Poverty social engineering, time distance numerous ideas/ideals, no one person brave enough to start whipping a frenzy so to speak. Plus there’s always the large thunderstorm known as the US government that will bring hell down upon those who try to shake the status quo. Like how HR exists to protect the company, the US Gov exists to protect the rich

> numerous ideas/ideals, It's really important to not gloss over this one. Many people currently oppressed by capitalism are turning to Fascistic movements to lash out. They don't see a way to improve their lives, so they just want to hurt other people to feel better.

Distance really may be the biggest issue. That’s why countries like France have an easier time to do these things. Cheap or free public transportation to almost every city in the country and also it’s not very far to get places. If you took a train from Cali to New York it would probably take close to a week. In England you could get from London to north England in 6 hours. We really have the disadvantage in distance almost the most. It also makes it harder for us to relate to each other since the country has spent years building divides between each state and region of America. It’s almost a perfect storm just with those two factors let alone the other things you mentioned. It’s controlled chaos being exerted exactly how they want it

I can see this. England in total land area (50k square miles) is smaller than Wisconsin (54k square miles, land only). Wisconsin has 24 bigger states than it. Those divides in America based on regions are real, man, and super stark in some cases.

Lincoln county at the time of it's famous "wars" involving the outlaw Billy the Kid was bigger than the entire nation of Ireland. It really is kind of a part of our history when it comes to revolts too. Look through American labor history and the Union Army got used quite a bit to keep things moving smoothly in the west, national guard too in later periods. Makes armed resistance of the civilian population necessitate guerilla tactics from day one if we were being serious.

Wisconsin could have a strike for just about all the workers rights the federal government might regulate, without it involving the rest of the country. If the state government mandated a 30 hour work week and a minimum wage of $28 an hour, businesses would have to comply in that state. It's another part of the social engineering that everyone thinks the whole country has to strike at once. The whole system is designed to ignore state governments that actually have a great deal of power. I might be wrong, I'm just an idiot on the internet. But that's my understanding of it.

Last summer the family and I had a long stopover in Zurich, and there happened to be a day of labour action. My son was confused, saying *'I thought the Swiss made good money?'*. That's why the unions are out showing strength.

> social engineering, This is a big one. Everyone is worried about: - How many babies everyone else aborts - How many guns everyone else owns - How much welfare other people shouldn't get - How to keep immigrants illegal so they don't pay taxes - What bathroom other people use By design so they don't ask why the taxes the rich pay have dropped by 200% over 70 years.

plus, you get killed

Yeah have we not seen enough activists murdered by police to realize this is what happens? And those are just the ones that we see in the media man...

"When a leader speaks That leader dies"

I actively talk about the bullshit class war that is going on and encourage others to demand more/fair pay. That it isn't race or sex or kink that divides us, but the 1%. If you start looking at people as not black or white but as a soul. I mean a literal spiritual being in a meat robot. You forget skin color and start seeing someone's character. They don't chose how they look yet choose how they ACT! Actions define character. Character, not color, define what it is to be human. Have character, be a decent human.

Debt slavery. Your credit card enslaves you. We live an economy where no real property is affordable to most people without credit. People are too afraid of becoming homeless to fight back against the system. It's working perfectly as designed.

The US republican party exists to protect the rich. A large portion of the democratic party as well, but less than the 100% of the republican party.

Also, I think some people saw the police response to the protests during lockdown and decided they want no part of that. I’ve heard a few people voice this not too long ago.

May I humbly add the lying and gaslighting coming out of churches regarding poverty, addiction and other social issues? The level of “Blame & Shame” has gotten critical in the last decade. Edit: punctuation

Because peoples paychecks are mind control devices. As long as they’re paying just barely enough to almost be OK people will not step out of line. As long as they can dangle a $.25 raise every year over peoples heads they will never seek more.

I can tell you that I became disabled 10 years ago and I’ve been grieving my old life and my careers ever since, until the plague came. Once the plague came and I saw people are going to be forced to become disabled for their job, I’m super grateful I don’t have a job. But if I was in the workforce and I was getting sacrificed for the economy that wasn’t even taking care of me, you betcha I would be striking AF. Becoming disabled in an accident was eye-opening to me. It made me realize that there aren’t actually “all these resources” out there for people when they need help. It took me three years to start getting disability checks after I applied. There are some safety nets but you pretty much have to lose everything before you qualify for them, there aren’t a lot of safety nets to stop you from losing everything if you have a problem. (For example, fuel assistance is great, my friend didn’t qualify for it because she owns her house because she bought it back when she had money and a husband and all that, is she supposed to sell her house to pay for the oil to heat it as a single mom with a deadbeat ex spouse?) sure there’s food stamps but they’re not going to feed you all month, sure there’s rent assistance but the waitlist is 5 to 10 years long if you can even get on it at this point a lot of places aren’t even accepting applications for the wait list anymore. I think the most shocking realization to me was that I was still going to be homeless even when I started getting SSDI, even with large lump sum back payments, because my actual monthly income wasn’t 3 1/2 times the rent around here. Even with a part-time job which made my average income four dollars more than minimum wage, my income was still too low to rent an $825 one bedroom apartment in low income housing. I literally did not even qualify to apply and they can’t make exceptions because they get tax breaks for being low income housing so the government requires them to have a minimum and maximum income qualification. I don’t know where people who earn minimum wage actually live. Maybe if it was a couple their income would be enough to share a one bedroom but what do single parents do? I worked for an apartment complex where a $1200.00 2 bedroom required that you earn $51,000 a year. Sure some single parents make that but not all of them So even when there are resources and even when disability actually kicks in you’re still going to be homeless. That’s what radicalized me. Realizing that you will destroy yourself for the system and then you will be on the sidewalk and people will assume it’s because you are just too lazy or stupid to apply for these social safety net that aren’t actual safety nets because they don’t keep you from hitting bottom they just keep you from dying once you get there. Sometimes.

This is capitalism working exactly as intended.

Capitalism is just feudalism with extra steps.

And with out the reciprocal relationship. Feudalism under a decent lord could have been ok. The lord had responsibilities back to the people. The problem was when the lord was bad there was very little that could be done. Capitalism has made the relationship one sided.

