“Whether the mask is labeled fascism, democracy, or dictatorship of the proletariat, our great adversary remains the apparatus—the bureaucracy, the police, the military. Not the one facing us across the frontier of the battle lines, which is not so much our enemy as our brothers’ enemy, but the one that calls itself our protector and makes us its slaves. No matter what the circumstances, the worst betrayal will always be to subordinate ourselves to this apparatus and to trample underfoot, in its service, all human values in ourselves and in others.” - Simone Adolphine Weil - (February 3, 1909 - August 24, 1943)
Be sure to wear two masks. One for the mirror. The other for the spectators...
Exactly. The enemy is not specifically capitalism (nor socialism), it is intelligent psychopathy in high places (directing bureaucratic, police, military, etc. goon squads). They play the long game, effectively control lives while spouting "the people" and "democracy". As of now, we barely know how to recognize it properly and identify who is doing it, let alone solve anything. Capitalism is simply a *tool* for destruction -- and so can be so-called "democratic socialism", never mind actual Marxism.
-----------------
Caitlin: "This glaring disparity between the rights of employers and employees exists because capitalism is all about using state power to protect the interests of capital."
Tell me, are the vanguards in Mamdani's revolutionary offices assembling panels of constituents that are able to effect (at least in part) binding decisions, by randomly picking people for feedback boards? (Shockingly today, along the lines William F. Buckley once suggested.) Thus drawing not just from all identities but also all political views, to *actually* democratically represent the city? Did they participate in this DoorDash agreement, and have something to say now about the sausage-making behind it? Didn't think so.
Hello Anti-Hip. My take is that ALL human organizations corrupt individual choice to remain free of manipulation. This even holds true in *allegedly* co-operative marriages. Add a third party to a marriage partnership and things begin to unravel damn quickly. Organized committees are even worse...
"My take is that ALL human organizations corrupt individual choice to remain free of manipulation."
Agreed. That's my point too. But there's a factor that takes advantage of it that is not possessed by all people, as there are certainly groups that democratically function well.
Separately, innate human desires to possess/control things are not artificial, and therefore distinguishing capitalism from socialism -- as Caitlin, many in her audience, and for that matter, most people entirely do, one way or another -- is unfortunately never going to be fruitful.
In the original Titanic movie, there's a moment when engineer/designer and captain recognize the ship is going down and that lifeboat capacity is barely enough for half the passengers. That's early 20th-century Capitalism, and it's never gotten any better.
Jamenta - Thanks for this listing of countries - it helps to see the numbers; in the category of bankruptcy, we are truly number 1.
As most of us know, the reason the US does not have Universal Health Care and other necessary programs for those in need, is due to our bloated, obscene and immoral military spending. MLK was killed for saying this out loud too many years ago.
The US spends it's resources to kill and intimidate anyone anywhere, while our own struggling citizens are told to be silent and stay out of the way. We are encouraged to vote for the Dismal Party to "clean up the mess" in the coming mid-terms.
Everything leading up to this day has happened because of a failed and purchased political system, right before our very eyes.
I agree Mr. Ressler. I understand why Americans will vote for the Democratic party these coming elections (in droves) and for good reason. But it is like putting a bandaid on the spreading cancer in this country. It will only be a temporary stay from the continual descent into a country run by a corrupt oligarchy.
As the rest of them also have capitalism, that is not what is standing in the way. Unfettered capitalism of the type that limits neither form, function, nor size of capitalist structures, combined with intelligent psychopaths who game these things, is the real problem -- not mere trade, per se.
"They’re stealing slices of your lifespan which you would otherwise be spending with loved ones and doing things that fulfill you. They’re actually stealing your life."
They are... and the only way workers can get their lives back is to get rid of employers by setting up their own workers' co-ops. When we work for ourselves and each other, we treat ourselves and others as equals. No more middle men, no more overpaid CEOs. Workers' co-ops for the win.
