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I am maybe a socialist/communist, but live in a capitalist society. I feel conflicted (CW: Champagne socialist) (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I have always been a leftie, and sympathetic to socialism.

I live in a social democratic nordic country. Capitalism is the economic system.

I have thought that I should act like an economically rational entity, and make good financial decisions. Regardless of my beliefs.

I have bought an apartment with my wife, and we have started invested a significant portion in index funds to prepare for retirement in the future.

We both work ethical jobs that contribute positively to society. This was a requirement for the both of us.

Our rationalisation is that we should not sacrifice our own lives that significantly, but instead be politically active, donate a significant amount of money to the socialist party and educate people. We can contribute to change, but by not participating in the capitalist economy, we will hurt ourselves in the long run, without actually changing anything.

We have no plans of becoming "rich" by our country's standard. But the end goal is living off the pension from the government and our investments in the future.

I just feel that it is a contradictory way of living life, but we at least try to support socialist causes a lot more financially.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 day ago

I don't see anything to be conflicted about here. If I had to suggest something, maybe participate more directly in organizing so that you can feel confident that donation money is well-spent. Getting a personal sense for how serious a local party is can be revealing.

Just about every socialist has lived under capitalism. We seek to overthrow the dominant socioeconomic order. Existing socialist projects must still live and develop in capitalistic ways and have different experiments in how they diverge from this. But people there still have/had jobs, retirements, houses.