The Democracy of the founding fathers was Greek Democracy, predicated upon a slave society, and restricted to only the elite. This is the society we live in today, even with our reforms towards direct representation. The system is inherently biased towards the election of elites and against the representation of the masses. Hamilton called it “faction” when the working class got together and demanded better conditions, and mechanisms were built in (which still exist to this day) that serve to ensure the continued dominance of the elite over the masses. The suffering of the many is intentional. The opulence of the wealthy is also. This is the intended outcome.
I suspect if we banned the ability to earn profits from farming, there wouldn’t be many people who would want to farm. Personally, I’d rather choose an unprofitable job that was less exhausting, like being a starving artist.
So something that always sort of happens in these conversations is when someone says “we should remove X” people go “well then X would be removed!”.
Like you’re right, if nothing else changed and tomorrow we just said to farmers “grow food or don’t lmao up to you” that wouldn’t work. But we’re not saying “abolish capitalism and then do nothing” we’re saying “we need to abolish capitalism and replace it with a more humane system”.
That means some things like that farming would need to look different, the horribly alienating and environment destroying model of farming largely driven by debt would indeed not make the transition. That doesn’t mean nobody has ideas on how to grow food.
There are all sorts of models from everyone having rotations in hard jobs, to giving people certain privileges for doing them (e.g. farmers are honoured with a festival holiday after harvests etc). Societies have found ways to get people to do hard work that aren’t just predicated in violence.
Lots of people aren’t opposed to doing hard work, we generally enjoy feeling useful and helping our communities. What makes hard work unappealing is stuff like “do this for me, I won’t ever respect you for it, and if you try to stop you will be starved or shot”.
Say it again from the rooftops!
you seem cool. From one earthling to another: thanks for advocating for a softer world.
Cheers. I had a bit of an epiphany lately, and can no longer stand by idly while such atrocities happen. I now actively seek to spread information and make myself well known as a communist, even knowing the dangers if the nascent fascist movement wins in the US.
-Karl Marx
We don’t have to hide who we are like the fascists, who take various names (libertarians, anarchism-capitalists, national socialists, etc etc) specifically to hide their true nature. As communists, we know our solution is not only right, it is inevitable. As Rosa once said, “It is socialism, or barbarism.” And we’re approaching the breaking point. So I’m done being subtle, slowly radicalizing people. It’s a successful venture, but it takes too long. We don’t have the time anymore. The best time to organize was 10 years ago, the second best time is now.
Join your local orgs. If you’re anarchist, food not bombs has always been great for me, but I encourage you to look into local socialist parties, and attempt to help them where they need. Direct action is important, but so is class consciousness and learning how to effectively organize mass movements. I was an anarchist for decades, only recently making the switch to communism, I still empathize with most of anarchism, and I think anarchists have an important part to play in our liberation struggle.
Unfortunately where I live has basically no anarchist tradition. Food not bombs petered out about 20 years ago and I’m not the one to restart it.
A local book store though has become a bit of a gathering point for refugee activism and the owner there is an anarchist so some community interest is spinning up and maybe we can get stuff off the ground.
Australia, where I live, has generally been deeply conservative aside from Gough (but the usa couped us so :( ). Our cities are designed without public squares to prevent convict uprising for example. Organising has always been difficult.
However there are a lot of people deeply hurt and confused right now over the rejection of the indigenous voice to Parliment. A terribly tragic thing, but it does represent a good opportunity to spread different ideas as people look for ways of finding a way forward and healing together after being shocked by the racism and hatred the right mobilised on.
What’s the Gough/USA coup about? A quick Google didn’t turn anything up
we elect socialist. Constitutional crisis, foul play, and lies oust him. He is replaced by a neoliberal reformer with close ties to the CIA (hawke)
socialist dude wanted to close us military bases in Australia.
No evidence the usa was involved but I mean c’mon. That’s 100% their playbook. We’re essentially a protectorate now with very limited independent diplomacy.
Individual farmers do tend to lose money. It’s a lifestyle, not a job. It’s hard, in extreme weather, and day off? Those are days you’re mending and tending to things you didn’t have time to on your working days. And yet they do it. And survive with theirs and neighbors products, and some subsidy in some form of other, perhaps not always legal. Kinda like any other wage slave that actually likes what they lucked into doing to survive.
Exactly, farming is hard work, and very few people would do it when they could do something easier for the same reward.