this post was submitted on 25 Oct 2024
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The state (as defined by Engles, Marx, Lenin, etc.) is the problem. Like this is exactly what it does by definition.
If the government forms an alliance with the market it becomes a slave to the market.
There are more homes than homeless, more food than starving kids. Life saving medicines can be extremely cheap to produce but are sold for fortunes. Everywhere you look, the bourgeoisie are literally holding people’s lives for ransom… and the government does nothing.
In fact the government does less than nothing. It is the government that facilitates the hoarding of these resources. It is the government that enforces patent laws that allow life saving medicines to be kept from those in need. It is the government that enables and legalizes this racketeering by the rich.
When you live in a society where politicians talk equally (or more) about how they’ll help the market as they talk about how they’ll help their citizens—which is what their job is supposed to be—are you really surprised?
Are you really surprised that a government which chooses to let its people go unhoused just to keep the real estate market up is a government in which wealth holds the power? Are you surprised that a government that shuts down worker strikes and forces compromise on the side of the exploited rather than solely on the side of exploitative corporations is a government that can be manipulated by the owner of multiple massive companies?
There is nothing surprising here. The system is working exactly as it is intended to. The problem is not a few members of the bourgeoisie colluding to manipulate the state because that’s how the state always works. The problem is the state.
If you would like to learn more about “the state” I suggest you read State and Revolution. That’s what made me switch from “oh we just need to tax the rich” to “the rich should not exist.” It also is just kind of impressive how Lenin describes many things that are very relevant today despite the fact he wrote this short book over a century ago.
To quote myself:
"Not so fun fact: The absolute richest dragons in all of fantasy, excluding Smaug, only have a net worth of several hundred million dollars. A Red Elder Wyrm will have, on average, around 2.5-3 million gold pieces of wealth, with an absolute maximum of 5 million gold pieces. That means that the absolute greediest, and richest type of dragon, by far, only has between 100,000 to 500,000 oz worth of gold.
Smaug being the absolute outlier because he had somewhere between 5 to 10 billion dollars worth of gold.
Now if you are wondering why I'm making a big deal about this, it is because 500,000 oz of gold is only worth about 1.1 billion US dollars. But that is the absolute outlier of the greediest type of dragon that there is. Still only looking at Chaotic Evil Red Elder Wyrms, the average would only be about 3.5 million gold pieces, or a mere 350,000 oz of gold. That's only about $850,000,000 and that is just the most average of the absolute greediest manefestations of greed that our limited minds could imagine. Most dragons would be absolutely fine with between $1,000,000 to $10,000,000. The literal manefestations of greed don't need more than $10,000,000 according to every treasure table.
Those people that have more than 100 million dollars have already passed the greed alignment chart into Chaotic Evil. They are damn near caricatures of dragons at this point."
Marx and Engles saw these "worse than dragons" manifested in their time in the form of Rockefeller and Carnegie. I'm certain that they believed that we would never allow ourselves to be subjegated and stolen to the extent that there would be thousands of individuals whos fortunes would make Rockefeller and Carnegie blush with shame at not being as exploitative as their contemporaries.
That's a really good illustration but also I wanted to point out that it's not merely some people choosing to be exploitative - though there is no doubt that the likes of Zuckerberg and Bezos and the Musk are that way, ofc - but rather the system being geared to allow or even encourage thus.
e.g. Donald Trump failed at everything he did in life, and according to one analysis would have "made" 8x more money 💰 if he had simply left it in the bank 🤑 untouched by all his various bankruptcies, including somehow casinos that are basically money printers 🖨️.
They played the game sure, but someone made the game, and we all choose to watch it happen and do next to nothing about it.
very well said