How Do Communists Live

[uncontent_soul]

Do all communists dress differently like punk rockers. Do they grow their own food and make everything they can. How do they live without supporting capitalism. This is a serious question I've been thinking about. I don't know because I'm just a teenage commie who studies the politics but doesn't go to protests or anything because I don't know where they'd be and y comserative family wouldn't drive me there... Can someone explain the average lifestyle of a modern day communist in North America?

[Blake's Baby]

No, communists don't generally dress differently or grow their own food. We can't live without supporting capitalism, t's not really possible as individuals to live outside of capitalism unless you want to live wild in the woods or something.

[#FF0000]

I know some folks who live in squats and who try to live some kind of alternative lifestyle, but most of the communists I know are regular people who aren't hugely into any subculture. Being a communist or anarchist isn't a lifestyle and like Blake's Baby said, you can't escape capitalism.

[Futility Personified]

The former head of the naxalites enjoyed rolling around on a pile of money, if that helps.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

Do all communists dress differently like punk rockers. Do they grow their own food and make everything they can. How do they live without supporting capitalism. This is a serious question I've been thinking about. I don't know because I'm just a teenage commie who studies the politics but doesn't go to protests or anything because I don't know where they'd be and y comserative family wouldn't drive me there... Can someone explain the average lifestyle of a modern day communist in North America?

Hey there! Communists are people just like everyone else, some who go to work, are hard workers, slackers, others go to school, excel or fail, go to the grocery, take care of kids, etc. We are people like you see everyday for the most part. Being a political movement that advocates for a society without classes, where there is only one class which administers society, the working class, and for there to be as much equality as possible among people globally, most communists are relatively poor. Me personally: I grew up in a middle class household until I was 5 years old and introduced to poverty when me and my mother moved to the big city for her to work and study. Things became slightly easier when my mother became a professional worker and I went out to work. Now I attend college and work on weekends and full time during summers.

[Ele'ill]

I think lifestyleism is better illustrated as liberal activism, buttons, violently peaceful protests, etc.. but it can be different from anarchist/communist practice that happens to be daily living such as squats that serve utility to some extent or if there is effort made towards a network of squats, or growing food in abandoned lots within sections of cities that are food deserts or anywhere really, reclaiming space and having a desire to understand how it can be used as action and not just a thing to toot your own horn. Not that liking how you look when you get dressed or being social at a tame protest are inherently bad things but there's a difference imo

[RedWorker]

Communists do not advocate not buying things. It's not like capitalism is going to explode because people stop buying. Switch to an economic system where everyone makes his own things (which is impossible) would be reactionary - the opposite of what communism intends. Capitalism is better than such a possibility.

[Guardia Rossa]

We live in the woods subsisting from roots and fruits, and we mine iron in secrecy to fabricate AK-47's, so we then attack the city and declare a socialist empire.

Wait.

[G4b3n]

We end up supporting capitalism in the material sense in the same way bourgeois revolutionaries supported feudalism without making some kind of weird isolationist break with society.

[Creative Destruction]

well, my wife and i are moving into an old rv soon (just bought one!) and making it "off grid," meaning we'll be collecting water, composting our waste, running off of solar energy, and "living small" while also growing our own food.

but that's because we enjoy doing that and don't want an apartment or house, and we'd still be "supporting" or having to participate in capitalism because capitalism is a total system. you can't "escape" it unless you somehow maroon yourself on an island and find a way to survive. by virtue of being students and workers, we're going to have to buy stuff; clothes, food and what not. the lifestyle we're choosing doesn't have much to do with our politics. most communists probably do not, and do not want, to live that way.

[Ele'ill]

Desertion

[Luís Henrique]

We live like everybody else; the only difference is that we know that living like that will lead us into disaster.

Other than that, we avoid using T-shirts sporting reactionary slogans. But you can be a communist in a suit, or in punk rock gear, and you usually have to work. For a capitalist company, no less. Beware of those who don't work for the enemy - they usually are the enemy.

Luís Henrique

[motion denied]

Beware of those who don't work for the enemy - they usually are the enemy.

Haha that's good

[mushroompizza]

Most of the commies I know are nerds who got really into politics one summer and became lefties, I know one guy who is just kind off a hippie. We easily fit into society we dont burn buildings and wear Mohawks.

[uncontent_soul]

Define liberal activism and reactionary slogans.

[oneday]

well, my wife and i are moving into an old rv soon (just bought one!) and making it "off grid," meaning we'll be collecting water, composting our waste, running off of solar energy, and "living small" while also growing our own food.


Ah, sounds like you might be inspired by the Good Life (http://www.amazon.com/The-Good-Life-Nearings-Self-Sufficient/dp/0805209700). How a couple of socialists lived a largely self sufficient lifestyle. Both of them had incredibly long lives which is probably a hint of how much stress living in capitalist society puts on our bodies and brains.

