People claim that i cannot be communist because my family is wealthy. This argument is just stupid in many ways, its as if you told a white person he cannot be against racism because he is part of a more privileged group. The people argumenting this pile of diarrhea which they interpret as a “gotcha” moment also seem to forget that a lot of revolutionaries were from wealthy families like Friedrich Engels, Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, Marx etc. Being communist has nothing to do with your class-background but your solidarity and the willingness to commit yourself to the liberation of the working class. Having petit-bourgeois, or even bourgeois parents does not make one hypocrit, you are a hypocrit the moment you exploit workers yourself. I myself met a lot of fake-intellectuals who made this argument which made me, as a baby leftist at that time, feel really insecure about the ideas i hold but at the end no true communist cares about wealth, power, luxury or anything as such. If somebody made me the offer that if i had to live the rest in my life in a small, cold, concrede apartment with no kithcen, bedroom or toilet in return all the people would be supplied with food, clothing and shelter…i wouldnt take a second to aggree.
Always remember Zhou Enlai quote on Khrushchev when he questioned him on coming from a priviledged family while he claimed to come from peasantry.
“True but we share a similarity. Each of us is a class traitor”.
Zhou Enlai go on hexbear
Was about to pull this up but I’m glad its well remembered on here, I like to think of it as one of the finest dunks of the 20th century.
Definitely up there lol. I also like Marx dunk on the writer of “the philosophy of poverty”, he called the critique “the poverty of philosophy” 😂 he then mentions his friendship ended after that.
Primo dunk
this cartoon captures it perfectly
Here are a few more similar comic panels from Matt Bors.
Unless you’re so performatively poor that you lack the means to meaningfully threaten capitalism whatsoever the liberals will brand you as a hypocrite.
And if you are that poor they’ll just giggle and clink wine glasses as your home is crushed by tanks so billionaires can make more magic cars with the minerals under your home.
They use this argument to dismiss anything you say without thinking about it.
I’m quite poor, so I get the other end of this “You’re just a communist because you want to leech off of other’s hard work.”
They’re just empty thought-terminating cliches, it doesn’t matter who you are, if you’re a communist, people will say stupid shit to you in order to dismiss communism without ever thinking about it.
Often the same people who say this are the same people who think they can’t talk about racism because they’re white. Nothing is ever a them problem. Everything is a you problem. They don’t like it when other privileged people stand with the oppressed. It makes them look bad and the cognitive dissonance is uncomfortable.
I’ve heard it before and I’ll repeat it here: this is related to the reason why liberals hate communists so much; our very existence forcibly reminds them that their empty idealist rhetoric doesn’t fill bellies, build homes, or prevent hate crimes.
Edit: I knew I’d read it recently, it was Criticalresist8, who put it like this:
They can’t reconcile the fact that they are not actually the most progressive and tolerant person in the room.
Removed by mod
I have seen quite a few American Maoists and ultras practically worship poverty, acting like the only way a socialist nation can be “truly” socialist is if everyone is equally poor, which is just nonsense. No one should be rich due to the exploitation of others, but that doesn’t mean people can’t be well off.
The ‘cambodian farmer’ approach.
What good intentions but a focus on aesthetics and lack of theory get you
I’d say it’s more an obsession with theory above all, for Maoists at least. That “reading theory” is a badge of honor, rather than understanding theory. Every conversation I’ve had with a Maoist has had them break out some obscure socialist thinker, some of whom I’ve never heard of, and uses that as a “gotcha” because they are “more well read” therefore anything I say is invalid.
Ironically Mao himself talked about this sort of thing in Oppose Book Worship, but they are big on memorizing theory to use cherry picked examples in arguments, not so much on actually understanding theory and using it to improve their cause.
It’s probably because they’re projecting that if their family was as wealthy as yours, they’d probably be a hardcore capitalist
If you’re poor and a communist, that’s just because you’re incapable of bootstrapping yourself upwards and jealous of successful people
When the chips are down, people normally fight for their self-interest.
The bourgeoisie fight for bourgeois interests.
Proletarians fight for labour interests.
Landlords aren’t going to willingly give up their free income and comfort in exchange for a life of labour. (Maybe 1% of them will.) They might say they will from the comfort of their armchair, but I’m talking when your life, your future are on the line.
If it’s during a revolution and people are being held at gunpoint to give up their property, I would counter that an extremely large portion of wealthy people would give up their wealth without much issue at all.
Possibly, but then they will seek to destroy the revolution by using infiltration and fascism. The revolution is not just the fighting and seizing of the MOP - it is the continued subordination of the local bourgeoisie to the DOTP and the defense against imperialism/the international (lead by the American) bourgeoisie.
Indeed, although there may be some bourgeois comrades, that number would likely be much fewer than WithoutFurtherDelay’s “extremely large portion”
My grandmother in Eastern Europe came from a wealthy aristocratic family but was a communist and gave up willingly all the lands and property.
45 years later corrupt anti-communist far right nationalists took power, canceled socialism and just divided it all up between themselves and their cronies…
That’s like saying you can’t be capitalist if you’re poor.
you can’t be both capitalist (bourgeois) and poor, but you can be liberal (pro-capitalism) and poor
That’s true. I hang around a libs too much and get my words mixed up.
I hear that. They are infectious.
Except that’s true
The idea that you’re obligated to show a system any gratitude just because you’ve benefit from it in some way (or even were shaped by it at all) is one of my least favorite parts of dealing with other people. A bizarrely deeply ingrained notion.
Stop thinking about those people who are still dirt poor. You’ve got yours now so pipe down. Try to be thankful rather than ungrateful.
Absolute inversion of reality, as usual. I also detest this kind of argument.
Only ever applies to the West. Chinese people who got everything they have under CPC rule don’t owe CPC anything, according to the same people.
Yeah fuck those people. If they’re communists saying this then they’re only damaging the movement and should shut the fuck up for the benefit of the world in general. If they’re not and trying to “gotcha” you, they’re idiots, and should be treated as such. It’s a bad faith argument and an attempt to discount you by making you out to be a hypocrite.
When people attempt to do this to me in person I have no problem warning them that I’m prone to smacking people who piss me off.
It’s just a way tonpremptively discredit anybody criticizing capitalism.
Oh, you think socialism is good, well then why dont you willingly make yourself destitute, ensuring you can’t have any impact on anything.
We should reclaim that gotcha. If capitalism is so equal, and hard work is such a source of pride, why don’t you give everything away and start from the bottom? It’s like presteiging business, think of all the pride you’ll cultivate!
If you are rich and a communist then you have a duty to donate to leftist movements. Don’t just be a rich guy who reads leftist books to pass the time. Your funding might make a huge difference in the long run. Imagine if Engels never financed Marx.
If you don’t know where to start, then I suggest you help with leftist independent media. Breakthrough News do a lot of good work.
im still 15 sadly and dont have independant money yet, if id like to donate to something i would need to ask my parent first until im 18
Understandable.
but i try to educate as much people on socialism as possible and i give money to the poor whenever i can.
True, im super rich and give at least 15% of my income per month to the DSA
They’re just socdems and won’t stop US imperialism. Imo, it’s better to donate to independent journalists like BN, Brian Berlectic, Grayzone and similar ones, than socdem organizations.