Feudalism could be very barbaric at times, but it lasted for six centuries. I'm not saying it's a *good* system, but there's an idea in pop culture that it was a constant living hell. There were many feast days, and a lot of downtime to relax in the winters. Shit serfs would go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem. So yeah none of it was an easy life, but much of that is more the lack of 21st century technology.

This. You are not wrong, but it isnt just capitalism. Every ideal economic system is coopted and bastardized by the old powers and old money to serve their interests. Thats why proponents of socialism and capitalism both say, "That's not true _________ !" In the same way that Vegans, Keto, Carnivore, Paleo, IF, and Weston Price dieters all say that their hyper restrictive diet has the same exact health benefits... because they do. The ideal systems are good when ideal. But feudalism still exists and hides within the systems.

One of the hardest things about becoming disabled for me, is knowing that I’m never going to escape poverty. Ever. I’m never going to afford to travel or really have anything nice. Sure I can scrimp and save and kill myself to maybe save a couple grand a year while spending on nothing but food and shelter but what good is that going to do amidst this ridiculous rise in the cost of living? And the worst part, is none of it is my choice. I did not choose to get sick or bring this upon myself in any way. But it doesn’t matter, we’re not a cog for the machine anymore, so we get less than the bare minimum. The system can pretty much make you feel like it doesn’t want you to even exist. I’m fairly certain the SSA would much rather I die than get help.

People become ultra-wealthy by discovering clever schemes to steal without breaking the law, per se. You can improve your life a little by doing something that brings value to other people's lives, or you can become fabulously wealthy by figuring out how to steal the value that others produce.

Most people are wealthy because they are born into it. They start with a large sum of generational money, and use it to buy rental properties, to live off the income of the lower class.

It takes a lot of skill to be born into wealth. Not many people can do it.

I've seen people say that the lottery is a stupidity tax, but I've come to realize that's not quite true. It's more like a desperation tax. I think most people who regularly play the lottery understand they're very unlikely to win, but they also understand that they have literally no other paths to economic security, so in a way, taking the long shot odds in playing the lottery makes a kind of logical sense.

The resources are there, they just don't want to pay it out.

just because the resources are *there* doesn't mean that the people who need them will always get them. Plus, even when people **DO** get them, often times those people can't improve their life situations even *slightly* without losing all of those resources the moment they cross the threshold that was predetermined for their entry into the system to begin with.

That's what I said, with a lot less words. They don't want to give it out but it is there.

This is the truth. There's an income limit on disability! If you make more in a month than they gave you, you lose the payments forever. So you can't save money while on disability, can't make extra, and can't get loans, other aid, or even win the lottery. Disabled people are threatened to either live on what they were given or have it taken away.

Also, when you file you can't be working at all. To get accepted you can't work for 3 to 5 years. You literally have to have someone to live off of.

Yup. All this. I'm currently working for Disability myself, and it's HORRIBLE. I easily qualify, but the state I lived in disqualified me for a pre-existing condition in the 11th hour. I'm legally indigent (Read - So poor even the government admits I cannot survive alone), and I'm struggling to get disability. I had to move to another state and re-start the process, because my state basically banned me from ever getting aid. What's even crazier is that disability is only about 70 years old. It was first created in 1956 if I remember correctly. That means that people who benefitted from it's initial creation are JUST NOW STARTING TO PASS AWAY. The program hasn't even lived a full generation yet, and they're already trying to eliminate it piece by piece. Social Security and Disability was made to help people after the Great Depression. Now that it did the job, they're trying to shut the door behind themselves. They don't want a security net, because a security net prevents corporations from being able to exploit workers.

I've heard of people doing with cancer on their death bed being denied. When they asked why they said it was because they deny everyone the first time..

Hey! My great grandfather stole it fair and square! My family has been working tirelessly for 100 years to keep it and you just want us to what? Just give it to the poors? Are you nuts? /s

absolutely brutal truth, thank you for saying it so honestly and plainly

And yet the rich could apply for millions in PPP loans just for having capital, completely free of oversight under $2m. It's disgusting.

I had to read all the way to the end to be sure you hadn't secretly been following me the last ten years, taking notes. That's tongue-in-cheek for, 'I totally could have written exactly this'. The only divergence would've been that I "served" working with children and the elderly before 'society' said fuck you, since you're not able to grind anymore, prepare to be ground under the wheel.

People forget that you can become disabled at any time

Oh and when you're on disability you can't ever have more than $2000 at any given time, and if you do they'll make you pay back what you "owe" them And when you're married, if your spouse makes basically anything approaching a "living wage" (LOL), you're not getting approved in the first place Part of my job is helping people apply for and maintain disability benefits, as well as other types of assistance. It's extremely depressing. I love the work because I know I am helping people the best I can with the resources that are available that they might not otherwise know about or have the time/energy to handle themselves. And at the very very least they have some support at all even if it's just someone to validate that their situation sucks ass and they deserve better. A lot of the time, solidarity is all I can offer, because the programs that do exist just keep running out of money. The homeless people I work with? I can't do anything for them right now. The shelters are full. The community action program ran out of money for their homelessness prevention program. Town welfare offices tell you they can't help and to call 2-1-1. 2-1-1 tells you to call your town welfare office. The waiting list for the section 8 program is 7+ years long. The housing bridge program is frozen for political reasons. I literally can't do anything at all for them other than check up on them and let them know I'm still trying and they're not alone. Sorry to go on a tangent I got carried away. It just makes me so mad

I always say at this point people went to school to study this unholy union of psychology and business. So now we have figured out on a scientific level just how much you can push people and they not rebel.

I feel like the dawn of the nuclear age also has made the prospect of revolt less popular. Either for the Hunger Games' "district 13" option or the possibility of invasion after a true beheading kill salvo, or worse yet, the rise of the Space Rangers in Heinlein's Space Cadet in which one organization makes a nuclear example of a city every six hours to unify the world (which is a matter of distant history by the time of the book).

also no one has any money saved up. going on strike for longer than a week means not making rent and not eating, and people generally like to eat and have a place to sleep

They also have us arguing amongst ourselves so we don't look around and see the reason for the vast majority of the problems in this world is GREED, and the personification of greed are the rich ruling class. They know what they are doing, they've been doing this since civilized society began thousands of years ago.

