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.

  • HaSch@lemmygrad.ml
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    1 year ago

    If you’re rich and a communist it’s because you’re pampered, if you’re poor and a communist it’s because you’re jealous, and if you’re middle class and a communist it’s because you’re lazy. We have something for everyone!

  • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    If you were poor they would call you jealous. Throw their criticism out, it is worth less than nothing.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGC3uJadXh0

    If a rich man offers you money, take it and, the next day, kill him. When he says “But I gave you the money!” respond “Why did you give me the money, you idiot?”

    We live in brutal capitalism and we must brutally use it.

  • M68040 [they/them]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    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.

    • Red_Scare [he/him]@lemmygrad.ml
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      1 year ago

      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.

    • redtea@lemmygrad.ml
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      1 year ago

      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.

  • duderium [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    Capitalism was built with the ashes of feudalism, socialism is being built with the ashes of capitalism. All of us in the imperial core live in a capitalist society; everyone is tainted with it in some way. It’s not as though the first capitalist, when he was doing the first enclosure, looked at the land and was like “wait a minute, I’m a hypocrite since I’m using feudalism to destroy feudalism.” He didn’t care. “We will hang the capitalists with the rope that they sell us” has proven to be a pretty effective strategy.

  • 小莱卡@lemmygrad.ml
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    1 year ago

    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”.

  • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    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.

  • Valbrandur@lemmygrad.ml
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    1 year ago

    I once got told that I was a hypocrite for being a communist while simultaneously using a username in english, which, I quote, “was the language of the bourgeoisie”.

    I thought I had seen things hit rock bottom until I got told I could not be a communist and use money at the same time.

  • sinovictorchan@lemmygrad.ml
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    1 year ago

    The amount of wealth is not the sole indicator and neither is individual choice. There are the material condition, economic relation, and desire to reform the flawed capitalist system with its hypocritical command economy that allow free riding by a few spoiled manchild.

  • NothingButBits@lemmygrad.ml
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    1 year ago

    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.

    • MarlKarx@lemmygrad.mlOP
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      1 year ago

      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

  • MarlKarx@lemmygrad.mlOP
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    1 year ago

    oh we’re not millionaires tho just saying because where i live, millionaires are considered the point where you are officially considered “rich”. But the term rich has everywhere different meaning, i might be poor in Qatar but rich in South Sudan. Nothing is objective

  • redtea@lemmygrad.ml
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    1 year ago

    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.

  • DamarcusArt@lemmygrad.ml
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    1 year ago

    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.