what is annoying, that graeber been to global south, so him talking about bullshit jobs and not noticing that people doing marketing work on the best packaging for coffee in the midwest market for 6 months do be kinda dependent on kenya salary level.
this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2025
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chapotraphouse
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The twelfth type of liberalism
i beat them to death with a copy of blackshirts and reds
Have you seen this video? Look its all yellow, isn't that wild? Sit down and watch and tell me what you think.
YELLA PARENTI
David Graeber slander you could've just recommended Debt instead of Bullshit Jobs
Debt is twice the book that BSJ is. It’s like they’re written by different people.
my ex was like this 
I don't think this is very different from radlibs in general. By some defintions of communist, you can easily get most of them to agree to the label, but they still behave how you say. I think it's question-begging to call most of the states you have in mind "AES," but the lines of objection radlibs raise to such states are usually incoherent (and at best deeply hypocritical), and they will oscillate between talking like an anarchist and a neoliberal point to point based on rhetorical convenience, because they love the language and aesthetic of radicalism but all they believe in is the lifestyle of being a person who knows better while protecting their own comfort. At least, that's my experience.
lines of objection radlibs raise to such states are usually incoherent (and at best deeply hypocritical), and they will oscillate between talking like an anarchist and a neoliberal point to point based on rhetorical convenience
This is some of the people in my life and they are absolutely insufferable to have any sort of conversation with politically. "Communists are all fascists waiting to seize power" and shit like that. This one person, they say this shit and then turn around and say "i dont know what to think and believe, but i have faith in anarchy" and im just sitting there like wtf you literally just called me and people i respect fascists and then admit to not having any ideological framework??? Like, if you dont actively develop your ideology you will end up adopting the cultural default ideology, we have talked about this and they agreed with me, like, deeply unserious people using punk and anarchist aesthetics because it "looks cool".
There are many people who devote their entire lives and work to anarchy, but there are a lot of people who get into it because it's the "safest" radicalism because only rightist boomers bother to stigmatize it (via "antifa thugs" or whatever), though I honestly have a little more respect for them than the other "safe" radicalism of more precisely what I was talking about where you're an anarcho-neoliberal-socdem who just says "radical" things but opposes any radical practice, who will attack Mao for not being left enough and then concern troll that some Berniecrat is unrealistic, which is extremely typical among certain kinds of academics. Like, they will simultaneously say "Oh, Stalin says that those who do not work, neither shall they eat. So much for 'to each according to their needs!' Also, collectivization stifles innovation."
But talking to you rather than myself, what you are saying reminds me a little of the better parts of that essay "Why Marxism?" where faux-radicals in the west will denounce anything and everything, seeming to be the most radical of all but really supporting the status quo in the west by denying that there's ever been anything better than it anywhere while certainly (and partially correctly) asserting that many things are worse than it. This lets them be at the apex, at a vast frontier where they have basically no one and nothing to learn from beyond liberal commentators and sometimes the most co-opted faux-left trash like Chomsky. The closest thing you'll see to decency in these people is some default socdemist fetishization of the New Deal and of Nordic "socialism," and that's still a far cry from actual decency.
But yeah, if someone admits that they're just running on vibes (and the people I'm talking about are mainly pretentious academics who could never), then I don't see what could be better for them than to learn to exercise some epistemic humility until they have a framework by means of which to judge things that they can actually defend. If you aren't acting on behalf of your own ideology, you're uncritically acting on behalf of someone else's.
There are many people who devote their entire lives and work to anarchy
To be clear, i wasnt trying to disparage anarchists in general. The anarchists in my life are generally some of the people who have the best grasp on group dynamics, effective mobilization, and how to show up and build community.
faux-radicals in the west will denounce anything and everything, seeming to be the most radical of all but really supporting the status quo
There is so much of this around me and its exhausting. I dont even know how to counter it, not because i dont have the information but just because the pure time and energy and effort is so much.
Also re nordic countries, if i have to explain to someone one more goddamn time how the nordic model is fucked, doctors with 1000 patient caseloads, denial of trans healthcare, internment schools for sami people that shut down not all that long ago, continuing destruction of sami rights and way of life (looking at you fosen), rampant liberalism and neoliberalism, the way various parties are trying to destroy the healthcare system a la nhs in the uk, etc etc etc... Well my head might just pop. Not to mention the horrible racism. The amount of people ive heard argue that their version of the n word isnt actually the english n word and is unrelated and therefore ok to say is just so depressing.
learn to exercise some epistemic humility until they have a framework by means of which to judge things that they can actually defend.
Im not a maoist but the phrase "no investigation no right to speak" should be used way fucking more istg
To be clear, i wasnt trying to disparage anarchists in general.
You're good, I was just trying to be clear about where I was coming from.
I think the thing to do in these situations is to start with first principles, probably supplied by them with gentle nudging, and then simply drawing conclusions from those principles more coherently than they've been inclined to so far.
We seem to be speaking from experiences with somewhat different types of people despite the overlap you noted, but if it's even slightly helpful, I wrote about the ideological tendencies of liberal academics and how it relates to people at other levels of education here: https://hexbear.net/post/5277098/6249585 . That probably doesn't help, but I don't think I have adequate experience to address the sort of people that you are discussing because I have had much more trouble understanding how to communicate with them.
I tend to just avoid overly-specific discussions about Nordic "socialism" by explaining that those states function as the crown jewel of a blood-soaked beast that only exists on the basis of brutal imperialism (even if it still fails to live up to what it could do domestically to boot!). And I agree on Mao, of course. idk what you mean by "maoist" in this context, but he wrote many helpful texts and honestly you would probably find several of them more helpful than talking to me, like the Peasant Movement in Hunan, etc.
I had a friend like this and introducing them to the right podcast based on their music tastes was the nudge that they needed.
podcast based on their music tastes
how does that work..
I like this strategy. I too often suggest podcasts, but how do you align their musical tastes to the podcast?
I like Klein but I don’t really see it as truly communist or socialist literature. Always gave off socdem/liberal vibes.
Yeah I don't need to read her work, but the suggestion comes from the same place as any point of entryism and at the very least its not very reactionary. I guess I just see the role of westerners is to support AES countries and to reject imperialist rhetoric rather than to first understand how their position in this system is also fucked and I guess one could do both at the same time, but if I have a place to start its the former.
That's not what entryism means, but it's similar in its pathological aversion to confrontation. Why not just suggest Parenti? He's got some nice, accessible polemics, and also a lot of his material is in talks, so you're more likely to get a young person to engage with it (though I guess you didn't mention the demo).
Are you going to get killed or fired if the person you are talking to discovers you to be a communist? If not, then hiding it is probably counter-productive if you're still advocating for your positions. You don't need to shout in people's faces demanding that they acknowledge the efficacy of Mao's land reform, but actively hiding behind lib academics is just silly.
You can glean useful information from books that aren’t explicitly communist too.
Parenti is always great, I also like suggesting Kwame Ture.
I generally agree with your perspective here, but not reading an author you reference in a post lambasting people who won’t read theory is a choice.
I mean if I lambasted Orwell while complaining that I don't read enough Fanon, I don't see any hypocrisy there, just a comparison between worthwhile and not worthwhile
Yeah, that’s fair. As long as you have read some Fanon that stands. Only so many hours in a day after all.
I have read. I don't actively read. Its not like the latest Klein work comes out and I'm like I have to get that one.