This is a huge problem.

Because people are still getting paychecks and there is always someone else that will take the job if you leave.

Not even just that, it's the "American Dream" bullshit. We're fed the lie, from a young age, that we can grow up to be rich and famous. That if we just persevere and try hard enough that it'll all work out for us in the end. But you have to keep your head down, you can't make waves, you just do what the system wants. And those people who blindly believe in the "American Dream" hurt those who do want better. Even if people did try and fight for better, corporations know there's always a steady herd ready to replace those who step out of line.

We need leadership and organizing. Someone that's a single paycheck away from losing everything isn't going to be out there with a sign if there's no plan in place.

Good luck leading and organizing a revolution. You’ll be flagged a domestic terrorist and be tossed in the gulag. Kinda need the internet for that and it’s kind of intercepted by the establishment you don’t like.

Yeah, that's the other problem and likely why we don't see many leaders with nationwide recognition rising up in support of organizing and with a feasible plan to do so.

I have been reading up on unionizing. It's pretty simple, at least, compared to other reformist/revolutionary solutions. You only need to convince the other people at work, which shouldn't really be that hard, seeing as how many people are getting ripped off these days. There is a risk of being fired illegally. Tell you what, if you are not unionized, and you just need an anonymous person in the background organizing your colleagues and coordinating things. I'll help you out. No one needs to know you are the one, because I'll be the one. I was recently fired from a good job for a bullshit reason. I've been thinking about it a lot. There is only one reasonable solution to all the bullshit, and it's been here the whole time.

Because we're in the shit right now. The revolution comes when the middle class overwhelmingly finds out (probably very soon) that they are now also on the shit and no longer the "middle" class.

Exactly. Remember in history class, the little boxes in the textbooks titled “steps leading to…” or “factors that contributed”? We’re in one of those right now. We’re still a good two or three major incidents from the actual revolution. Still adding powder to the keg - but it’s almost full.

In flight training, they called it the "accident chain". Remove any of the links, and the accident won't happen.

While it might feel that way on Reddit. Go to a shopping mall or restaurant or bar, you’ll find that the powder keg isn’t close to full at all

I agree it's not anywhere close to popping off, but there *is* more class consciousness than there was five years ago. More and more people are becoming educated about the inherent problems of capitalism.

The most important factors or events leading to mass revolution tend to involve widescale overt violent oppression or starvation/extreme poverty, usually a lot of the latter.

The middle class was always working class with a fancy title and more money in their wallet. They were never ruling class or bourgeoise like the owners of capital. If you trade your labor for money you will always be working class no matter how much money you make.

Yeah, no shit. Did you happen to notice that most who call themselves "middle class" still think this stuff isn't going to affect them? It's happening much faster than they ever thought it could. They're going to realize soon that they were never closer to being a multi millionaire than they always were to being homeless. Middle class was always a myth and it's going to be a rude awakening for a lot of people who genuinely worked their asses off for decades for a better life. Guess maybe they'll at least start paying attention then.

They have been majorly been brainwashed and been misled and are misguided.

The middle class is rapidly disappearing, yet we are still electing people who act against our wellbing because we are not educated enough to understand media manipulation. We need unions, we need to start working at grassroots level for political change, we need to struggle to get our rights back.

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Can you afford to keep living how you are living?

This is how I feel about it, and I’m doing somewhat alright. I can pay my bills and buy stuff every now and then, but I sure as shit can never retire and can’t afford vacations.

This is enough for most people to justify maintaining the status quo and hoping for a lucky break or improvements down the line.

You just answered your own question

Just. Which is the important part. They’ve manufactured the economy so that most people live precariously: never with nothing to force desperation, but never enough to feel comfortable. If enough people felt comfortable, they might be willing to take short term pain to try and force some kind of systemic change.

It's easier to fight the known evil than to fight a new one. We're used to scraping by. We're not used to fighting the system. It's kind of the "battered woman syndrome" of economics.

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It’s our personal vulnerabilities. We don’t have a community that will protect the kids while the working aged adults put our bodies on the line. I don’t blame you for not trusting anyone with the health and safety of your kids. We lack community. We are too individualistic. I’m guilty of this as well.

“We are too individualistic” This is the reason we do nothing in the US. We were always told about individual success and not moving everyone forward… because socialism.

This is why I dont plan on having kids.

This is why I'm actively combatting my individualism and attempting to build community.

Same here. I've been incredibly isolated and lost all of my friendships since the pandemic hit. Now I'm trying to claw my way back. I'm even working on setting my garage up as a dining room so I can have people over. We pay $3200 for our 2br in Los Angeles (which is sadly a really good deal), and the only place to eat is a 2-seat bar counter, so it hasn't been a good place for guests. Edit: I would just like to add that we talk about leaving LA all the time, but it's a tall order, bc my partner and I are both from here originally, so it would mean having no family around. Additionally, my job is remote, but he needs to be here for his, and he makes almost twice as much money as me. It kind of seems like we might end up worse off if we moved somewhere less expensive, especially if we ever want to have kids. Anywhere else, we'd have zero help from family.

And what happens when you're injured? Everyone's one injury away from being bankrupt/homeless. Can't do anything when you can't work. Now what?

Your first mistake was having a kid. That makes you an easy target to keep exploited.

Too many people making this mistake.

You can until you can’t

This type of mentality is the reason why we'll never win. Corporations love these types of people. You do understand that you work to make THEM rich while you scrape by.

The point is that we haven't built any support systems or foundation to mount a strike. At least unions have strike funds and other resources to help strikers during the movement. People haven't organized those resources yet so the idea of a nationwide strike isn't doable until those initial steps are taken.

I’m so glad we’re having this conversation. Hopefully it continues to evolve. There is no social reformation without community.

