Bonus points for implying Parenti is one too.
Another one:
Summarises it better than I could. I used to watch him, along with other content creators, but it’s been a while so don’t remember exact examples. The above hits the nail on the head when it comes to the overarching issue.
The fact Hakim promotes Parenti, if I remember correctly, is one sign of his liberalism. The fact he runs a sub like r/TheDeprogram which is one in a long line of western petit bourgeois leftist meme subs (succeeding MoreTankieChapo and GenZedong) and the fact many of his podcast’s followers there are Dengists is another sign of his liberalism.
The fact he has a (fairly successful) YouTube channel where he makes relatively short, relatively shallow, “snappy” videos, as well as a podcast, is a clear sign of the petit bourgeois nature of the commodity production (“content creation”) he’s engaged in. And I think the fact he has a fairly successful Patreon from which he funds his own survival + the continuation of his petit bourgeois commodity production pretty much by definition makes him a fairly successful petit bourgeois. And the fact it is his political propaganda which directly affords him this class status is problematic to say the least.
E: Please keep in mind that me as well as many others are deriving this stuff from personal as well as collectively experiences and observations. I’m not just randomly thinking oh he’s petit bourgeois so fuck him. I personally spent years consuming leftist content on YouTube and the like and did not learn shit about the philosophy and theory of Marxism or the history of communism. I had a very superficial understanding of things despite spending years watching this stuff and it showed when I started engaging with the sub we’re on right now since people here actually have a more in depth understanding of Marxism. I’ve basically had to start over which is what I’m doing now, I’ve tried to put away all I think I know and started studying Marxist texts, starting from the basics, a few months ago. This is my own personal experience but if you talk to other people here you’ll find it’s not unique at all. Leftist content is legitimately not a good way to learn Marxism, at best if it somehow manages to be devoid of liberalism it’s just an entertaining thing to do in your free time, but even then there’s so little leftist content that is actually revolutionary, exactly for the reasons I described above, that leftist content creators work within the framework and by the rules of petit bourgeois production in the industry of content creation. They are by default driven to produce content that will appeal to western petit bourgeoisie and labor aristocrats since those are the people who consume things like YouTube and podcasts the most. If your concern is to just consume leftist whatever then okay, keep watching it. But if you want to become a Marxist and an actual communist, i.e. the vanguard of the global proletariat, you’ll have to do better than that.
PSA: STANDARD OF LIVING IS NOT A MEASUREMENT OF SINGLE USE PLASTIC AND GASOLINE EXPENDITURE. THE VAST MAJORITY OF WESTERNERS CAN SEE MASSIVELY IMPROVED LIVES, WITH LEISURE AND HEALTHCARE, WHILE ALSO REDUCING THEIR CARBON FOOTPRINT.
If you had to buy 5 washing machines over a 20 year period, you’re 5 times as prosperous as someone who only bought 1, right?
I can feel the upholstery of the armchair coming off this.
the fact many of his podcast’s followers there are Dengists is another sign of his liberalism
there it is. fucking ultras
I’ve never understood the western ultra’s obsession with poverty. They seem to love the idea of a society where everyone is equally destitute and owning anything more than the clothes on your back is bourgeoisie decadence. And I don’t understand how they ever expect to get the people on their side with this attitude either. Are people, in the west especially, consumer-brained and obsessed with buying products? Absolutely, but you don’t fix that by forcing everyone into the other extreme. Consumption in moderation is fine, it isn’t a goddamn “sin” to enjoy things.
Please keep in mind that me as well as many others are deriving this stuff from personal as well as collectively experiences and observations.
…
I had a very superficial understanding of things despite spending years watching this stuff
…
I’ve basically had to start over which is what I’m doing now, I’ve tried to put away all I think I know and started studying Marxist texts, starting from the basics, a few months ago.
If this doesn’t sum up the “breadtube” mindset I don’t know what does. Wait until they learn they’ve gotta study history and do praxis to properly understand the theory, too. My buddy who attends his factories union meetings and keeps up on labor news has a better understanding of this than anyone who’s exclusively been consuming Marxism as a product-identity-brand via YouTube and Reddit. That doesn’t make Hakim a liberal.
as westerners our class interests are aligned with the bourgeoisie
i will remember this as i choose once again whether to buy food or power lol
On my way to tell an American living in a tent city that they have more in common with the rich because they live in the West. Libs are so fucking sheltered and blind to the poverty around them. What part of ‘economic crisis’ and ‘millennials are so poor that they can’t afford to start a family even if they wanted to’ do they not understand?