Good video, thanks. If only he and most other people could pronounce Clara's and all Italian names. Maa tay ee. All the vowels get in there in pronunciation.
Social hierarchies are completely unavoidable, as human beings (their bodies and thus minds) differ materially. It is impossible to escape this fact, unless you want to deny reality, the way most religions do.
Capitalism is, by atomic definition, an agreement to for one party to trade with another party. Do you have an objection to that?
How it (or, for that matter, socialism) can get to theft is a hell of a lot more complicated. "Generations of indoctrination have been done to prevent [university students] from understand[ing] this fact."
That's not capitalism. Are we conflating a contract with capitalism now? At the very least start with a dictionary then move onto Marx. Then if you still don't understand then watch some Richard Wolff educational videos on the subject. I'm just a retired Librarian so have a lot of experience with people not doing their research before spouting misinformation.
"Are we conflating a contract with capitalism now?"
I'm responding above to your "Capitalism = Theft" above with my statement "Capitalism is, by atomic definition, an agreement to for one party to trade with another party." (I'm not addressing right here the DoorDash contract.)
How does (the atomic concept of) voluntary trade between two consenting adults constitute theft? I'm not looking for an instant extrapolation to the mess of the modern Western world. Instead I, too am looking at clarifying the definitions, starting as fundamentally as possible. Then we could build from there.
Actually, capitalism IS theft. Its mutant offspring is imperialism. Popular culture is its co conspirator. Elections are its farce and unions are the carrot on a stick used to keep the working class in line.
Capitalism is, by atomic definition, an agreement to for one party to trade with another party. Do you have an objection to that? I think it gets a hell of a lot more complicated after that, and the devil's in those details, just as they always have *also* been in every Marxist failure of the 20th century.
There is no such thing as democratic socialism, as intelligent psychopaths among the vanguards ALWAYS game it, faster than the capitalists do in their context. Power-wielding by the powerless is oxymoron that has never faced adequate scrutiny. Vanguards with undemocratic control of countries the way they've done in nearly every national socialist system attempted since is the peak barbarism you're looking for. Elections are not only a farce, they often don't even exist. The capitalist West runs a sorry second in the abuse department.
Mamdani, by the very case identified herein, has apparently shown that he let the evil capitalists drive a deal his administration made without even showing how it went wrong. Instead he trumpeted his deal as a "win"! He's a damned Trojan horse, like every other 'Parisian'-educated, trust-funded grifter vanguard getting his rocks off being a 'leader' of the masses, including his new best bud the obscenely character-deficient Trump. Two peas in a pod!! Mark my word, BOTH adventures will end in tears for their respective sets of patsies.
Face it -- there is NO *system* that can save us, only our choices (however made) of *people* who are neither lying psychopaths nor narcissist showmen. Figure out *that* riddle and maybe we have a prayer!
Our definition of theft is directly proportional to the degree of cruelty, deprivation, and institutional dysfunction our society has learned to regard as normal.
Hello Ginnie. Your comment is spot on. Every human being has become a covertly trained parasite. Natural environments are co-operative, interactive, and synergistic by design. Man's physical and social environments are competitive, environmentally hostile, and collectively sick to the core. That's why no one notices the parasite complex is a supreme con game.... "God bless us." No one else will or would..
"Natural environments are co-operative, interactive, and synergistic by design."
As a claim of settled science, this is pure bullshit -- and you must know it, at least if you have been educated in an environment uncontrolled by our owners. Humans are *either and both* combative and co-operative, in different contexts, just like the ranges species we evolved from, not to mention all the other species that show just how nasty (to pampered modern humans) Darwinian evolution can be.
"Man's physical and social environments are competitive, environmentally hostile, and collectively sick to the core."
Who created these environments? Some god?? Bunch of guys with MAGA Hats? And, socialism is the one new social environment that's going to cure all that? Like it has in all those case the last hundred years?? Please...
Synergistic design is a many splendored thing. There are numerous parasitic relationships in Nature that actually benefit both participants. *Organic* human relationships are similar. Cities produce nothing but industrial cesspools...