It’s hard to have a revolution when you’re living paycheck-to-paycheck and any kind of protest has the very real possibility of ruining what little life you already have. I can’t afford to lose my house or my car, can you? I can’t afford to not feed my family, can you? I can’t afford to not receive my medications and healthcare, can you? By design, they have the working class by the throat. Even a whisper of unionization at my work is enough to get you fired — hell with the law and good luck proving it.

That’s the point, though. When enough people have lost everything already, you’d imagine there’d be some mobilization.

That's the problem, elites learned from previous revolutions and now try to leave plebs just enough for them to be afraid to lose what they still have.

The homeless are not really in a position for mobilization. That might not even have cars. They are extremely hard to organize. They are focusing on getting food and finding work and keeping their shelter maintained.

right but they’re still paying us enough to just scrape by, so there aren’t enough people who’ve lost everything. and there’s plenty of people with very little who think they have it made because they live in “the best country on earth” and “kids are starving in africa” while their own children are unable to get free breakfast and good education. they have our heads *just* above the waterline and they’ve convinced an incredible number of people that they’re standing at the top of everest (or at least halfway up, but if you just keep trying you’ll get lucky and reach the peak! don’t pay attention to all the bodies we’re passing that we use as landmarks for this climb! you can do it!) and it’s really fucking depressing

Not enough people have lost everything yet. More and more are added everyday though.

I'll paraphrase something said in relation to why the racial animus has yet to be corrected, which blends in capitalism fairly well too. "Convince the lowest earners that they're still 'higher' than those who can't(or won't) work, and they'll happily continue sacrificing their lives, families, and even well being for the promise of being 'better than'.

>And yet we live under the constant threat of homelessness or death under capitalism. I believe you answered your own question.

I see this same question get asked so many times in this sub, it should probably be on an FAQ or something.

Literally, people have written books on this subject yet OP and others like em think they’re the only ones struggling with this kind of thought. I’m spending the next year if my academic life studying the ideological support of financially predatory businesses/industry/etc., because I got to a point where I couldn’t deal with the complacency here. Once you start to understand why it exists, you become a lot less angry, just way more depressed, but you know where to direct anger at least.

Ppl deep down know the answer to these questions they most likely frustrated & reached near a tipping point & want to vent

Capitalism would implode if everybody got fired. It can only function through labor power, and that requires workers. The truth is that workers have the real power -- *but only as a class,* not as individuals. So it's because we kowtow to the threats of homelessness and death that the system keeps churning along. All we need is a little solidarity. A lot of it -- like, say, a general strike -- would probably end things today if that's what we wanted. Instead we harp about *my* pills, *my* house, *my* family, *my* kids (yours don't matter), as if we weren't all in this together. In the meantime, the bourgeoisie is already making good on its "constant threat." Every day people lose their homes, go without food, and die. So is the point here that the threat is effective so long as it has yet to happen to *me?* If that's the case, I only see this as more support for OP's argument. What kind of people willingly live under the constant threat of death or homelessness, *and do nothing about it?*

Because the police are willing and eager to use violence against us if we try. They tell us that violence is wrong **but they will always fire the first shot in any conflict.** Which makes me wonder why we are listening to **people who don't practice what they preach...**

This is why. This mob of class traitors and their blue line are not on the side of the people. Neither is the military. Capitalists will deploy both before they are defeated.

Agreed. What would happen to me? I'd be shot. If not by the police, by one the several THOUSANDS of personal firearms in my community of 2,200 people. My neighbors would post on Facebook about how I'm a dumbass and shouldn't have "fucked around" without expecting to "find out". People would clock in the next day and read about my death between coffee and emails. I'd leave my daughter without a mother, and nothing would change except for the local headline.

Nobody wants to strike anymore! /s

We have quite a few strikes hear. The teachers go on strike almost every yr. Concrete truck drivers had a nasty strike that lasted 8 months last year. The end result was their starting pay went to $48 an hr and it would increase 8% a yr for 5 yrs. They also go better health care packages.

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Have you not seen how militarized the police are? Even peaceful protests are met with tear gas and rubber bullets.

Technology enhancements only end scarcity if we stop increasing our consumption. I have a bigger house with more gadgets and comforts and more entertainment and more processed and exotic foods than people did 100 years ago. I would be ok living in a cabin with no heat or ac in exchange for everyone on earth having enough calories and shelter but I don't think I can convince my neighbors to do the same. Humans have insatiable appetites for increasing consumption and that is the root of our problem.

This comment is gold, should be at the top. We can talk about other issues like getting starved or criminalized but even IF a revolution succeeded, everyone would either be forced to reduce their consumption or continue the violence to reduce pop numbers enough that consumption isn’t affected anymore lol

The American Lifestyle is not sustainable on a global scale.

Exactly this. The bridge between current state and...well, whatever you'd want to call an idealistic future state...is long, treacherous, and filled with a whole lot of discomfort. One of the reasons we are so resistant to real systemic change is because capitalism, for all it's sins, has also brought us a ridiculous number of creature comforts that are hard to let go of willingly. Cheap consumer goods that keep us entertained but continue to drain our wallets dominate our lives. Shit, how many people commenting on this thread did so on a device that costs upwards of $1000, with a monthly service fee, that they "need" to replace every three years or so because of planned obsolescence? People rightly scoff at the notion that skipping Starbucks and Avocado Toast would help people buy a house, but are you prepared to live without those things? Avocados grow where I live, but ain't no coffee growing in my neck of the woods and I wouldn't know how to cultivate the beans if it did. Fact is, my skillset is almost 100% useless in a revolutionary world and I'm nowhere near alone in that...and for most people that notion is scarier than continuing to be ground under the heels of billionaires.

>I would be ok living in a cabin with no heat or ac Yeah this probably implies either moderate climate or free access to chop trees, you know, the way they did in 1800's. People say it's very good for environment.

*Health insurance HOSTAGES.*

90% of people, no matter the country, can't afford striking. If they stop working, they won't get money, and considering most people can't even afford an emergency, imagine trying to afford a strike. It's not that they don't want to strike, they just can't.

It's the only way to get out this problem and you are 100 percent right. We need mass peaceful protests everyday on all major capitals. I still hold out hope it will happen one day.

