Marxism vs Capitalist Cults

Are you interested in learning about Marxism from an American Marxist Professor of Economics?

Richard Wolff is great at breaking things down to a clear, easy to understand format as he weaves history (generally and personally – very interesting man) with economic development concepts. He is also part of Democracy @ Work – which I highly recommend checking out (the second video is from their channel.)

You might react: “But why would I want to learn about that? We’ve learned our whole lives how evil Communism is!”

So, let’s start by looking at why you might want to question Capitalism in the first place.

Let’s Look At Capitalism’s Fruits

To you, I ask: have you noticed that the US government has been caught telling some significant lies (across party lines) and that 93% of stocks in the US are owned by 10% of Americans, and meanwhile, the bottom 50% of Americans held just 1% of all stocks in the third quarter of 2023?

Have you noticed that in the US, the majority of households are struggling to make it payday to payday, maternal mortality rates have been on the rise since 2018, homelessness is on the rise and currently stands at around 600,000 Americans – many of whom still have jobs, but cannot afford housing, rents are skyrocketing, with the median of $2150/month, the average starter home in the US now requires a $76,000 annual salary to purchase, the median home price is $412,300, and US infrastructure is crumbling due to a lack of investment in maintaining it. Life quality for the average American has declined, not grown.

But hey, at least the US military spends exponentially more on military expenditures than the next several countries combined! They’ve got $2.09 TRILLION in funding to support the 800+ military facilities the US has all over the world (no other nation even comes close to this). You see, they need this kind of presence globally in order to back up the US Dollar, US Oligarch’s investments, as well as working to secure the resources of other sovereign nations on behalf of that Oligarch Class. Yes, the US has an Oligarch class.

Anti-Communism As A State Secular Religion?

Have you considered the possibility that the Oligarch Ruling Class has used Anti-Communism as a state secular religion, even weaving it into the teachings of US churches, and like religious cults, treats heretics or apostates who try to expose the corruption and lies they’ve discovered with contempt and condemnation?

You should. I was raised in the JW doomsday cult, and I can tell you from my experiences in it and escaping it, that’s just one cult tactic that the Oligarchs use against the remaining 90% of us.

When I escaped the JW Cult in 1996, I almost immediately recognized that US politics were corrupt and do not serve the average American. I was fresh off of recognizing and identifying the religious cult I was raised in, and saw the same traits in US politics and culture. I had been pretty insulated in the JW’s, because members must be politically “neutral” – meaning no participation in elections or even expressing political opinions. Additionally, I was supposed to limit my association with anyone “worldly” (non-JW), so most of my social experiences were with other JW’s until I escaped.

So I was kind of an outsider joining the world, and recognizing things I probably wouldn’t have if I had been raised “worldly,” and conditioned to consider those things were/are normal. But whether we’re talking about the JW or Capitalist cult, these things hold true:

• Both are systems that were earnestly created with the understanding of the material conditions of that time and place, but which, over time, critics have correctly identified flaws and errors that are causing harm, even if a small portion of those involved benefit. The ruling class of each attempts to silence and discredit those critics.
• The Jehovah’s Witnesses have a Governing Body and hierarchical system within their clergy class. They have global real estate holdings, sold their former Brooklyn properties to the Kushner family of developers, and take in donations from members worldwide. While they’ve adapted their recruitment shticks over the decades, they were once primarily a magazine and book publisher, using volunteer labor to produce, that they sent their volunteer sales force door to door to sell and try to recruit more rubes to do the same. They’ve had to reform some things, because they’re bleeding members. Two-thirds of born-ins from the Millennial and younger generations leave.
• In both the JW and Capital cults, those at the top benefit from many economic perks, thanks to their positions in the system. They are even waited on by valets/assistants and the like, who regard them as a type of super-class of human. They have a vested interest in maintaining the system to retain their own position over others, but know they’re outnumbered by the people, some of whom can see they’re being lied to and getting shafted. So they use indoctrination, propaganda, emotional manipulation, shaming, peer pressure, and even violence against the people they rule over in order to create a self-reinforcing narrative of “This is the best and only way of life, and is based on true ideas. Our people are the best people, and we will inherit the future. The Other People are not as important as we are, and do not deserve the things we have decided that we do.” This helps with crowd control, when you’re the 10% profiting off of the ninety percent’s labor and the value they create.
• In both cases, in order to maintain the class divide, the minority must find a way to convince the majority to reject any criticism of the system, regardless of validity, as a “threat to our way of life.” Anyone voicing criticism or doubts must be corrected, and brought back into line with the norms of the system. Otherwise their ideas might spread among the majority – who will consider and test the ideas themselves for their own eyes. Members who consider taking a look for themselves are warned, told horror stories that are propaganda in which the upper class projects their own corrupt values and behaviors onto critics of the system in the form of false accusations.
• In both cases, the upper class must hide some of their history from the lower majority, who are deemed unworthy of knowing how the sausage is made – exactly what does all the money paid in donations or taxes (in each respective cult) pay for? The lower majority simply do not possess the class privilege to know that.

