I will share my own experience soon.
ive always been a communist
try having a commie grandma sometime, esp when youre trans
To keep my answer overly simplistic: being intersectional.
Being Black and being confronted by the open fascism from the right made me look for anything and anyone who would oppose them. In a way, my leftism is a counter-reaction to the rise of the alt-right and right-wing movements across the West.
It’s kind of funny when you think about it. Fewer people would turn towards leftism if white people could just be chill.
What do you think of the uptick in younger black people “stanning” Trump because they promote him in spaces like hip-hop podcasts?
A bunch of disjointed thoughts.
Okay, as a disclaimer, I’m not from the US, but I do have many relatives in the USA, which is why I keep a close eye on the situation there. I think the situation for Black people in the USA and in Europe (where I live) is somewhat different. I think this whole topic would be deserving of its own thread, but I’m not sure we have that many Black posters on Hexbear.
US culture is hyper-individualistic, and toxic masculinity is sadly still pretty common in Black spaces. Both of these things are upheld by the US right-wing more so than by the liberals. (There is also a ton of manosphere overlap with right-wing culture, which is another avenue for Black people to embrace conservative brainworms.) Plus, I think a Black person can have quite a bit of success in the conservative sphere if they abandon their principles and stab their own people in the back.
I don’t blame Black people for wanting to make a good living under capitalism, but I don’t take lightly those who throw all other Black people under the bus just so they can get money for being one of the ‘good ones’ for the Republican Party.
EDIT: Plus, I imagine there is quite a bit of difference between US-born African Americans and fresh Black immigrants regarding their feelings toward the Republican Party. You can’t look at Black people as a monolith. Keep also in mind that some Black people are still big supporters of the Democratic Party, last time I checked
Some things that moved me from squishy western “leftism” into actual leftism:
- The financial crash of 2008. All the adults in the room were showing their entire ass and the only people giving an explanation of what was happening that actually made sense were self-declared Marxists like Richard Wolff
- Local political developments made me realise the futility of the soft squishy boyscouts passing for acceptable leftism around here. For the past 30 years we have had increasing racism, greater divide between rich and poor and an expansion of the police state. The “left” around here has shown itself to be completely unable to do anything to stop or delay these developments. At festive occasions they stand up and say “how dare you!” and then they go on to be nice and friendly to the ghouls responsible.
- Experiencing actually existing social democracy in action. If you believe the fairy tales they tell you in social studies class, getting a succdem-controlled government should be an improvement over a liberal/conservative one. They might not exactly create a worker’s utopia but at least they might make some improvements here and there and be a little less evil. After all they depend on the “left” for parliamentary support, right? Nope. The Iron Law of Late Capitalist Electoralism is true, every administration, regardless of party affiliation or electoral primises, is going to be worse than the preceding one. The succdems are just as nasty as anyone else and the left will do nothing to rein them in.
- Becoming aware of climate change, the monumental scale of the task ahead and seeing how ridiculously small and insufficient policies are being touted as the solution by the establishment.
- Learning about history, especially the history of the USSR, WWII and western imperialism. There are so many omissions, distortions and outright lies in what you pick up from the western education system and popular culture that you begin questioning all of what you’ve learned once you start learning from more nuanced sources.
Some sources that opened my eyes along the way.
- My mom. I know it is cheesy and not applicable on a large scale but she deserves a lot of credit for laying the groundwork for my political development. She used to be a member of the communist party in her youth and although I never felt her trying to force any beliefs on me, but she presented me for an openness to communism and anti-capitalist ideas and introduced me to communist culture like the collages of John Heartfield and the novels of Hans Scherfig.
- My dad. Again a cheesy choice. Today the man is a deranged tradcath nerd-chud but credit where credit is due, although insane he is an intelligent and educated guy and his intellectual snobbery meant that I learned about stuff like formal logic and critical thinking from an early age which later on made it easier for me to break out of the liberal mind-prison.
- Chomsky. The guy is problematic but his propaganda theory and his work on US imperialism did a lot to move me left back in the day.
- Richard Wolff. He might be a bit too preoccupied with forming cooperatives under capitalism but he did a lot to explain how the capitalist economy works.
- Parenti. The guy is a legend. You might not be receptive to him if you are still full of anticommunist brainworms but once cracks have formed in that mindset he can expand those cracks quickly.
- Graeber. His intellectual originality really helped to question a lot of the preconceived notions about debt and money that supports capitalism.
- On a more local level I want to point out two people who helped me understand Danish history: The first one is Carl Heinrich Petersen who was an anarchist historian who wrote about the labour movement to the left of the succdems. I credit him with puncturing some of the common rose-tinted myths about inter-war succdem leader Thorvald Stauning. Then there is the before-mentioned author Hans Scherfig whose novels Idealister set in the inter-war period and Frydenholm set during Nazi occupation gives a good understanding of the mindset of nazi collaboration, the fecklessness of non-materialism and liberalism and the memory-holing of communist resistance ans well as bourgeois collaboration after the war. Another Danish author of note is Carl Madsen, a communist lawyer who wrote about the class nature of the legal system, official collaboration with Nazi Germany before and during WWII and pre-war refugee policy. He also wrote some pieces explaining the Democratic German and Soviet legal system from a positive standpoint.
Normalizing Marxist theory as an approachable thing to read is important for onboarding a certain kind of person.
Many people never even read the Manifesto because they think it’s akin to reading Mein Kampf. It doesn’t help that many associate the word “manifesto” with unhinged ravings a la Ted Kaczynski.
Literally just reading Marx with an open mind is what it took for me. I’m sure I could psychoanalyze some more from my past, but ultimately, Marxist theory stands on its own and is proven to connect with many types of people around the world.
In order for something to be normal, it has to be casual. So my suggestion is don’t be afraid to talk about communist ideas, but also don’t be weird or aggressive about it.
Wage Labor and Capital is probably a better recommendation because it seems less unhinged to a lib.
Its so corny to hear people talk about it like a redditor or like you were a guy from mid 1800s in real life
I totally agree but please use plain language
I literally have no idea what in his comment would prompt you to post this
I assume they are elaborating the last sentence I wrote, not commenting on the way I personally stated things
Sometimes I feel like telling people to read Marx is setting them up for failure. Idk maybe I’m just not smart but I find the way Marx writes to just be… so obtuse. I read Engels and the difference was like night and day, so much easier to understand.
Are there people who have rewritten e.g. Capital to be not awful? Because if I struggle with other works of Marx, I don’t think there’s any hope of me reading Capital.
The first three parts of Capital are hard, after that it’s just hundreds of pages of examples packed with dialectical materialist theory and is generally a lot easier to read. I’m thinking now that I’ll finish Capital and then start reading it from the beginning again. I also use VoiceDreamReader to read it to me.
I fully concede that reading won’t work for everyone. Only some types of people, I suspect especially (but not exclusively) college educated types, which describes many liberals.
Anyone is susceptible who genuinely works at developing their political thought. Even if right now they are obsessed with Libertarianism or some other vulgar economics, someone who is already book-smart will be more likely to grasp Capital.
People not matching the above description might be better swayed with direct organizing. I think that the vast majority of Marxists across the globe, historically, have understood the basic conclusions of Marxism intuitively from their own experience and not from reading a book.
Anyway, perhaps your issue with the style of Capital is due to the translation you read?
Any book translated from the original language has to trade off between precision and flow. I personally like the style of the original Aveling and Moore translation that is free on marxists.org, but I think many people prefer the more modern English of the Penguin edition (Fowkes). I haven’t spent enough time to know if one is objectively “better.”