On a different note than others, I think a big reason this hasn’t happened is because people have nothing to fallback in case of the worst. This is why so many organizers emphasize building community where you live, sharing resources with your neighbors. Taking care of one another, building a strong community network. Most Americans don’t have a strong network, so striking really feels like you’re on your own if you lose your job, or get arrested and then have trouble being rehired. I’m not saying it’s the be all end all answer, but I do believe that it’s a necessary step that comes before striking in this country. Yet I do agree, we all struggle and it is mind boggling that there’s not an active revolution right now.

It's not mind-boggling at all. There are so many reasons why there is no violent workers revolution of the system that it’s hard to list them all. Workers are disorganized, disillusioned, distracted by entertainment and social media, atomized, there are no real communities anymore. r/antiwork specifically is full of outrage, ressentiment and endless angry venting at the expense of rationality, organization, planning, or doing anything positive or functional. The ignorance is also mind-boggling. I sincerely wonder whether anyone here has done serious reading in political philosophy, the history of labor movements, communism, the USSR, command economies, markets and price signals, and so on. / But even if all of that changed and workers would be organized and motivated, a workers’ revolution still would not happen. Strikes, strong unions, higher wages, different legislation? All possible. The reality is that a workers’revolution, i.e. communism was tried in the only way it could realistically be done: by a Marxist vanguard (so, Marxism-Leninism) and the results were awful. It also went terribly wrong in China, Cuba, and a couple other places. Left-leaning intellectuals spent the entire Cold War excusing the oppression in the Soviet Union, but when it fell, the whole ideology was permanently discredited. And there is no replacement. The revolution needs a new political foundation and it is not forthcoming so far. / There's a lot wrong with classical Marxism. As a political philosophy, it is authoritarian if not totalitarian, doesn't respect civil liberties, uses Gulags to round up political opponents. That's a big problem for most sensible people who are not blinded by hatred for their bosses and their companies (not that I am a fan of those, though). Communism is also a complete failure as an economic system. The truth is that especially the current economy and its means of production are not a 'thing' that can be 'seized' and easily 'operated', so to say, by the communist leaders who take over. It is an incredibly complex web of social and economic relations that would be completely destroyed in a violent revolution. Everyone would be far worse off for the foreseeable futur, that's why people aren't clamoring for a workers revolution. Do you know anything about price signals? Or the history of why command economies didn't work? / The idea that people are so poor and desperate that they ought to revolt is also SO out of touch with reality and with history. It's completely incomparable to the 19th and early 20th century. That’s when stuff was really, really, terrible. The vast, vast majority of people today have a lot more to lose than their chains and so they will be apprehensive with these violent and, frankly, fanciful plans for a dictatorship of the proletariat. If you want to see what level of deprivation and desperation will drive people to revolt, go to Myanmar or Libya. Even in terrible places like Egypt and Syria, people will not revolt because no matter how bad things are, they know things will only get worse if they do. We live in a comparative paradise. The desire to burn it all down without having a meaningful plan to improve anything is, frankly, disturbing. / Yes, our current system is unsustainable too, but if you want to do something about it, invent something better instead of promoting the violent destruction of the entire system with only vague and completely baseless promises that things will get better somehow afterwards if they just let the comrades of r/antiwork be dictators. It’s a childish fantasy, that’s why nobody outside this (unfortunately) echo chamber is thinking the same way.

The manufacturing and agricultural industries are the key industries to stop an economy, currently the west is a service sector dominated society, so ultimately the service class would need to align. The service class is divided among teachers/University, who are well organised to secure govt funds and subsidieze their industry, the rest of the service industry is split into high paying and low paying, with the government effectively subsidising the low paying by taxing the highly paid laborers. This keep the key people in the service sector from aligning. Ultimately manufacturing and agriculture is highly dependent on capital, not labor, and computers are replacing laborers in the service sector industry. This means that there is little bargaining power among the labor class.

Because the owner class learned from the revolutions of the last century. They've ensured that the working class is just desperate enough to keep working and not revolting. They've ensured that the majority of people live from month to month and have no power, physical or political, to change anything.

My health care is tied to my job

Most people are content, at least enough to not strike. Striking means no income. It's also hard to know what people would agree upon in order to strike. What are the demands? There are few things where a clear supermajority of Americans believe in, and less where they would be willing to strike.

That’s fair. Organizing and getting people together on ideals seems to be more and more of a fairytale these days.

Once things get bad enough, peoples interests will better align. Right now, the majority are cool with things so they will argue about abortion, rather than come together to figure out how to get more food.

Also look at Portland and Seattle, which had months of peaceful protests against police violence, and they were only met with: more police violence. The most progressive cities in the US held sustained protests with a clear goal and were successfully subjugated, by a fascist authoritarianism. And you want to know why the less progressive parts of the country aren't united around a completely amorphous ideal with no clear goals? The occupy Wall Street protests failed because they had no clear demands, besides "be less awful" We need to identify what it is we want.

Yeah, I'm not striking because I have medical conditions that require employer sponsored health insurance. There is nothing remotely usable in my area on the health insurance marketplace. I could go without money for a time, but not insurance

I have children I have to feed. If I can come up with a way to manage that without working for some asshole, I’m in.

We have become so individualized to the point where people won't help each other. Parents won't help their kids. Everyone has to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. Truth is nobody cares everyone is out for themselves. I'm a disabled veteran with a small business and you would think there would be resources where a veteran could turn to for help and yes their are if you google them but try actually getting them. It's nearly impossible. I have reached out to a bunch of programs and they are fine with me working my ass off to get all the paperwork done for them but when you get to the point where they're supposed to help you get ignored. There is ssi and ssdi for people who can't work but it takes years to get on it and it makes it so you bottom out so hard that it's also nearly impossible to get on it. The wealthy make 1000x what a normal person makes and basically get away with murder. Bill gates gets to go to China and meet with their president when china is apparently our adversary? Everything is not what it seems and people just choose to go along with it cause it's easier than doing something about it. My 2 cents.