So, those are some of the parallels between the JW doomsday and Capitalist cults. I’ve written more about that in a previous post you can check out here.

If you’re a JW reading this, bravo to you! If you haven’t already checked out the /exJW subreddit, I encourage you to check it out. Lots of support for no matter where you’re at.

Liberating Ourselves From Cults

Once I realized that the US system operates like a cult, I needed to understand why. So, I started looking into the history of what brought us to the present, and discovered the reasons why the US ruling class needs to obfuscate, deny, and outright lie about how the system works to the majority of the population, so we don’t revolt against it. I’ve outlined some of those previously in this post, as well as in my writings over on Comrade Birb (I’m “Birb” over there).

My investigation into US history and analysis of how it affects the present, through a critical lens, led me to look into Marxism, both because it provides the tools to do that, and since the Oligarch Ruling Class is so keen on preventing the US population from learning about it, seeing its value, and perhaps acting on it. Preventing members from looking at critical information that poses a threat because they have no defense against it is a hallmark of cult leaders, something I learned in the first cult I escaped.

So I began reading, and realized that the US Oligarchs have a stake in maintaining Capitalism, because they can no longer exploit the rest of the world once the system they’ve used to do that is abolished and replaced. The US has a long history of covert and overt warfare against any government and peoples of other sovereign nations whom it considers a threat. They even have a school to teach their lapdogs how to do a coup – with US assistance – and become a US-backed dictator in their country.

These are not signs of a democratic or just system. And so whatever the leaders of that system fear, they villianize, often projecting their own wrongdoings as accusations to emotionally manipulate the US population into supporting atrocities in the guise of “protecting freedom.” The only freedom being protected is the freedom of Oligarchs to do what they please, wherever they please on the planet. Same with the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses – they get to do as they please, and live lives of extreme comfort, while the masses of JW’s around the world often struggle.

Both the JW’s and Capitalism are cults. Both try to limit the options of the people they rule and prevent them from seeking alternatives that can lead to their own liberation.

Why Marxism?

Marxism has helped me learn a more scientific way of seeing things. It has helped me recognize that Socialism is superior to Capitalism, and encourages education, investigation, and principled critiques. I now have something to work toward instead of getting into spitting matches between the Red Team/Blue Team that the US Capitalist Cult uses to divide and conquer the American public. It has helped me improve as a person, and will continue to help refine my character to be more humane. It has helped countless lives around the world, despite the violent global Anti-Communist campaign run by US Oligarchs for generations.

Even if you have a shrine to Joseph McCarthy in your home, you crave the familiar flavor of bootleather, and think the US Empire will never fall, (maybe in part because because you reckon you haven’t gotten rich or rich enough yet, so you need it to keep going until you get your chance) hey, watch Richard Wolff’s videos anyway. At least you’ll have a better understanding of why you hate Marxism.

