill towards your fellow workers. That's my best advice.

[jookyle]

A communist seeks to overthrow capitalism, not escape it.

[Rational Radical]

The important thing to remember is that being a communist is not a lifestyle. As long as capitalism exists, we must live within the capitalist mode of production, much as the serfs of feudalism still had to live under feudalism even if they fought it and hated it.

Your concerns are more personal than ideological. Don't feel guilty about shopping or living; you shouldn't stop living. Like I said, communism isn't a lifestyle. For now, do your best at work (or whatever you can get away with), shop, take care of yourself, and live your life.

People will point to Che Guevara drinking Coca Cola as an example of "hypocrisy", as if communists are supposed to be hermit men living in the mountains. That's not the case. We live like everybody else.

Just make sure you show compassion towards people, and goodwill towards your fellow workers. That's my best advice.
Exactly escaping to the forest and becoming a hermit isnt going to help the rest of humanity and i bet most of us here wouldnt last i know i wouldnt lol It's about taking back the industrial society workers built and still maintain today.

[Comrade #138672]

Thanks for the quick and honest replies. I think I'll try to adapt a little. Just enough to survive and be closer to the people I want to help.

What about setting an example though? What about detaching yourself? Aren't lifestyle and ideology even a little related? Can you separate them just like that? By "escaping" capitalism couldn't you make it easier to overthrow it? You could argue that the people who are less attached to the system are more capable of overthrowing it.

[RedHammer]

Thanks for the quick and honest replies. I think I'll try to adapt a little. Just enough to survive and be closer to the people I want to help.

What about setting an example though? What about detaching yourself? Aren't lifestyle and ideology even a little related? Can you separate them just like that? By "escaping" capitalism couldn't you make it easier to overthrow it? You could argue that the people who are less attached to the system are more capable of overthrowing it.

Capitalism will not be destroyed by people who "ignore" it and try to live "beyond" the capitalist system. It will be destroyed by those people most immersed, most critical in capitalist production: the workers.

[Rational Radical]

Our ideologies-even though we differ on how to bring about communism-all state that it's common sense to own and manage your work place as well as liberate the working class/poor so we must overthrow not just escape because we're anti-social

[Blake's Baby]

We're not Calvinists who reject a 'sinful' society. We don't 'lead by example' because we're not communist saints who inspire flocks of dumb worker-sheep to come and learn from us. We are, at best, workers who have grasped a bit more of the bigger picture than other workers, and are prepared to be part of the working class's organisation to do something about the situation we're all in. That's about it. We don't bring communism by inspiring personal example. Communism in one country is impossible, it's certainly impossible in one house/cave/barrel/freakshow.

There is no 'clean' money in capitalism, there is no way of living 'outside' of capitalism. Radical rejection can only go too far. Don't join the police force or the army, don't become a boss, but don't work for a wage? How does that help you or anyone else? If you can get away with unemployment and think it's a viable way of living, OK, but it's not going to bring about socialism.

As to becoming an 'outcast' - might it hurt the cause of socialism? Well, as you're not a saint or a guru leading by example, in some ways it's utterly unimportant. What you might find, however, is that you do try to get involved in any serious organising, that other workers will be very suspicious of you. If they think for example that you're either mentally disturbed or a middle-class hippie playing at radicalism, they may not take what you have to say seriously.

[Rafiq]

So long as the interests of the proletarian class are identical to your own (in terms of the class war), so long as you seek the destruction of bourgeois society and the dictatorship of the proletariat, you are a communist. You can be a serial killer as well, and you would still be a communist, so long as the tenets I put forward are still adhered by.

[Comrade #138672]

We're not Calvinists who reject a 'sinful' society. We don't 'lead by example' because we're not communist saints who inspire flocks of dumb worker-sheep to come and learn from us. We are, at best, workers who have grasped a bit more of the bigger picture than other workers, and are prepared to be part of the working class's organisation to do something about the situation we're all in. That's about it. We don't bring communism by inspiring personal example. Communism in one country is impossible, it's certainly impossible in one house/cave/barrel/freakshow.

