the richest man in the world (240 bn net worth) is acting like he’s a lone crusader against corporate tyranny and his reactionary simps are lining up to lick his boots.

most historically-literate liberal

if I could attach the epub of that book on lemmy, I would.

…But instead I will do it on /leftypol/

https://leftypol.org/edu/src/1694148244108.epub

umberto eco

Xi Jinping is stupid

the chinese state is supposedly a ruthless machiavellian cunning genocidal dictatorial power structure but the guy who climbed to the top of it is dumb?

ah yes, the wolfsangel… about that…

Your whole woke thing is over. Trump will take 2024 and then normalcy will return.

Oh wow, you mean the ICE camps will open back up? Oh wait, Biden never closed them. What exactly are you threatening us with? Replacing one senile racist with another?

or by using the market by short-selling, using hedge funds, trading through illegal offshore numbered accounts, derivatives, etc.

Which is also just stealing surplus value by proxy, since return on investment is simply a share of the company’s profits, which is itself just surplus value, or unpaid labor.

it took centuries for capitalism to replace feudalism, and during those long centuries of mercantilism and colonialism, the rising bourgeoisie were suppressed by the feudal absolutist aristocracy. It was only after long centuries of class struggle that the bourgeoisie became the ruling class and the feudal aristocracy became a historical curiosity. And yet, in some parts of the world, there are still constitutional monarchs (England, Belgium) and absolute monarchs (Saudi Arabia). Some day, the proletariat will succeed the bourgeoisie, even if it takes centuries.

all the “ingenuity” amerikkka keeps sending to ukkkraine ends up getting destroyed by 50 year old soviet artillery so…

hmm, the social murder inherent in our current health care system must be radicalizing him right now since his brother Hank has cancer

Wow. I’ve been asking people that question since February 2022 and I have yet to receive a single Ruble from Mr. Putin.

you’re so wrong it’s hard to know where to even begin. You buy into the premise that the US arming reactionaries and building them up as a force to destabilize and entire region is somehow “protecting” people.

he was well known for his havana banana

It’s a good question. I don’t have an answer. I would need to think about it for longer

well given the relationship between base and superstructure, it’s less something people apply daily to their lives, and more it is something that is applied daily, by society’s base, to society’s superstructure, and vice-versa, regardless of whether people are aware of it. I don’t think it necessarily makes sense for an individual apply it to daily life, but I welcome corrections if I’m wrong about that.

the modern monetary theorists point out that taxes is how the demand for national currency as a commodity in and of itself is created. At least in a country with currency sovereignty, a fiat currency, and a debt that is denominated in its own currency (like the US). Basically, imagine if you actually managed to live the “yeoman farmer” dream. Imagine you actually got to own some land (paid off the mortgage) and started subsistence farming on it. Well you now have a huge economic incentive to stop participating in the economy, not have a job, feed yourself, and just fuck off and enjoy the rest of your life until you die. Good for you, bad for the nation. So you get property taxed. Well now you can’t just live off of your subsistence. You have to go get a job and earn dollars and participate in the economy at least enough to pay your property taxes. There’s no actual escape from needing participate in the economy and earn dollars, even if you try to pull off the libertarian meme of getting your own land and growing your own food and paying off your mortgage.

28:27 of this video explains what I’m rambling about

Of course the caveat here is that the real way to get around all this is to just become a capitalist exploiter, so that other people’s work earns you enough money to live off of. But by definition most people can’t become an exploiter, because exploitation is a pyramid scheme that requires more people at the bottom than at the top.