Alienating non-communist proletarians and petit bourgeoisie

[RedQuarks]

It has become increasingly clear to me from family interactions and the desire to look out for them (in the event of revolution, as some are petit bourgeoisie) that alienating those who disagree with us simply doesn't work. Some continue to insist that the petit bourgeoisie are our enemy, but to some extent small entrepreneurship is almost socialist. This does depend, however, on how many employees are being hired and the philosophy. Some petit bourgeois do exploit to a great extent, even more so than larger private enterprise, but some others share profits almost equally, especially individual enterprises. For example, I have setup a small web development company to make money over the summer, not because I like capitalism, but because I need some means of obtaining money and do not want to be exploited doing medial labor for the bourgeois class. When that is the philosophy for starting a business, it is perfectly socialist, the petit bourgeois and white collar proletariat then only become bourgeois once they actually exploit, wage labor on a small scale isn't necessarily exploitation, although it often is.

I digress, what is more relevant is that as most of us know, the overwhelming majority of people alive have never touched a book written by any influential socialist nor do they want to. I know that it is tempting to go off on folks, for example, today I was asked how well "Socialist utopias that killed over 100m people worked." Ignoring the inaccuracy and that technically the USSR and PRC were never socialist, despite propaganda I was also told to kill myself and that I suffered cognitive disabilities. Again, however, many don't know what the word socialism means, and the dictionary definition doesn't make it any better as to most private property == personal property. Going from a head on approach mostly shuts folks down and you lose all credibility in their eyes. Instead, what I have found to be effective is to slowly ask them what their views are and to feed them accurate information, not propaganda, and then to explain socialism separately and open their eyes to the fact that they are socialists.

In a nutshell, we aren't going to get anywhere by telling people they are wrong and running about screaming socialism meanwhile the uneducated public laughs at us. We can continue to gather in half deserted meeting halls and sing songs, while typing angrily on forums like this as though it will solve anything, or we can be practical and be the friends of the petit bourgeois down to the common proletariat. By doing this you ensure that the most and least skilled in society are with you, allowing for focus on the true enemies of the proletariat -- the large bourgeoisie and the state bureaucrat and/or dictator.

[Heretek]

It has become increasingly clear to me from family interactions and the desire to look out for them (in the event of revolution, as some are petit bourgeoisie) that alienating those who disagree with us simply doesn't work. Some continue to insist that the petit bourgeoisie are our enemy, but to some extent small entrepreneurship is almost socialist. This does depend, however, on how many employees are being hired and the philosophy. Some petit bourgeois do exploit to a great extent, even more so than larger private enterprise, but some others share profits almost equally, especially individual enterprises. For example, I have setup a small web development company to make money over the summer, not because I like capitalism, but because I need some means of obtaining money and do not want to be exploited doing medial labor for the bourgeois class. When that is the philosophy for starting a business, it is perfectly socialist, the petit bourgeois and white collar proletariat then only become bourgeois once they actually exploit, wage labor on a small scale isn't necessarily exploitation, although it often is.

I digress, what is more relevant is that as most of us know, the overwhelming majority of people alive have never touched a book written by any influential socialist nor do they want to. I know that it is tempting to go off on folks, for example, today I was asked how well "Socialist utopias that killed over 100m people worked." Ignoring the inaccuracy and that technically the USSR and PRC were never socialist, despite propaganda I was also told to kill myself and that I suffered cognitive disabilities. Again, however, many don't know what the word socialism means, and the dictionary definition doesn't make it any better as to most private property == personal property. Going from a head on approach mostly shuts folks down and you lose all credibility in their eyes. Instead, what I have found to be effective is to slowly ask them what their views are and to feed them accurate information, not propaganda, and then to explain socialism separately and open their eyes to the fact that they are socialists.

In a nutshell, we aren't going to get anywhere by telling people they are wrong and running about screaming socialism meanwhile the uneducated public laughs at us. We can continue to gather in half deserted meeting halls and sing songs, while typing angrily on forums like this as though it will solve anything, or we can be practical and be the friends of the petit bourgeois down to the common proletariat. By doing this you ensure that the most and least skilled in society are with you, allowing for focus on the true enemies of the proletariat -- the large bourgeoisie and the state bureaucrat and/or dictator.

Anyone who goes around voicing anything blatantly is simply looking for the publicity, left or right. The only people who get convinced like that are people trying to seem 'cool.' Everyone serious operates through the "small corrections" approach. Generally fools on the internet though are not willing to have a dialogue beyond a few responses so you basically have to say what you mean and be done with it. Posters are almost always assured of their ideology anyways, hence their posting (they are the most correct and ideologically pure, in their opinion). Only on discussion forums is there any hope, not much even then, hence a lot of the people here having had the same ideology as when they arrived (albeit generally better informed).

Also all bourgeois are enemies of communism, regardless of who they are or act personally. It is literally the interest of, and indeed survival of, class that is at stake, and they will side against the destruction of it as such. Therefore they oppose the left, even if they are "socially proppressive" (ie, pro LGBT rights or anti-racist). "Nicer" capitalism is a misnomer, and is still capitalism. Competition drives the corner cutting, and even if they are the greatest people to work for, other workers and people in other lines of work and/or companies will suffer because of it (layoffs, bankruptcy, wage cuts, etc). I don't care if you support unemployment benefits if you were the one to cause it, or if there is an alternative to being unemployed in the first place (no I don't mean the 'full employment' bullshit).

[ckaihatsu]

Instead of getting bogged-down at the *small* scale, we could instead point to the fairly recent 'income inequality' political consciousness movement, and use *that* as a litmus test:

2009–present[edit]

The distribution of household incomes has become more unequal during the post-2008 economic recovery as the effects of the recession reversed.[66][67][68][69] CBO reported in November 2014 that the share of pre-tax income received by the top 1% had risen from 13.3% in 2009 to 14.6% in 2011.[1] During 2012 alone, incomes of the wealthiest 1 percent rose nearly 20%, whereas the income of the remaining 99 percent rose 1% in comparison.[22]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income...2.80.93present

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Also all bourgeois are enemies of communism, regardless of who they are or act personally. It is literally the interest of, and indeed survival of, class that is at stake, and they will side against the destruction of it as such.

This is *another* litmus-test -- would any given person show *favoritism* based on *money* / exchange-values, or would they *discount* such monetary-possession considerations in favor of equal-access-for-all -- ?

(In other words do people show *class bias*, or not -- ? This issue differentiates leftward-moving politics versus any conservatism -- based on using exchange values for any given good or service.)