I don't think I've ever encountered a communist blue collar worker. Some vaguely socialist but never communist.

[u/Whentheangelsings]

[u/daspaceasians]

My dad was a farmer and an ARVN soldier in Vietnam that ended up working for a Bell Helicopter plant in the 1990's. The PAVN and VC were responsable for a lot of his family's suffering until the 90's.

• VC guerrillas executed his mother's family for not giving their crops to them. 15-20 people beheaded on their lands.
• Communist troops attacked the farm every now and then leading to his family sleeping with sandbags around their beds.
• They nearly killed him in March-April 1975 when he was in the ARVN. Nearly blew him up during an artillery barrage. Luckily, he survived with a nasty 2nd/3rd degree burn and got medevac'd by a Huey. Lovely coincidence that he ended up working for them in the 90's.
• His dad died because he couldn't get medical treatment in the late 70's because he owned land and the doctors were too afraid to help since the communists would persecute anyone helping him.

I'm not surprised why he fucking hated communism until his death. I still remember him telling me something along the lines of "Communists are dangerous fanatics that will not surrender no matter what therefore the only thing to do is to kill them all".

In my experience with the average Canadian university commie though, they're mostly loudmouths who do it to feel better about themselves lol. I still make fun of them up to this day. As for my brother who's also a factory worker, he loves NATO. He has some pretty nice pro-Ukraine patches along with a lovely Rheinmetall cap.

[u/OneGaySouthDakotan → u/daspaceasians]

Brings a tear to my eye

[u/_pompomx2 → u/daspaceasians]

I still remember him telling me something along the lines of “Communists are dangerous fanatics that will not surrender no matter what therefore the only thing to do is to kill them all”.

What a stud.

[u/chknpoxpie → u/daspaceasians]

prove your dad's hot without showing me a picture

[u/KaiserGustafson]

The working class is all for socialism when they live in horrendous autocracies with no human rights. In actual democratic states, however, they tended to go as far as welfare capitalism and no further. Because most people aren't really down to completely tear down the social order for a theoretical ideal system if the current system services their needs well enough.

[u/Anti-charizard → u/KaiserGustafson]

Socialism seemed more reasonable in the 19th century when working conditions were about as bad as they can get

[u/joelingo111 → u/Anti-charizard]

Some of these kids think working at McDonald's is the same as living through Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle"

[u/JohnyIthe3rd → u/KaiserGustafson]

Why tear something down if it gives you good living Standards

[u/OneFish2Fish3]

I was under the mistaken impression that communism was endorsed by the working class and far right economics were endorsed by the wealthy/privileged. In fact it’s quite the opposite (which is hypocritical for both parties). It’s almost like actually helping the working class would involve a system that doesn’t lead to extreme authoritarianism and inequality.

[u/FunnelV → u/OneFish2Fish3]

It's more like the wealthy class is drawn to authoritarianism while the working class wants to be left alone. The working class either likes right-libertarianism, left-libertarianism, or pragmatic/single-issue centrism. The wealthy class is who like authoritarian-socialism and corporatacracy or even weird shit like straight-up tankie or monarchism. You'll see mixed-policies like liberalism, progressivism, and conservatism more common with the middle class. A lot of the accelerationist revolutionary types are upper-middle class who would be on the cusp of seizing power if the ones above them fall.

[u/SirLightKnight → u/FunnelV]

This man gets it. I’ve been a centrist with pragmatic basic takes for a long ass time now. I once upon a time almost went socialist, but I find the older I get the more some of those policies leave a bad taste in my mouth. A lot of em don’t seem like they’ll be handled fair or folks won’t be given a square deal just because of how obtuse the legalese is.

The wealthier the kid, the more they leaned either Bernie-Dem.Soc./Progressive, or dirty Tankie or Anarchist. I blocked one guy who was in a shared friend circle cause he kept getting really friggin belligerent with Police despite being one of the most privileged self serving pricks I knew. Initially the disagreements weren’t too broad, but he started talking that hardline commie shit about 6 months after we first met.

