Been reading Capital lately and I’m on Chapter 10, Section 3, where Marx describes the practices of capitalist industry where no regulation exists. I knew it was going to be bad, but somehow, for all my cynicism toward and awareness of capitalism, it was even worse than I expected. One of many examples Marx gives:
In the last week of June, 1863, all the London daily papers published a paragraph with the “sensational” heading, “Death from simple over-work.” It dealt with the death of the milliner, Mary Anne Walkley, 20 years of age, employed in a highly-respectable dressmaking establishment, exploited by a lady with the pleasant name of Elise. The old, often-told story, was once more recounted. This girl worked, on an average, 16½ hours, during the season often 30 hours, without a break, whilst her failing labour-power was revived by occasional supplies of sherry, port, or coffee. It was just now the height of the season. It was necessary to conjure up in the twinkling of an eye the gorgeous dresses for the noble ladies bidden to the ball in honour of the newly-imported Princess of Wales. Mary Anne Walkley had worked without intermission for 26½ hours, with 60 other girls, 30 in one room, that only afforded 1/3 of the cubic feet of air required for them. At night, they slept in pairs in one of the stifling holes into which the bedroom was divided by partitions of board. And this was one of the best millinery establishments in London. Mary Anne Walkley fell ill on the Friday, died on Sunday, without, to the astonishment of Madame Elise, having previously completed the work in hand. The doctor, Mr. Keys, called too late to the death-bed, duly bore witness before the coroner’s jury that “Mary Anne Walkley had died from long hours of work in an over-crowded work-room, and a too small and badly ventilated bedroom.”
And reading this, I got to thinking: so many liberals - excluding the ones at the top who knowingly lie to further their interests - defend capitalism as “the best system there is” without having any idea of just how horrific it is for those not at or near the top. These liberals work cushy office jobs on 8-hour days that workers fought and died for, enjoying the spoils of a globe-spanning empire, and they just do not even begin to comprehend the sheer scale of misery and killing that the system they champion perpetuates. Imperial genocide across five continents, mass killings of communists and socialists, country-destroying wars for profit, the slow and grinding annihilation of workers by overwork, hunger, pollution, treatable illness…
…and then they turn around and accuse us of not knowing what real suffering is or how bad things can be. They regurgitate gross exaggerations or complete fabrications of communism from half-remembered Cold War propaganda, but not even these fantastical horrors can compare to the reality of capitalism. It’s something that I think is unimaginable - literally unimaginable - to them.
Similar to when these shithead libs say that we’ve been brainwashed by Russian/Chinese propaganda and we’re all useful idiots for the redfash menace
Like motherfucker, do you hear yourself? I live in the fucking United States, I speak English, if it were just that I’m extra susceptible to propaganda, why the fuck am I falling for another country’s with massive language and culture barriers instead of just being really well propagandized by the constant incessant torrent of capitalist propaganda exploding out of every orifice of the mainstream liberal media in this country?
because america doesn’t have propaganda silly. propaganda is just the thing that china and russia does. it’s the thing where they lie to you. but they don’t have it in america, don’t worry. it’s just misinformation or bad reporting over there
Because we live in the Good Country™ that doesn’t do propaganda and they’re the Bad Country™ that does propaganda. Too many people have not yet killed their idealized version of the US that exists purely in fantasy instead of the blood-soaked monster the US is in reality
the “you’re brainwashed” thing has always fucking killed me lmao. you couldn’t have said it better, “motherfucker, do you hear yourself?”
how the actual FUCK did china brainwash me? i had to go out of my way to learn about china, and i had to dig through mountains of US propaganda to do it. anybody living in america with a favorable view of china is THE OPPOSITE of brainwashed. they had to scrutinize misinformation we’ve been fed our entire lives, at every single turn, and come to the conclusion, that in the face of everything we’ve been told our entire lives, none of it is true. meanwhile the motherfucker accusing you of being brainwashed said the pledge of allegiance every morning since before they even knew how to read and has never questioned that, repeats stupid shit about being “the best country on earth” etc.
americans are all a bunch of brainwashed pigs.
When it happens in a ‘good’ country, ‘accidental’
When it is happening in a ‘bad’ country, ‘malicious’
I especially hate this in the labor aristocracy who reaped all the benefits millions died for in the very trades they work. It’s one thing to be a clueless PMC liberal and another to be someone who works in the shit and has zero class conscious.
One of the more radicalizing things to happen in my life was working at a wrecking yard the summer before my sophomore year of college (I’ve mentioned this before on Hexbear). It was a fun job, but it was hard labor. Breaking into totalled cars to rip out whatever salvage we could get was hard work. Sometimes it’d take an hour cutting through steel so you could remove a windshield wiper motor. Or you’d have several people on pulleys to lift an engine.
I’d be exhausted like everyone else at the end of my 8 hour shift. Just go home, shower, eat, then immediately to bed. But one of my coworkers was off to his second job returning car rentals driving for several hours between cities. Like holy shit I’m barely awake and this guy is just pounding energy drinks to stay awake so he can work for several more hours. On top of that, he was a line cook on weekends doing 30~40 hours.
In other words, he was working something like 90 hour weeks. But since he was only making around $7.50 to $10 per hour, it was still less than $40,000 per year. It showed me the system was absolutely bullshit. Because this guy only had a high school diploma from a school in Mexico, our society decided this backbreaking labor he was doing was worth less than some cushy office job. Absolute nonsense, not to mention the toll it takes on your body.
the comfortable are living in a completely different reality than the rest of us.
imagine, you’re born white, and middle class. your whole childhood your parents bought you all the things you wanted, they took you on vacations, they paid to send you to college so you can make good money and have no debt. now you have a degree that costed nothing and your dad’s friend owns a company relevant to your degree and you were able to get a job making 90k/yr at 25. now imagine my dirty brown ass says to you “this shit kinda sucks, doesn’t it?” would you say “yeah”? no, you’d be confused. “sucks? what do you mean? this is great. look at everything i’ve been afforded!” but those people never ask at what cost they’re afforded that privilege. they’re completely blind to reality. if you’re poor you grew up in a different country than your rich friend even if they live 10 minutes away.
I cannot fathom how it is even possible to sew for 30 hours straight without a break. Even at twenty years old. That just seems impossible. I’m not doubting it happened I just don’t understand how.
drugs. beyond the listed sherry port and coffee, tobacco maybe cocaine
What makes Captial Vol 1 such a powerful work is that Marx will spend a few chapters on dry numerical explanations of the worker/capitalist dynamic, and then bring you crashing to earth with some Real Shit about what this actually means for the lived experience of workers.
It’s basically a form of liberal cope. If they can’t write people off as ignorant or juvenile, or being in an echo-chamber, they have to reckon with people simply making up their minds that liberalism is a dead-end.
