this is a real thing people have said to me when I brought up that capitalism is evil
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I get it, especially people who have young kids or other family that they must care for.
Their highest priority is their family, not their country. As it should be.
But even if you don’t have kids, fighting the system is not to be taken lightly… most will wait for an opportunity, and not make that opportunity themselves. Why? Because it’s wise if survival is your goal. Some people can set themselves on fire (which has started a revolution or two), but that shouldn’t be an expectation.
Be an example of what you want, doing is always much more powerful than talking. Everybody talks.
I suspect people are telling you that as a way to change the subject, so the actual answer is - you deal with it by making polite palatable conversation rather than digging in deeper.
The thing is, if there’s a spectrum of believing “capitalism is evil”, then for most people there’s no benefit to being more than a 2 or a 3. If you want to be full 10 / 10 capitalism is evil and live in a tent under a bridge then more power to you, but obviously that life isn’t for everyone.
For most people - even those who acknowledge that capitalism is evil - satisfaction in life means some level of comfort for themselves and the people they care about, and that means engaging with our capitalist world even if you want it to be different.
That’s the reality for a lot of people living paycheck to paycheck or living off credit cards. They could be doing better financially than they are if they cut expenses (people waste a lot of money and often don’t even question it or realize it) and could start saving for a rainy day. Then once they have that fund built up, possibly schooling or prepping a better job, but they might not have the motivation to do it. I don’t have the figures but there have been multiple news articles describing the number of people who couldn’t even absorb an unexpected $1000 hit.
if they were not in a hurry to get to work, but mean they don’t care in which type of economy they work: in other types, like communism or socialism, they theoretically would have to work much less. having to work is not boolean. having to work less, because there’s less lost in competition or to greed is likely something they can get behind.
in practice, in past tries, communism/socialism was susceptible to corruption, but in capitalism, this level of corruption is like part of the system. other systems suffer from greed, while for capitalism it’s extra fuel that makes it go out of control.
Doesn’t that suck? How much of your life do you dedicate to working for other people?
All you can do is plant seeds in their mind about some of the more realistic & plausible ways to effect change, such as who they can vote for that will work towards easing their lives. They’re probably already too overwhelmed to spend much time figuring out how to make things better, so do the thinking for them and gently drop clues they can remember in those rare moments when they’re ready for it.
They have to be ready to hear it, or they’ll just blow it off. The alternatives need to be fed to them repeatedly & subtly just like all the other propaganda & advertisements in their life so it can already be in their head when they are ready to think about it. It’s like fighting fire with fire.
Haven’t dealt with that too much, but isn’t that exactly the point? Work should not dominate our life like that. Most people haven’t even imagined a world where they aren’t busy making somebody else rich just to get by.
their entire identity and purpose is work
That’s kind of understandable tbh. If work takes over your life, making your life about work is an effective way to cope. Maybe remind them that while they may feel their work is important to them and that’s valid, they weren’t asked to work, they were forced by threat of poverty.
Sounds like they are doing it by choice then
they think if they work hard enough, theyre actually going to become a millionaire ceo
Any organising conversation should start with agitation, and agitation is only possible through listening to the person you’re talking to. Understand their struggles, ask them what they would change about their work/day to day life if they could. Look for struggles they get passionate about, and lean into that passion. Get them real worked up before you start talking about solutions.
When you talk about solutions, you should have a clear path to success. The role of the person you’re talking to in this path to success should also be clear. Then you can ask them what you want of them, while making sure your ask is reasonable for their current living situation. If they say no, don’t argue and try again another time.
Slaves aren’t afforded luxuries like thinking and that’s by design. As long as the circuses circus and the bread breads nothing will change.
I’m hoping that with the rise in costs due to numerous wars, oil, AI, greedflation etc. Maybe people wont be able to afford their bread and circuses and maybe just maybe we’ll remove our kings and restore prosperity.
My immediate follow-up would be “well, why don’t you believe that those things aren’t related?”
they would just say “I dont care” or a variation of “I have to work to buy food”
“then lets start a community kitchen so we will have more time to spend with our families”
How does that work?
You start with a goat. You negotiate for some if its blood (this is an anarchist community kitchen, so we gotta go vegan, there’s extra steps here). Then you clone that blood in a lab so its no longer directly an animal product.
You draw a pentagram with the ‘goat’ blood in any room with a sink a prep surface and a heating element while chanting a curry burrito recipe.
Sacrifice an hour of your time to meetings.
End with a bitter argument about whether honey is vegan.
And it is done.
“What if things could be different?” Or some variation thereof. Sounds like whoever you’re talking to is, unfortunately, neck-deep in the propaganda. They might not even have the concept of a different system that could actually work. A lot of people are conditioned to believe anarchy=chaos, I would try to talk about successful mutual aid projects in your city. “What if ‘x’ program could impact even more people? Why not?” I think my goal at first would be to change their association with some core concepts, so they don’t instinctively recoil.
Sorry I don’t have more than that, this is a tough one that I’ve never really figured out myself. Interested to see what others say.
Edit: you might also be starting off too big/dramatic? Like yeah I agree capitalism is fundamentally evil, but for someone who’s never even played with the concept before, it can feel too huge to even approach, hence “i have to work”. Maybe try attacking smaller pieces/more specific aspects of capitalism. “Damn, it’s fucked up that blackrock just gets to buy as many houses as they can when people are struggling to pay rent.”
Moralize even more without understanding what capitalism is or its place in history or how current state of things would have to be abolished. If you guilt trip them enough into not supporting le evil thing (like that does anything), then the revolution is sure to follow
A weird thing about anarchy is people have the freedom to not care about what you are saying.
Shut up, anarchists can’t define their own ideology! Only boot lickers can do that!
Damn, sounds like you’re not really alive. Some sort of walking corpse. Love that for you. Shine my shoes, slave.
Retort: “Then I have to kill you, I dont care.”
Hopefully it clicks this is a matter of survival, not their fungible master.