There is no 'clean' money in capitalism, there is no way of living 'outside' of capitalism. Radical rejection can only go too far. Don't join the police force or the army, don't become a boss, but don't work for a wage? How does that help you or anyone else? If you can get away with unemployment and think it's a viable way of living, OK, but it's not going to bring about socialism.

As to becoming an 'outcast' - might it hurt the cause of socialism? Well, as you're not a saint or a guru leading by example, in some ways it's utterly unimportant. What you might find, however, is that you do try to get involved in any serious organising, that other workers will be very suspicious of you. If they think for example that you're either mentally disturbed or a middle-class hippie playing at radicalism, they may not take what you have to say seriously.That's a confronting post. I'm not saying that I'm a saint or anything like that. Are "saints" the only people who can set an example? Aren't we all living examples? Aren't humans like that, learning a lot by imitation? I've learned a lot from other people by their example. I wish to be able to offer others the same thing, since I'm grateful for it.

I feel that this topic has already helped me quite a bit. I've been performing much better at work today. My focus seems a lot better now. I want to thank you all for waking me up. Confronting posts are necessary, even when I don't always "like" what I read.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Capitalism is a system, the world is where we live.

No point becoming an outcast mate, it'll fuck you up and achieve nothing. Collective action > lifestylism.

[Blake's Baby]

That's a confronting post. I'm not saying that I'm a saint or anything like that...

We'll see...


...
Are "saints" the only people who can set an example? Aren't we all living examples? Aren't humans like that, learning a lot by imitation? I've learned a lot from other people by their example. I wish to be able to offer others the same thing, since I'm grateful for it...

If you think that an inspiring personal example is the way to bring about a better state of being for others (ie, you are on this earth as a living inspiration) then yes I think the terms 'saint' and 'guru' are absolutely appropriate.

Saints were usually once living people. St Martin, St Columba, St Denis, St David, St Patrick... their letters and books survive, they're not just nmade up out stories (like St Michael, and probably St George). They usually recieved the title of 'sanctus' ('holy') in their lifetimes because of their inspiring example. How is this not what you are talking about?


...I feel that this topic has already helped me quite a bit. I've been performing much better at work today. My focus seems a lot better now. I want to thank you all for waking me up. Confronting posts are necessary, even when I don't always "like" what I read.

I'm glad I could help.

Revulsion with the horrors of capitalism is I think a perfectly natural reaction. Capitalism is brutal and anti-human, and it's only natural to want to escape it. But we can only escape it as a species, not as individuals. And the only force that can bring about its destruction is the working class.

That means we have to get involved. Not say 'I'm a great example of how to avoid capitalism, be like me', but to involve ourselves in working-class self-organisation. In the end, that's what's going to do the job of destroying capitalism and creating a better world - not personal rejection of unpleasantness.

[sickle]

Money. Communists and money?!

Money and even trade aren't necessarily capitalist though. It's more about restlessly seeking profit.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

I still have some of these problems. Although work has always been uninteresting shit I do just to get money. I have basically the same problem with clothes and stuff as the OP does. I don't see it as a problem though. Why am I going to spend more money on a commodity that has no more use/less use to me as a cheaper one. Like people always complaining that I should get a newer, cooler, car. My van I inherited is fine, it gets me from point a to point b just fine. I start to just see the use-value in a thing without really seeing the real use-value in them if you know what I mean. People aren't buying those expensive shoes so they don't walk around barefoot, they buy them because it makes you cooler for some odd reason.

Is it a bad thing? I don't think it's a positive or negative to tell you the truth. I never understand the people who go on and on about how communism isn't a lifestyle. Going from whatever you were before to a Marxist perspective is necessarily going to bring a change in thinking and how you analyze the world and your place in it. So if your choice of music, movies, clothes, etc, start to change, it's not necessarily a bad thing. Maybe you'll be a social outcast in our capitalist society, maybe you won't(I don't think I have become one). There's a lot of social outcasts out there to be organized :D