Another reason to learn about Marxism is because China is using the Marxist-Leninist framework, adapted to Chinese characteristics, called whole–process democracy, and they’ve not only become the top economy in the world, they’ve eliminated extreme poverty for 800 million people (the US denies this and doesn’t want Americans finding out), and are continuing to work through their current five year plan to improve even more lives. 93% of people in China are homeowners, compared to 65% in the US). Socialism is the only way we can achieve a transition away from fossil fuels. It’s simply better than Capitalism. Of course those in the US who own 93% of the stocks, most of the media, most of the US government, (AIPAC as well) and most of the wealth overall disagree, because they’ve been using Fascism to maintain Capitalism to prevent it from benefiting everyone – something China calls “common prosperity.”

China is part of the BRICS Alliance, the SCO, and BRI – and these are the places the majority of the world, particularly the Global South, are joining and looking to for leadership and building cooperative economic blocks striving for common prosperity and peace.

One third of the world is under the modern day equivalent to siege warfare: economic sanctions by the US. The US requires war to function; the US has used overt and covert warfare to defend its Empire, and the atrocities are bad enough that US veterans are plagued by PTSD and 22 of them a day decide to check out permanently because they’re haunted by the orders they followed. Of the others who manage to survive, at least some have become staunch peace activists and oppose US Empire.

Western Oligarchs have held humanity’s natural course of development back.

Laugh all you want, but the global majority have explicitly said so with their choice to work outside of the US Empire via BRICS, SCO, BRI, and they significantly outnumber us by ten times and growing. Their military alliances are more powerful than NATO’s. They’ve organized new payment systems so they’re not required to conduct international trade using USD. You’re in the global minority denying it.

The bypassing of sanctions by targeted nations means that the US has lost its siege warfare component. Which, I remind you, the US has one third of the world under. Now, a decade ago, the US would still have had the economic and military power to back up a threat to nations who didn’t obey the US “rules-based international order,” but the proxy war between NATO and Russia and supplying the genocide of Palestinians by the Zionist Entity, plus not meeting US military recruitment goals to the point where some ships can’t sail due to incomplete staffing means the US doesn’t have the war materiel or bodies to back up threats like they once did.

Wars are extremely profitable, and that’s why the US Empire’s ruling class lusts after them so badly: their dragon hoards always grow the most and rapidly when wars are raging. They’re trying to start one with China right now, and are running multiple propaganda campaigns to manufacture consent for it among Americans.

So I mean, if you prefer to remain a brainwashed pleb in false class solidarity with those avarice-fueled psychopaths in the US Oligarch Ruling Class, hey, up to you. I get it.

When I left the Jehovah’s Witnesses in 1996, most of the people I knew there stayed, and many seem to still be members of that cult. Even among those who left the organization, many still fall in line with some of its dogma. It’s familiar, it’s usually what most of your family and friends believe, and they’re likely to condemn and shun you if you deviate from the things that you’re all familiar with and believe are true. It’s a familiar comfort to you, even if it’s harming you and others. I get it.

I really, really do.

Whether as a working class person in the US, or a JW, you hate everything you’ve read here: you can stay comfortable in your cozy cocoon of cognitive dissonance until you decide it’s time to wake up. Maybe a crisis will force you to confront what you believe and you’ll try to reconcile it with material reality, including the history the upper class has tried to keep hidden from the majority. In either case, I share a lot of resources on social media, and will also do so here, that you may find helpful.

If you want to know more about the system that the world’s top economy is using, and the principles and systems that the global majority is organizing around, make sure to avail yourself of the many links to information in this article which I’ve spent hours writing, editing, and adding those resources to.

I’ve been working on getting a weekly newsletter going, in which I will analyze current events from a historical perspective – looking into why things are the way they are. I’ll also be including educational links, PDF’s, and other resources. I’m working on getting a book review plugin set up, so I can share things I’ve learned from the books I read (about one a week). Watch for it soon! If you can support my efforts, please check out my new Ko-Fi campaign. Thanks!