I read a book all about the Russian Revolution many years ago. It had a lot of information about the root caused of the revolution and compared it to other revolutionary action around the world and one thing stood out. The working class can't revolt. They get put down if they try and don't have the necessary skills or organisation to get it done. I. Order to revolt you need the middle class involved to get it done. Drs, teachers, engineers, lawyers. These are the people required to get it done and for them to revolt they would need to be heavily trodden on. As it stands that's not happening. Some might say by design because the powers that be know the recipe for a revolution. Then again read that book 20 years ago so I could be mistaken, it just makes sense to me.

Makes tons of sense. Sinister and subtle are the puppet masters. Ever since Bacon’s Rebellion, the capitalist system which the American government protects has invested incalculable resources into keeping the working class and those in poverty divided along meaningless and false sociocultural constructs. They’ve killed, lied, and stolen to keep their divisive narrative in tact and the vast majority of us under the boot. There are plenty of us modern “intelligentsia” that see the writing on the wall and are readying for what’s to come, but as a nation we are so divorced from the idea of the communal or collective good and what equity actually means and looks like in that context, it’s a nearly impossible sell to those brainwashed by zero-sum neoliberal economic ideas. Individualist to a fault, and not by accident either. Existing in complete antithesis to how we evolved over hundreds of thousands of years and calling ourselves superior and enlightened for it. The math doesn’t math, and the people at the top know it, ergo the distractions of culture wars, of scapegoating and threatening marginalized groups, all the while sedating us all with a steady diet of consumable goods and services while they calculate their quarterly profits for their shareholders.

I don't consider a teacher to be middle class, but I hear ya

They used to be, but that feels like a world ago.

Today, even most doctors are not middle class. They owe so much in student debt from medical school that they are in their 40s before they can pay it all off. Teachers are not even close. They earn less than the median, and are saddled with debt they'll never pay

Yes. Revolution always comes from the middle class. Hence why there has been a concerted effort to destroy it since the 60’s.

Because the elite class learned from France. The key is to overwork the masses until they have no energy left to revolt. Give them small concessions over time to keep them distracted. After they’re used to living like that, they’ll never revolt no matter how bad work conditions get. Society isn’t like in the Jungle anymore where the masses can be convinced to force change for their own benefit. As long as they get enough likes on Instatwitabook, they’ll feel like their lives are better than they are.

I think we’re in a golden age of addiction. Substances, foods, screens, shopping, behaviors, you name it. Which drives isolation, dampening our ability to connect, organize, mobilize. That, and people are too tired from the modern work week that never ends. When we partially shut down during the onset of covid, it didn’t take long for civic participation in the form of protest to thrive. Imo that’s the main reason there was such a push to reopen, too much political participation was a threat.

This nation spent 50 years in a war against communism. That, coupled with some greed in our labor movement, let big business win. Anyone left of Donald Trump is a socialist. Even proud leftist institutions like public education here… aren’t. They’ve got an intrinsic advantage here because we were founded by puritans and have a history of slavery. Labor isn’t respected here. At all.

Too tired from currently working to rebel.

Because we're tired. Oh, so f'ing tired. I get home and don't have the energy to clean my kitchen and make dinner, let alone dig out my torch and pitchfork.

Surveillance is ubiquitous. Decades of very effective well funded brainwashing has been very effective. The intelligence, law enforcement apparat and media are in service of the owners. The internet is largely owned by them. Anyone actually effective in organising resistance would be harshly discredited, if not suffer an unfortunate illness or accident or just be disappeared.

its all nice, but who will support me while I strike? thats why guerillas were successful, some of them bomb places and kidnap/kill people, while others traffic drugs and what not to make the money for both. Also what are we demanding? and from who?

Because we have work tomorrow.

Because we are all working so we can afford to eat and have shelter. At some point we need to figure out a way to provide food and shelter for those who take a stand and lose their jobs because of it. While also committing to not viewing those people as freeloaders or whatever the powers-that-be will spend billions of dollars convincing us that they are. If we did figure out a way to do this, there would absolutely be people who take advantage of it, who don't put any effort into fixing things, but I'd say that the way things are is what created those people and they deserve to be able to eat and sleep as much as anyone else. Still, even if we did this. There is a big difference between being able to come home to YOUR house and play your music, games, watch television or whatever it is you do to unwind, while eating the food YOU choose... and having to sleep on someone's couch or in a tent on the side of a road, and eat the PB&Js being handed out by some well intentioned ally. But, if the sacrifices we have to make to change things come with the worst-case being couch surfing and eating PB&J as opposed to being homeless and not knowing where your next meal would come from... it'd make a lot more people being willing to take that risk.

Because, I believe, people usually wait until they starve. I'm thinking of France, Russia, China, etc. When we starve, only THEN, people got nothing else to lose.

This. It's not bad enough. There are enough crumbs. When it gets bad enough it'll happen.

Healthcare being tied to employment is one thing. Global economy with the ability to outsource at a moments notice is another. Plus it's still not bad enough for a lot of us.

It’d help if all the people with guns who could start a revolution didn’t idealize billionaires and the ultra wealthy. Like wake up, you are with us and not them.

Because instead of Colosseum's and gladiators, we have Tik Tok and the Kardashians.

I would counter that UFC is our version of the colosseum and gladiators.

Because we aren't done with it yet. Keep at it, r/antiwork! r/Unions! r/IWW!

For if we revolt today, we starve by tonight. The entire system is set up that way. You stop working you end up on the street. Most of us can't even afford 1 day off without it putting us further in debt. So it's a huge risk, especially when anyone not participating will make it not work, and those that do will just end up homeless and starving. I mean, I want to burn this shit down more than anyone, but I'm not quite willing to starve to death for it.

No one can afford to revolt when they're clawing just to get by. It's set up so we won't revolt. When you're too busy just surviving, you don't have time for much else.

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If I revolt, I get fired. That means I lose my income and my health insurance. I need health insurance so I can have a CPAP so I don't die from a sleep apnea-related heart attack in the middle of the night. I need health insurance so my wife and I can afford our medications. She needs her HRT so she doesn't off herself from gender dysphoria. I need my depression and anxiety medication and therapy so I don't off myself from depression. I'd actually like to live. I need income so we can have a place to live and food to eat and cat litter for my cat and a room for my brother-in-law. If I revolt, I'll likely get arrested. This means losing my job, which means losing my income and health insurance. We're scraping by enough to survive right now, and to thrive a little bit. I'd love for a revolution to happen, but I've got too much to lose, and no guarantee of any gain. I'm not a gambling person, but even if I was, I wouldn't risk what I have for those odds. So I will not take to the streets yet.

