Because they think of themselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires rather than wage slaves.
If you believe food comes from a field, you will defend the field. If you believe the food comes from the supermarket, you will defend the supermarket.
It’s a lot simpler than what everyone here is saying tbh. They don’t know what it is. Most of them think capitalism is just markets existing. Or some other random definition they made up in their head. So they’re defending the imaginary version of it that they made up, which of course they like.
In fact the Epstein class wants you to be miseducated about capitalism. They have class consciousness and want that we don’t.
Those that benefit from it spend a lot of money on trying to make sure the majority of people don’t realise it’s fucking them over
Because they’ve been taught it’s the best system and only one that works.
Because the last 50-100 years of Western political-economic development (especially, but it goes back longer than that to a lesser degree, and is more prevalent in America) has “bourgeoisified” vast swathes of the population, to the extent that there is not even a handful of causes but an entire ecosystem of hundreds of them.
A proletarian is at it’s most basic a person who owns next-to-nothing. The archetypical proletarian rents an apartment, takes public transit, works without a contract, does not own his own tools, and holds no shares in stock. While peasant revolts did occasionally happen, even the minor allowances given to the peasant class in some countries - virtual land ownership; livestock, tool, and vehicle ownership; and a thriving middle class of landholding, employing peasants - were enough to completely neuter revolutionary sentiment among the peasants.
Policies which “buy common people into” the system of Capitalism are what lead them to supporting the system or, at least, opposing its complete dissolution. To avoid writing an entire essay, I’m just going to list some of the policies that I believe contribute to the bourgeoisification of Western workers:
(1). Invested retirement funds instead of pensions
(2). Suburban home ownership
(3). 13% of Americans are part of the employing class
(4). Car culture over usable public transit
(5). Valorization of the “small business owner”
(6). The death of shop-floor Union organizing in favor of “union-as-a-service”
(7). Domination of unions by labor-aristocratic forces, and the resulting ties to liberal political parties
(8). The offloading of economic extraction onto colonized peoples, including so-called “internal colonies” of racial minorities and immigrants, whose political rights are suppressed.
(9). Voter suppression more generally - it is more difficult for poorer people to vote than wealthier people
(10). Control of media, including social media, by the middle and upper classes. You are more likely to see bourgeoise perspectives reflected not only on legacy media but most forms of social media as well (think small business tyrants and their wives posting on NextDoor, Facebook, etc., or “influencers” on youth media).
And so many more reasons.
The majority of people are resistant to change in general and can’t imagine a better world than what they know. The majority of people are focused on themselves without looking at the big picture.
Because they benefit from it?
This is only part of it because the vast majority of people do not benefit from capitalism. Not anymore at least. Of those in the working class who defend capitalism I would say most are victim to the constant stream of propaganda that the media pumps out at the behest of the capital owning class. It’s something that starts from birth in most western nations and permeates into the narratives people are taught in school in a way that requires deliberate and consistent work to unlearn and break away from.
this. i remember a few years ago i was somewhere that folks had put on the macy’s t-day parade. it was the first time i’d really noticed the intensity of the propaganda. most of the themes and music were just about acquiring material things and how good and normal that is. the propaganda was so strong it made me viscerally uncomfortable to watch.
I dont want to interrupt but im still waiting on my money from the election in Berlin. We were promised a bonus if you win.
What do they have to do with that?
Even more benefit from a social market economy, which might be an optimal sweet spot if done right.
Capitalism with a larger social safety net is still capitalism, and it relies on the exploitation of workers in the Global South to function. As the Global North’s capacity to imperialize the Globe South deteriorates, so too does its ability to bribe its own workers at home with treats.
That’s why I wrote “if done right”.
A truly social market economy also has to make sure that workers along the whole supply chain have to get similar rights and treatment as local workers.Besides that, centrally planned economies (being the opposite to plain free market capitalism), also don’t really shy away from exploiting the resources of poorer countries.
(Looking e.g. at imperialistic China here).China isn’t exploiting anyone. You really need to start questioning what your own empire accuses its enemies of. Previously:
- The Atlantic, 2021: The Chinese ‘Debt Trap’ Is a Myth
- Jason Hickel, 2026: Is China doing “colonialism” in Africa?
- Deborah Brautigam, 2019: A critical look at Chinese ‘debt-trap diplomacy’: the rise of a meme
- 📺 Michael Hudson & Radikha Desai, 2024: The truth about China’s economy: Debunking Western media myths
China isn’t exploiting anyone.
