It’s interesting the the iconography you share is from western civilization. Previous recent articles revealed rich divisions of capitalist wealth that divide rulers in Nigeria during the slave trading times to emphasis how Igbo (sp) tribe gained deep wealth distinctions both within the tribe and outside the tribe; also the excellent revelation about Tibetan society, how slaves (or serfs to use a “nicer” term) were used to prop up the ruling rich class or monks. With the Dali Llama on top as supreme ruler or king (a benevolent wise and happy king to outside world, but really a rich slave owner.
My point isn’t that class isn’t important to fight for. The rich have gotten so much richer is abhorrent, and Musk and Gates and their ilk are morally bankrupt. But all civilizations or nation state are capitalist. Every country today has massive distinctions between rich and poor, central banks, lending and borrowing. There in effect no other systems besides capitalist one in terms of circulation and use of money and all “end up” with this absurd wealth distinction and greed that bends government naturally to their will. This has always been the case.
The ideological labels we ascribe to different systems should be peeled off: socialism, communism, European socialism, fascism, free hand economics, free market capitalism, etc. Chose your flavor du jour. Once this label (or illusion) of ideological difference is stripped away, we are left with only capitalism and massive wealth distinctions.
The trick is to look for and fight for changes we can make: destroying illusion of the “genius” billionaire who really only succumbed to take mass investor wealth from Goldman Sachs type investment banks to launch massive IPOs; to get universal health care, and to, most importantly of all in my belief (which I just invented so perhaps will change) to create a vital third American political party that dispenses of the past late 19th and early 20th century archaic terminology that is deeply stigmatized while maintaining the goals of working for humanist principles of fair wages, universal health care, federal job insurance, free two year colleges and debt forgiveness for the poor, zero interest payday loans not secretly backed by the likes of Chase and BOA as a back door to profit gouging off the poor, elimination of bonds and compounding courts fees the poor, etc. You can’t win with losing labels. The outdated terms are massively fought against and need to go, but the sentiment underneath these dead words needs to stay: socialism, workers rights, unions, communism (does anyone believe in that really), class warfare, etc.
Most poor want dignity through work, but the current right wing talking heads have been beating the fear drum against these terms since before the McCarthy communist shame trials in the fifties. The outmoded terms have come to mean nothing but government handouts. My father was on food stamps with four kids in a northeastern government housing projects for four years in the early 80s, and I still feel the sting of humiliation of him coming home with the five pound block of fake cheese from the government truck that came by.
I just saw an “old” Chris Rock comedy clip on YouTube by chance where he talks about the distinction between blacks and N&#*~ers (his title of the clip not mine). He liberally uses the N word to the all black audience to talk about this distinction and the laugh outright because they understand which side of the class barrier they fall on that he describes. They bought expensive tickets to his show and don’t want to be seen as down trodden loafers who can’t work when they clearly do and want to gain upward mobility through the dignity of work the same as anyone, given the opportunity. But the working class whites under Trump in particular don’t want to get welfare and believe that right wing “capitalism” at least promotes work, unlike the “left wing socialists.” The reality is both sides take Medicare, social security, disability, etc. That’s why we need a third party that is not ideologically positioned by the media to break up duopoly that has a strangle-hold on the control of policy, military welfare handouts (Biden increased Pentagon spending by $80 billion post Trump instead of using that money to create free pre-K for working people who need it; money talks, and Biden just said he’s on the right and let his “social policy” die on the vine). Until there is a real third un-positioned party not moored down by beat up old labels, meaningful change is not imminent.