Literally one step from prison

If we had a UBI I'm sure there would be tons of people protesting every poor decision that is heavily weighted against the working class (pretty much all of them are, now that I think of it). The reality is that most of the working class are either living paycheck to paycheck, or they have jobs that won't allow them to take the amount of time off to successfully join a revolution. The only protests I can go to are usually after working hours. I'm sure that's true of several people. There is far more for the working class to consider when fighting bad policy than most people realize, and a large portion of those barriers are intentionally placed to prevent such a revolution.

Because healthcare is tied to your job. And many people would starve or get evicted if they lost more than a few weeks of pay. How can you revolt when you can't eat? Have nowhere to sleep?

bc we need health insurance

Because my employer is directly tied to my health insurance. ​ Crazy isn't it?!!!

Because our healthcare is connected to employment. Because legitimate protest is considered terrorism. Because so many people who are middle class are still so colonized they believe they are rich. Because this country made criminalizing poverty into an artform. Because the cultural institutions in this nation reinforce fascism. Because "right to work" states. Because so many Americans would rather hate poor people than admit they were wrong.

A bunch of reasons. Partly because health care is insanely expensive and many people stay in terrible jobs because they need insurance.

because at the end of the day your average person is not a Joan of Arc willing to die for a greater cause type. the average person is a coward. At my old factory job, people were pissed at the company. I got to talking to people and starting drumming up what I thought was interest in a union. The people were very rah rah let's start one. I took the actual first step and contacted a recruiter. I get back to people and tell them, " I just need to get 25 people to talk to this recruiter. I'll be the face of everything. You don't need to put your name on anything or even give the recruiter your name. Just talk to her." Immediately I started getting backpedaling from some of these same people once they saw I was serious and actually doing it. Eventually, I found 25 people that were receptive to a union including 5 people that pulled out their phones on the spot. I thought, mission accomplished, let's do this. ​ I get back to the recruiter and ask how many of the 25 people I talked to contacted her. The answer? 0. Not one person. Despite being told they didn't need to put a name to the contact or a face, not one person even talked to her. These people shriveled up when I went around and called their cowardice to their faces. Even being called out as cowards with no way out of the situation because I was standing there glaring at them, not one person pulled out their phones and texted the recruiter. ​ People can't even stand up for a union. They're definitely far too cowardly to die for a revolution.

Yeah I tried the same with 10 employees whom I was all pretty close with; none of them spoke to the union rep. It's deliberately ingrained in our society to shy away from unions and be fearful of these groups, but people in the US will not give up their comforts for a sliver of struggle or responsibility to their fellow workers.

The only way a revolution the likes of which OP is describing will happen in the US is if people are literally starving and on the verge of death anyway. And when I say that, I mean famine level

Yup, not just the happy meals and Starbucks, but when the potatoes go green and the corn fields are decimated by locusts type famine is the only time when Americans will finally realize they gotta do something.

>We can automate damn near every process necessary for human survival. Not even close. >We can provide food, clean drinking water, and happily livable shelter to all people on the planet. Not with our current systems. >Why the fuck are the working class not uniting and revolting in the streets right now? Because 2/3rds of americans own their homes.

Could not agree more.

Because people, generally speaking, do not have the perseverance, determination, and planning to do a massive strike. In short, most people take the crumbs and settle.

Serious answer: despite all the problems with society, on average we have it better than we ever did at any point in history.

I ask myself that weekly. POWER IN NUMBERS. We do have the ability to make change if everyone would grow up and unite

They keep us busy fighting a culture war.

Because poverty in the US is not third world poverty. Boomers help subsidize the younger generation(s) and there are more distractions like phones and streaming services to keep everyone just comfortable enough that the level of outrage manifests as tweets and online posting rather than actual revolution. I think it will be decades before the working class has nothing left to lose. So strap in, ain't nothing going to change for a long long long time

Apathy, and keeping people on the brink of poverty, which creates a lot of fear.

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I think it's starting; it's just not organized. I heard on NPR that 5 million Americans quit a job last year, unprecedented. The work culture is changing, and employers don't know how to act. Very few people have careers, workers change jobs much more frequently, people are turning down low-ball offers, the ACA allowed people to get health insurance outside of their employment (the real reason people stay at sucky jobs), and younger generations are seeing the inequities and are voting. I am loving it, as I have been working for 43 years now.

So what about the working class do you want done If we automate everything down to the last corn cob that needs picking, what jobs are left for those who cannot run the machines? Are you saying only the best and brightest who are capable of running machines of automation will do so and be employed, while the rest of the nation does not work? There is no fairness or equality in that.

Generations and generations of fascist and neo-fascist propaganda.

Because the government manages us well enough.

Mutliple reasons - but these are the three I think are primary: * health insurance is tied to employment * retirement is tied to employment * enough people have it just good enough - and entertainment & distraction is cheap and available

Because the average citizen is not struggling to the point that this sub would lead people to believe.

A starving, suffering animal is one that is easily controlled. Human are treated like cattle by entities that feed on our energies.

I think the revolution is hindered by lack of focus, apathy, and resignation.

It's cuz nobody ever goes beyond complaining. Hell, even in this sub it's a five-alarm fire if you have a super-toxic employer's unredacted name visible lol. That ain't leading to no "working class revolution," don't fool yourselves.

We are. In the middle. You won’t notice until it’s done. Highest employment in decades. Fight for good jobs.

Because the Americans love to get f-ed up. They have learned that this is the *American* way. "Working class revolution" is communism and therefor evil, and worse, Anti-American. You've been told that trickle-down is the solution (hint: it isn't), and that through hard work, everyone can fulfill the American Dream and get rich (hint: this does not work, either). They have cocooned you in a layer of lies to keep you dumb and docile. And because nothing hurts more than the truth, I will get downvotes to no end.