Man has completely lost the thread that binds Nature into orderly constructs. Man created all the antagonistic gods of religion, all political constructs and all the myriad mythologies of corporate finance.
"Man has completely lost the thread that binds Nature into orderly constructs."
You have an oddly restricted way of understanding what is natural and what is not. At what point did 'man' somehow escape his own nature?
"Cities produce nothing but industrial cesspools... / ... Man created all the antagonistic gods of religion, all political constructs..."
How is the biological (evolutionary) nature of 'man' not a part of *all* of that?
------------------
There are many intelligent psychopaths (smarter than you and me) out there who laugh at us as they scheme and con and rape society. (I'm not including for this case nurture-effect sociopaths.)
Are you telling us they don't *understand* that humans -- including them -- would be "naturally co-operative", if they only let nature take its course? Are you saying they are mind-controlled by these societal structures, and are in fact such social idiots that they don't know what they're doing and why, but that you (and your partners in the academy) *do*?
I'm a gig driver and all at least the people of NY have someone that will sue these companies on their behalf and their money that they're owed. Here in PA I've tried to get multiple state AG's over the years to sue these companies knowing that they're stealing billions from us. Only CA, NY and MA get justice for their drivers.
It's taken me most of my life to this point to unlearn capitalist propaganda. Even into my early twenties, I was still fully indoctrinated. It's difficult to deprogram, so I appreciate your writing and everyone else who is making an effort to help people see more clearly.
Not only is stealing wages from employees legal, but employment itself is, by its very nature, stealing, as surplus value is stolen from workers every hour they work. Capitalism is a giant con game, designed to steal from the poor and make the already filthy rich capitalists even richer.
At the very least, doordash should have to pay back the money they stole with interest. Maybe 75 percent interest? And then they should be barred from hiring anyone at all for a period of time while the skumbag owners do their own deliveries.
Even thinking capitalist societies are democracies and socialist or communist societies are not.
Russia isn't exactly communist anymore, but we don't hear a peep about the recent election Putin won, since that would imply (correctly) that Russia is a democracy, where people vote for their political representatives.
What a fucked up world we live in! And if you do theft and fraud on a grand scale why you could be a Senator like Ric Scott or even the President.
“Whether the mask is labeled fascism, democracy, or dictatorship of the proletariat, our great adversary remains the apparatus—the bureaucracy, the police, the military. Not the one facing us across the frontier of the battle lines, which is not so much our enemy as our brothers’ enemy, but the one that calls itself our protector and makes us its slaves. No matter what the circumstances, the worst betrayal will always be to subordinate ourselves to this apparatus and to trample underfoot, in its service, all human values in ourselves and in others.” - Simone Adolphine Weil - (February 3, 1909 - August 24, 1943)
Be sure to wear two masks. One for the mirror. The other for the spectators...
Awesome quote. Thanks Paul.
You are most welcome. Best regards.
Exactly. The enemy is not specifically capitalism (nor socialism), it is intelligent psychopathy in high places (directing bureaucratic, police, military, etc. goon squads). They play the long game, effectively control lives while spouting "the people" and "democracy". As of now, we barely know how to recognize it properly and identify who is doing it, let alone solve anything. Capitalism is simply a *tool* for destruction -- and so can be so-called "democratic socialism", never mind actual Marxism.
-----------------
Caitlin: "This glaring disparity between the rights of employers and employees exists because capitalism is all about using state power to protect the interests of capital."
Tell me, are the vanguards in Mamdani's revolutionary offices assembling panels of constituents that are able to effect (at least in part) binding decisions, by randomly picking people for feedback boards? (Shockingly today, along the lines William F. Buckley once suggested.) Thus drawing not just from all identities but also all political views, to *actually* democratically represent the city? Did they participate in this DoorDash agreement, and have something to say now about the sausage-making behind it? Didn't think so.