This idea that life would be harder under communism in the modern era is laughable. Capitalism is ridiculously wasteful, we could produce far less and still have everything we need if we did it within our means instead of the stupid shit capitalism does like throw out tons of food or build disposable single-use crap that breaks in five seconds because muh profits.
Not only would most people be better off, but our lives would be easier and more fulfilling under communism.
Poor liberals see their poverty but they can’t imagine a better system so they think they gonna be as poor but without funkopop and camgirls from the third world
They’d rather communism be like a christian rapture separating the good people from the bad people (they’re one of the good ones) than actually improve this current world.
You might enjoy this essay: Western Marxism, the Fetish for Defeat, and Christian Culture by Jones Manoel, if you haven’t seen it already
I’ve read it. It’s good.
Its like yeah sure maybe we dont have streaming services and cars for every single person but at least you have a free tram/trainline and free cable, with the time to enjoy it.
He’s correct in that ending exploitation will make life less cushy for westerners for a while. I mean look at France and Niger. Niger is no longer selling uranium for pennies, and France is talking about military intervention. You don’t do that unless you know your people will become unruly because you refuse to give in to the ‘others’ demands for fairness. You don’t see frenchies rioting in support of ending French imperialism, so yes, communism will be a hard sale for citizens who directly benefit from the suffering of others.
And I think the fact he has a fairly successful Patreon from which he funds his own survival + the continuation of his petit bourgeois commodity production
Hakim probably owns a nice PC and a microphone lol. People really read Marx one time and think “damn everyone’s a business owner because they also make money outside of being bossed around.”They are by default driven to produce content that will appeal to western petit bourgeoisie and labor aristocrats since those are the people who consume things like YouTube and podcasts the most. If your concern is to just consume leftist whatever then okay, keep watching it. But if you want to become a Marxist and an actual communist, i.e. the vanguard of the global proletariat, you’ll have to do better than that.
I agree. I like the boys, but even their podcasts can be tiresome to listen to because they usually only have on American guests or other westerners and talk about American topics despite it being an international podcast.
I actually agree with this guy for the most part. Hakim and Parenti are definitely not liberals lol, but there is some wishful thinking when it comes to the lead up and outcome of communism.
I agree. I like the boys, but even their podcasts can be tiresome to listen to because they usually only have on American guests or other westerners and talk about American topics despite it being an international podcast.
lol They actually have nonwesterners on their show and go to great lengths to talk about nonwestern issues, but go off.
I actually agree with this guy for the most part. Hakim and Parenti are definitely not liberals lol, but there is some wishful thinking when it comes to the lead up and outcome of communism.
I don’t. Also, revolutionary optimism is a good thing.
Yeah, some non westerners. I can count on my hand. And I used to listen to it every day, and almost everything was US/Europe centric. Otherwise I wouldn’t be listening to other podcasts for news.
revolutionary optimism is a good thing.
Why? Optimism when everything is shit and has 0 signs of getting better is just religion.
Wait so you’re criticizing a podcast you don’t even listen to lol
Why? Optimism when everything is shit and has 0 signs of getting better is just religion.
You really showed your hand here. It just screams cynical atheist shit. Without revolutionary optimism, you just fall down into a nihilistic reactionary hole. Things ARE happening even if you want to deny material reality.
The fact that you defend small business tyrants further down the thread just adds onto it.
if you don’t believe in things getting better then why be a socialist
also wanting people in the west to have shelter medicine and food is petit bourgeoise unlike supporting the actual petit bourgeoise
Why? Optimism when everything is shit and has 0 signs of getting better is just religion.
Undialectical. No condition is permanent.
Pessimism of the mind, optimism of the spirit
They recently had a Russian marxist (Agit Prop) on, and in the comments people were calling for more Marxists from the periphery, like História Pública from Brazil. I hope this is a sign of them getting more “serious”, y’know.
Looking for some peoples’ opinions on here. On a purely practical/strategic level, and not a moral level, do we have to sort of slowly coddle the west into gradually not exploiting the rest of the world, so that they don’t just flip fascist and fucking glass the whole planet with nukes?
Been thinking about that. Are there enough labour hours and resources going to the rich to sorta divert that to all other westerners and make up for the lack of global resource extraction? Can we so dramatically improve lives in non-resource intensive ways, that people in the west feel fine about a lack of iPads or whatever?