[The Intransigent Faction]

Define liberal activism and reactionary slogans.

JRB7g2TSn3k

[uncontent_soul]

Post the link I'm doing this on a phone and can't see it.

[VivalaCuarta]

We metabolize complex organic molecules by aerobic respiration.

[Comrade Jacob]

I dress Goth but I've been doing that longer than I've been a Communist for.

[motion denied]

We metabolize complex organic molecules by aerobic respiration.

yea right

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Eh i live ok

[Rafiq]

A Communist today is only a Communist insofar as they attempt to carry on a legacy. There is presently no Communism in the 21st century, so to be a Communist is to struggle to carry on a historic tradition. It is erroneous to claim that being a Communist demands no moral qualifications, and simply amounts to "wanting" this or that society. Of course we can do nothing on any scale to encourage this, but to carry oneself around as a Communist definitely should have life-style altering ramifications one way or another.

This does not amount to trivial, or stupid preferences about what one wants to wear, eat, or do on their free-time. The point is that to act as a Communist should have universal potential, regardless of how one "lives" their life. Meaning it is within the crevices of one's actions and decisions that being a Communist should make a difference. If one witnesses, for example, a rape and decides to do nothing- you can't truly be a Communist in your heart if you go about your day as though you saw nothing. You cannot be a Communist if you can watch a yuppie scold a homeless person without either being strongly inclined to fuck them up, or actually do it. You cannot be a Communist if you're slimy, dishonest and a scoundrel with the reference point being your own ends. You cannot be a Communist, in other words, if you live a life solely for self-fulfillment. Because this itself is an ideological, moral framework which is independent of your actual, immediate wants. This kind of righteous narcissism as ideological a platitude as the Islamist who will blow himself up for his god.

I mean, of course there are lifestyle ramifications for being a Communist. Because there is no Communist movement, we are all in one way or another inclined to a kind of crowd mentality. It takes vigor, and it takes effort to be able to fight these in the name of the ideas of Communism.

[IrishAnarchist]

I have lived in squats but this was due to not being able to afford rent at the times. I would like to grow my on fruit and veg but I have no land :grin: maybe some day ill be able to use some land for this purpose. Iv lived with people in squats that are apart of a subculture of punks and hippys. Some people that Iv lived with survive by taking food from bins that big retailers throw out, like aldi, tesco, marks and spencers, etc. I'm not part of a subculture and a lot even most communist/anarchists I know arent a part of one either.

Other than that I live the same life as most other people :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: work when i can find it, pay rent when i can afford it and buy crap in shops what i need:grin: :grin:

[Creative Destruction]

Ah, sounds like you might be inspired by the Good Life (http://www.amazon.com/The-Good-Life-Nearings-Self-Sufficient/dp/0805209700). How a couple of socialists lived a largely self sufficient lifestyle. Both of them had incredibly long lives which is probably a hint of how much stress living in capitalist society puts on our bodies and brains.

I've never seen that book. This is a by-product of my growing up. We had to live "self-sufficiently" because our power or water would get cut off from time to time.

[Red Star Rising]

We all live secret lives as cultists who try to spawn Cthulu. We hide in our parents basements setting the subjective conditions for the dictatorship of the lovecraftiat by smoking weed and posting on Revleft. Also we breathe fire.

[John Nada]

We live only in secluded bases high in the mountains in preparation for the insurrection and to protect ourselves from the petty-bourgeois influence of the cities. Grateful peasant allies provide food and shelter for the land reform we conducted. We don't shave in honor of Marx and because shaving razors are bourgeois decadence. We wear red berets, Red Army uniforms, Mao suits, Black pajamas and saddles, as well as Lenin suits for special occasions such as International Worker's day and the anniversary of the October Revolution in November. This helps connect us to the peasant and proletarian masses, they see themselves in us and relate.

For food and supplies we launch raids on Kulaks and Walmarts in petty-bourgeois suburbs. Only organic though, to deprive the imperialist capitalist Monsanto of superprofits. We avoid big pharma's snake oil and learn local knowledge of herbs from oppressed peoples. Failing that, buy some knock-off penicillin from Socialist Cuba.

Kalashnikovs in hand, we conduct armed propaganda wherever we go. This consist of big-character posters, songs chronicling the Paris Commune and the Great Patriotic Anti-Imperialist War, and popular proletarian slogans such as "Death to the Khrushchevite revisionist Bernsteins!""Down with the Deng Xiaoping Clique!" "Stop the Kautskyite imperialist running dogs!""Land to the tiller!""Hands off the Democratic People's Socialist Republic of Cascadia!""Beware of White Guard counterrevolutionary bandit wreckers!""Long live the strategic defensive!". These compelling demands swell our Party ranks with new cadre from the oppressed masses.:lol:

[bcbm]

The former head of the naxalites enjoyed rolling around on a pile of money, if that helps.

nothing wrong with that imo