Hello Anti-Hip. My take is that ALL human organizations corrupt individual choice to remain free of manipulation. This even holds true in *allegedly* co-operative marriages. Add a third party to a marriage partnership and things begin to unravel damn quickly. Organized committees are even worse...
You might wish to read Joseph Sansone's excellent book titled: "Psychopathic Authoritarianism" >>> https://www.amazon.com/Psychopathic-Authoritarianism-Joseph-Sansone-PhD/dp/B0H7YR96X7?_encoding=UTF8&dib_tag=se&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.u33HEsyCrixdKxGaFyBySgk_w7PcgPNuawUvbzzGONAW_Iq6GHRfjkPU-qaVcdlEnbEbzYoHn7UFrZASlJDEjtCtoB6oD_Bg6K-GRhzBWrI.lUb1Ny9b5OMdFTyTM75hGQo-pzPM_bTfzj_7lHbQRJM&qid=1786127035&sr=8-1&linkCode=sl2&tag=mindmatters06-20&linkId=55c872c93597c1114fe1a54554869724&language=en_US&gaOptInStatus=true&ref_=as_li_ss_tl&ascsubtag=srctok-381d8d465972253f&btn_type=ss&btn_ref=srctok-381d8d465972253f
Not sure how a marriage adding another person (i.e. 3 people total) overlaps with psychopathic authoritarianism controlling a society?
"My take is that ALL human organizations corrupt individual choice to remain free of manipulation."
Agreed. That's my point too. But there's a factor that takes advantage of it that is not possessed by all people, as there are certainly groups that democratically function well.
Separately, innate human desires to possess/control things are not artificial, and therefore distinguishing capitalism from socialism -- as Caitlin, many in her audience, and for that matter, most people entirely do, one way or another -- is unfortunately never going to be fruitful.
Profoundly wrong of DD this rapacious behavior of theirs that robbed their hardworking employees who are commonly referred to as “gig workers.” 😒
Clearly, capitalists are the worst form of lowlifes imaginable. 😒
In the original Titanic movie, there's a moment when engineer/designer and captain recognize the ship is going down and that lifeboat capacity is barely enough for half the passengers. That's early 20th-century Capitalism, and it's never gotten any better.
Sadly, it's much worse in fact
Oh hell yeah.
The approximate number of people who go bankrupt every year because of medical bills:
Norway - 0
Israel - 0
France - 0
Spain - 0
Portugal - 0
Denmark - 0
Iceland - 0
Italy - 0
Finland - 0
Ireland - 0
Germany - 0
Netherlands - 0
Sweden - 0
Japan - 0
United States - 643,000
Of the 643,000 Americans who went bankrupt, the majority of them already had health insurance.
Sure glad Israeli's don't have to worry, thanks to us.
Jamenta - Thanks for this listing of countries - it helps to see the numbers; in the category of bankruptcy, we are truly number 1.
As most of us know, the reason the US does not have Universal Health Care and other necessary programs for those in need, is due to our bloated, obscene and immoral military spending. MLK was killed for saying this out loud too many years ago.
The US spends it's resources to kill and intimidate anyone anywhere, while our own struggling citizens are told to be silent and stay out of the way. We are encouraged to vote for the Dismal Party to "clean up the mess" in the coming mid-terms.
Everything leading up to this day has happened because of a failed and purchased political system, right before our very eyes.
I agree Mr. Ressler. I understand why Americans will vote for the Democratic party these coming elections (in droves) and for good reason. But it is like putting a bandaid on the spreading cancer in this country. It will only be a temporary stay from the continual descent into a country run by a corrupt oligarchy.
As the rest of them also have capitalism, that is not what is standing in the way. Unfettered capitalism of the type that limits neither form, function, nor size of capitalist structures, combined with intelligent psychopaths who game these things, is the real problem -- not mere trade, per se.
"They’re stealing slices of your lifespan which you would otherwise be spending with loved ones and doing things that fulfill you. They’re actually stealing your life."