20% of Americans are already salivating for a literal apocalypse. Obviously it’d be a lot funnier to just whip that rug out but I think their lack of treats would end carbon based life idk
there is definitely enough going to the super rich that if we cut them off there would be more than enough man hours and stuff to maintain average standard of living without exploitating the global south. Capitalists aren’t known for their reluctance to cut labour costs
Capitalism is when money
Communism is when no money
All this means is you probably won’t have a dumb af square grass lawn and will instead live in a nice walkable city in a 13 story building like China. People act like life in places like Havana and Shanghai are so bad and makes it impossible to have a good standard of living
I think we finally found the one true leftist
Where’s that map that shows that an even global distribution of wealth would still mean a net uptick for the average American?
I know exactly what you’re talking about I think, I’m very confident I’ve seen this years and years ago.
It was pretty much the top result for “wealth redistribution map” too. Random blog post
Seems to be from 2019 so all the COVID financial market boom, all the new billionaires not accounted for. Funny that Canada/Europe/AUS/JPN would lose out, but not saying how much, even 10-20% is nothing really but in the current year 2023 I’m pretty sure everyone would increase.
Funny that Canada/Europe/AUS/JPN would lose out, but not saying how much, even 10-20% is nothing really but in the current year 2023 I’m pretty sure everyone would increase.
I imagine a lot of this (definitely for Canadians, at least, from what I’ve heard from a friend up there) is counting the market value of their home towards their wealth. And yeah decommodifying housing would result in a lot of people losing “wealth” but who cares?
I don’t believe that Canadians would truly lose anything by any sensible metric.
I think it’s funny that even ‘socialist’ Scandinavia stands to gain
lol ok then wtf is this guy doing posting on reddit then lol, why isnt he raging a 1 man guerilla war in the everglades or something lol
“consuming content” … libs just can’t get over that hump of “im a good little consumer”
they are slaves to the consoom
This loser is trying to make some point about dependency theory when Hakim already has plenty of videos on unequal exchange and dependency theory.
Looks at Hakim’s channel
Wait, why did he take down so many of his old videos?
Wait, why did he take down so many of his old videos?
YouTube took them down mysteriously. Hakim has been trying to get them back, but it seems since he remade one of his older videos, it must not be going well.
He uses stock footage from the Soviet Union, might be copyright strikes
but they are public domain
Makes it easy to pretend to own them lol
There’s a dude who claimed bird chirps. YT has contracts with Sony and the like that basically say “Yeah, any ruling will go in your favor”.
I am calling for a total and complete shutdown of Silicon Valley until our NKVD representatives can figure out what the hell is going on
Was wondering that myself actually…
by definition makes him a fairly successful petit bourgeois
average salary for a doctor in iraq - ~65k usd per year after tax
1/3 of the estimated income from the deprogram patreon - ~59k usd per year before conversion fees and taxliterally not petit bourgeoisie
make the majority of your income through wage labour - you’re working classplus he does good work anyway
I’ve never understood this western ultra perspective of “if you make $1 more than X amount, you’re petite bourgeois.” if someone is a socialist, it doesn’t matter if they are relatively well off under capitalism, because they still see the issues with the system itself. Are these people going to decry Engels because he was a factory owner?
if someone is a socialist, it doesn’t matter if they are relatively well off under capitalism
there are some arguments to be made about low revolutionary potential and out-of-touch-ness that comes from being comfortable, but broadly i agree, mostly
Oh for sure, I don’t mean someone can’t be suspect for being a member of the petite bourgeoisie, but class traitors do exist, and as they have access to the resources most of us lack under capitalism, they can be quite valuable in organizing.
Holy shit Iraqi doctors are killing it Jesus
Insane to think about how Hakim makes literally over 10 times the average Iraqi salary yet he had his house blown up by an American missile
it’s why i’m a lot softer with privilege (compared to average in their country) when it comes to people from the global south
it doesn’t mean dick when the evil empire comes knocking
Does he own his own office? I would accept calling him petit bourgeoisie if he does, but he’s obviously a comrade either way and if he’s bourgeois he’s a very good class traitor.
from the episodes i’ve caught, he works in a hospital
a public one too, pretty sure he works for the health service/department
Think he’s a urologist. Explain him talking about balls and dicks all the time.