Total Imports 2025 EU / China:
Mineral fuels, oils, distillation products $467.75B / $442.95B
Plastics $68.38B / $56.48B
Pearls, precious stones, metals, coins $56.12B / $118.02B
Articles of apparel, knit or crocheted $53.13B / $3.74B
Articles of apparel, not knit or crocheted $48.56B / $5.79B
Iron and steel $44.08B / $30.86B
Edible fruits, nuts, peel of citrus fruit, melons $31.17B / $20.69B
Fish, crustaceans, molluscs, aquatics invertebrates $29.23B / $19.93B
Rubbers $26.46B / $20.57B
Footwear, gaiters and the like $26.30B / $5.70B
Copper $18.63B / $74.63B
Oil seed, oleagic fruits, grain, seed, fruits $18.63B / $57.02B
Pulp of wood, fibrous cellulosic material, waste $11.87B / $21.98BSo, looking at the absolute numbers, China is eploiting the world’s resources in a similar fashion as the old style European Union, so I have to disagree.
I won’t comment on the content of your provided reports and youtube videos (of which at least two look a little… juicy… at first glance), as me just providing you with a bunch of counter-reports and videos, whose reliability you would question in a similar way as I am questioning yours, won’t change anything.
Country X importing from country Y doesn’t magically equate to country X exploiting country Y. Exploitation is a matter of unequal exchange, and not every exchange is unequal. Exchanges coerced through classical imperialism or through neoliberal debt trap peonage are unequal.
Looking at the top 3 exports of China (by a wide margin before anything else):
Electrical, electronic equipment $1016.58B
Machinery, nuclear reactors, boilers $603.82B
Vehicles other than railway, tramway $248.31BThat’s all high price stuff.
Combined with its huge trade surplus, this is a classical “Buy cheap resources - sell expensive highly processed commodities back” scheme, the same as e.g. the uprising European industrializing nations employed as a strategy during their colony exploiting times (and to some degree still do in a similar fashion as China).
No, there is nothing equal here.
No arguments there
EDIT: I mean “can’t argue with that”. Just incase what I wrote originally didn’t make sense
Propaganda and suppression of the left was successful and certain crumbs had to be given in the past decades, currently there’s still enough comfort that many will defend their current status. A comfortable person isn’t going to start asking or rocking the boat, it’s in their interest that the boat is on the steady ride.
Deflection, gaslight and disciplining of those who find themselves in the “have not” becomes a way of comforting yourself that the ride was always within your capability and not dependent on the exterior mechanisms or just plain luck to be born in the lineage of “haves”.
Because capitalists can afford all of the bot farms and media adds.
It really makes you actually understand the whole, “the revolution will not be televised”
People use the word “capitalism” to mean different things.
If you ask someone “Should someone who doesn’t do any work get money from people who do?”, a lot of people would say no. And they’d probably think you’re talking about welfare or communism. But that’s capitalism. The guy who “owns” the company can sit at home and watch netflix while all his office workers make stuff, and he keeps the profits. If you frame it right, you can get people to agree with you or suffer some cognitive dissonance.
But none of that is what some people are thinking of when they think capitalism. They think “free markets” and “competition”. They often don’t really think about how that trends towards monopolies or cartels. Either because of magic, or “the government will prevent monopolies.” But not too much regulation. There’s got to be a few decades of suffering before an intervention, typically.
There’s also a lot of binary thinking. Either capitalism, or total state ownership and oppression.
Total state ownership isn’t oppression for most people, though, assuming it’s a worker-run state. It’s also a necessary step towards building a fully classless society.
Also, it’s really funny how people think that private ownership by a small percentage of the population is somehow better than state ownership. It’s peak temporarily embarrassed billionaire mentality.
People confuse private with independence and state with dominance because they don’t see the state as a product and tool of class struggle.
Precisely, Anna Louise Strong puts best it in This Soviet World:
Yep, almost done reading this book too!
it’s so good, I just love how full of optimism it is
Yep! My biggest problem with it is that the language surrounding national minorities is… Dated… But beyond that, it’s an excellent look at the Soviet Union!
Stockholm syndrome.
Ironically enough, I wish we had stockholm Democratic Socialism while also suffering Stockholm Syndrome.
It makes sense. Most people have no idea about most of it. You have stuff. You buy and sell stuff. Ezpz.
Any alternative is demonised and fought about and undermined and misinformation’d.
successful brainwashing.
In the US specifically, capitalism has been taught as the only way towards success. This has happened for decades, at least. It is deeply engrained in that society.
When capitalism fails, as has been apparent so many times lately, it is blamed on something else. And as the excuses run out, the scapegoats get more and more inventive.
That’s one reason why the current administration wants to you blame immigrants for everything: because it buys more time for the capitalists to make more money and shift the narrative again.