They are... and the only way workers can get their lives back is to get rid of employers by setting up their own workers' co-ops. When we work for ourselves and each other, we treat ourselves and others as equals. No more middle men, no more overpaid CEOs. Workers' co-ops for the win.
Capitalism = Theft. Generations of indoctrination have been done to prevent the general population from understand this fact.
Socialism is the Fire Department saving your home. Capitalism is the Insurance Company denying your claim.
This woman gets it, as do many others. The key is spreading this message far and wide, in order to offset the indoctrination of which you speak.
Clara Mattei - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9M_dq_0ljsc
Yes Tom High, Clara Mattei is brilliant. So is Jason Hickle.
Good video, thanks. If only he and most other people could pronounce Clara's and all Italian names. Maa tay ee. All the vowels get in there in pronunciation.
“3500 years of allowing social hierarchy to destroy any hope of social advancement seems pretty counter-intuitive.” – Paul Vonharnish – (10/11/2014)
Capitalism rots the soul, period.
Social hierarchies are completely unavoidable, as human beings (their bodies and thus minds) differ materially. It is impossible to escape this fact, unless you want to deny reality, the way most religions do.
Capitalism is, by atomic definition, an agreement to for one party to trade with another party. Do you have an objection to that?
How it (or, for that matter, socialism) can get to theft is a hell of a lot more complicated. "Generations of indoctrination have been done to prevent [university students] from understand[ing] this fact."
That's not capitalism. Are we conflating a contract with capitalism now? At the very least start with a dictionary then move onto Marx. Then if you still don't understand then watch some Richard Wolff educational videos on the subject. I'm just a retired Librarian so have a lot of experience with people not doing their research before spouting misinformation.
"Are we conflating a contract with capitalism now?"
I'm responding above to your "Capitalism = Theft" above with my statement "Capitalism is, by atomic definition, an agreement to for one party to trade with another party." (I'm not addressing right here the DoorDash contract.)
How does (the atomic concept of) voluntary trade between two consenting adults constitute theft? I'm not looking for an instant extrapolation to the mess of the modern Western world. Instead I, too am looking at clarifying the definitions, starting as fundamentally as possible. Then we could build from there.
They got a whopping $526 apiece.
That'll put their finances back in the black. lol
Actually, capitalism IS theft. Its mutant offspring is imperialism. Popular culture is its co conspirator. Elections are its farce and unions are the carrot on a stick used to keep the working class in line.
Socialism or barbarism.
Capitalism is, by atomic definition, an agreement to for one party to trade with another party. Do you have an objection to that? I think it gets a hell of a lot more complicated after that, and the devil's in those details, just as they always have *also* been in every Marxist failure of the 20th century.
There is no such thing as democratic socialism, as intelligent psychopaths among the vanguards ALWAYS game it, faster than the capitalists do in their context. Power-wielding by the powerless is oxymoron that has never faced adequate scrutiny. Vanguards with undemocratic control of countries the way they've done in nearly every national socialist system attempted since is the peak barbarism you're looking for. Elections are not only a farce, they often don't even exist. The capitalist West runs a sorry second in the abuse department.
Mamdani, by the very case identified herein, has apparently shown that he let the evil capitalists drive a deal his administration made without even showing how it went wrong. Instead he trumpeted his deal as a "win"! He's a damned Trojan horse, like every other 'Parisian'-educated, trust-funded grifter vanguard getting his rocks off being a 'leader' of the masses, including his new best bud the obscenely character-deficient Trump. Two peas in a pod!! Mark my word, BOTH adventures will end in tears for their respective sets of patsies.
Face it -- there is NO *system* that can save us, only our choices (however made) of *people* who are neither lying psychopaths nor narcissist showmen. Figure out *that* riddle and maybe we have a prayer!
And apparently Mamdani is okay with ruses about ant-government “terrorism” and the “far left.”
Our definition of theft is directly proportional to the degree of cruelty, deprivation, and institutional dysfunction our society has learned to regard as normal.
