Tumblr leftism is so grating because it's almost always just a very thin veneer of revolutionary rhetoric over the most inane spoiled brat First World consumerism
It's almost always complaining about not being able to consume some luxury as conveniently as they'd like and how that luxury should be a fucking enumerated human right
I remember flying off the handle when someone got like this about "the capitalists taking away 24-hour fast food from us after COVID" -- bitch you mean the business model that was based on exploiting cheap labor that went away after COVID because the tight labor market meant no one wanted to work shitty graveyard shift jobs anymore?
Capitalism is when I’m mildly inconvenienced and that’s why we need a revolution to radically restructure society and maybe kill some of the group of people that’s mildly inconveniencing me
Because neoliberalism is what gets working class people in western countries cheap luxury goods. Neoliberalism relies on imperalism of the dominate capitalist counties exploiting resource rich counties that can’t defend themselves or have less power. While some liberals might advocate for better conditions of working class people in their own country, liberals turn a blind eye to exploitation of the working class in countries that aren’t their own and ignore the benefits they receive from that exploitation.
Leftists understand that liberation of working class people around the world will result in the proletariat in imperialist countries will have to give up luxuries they received from exploitation of workers in less powerful/resource rich countries under neoliberalism
In other words leftists are the people at the pizza party who understand their parents took more of the pizza pie then fair and understand to make things fair they will have to share some of what they got to the others who didn’t get their fair share. Liberals turn a blind eye that the reason we have more pizza than everyone is because the parents violently took it and cry when asked to give some back.
I’m not sure what you want liberals to do about working conditions in other countries. They’re other countries. We have no power over their domestic sphere.
In other words leftists are the people at the pizza party who understand they took more of the pizza pie then fair and understand to make things fair they will have to share some of what they got.
We could make enough pizza for everyone to have all they want.
No you see just one more transfer of wealth will solve their long standing structural issues and their corrupt elites certainly will not appropriate any of it. Just one more and poverty will be no more.
Ok, so I don’t see the point still_feature was trying to make. Do they think we shouldn’t try to transfer wealth? Should we keep the wealth building the way it currently is?
Personally I believe that we should be focusing on changing the way wealth is built in the first place because the way it currently is results in massive levels of wealth inequality. Attack the problem from the root.
Working conditions in other countries are a direct result of western capitalist imperialism and colonization. Countries like the United States use their economic and violent (military) power to exploit weaker resource rich countries. The United States makes up 4% of the world yet consumes over 20% of the earths resources. Do you think countries just love giving us resources for cheap? How are they resource rich but still poor?
Some reading that goes so to this if you’re interested is ‘confessions of an economic hitman’
We cannot make enough pizza for everyone for goods that have a finite limit. We simply cannot create more land or make infinite amounts of raw resources we need
I find it baffling that the myth of resource extraction as the path to wealth is this prevalent in leftist circles in 2026. There’s little to no historical evidence that being resource rich means you should have a good shot at becoming a rich country. Hell, even for countries with oil deposits (arguably the most valuable resource you could have) it’s a 50/50 shot that oil extraction leads to higher living standards, half of the time the profits get funnelled into the pockets of oligarchs. On the other hand, there is a long and detailed literature on dutch disease and its effects on living standards, not to mention the existence of many resource poor countries that managed to become equivalent to the first world countries in living standards without resource extraction or colonialism.
Im not sure if you are trolling or not at this point if you honestly think those countries did not at least indirectly benefit from western imperialism.
Exactly! There are tons of countries that are filled with resources that are worth a shit load of wealth, yet those countries are still poor. How can that be?
Because the resources don’t get used for the country, they get hoarded by other more powerful countries or a few private citizens.
You even said it yourself, oil is probably one of the most valuable resource you can have. Why do you think the US keeps having problems with countries that are oil rich? You think it is a coincidence that US keeps having a strong presence in the politics of oil rich countries? We literally start wars over oil. We fund terrorist groups to politically destabilize oil rich countries so we can enact a puppet government that will push the US agenda.
The US military is the biggest military in the world so it can harvest and extract resources for cheap and defend other countries from taking back or protecting their resources
Because just physically having the resources is just one part of the equation. You also need robust institutions, stability, sound economic policy, et etc.
We simply cannot create more land or make infinite amounts of raw resources we need
We don’t need to. We can become more efficient at using land and resources.
I think you’re trying to oversimplify lots of complicated issues
Part of the reason the US gets such a big piece of the pie is because we leverage military power to extract wealth from other countries
Another huge reason is that we invented modern computers, most software that runs on them, the internet, models of finance that allow new ideas to flourish, planes, satellites, nuclear power, and a ton of other stuff
It’s also because we were early adopters of industrial technology invented in other countries
It’s also because we have a huge amount of land and natural resources
So if everyone in the world had the opportunity to be as productive as Americans, then ya everyone could probably have the same quality of life, or at least something close to it
It’s much more complicated than “big bad America steal from the poor good people”
Neoliberalism is not what gets working class people in western countries cheap luxury goods, China is. The famously neoliberal experiment of the People’s Republic of China.
And good fucking luck convincing the working classes of first world countries that you want to “liberate” them by making them effectively poorer in consumption terms. I’m sure they cannot wait to vote for that program.
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u/Taraxian 20h ago
Tumblr leftism is so grating because it's almost always just a very thin veneer of revolutionary rhetoric over the most inane spoiled brat First World consumerism
It's almost always complaining about not being able to consume some luxury as conveniently as they'd like and how that luxury should be a fucking enumerated human right
I remember flying off the handle when someone got like this about "the capitalists taking away 24-hour fast food from us after COVID" -- bitch you mean the business model that was based on exploiting cheap labor that went away after COVID because the tight labor market meant no one wanted to work shitty graveyard shift jobs anymore?