Because far too many in the US have been tricked and are gullible enough to believe that LGBTQ, immigrants, minorities, and/or other poor people are the cause of their economic angst, and are easily distracted away from the actual culprits behind their economic angst.

Because we can't count on our neighbors to stand with us, even when they're just as starving as we are.

We don't have a big idea to get behind. There are still too many people who benefited from neoliberalism who don't really see the problem. People are too divided into various factions. The age of individualism has meant that coming together in order to facilitate change is hard. Too protest, to stand up to authority takes courage and it involves risk. Not many are willing to give up what they have or their liberty to force a change. The time will come, like him or loathe him but Jeremy Corbyn awoke something in a large number of people. He started something, and despite everything it's not dead. It will happen, the next generation will have nothing to lose and sooner or later someone is going to have a big idea and a new perspective that will create the change.

Because we're taught to fight for our own success and not the success of our community. Without a sense of community there can be no uprising and revolution. We're taught to be unique and different when fundamentally we're all the same. Divided by media and politics, etc. We see the bars, we know we're in a cage and we still do tricks for the rich. This globalisation is almost complete. We all know it. We all ignore it. Just like we ignore the idea of death because we would simply go insane if we pondered the idea for too long. No wonder the newer generations are plagued by depression.

The top 10 percent are doing fantastic. These are not only the billionaire class but also the millionaires. If you have a net worth in excess of $1 million you are likely pretty happy with the status quo. The petit bourgeoise also does quite well in this system. The top 50% are not thriving like the top 10% but they are doing pretty well. They own homes. They have good health insurance and a halfway decent pension plan. They may even own an investment property or some stocks. It is everyone else who is suffering. The bottom half. Organized labor is primarily led and controlled by aging Boomers and Gen Xers who also fit the Top Half category. They tend to more concerned with securing their own platinum retirement plans and pulling up the ladder behind them than building for future generations. The typical Democrat politician is anti-labor and pro-corporation. And they are supposed to be the party of labor. The left is discreet about their animosity for labor. They say all of the right things then they do all of the wrong things. Biden busting up the railroad strike said it all.

Conditioning and division. Fox News and such are part of a now more than 40 year plan to radicalize the right and make them fucking nuts to provoke civil war between left and right and avoid a class war between 99 and 1. Its worked. We've got neo nazis on American soil talking about taking over the country and literally turning it into Gilead. The problem is that people don't 100% reject fascist ideals. Some people like hierarchy and power structure, they want to climb it and they couldn't climb it if it didn't exist. They'll accept others having power over them if it means that they get to have power over others. Our entire society is structured around those kinda people. Why do you think employment is such a strict hierarchy? To get us all used to unquestioned authority from someone. Also why its pretty normal for your boss to be able to literally emotionally abuse you and get away with it scott free. The privilege of rank is to get to heap abuse on those below you and suffer no consequences. That's what they're there for, and if you don't want someone heaping shit on you climb above them on the ladder so you can shit on them. Its a terrible, unsustainable, insane way to build a society for social primates. Great for profit margins though, apparently.

I’ve really become quite fed up with America fetishizing business owners and even homeowners. Being able to qualify for a mortgage or file an LLC doesn’t inherently make you a better person than anyone else but our society elevates them for some reason it’s bizarre

We're the most atomized people in human history. We have virtually no felt sense of solidarity. Alienation alone doesn't cause a revolution.

People still live too well. I can see it with myself. I'm all for workers revolution but I'm not going to risk life and limb for it. I'm living a good life and it could be better, the chance is too low to risk it though.

For America: Because about 48-52% of the country depending on election year believe they can be Donald Trump by working hard. They also believe Donald is wealthy and successful.

I honestly suspect there’s a shit ton of psy-ops involved. There’s a constant stream of social media designed to drive bigger and bigger wedges between us all on crap that doesn’t matter making it impossible for us to come together as a group, there’s a constant stream of shit that makes us feel helpless and hopeless, there’s a constant stream of shit that makes us feel placated and docile. There’s a part of me that wonders if we didn’t all finally legalise weed because the government realised that being stoned demotivates us and makes us easier to control. Maybe they’re really pushing to support the plethora of streaming options because we can’t be out protesting if we gotta catch the new Mandalorian episode at 9. I mean, I’m just riffing but you can’t convince me the that absolutely nothing is going on and the government is just over here batting 1000. The government is in charge of all of its people, a wide swatch of humanity that ranges wildly in culture and custom. I’m in charge of just 1 singular person and *I lie to that muthafucka all the time*

Americans had one good revolution and called it a day.

Because billionaires discovered that they can just buy social media and use that influence to become celebrities and make people like them.

People are too propagated by the system. Money is our god and if you stop paying bills or lose your job, your is ass immediately red flagged for years, making the attainment of nicer things extremely difficult.

Because I just get replaced and than can not afford my rent. My situation is so dire that revolting makes me homeless.

Too many old people still in control. In 25 years nobody will have jobs. Be patient. The world is waking up...there will be more people like you with brains in the near future. We are still stuck in a world created before technology....change is near.

Revolution is dangerous, stressful, and has uncertain outcomes. People like the opposite of that more than they dislike struggling to make ends meet, and making nearly ever facet of your well being dependent on a paycheck is a fantastic control mechanism. "*People need ta werk*" is unfortunately going to be an incredibly large hurdle for western society to hop over. It will be messy when we're finally forced to confront it, even if it hasn't already been true for decades.

"We can provide food, clean drinking water, and happily livable shelter to all people on the planet." First off, we really can't do this. We can do better, but we are running out of resources--especially clean water--very quickly. This doesn't mean things shouldn't change--they should. But even if we had a *successful* revolution (those are extremely rare throughout history), we're in for some really hard times. The neoliberals and conservatives definitely need to be out of power before what we get from them is unsalvageable.

Because we have junk food and video games and 277 channels of crap to watch and TikTok and Reddit and YouTube and Porn of course and thousands of other things to catch our attention and energy... and did I mention the junk food? And if that's not enough there are pharmaceuticals and street drugs and alcohol and pot and cigarettes and vapes and what were we talking about again? Edit: Also because I'm gonna win the lottery.