Hello Ginnie. Your comment is spot on. Every human being has become a covertly trained parasite. Natural environments are co-operative, interactive, and synergistic by design. Man's physical and social environments are competitive, environmentally hostile, and collectively sick to the core. That's why no one notices the parasite complex is a supreme con game.... "God bless us." No one else will or would..
"Natural environments are co-operative, interactive, and synergistic by design."
As a claim of settled science, this is pure bullshit -- and you must know it, at least if you have been educated in an environment uncontrolled by our owners. Humans are *either and both* combative and co-operative, in different contexts, just like the ranges species we evolved from, not to mention all the other species that show just how nasty (to pampered modern humans) Darwinian evolution can be.
"Man's physical and social environments are competitive, environmentally hostile, and collectively sick to the core."
Who created these environments? Some god?? Bunch of guys with MAGA Hats? And, socialism is the one new social environment that's going to cure all that? Like it has in all those case the last hundred years?? Please...
Sure, give me all the rationalizations you have!
Synergistic design is a many splendored thing. There are numerous parasitic relationships in Nature that actually benefit both participants. *Organic* human relationships are similar. Cities produce nothing but industrial cesspools...
Man has completely lost the thread that binds Nature into orderly constructs. Man created all the antagonistic gods of religion, all political constructs and all the myriad mythologies of corporate finance.
"Man has completely lost the thread that binds Nature into orderly constructs."
You have an oddly restricted way of understanding what is natural and what is not. At what point did 'man' somehow escape his own nature?
"Cities produce nothing but industrial cesspools... / ... Man created all the antagonistic gods of religion, all political constructs..."
How is the biological (evolutionary) nature of 'man' not a part of *all* of that?
------------------
There are many intelligent psychopaths (smarter than you and me) out there who laugh at us as they scheme and con and rape society. (I'm not including for this case nurture-effect sociopaths.)
Are you telling us they don't *understand* that humans -- including them -- would be "naturally co-operative", if they only let nature take its course? Are you saying they are mind-controlled by these societal structures, and are in fact such social idiots that they don't know what they're doing and why, but that you (and your partners in the academy) *do*?
This is truly an outstanding post. Marx himself couldn't have said it better -- although he did say essentially the same.
Thank you.
I'm a gig driver and all at least the people of NY have someone that will sue these companies on their behalf and their money that they're owed. Here in PA I've tried to get multiple state AG's over the years to sue these companies knowing that they're stealing billions from us. Only CA, NY and MA get justice for their drivers.
It's taken me most of my life to this point to unlearn capitalist propaganda. Even into my early twenties, I was still fully indoctrinated. It's difficult to deprogram, so I appreciate your writing and everyone else who is making an effort to help people see more clearly.
Not only is stealing wages from employees legal, but employment itself is, by its very nature, stealing, as surplus value is stolen from workers every hour they work. Capitalism is a giant con game, designed to steal from the poor and make the already filthy rich capitalists even richer.
No doubt DoorDash claimed it was a "mistake", and proving otherwise would have involved a very expensive trial, which only DoorDash could afford.
It's not simply the written law that favours the wealthy, but also (or mostly) practical access to fair enforcement of the law.
The so-called "justice" system needs drastic reform: http://davidthorp.net/justice
@DoorDash also steal from customers.
I ordered 4 bottles of wine; they delivered 3, then fobbed me off with this when I sought a refund!
I took a photo & got the delivery guy to do so too. He told me to report it via the app, but I just got this same response.
At the very least, doordash should have to pay back the money they stole with interest. Maybe 75 percent interest? And then they should be barred from hiring anyone at all for a period of time while the skumbag owners do their own deliveries.
"Indoctrination" is the right word.
Even thinking capitalist societies are democracies and socialist or communist societies are not.
Russia isn't exactly communist anymore, but we don't hear a peep about the recent election Putin won, since that would imply (correctly) that Russia is a democracy, where people vote for their political representatives.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oDLTTQ7cao
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Russian_legislative_election