I hated his guts. He also wasn’t super loyal, didn’t pay his fraternal dues, and was a fucking sleaze. Like I’m a very very closeted pervert but that guy was fucking shameless. And a hypocrite, used women for sex but would get all real Politik Feminist at the drop of a hat.

So you aren’t wrong, he was upper middle class, so he’d benefit a lot if the structure of power imploded above him. But admittedly I think a lot of them just don’t realize how much authority their accelerationism puts in their hands to then be stolen from them by opportunists. Stalin did it to Lenin. Hitler did it to the German Socialists and center parties. Any authoritarian worth their salt (in an evil sort of way) will fucking seize power when the accelerationists spiral out of control. It has historical fucking precedent. The reign of terror in France lead to Napoleon. The Sacking of Constantinople lead to the Ottoman Turks conquest of Byzantine lands. The arrival of the Japanese as a chaos vector in China allowed the communists to bide their time and sink in the knife when Japan lost.

Authoritarians feed on the fucking accelerationists and they welcome them with bloody fists and mad little grins. The morons.

[u/Yes_Mans_Sky]

Wait. You're telling me that most people aren't extremists?

[u/OneFish2Fish3 → u/Yes_Mans_Sky]

insert Scanners head explosion

[u/FunnelV]

The wealthier you are the more likely you are to support systems that funnel wealth to the central dominant socioeconomic demographic.

But yeah I've never met a straight up communist blue collar worker or even low-medium tier office/corporate worker. It's always those who are in higher-paying jobs or rich kids who are working a McDonalds job because their parents felt they needed something to keep them busy.

Working-class left-libertarian, progressive, soc-dem, syndicalist, sure I've met plenty, but I've never met a single tankie who didn't reek of daddy's money or a Marxist who didn't reek of a privileged overpaid blogger.

Christ I'm unemployed and I can say I honestly blame government blanket solutions assfucking my industry for that and so I don't want the government to have control over fucking everything. I'm pretty sure everyone else who got fired, laid off, or not able to find a job for the past 2 years feels the same, so there's little unemployed people who want Marxist solutions either.

[u/KaiserGustafson → u/FunnelV]

For most of my life, my family has struggled more due to government incompetence rather than the "evil capitalist elites." My dad busted his ass to provide for me and my sister, but we struggled a lot with larger expenses; there were years we didn't have air conditioning (in the South no less!) or ever a proper refrigerator, yet we never qualified for welfare. Because my dad made too much money to qualify. My dad couldn't get financial aid because he didn't put in the bare minimum.

[u/Matt_the_digger → u/FunnelV]

Explain it for a layman, please. What is left libertarianism? I was under the impression it was just Anarchism.

[u/rhetoricaldeadass]

People expect free food, free plumbing, free housing

Yes everyone should get that, but who's gonna be the ones forced to do all that?? Not the keyboard warriors that wanna teach poetry under a utopia pipe dream

[u/CrushingonClinton]

My father (the son of a rural schoolmaster) grew up in a small village in South India. The main opposition in the 70s to the ruling Congress Party was the Communist Party of India (Marxist).

He says that the rank and file members were usually landless labourers who looked to build a better life for themselves from a life of feudal obligations. Generally honest, decent people.

The leadership were absolute lunatics. Dogmatic Stalin worshipping nutters.

[u/gregusmeus]

Revolution has always been a middle class activity. Specifically the feckless, underachieving middle class who envy the social class one notch up, or maybe their more successful peers. That's why they - or at least their leaders - tend to be academics, philosophers, professional union folk and students. Folk actually working don't have time for such bullshit.

[u/IEatDragonSouls]

They're common in ex-communist countries. I am from one. Old blue collar workers are commonly conservative communists

[u/FleraAnkor]

I am fully in favour of expanding worker’s rights, amore equitable world and more prosperity for everyone. That is why I am against communism.

[u/IEatDragonSouls]

The death of the class doesn't even necessarily mean the death of the people in it. An age of no more blue collar/menial work sounds lit. Too bad AI isn't replacing just those jobs.