Bonus points for implying Parenti is one too.

Another one:

Summarises it better than I could. I used to watch him, along with other content creators, but it’s been a while so don’t remember exact examples. The above hits the nail on the head when it comes to the overarching issue.

The fact Hakim promotes Parenti, if I remember correctly, is one sign of his liberalism. The fact he runs a sub like r/TheDeprogram which is one in a long line of western petit bourgeois leftist meme subs (succeeding MoreTankieChapo and GenZedong) and the fact many of his podcast’s followers there are Dengists is another sign of his liberalism.

The fact he has a (fairly successful) YouTube channel where he makes relatively short, relatively shallow, “snappy” videos, as well as a podcast, is a clear sign of the petit bourgeois nature of the commodity production (“content creation”) he’s engaged in. And I think the fact he has a fairly successful Patreon from which he funds his own survival + the continuation of his petit bourgeois commodity production pretty much by definition makes him a fairly successful petit bourgeois. And the fact it is his political propaganda which directly affords him this class status is problematic to say the least.

E: Please keep in mind that me as well as many others are deriving this stuff from personal as well as collectively experiences and observations. I’m not just randomly thinking oh he’s petit bourgeois so fuck him. I personally spent years consuming leftist content on YouTube and the like and did not learn shit about the philosophy and theory of Marxism or the history of communism. I had a very superficial understanding of things despite spending years watching this stuff and it showed when I started engaging with the sub we’re on right now since people here actually have a more in depth understanding of Marxism. I’ve basically had to start over which is what I’m doing now, I’ve tried to put away all I think I know and started studying Marxist texts, starting from the basics, a few months ago. This is my own personal experience but if you talk to other people here you’ll find it’s not unique at all. Leftist content is legitimately not a good way to learn Marxism, at best if it somehow manages to be devoid of liberalism it’s just an entertaining thing to do in your free time, but even then there’s so little leftist content that is actually revolutionary, exactly for the reasons I described above, that leftist content creators work within the framework and by the rules of petit bourgeois production in the industry of content creation. They are by default driven to produce content that will appeal to western petit bourgeoisie and labor aristocrats since those are the people who consume things like YouTube and podcasts the most. If your concern is to just consume leftist whatever then okay, keep watching it. But if you want to become a Marxist and an actual communist, i.e. the vanguard of the global proletariat, you’ll have to do better than that.

  • TreadOnMe [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
    35·
    1 year ago

    I am begging people to actually read Marx or Proudhon. There are way more classes than just proletariat and bourgeoisie. Hakim does not fit the class description of either (even though he is closer to being a proletarian than bourgeoisie).

    He is likely what Marx or Proudhon would consider to be a ‘skilled or professional artisan worker’, the class that Proudhon saw as the primary revolutionary class, who would lead the social revolution because proletarianization would upend and degrade their living standards, but they also had the systemic knowledge to ‘separate from society’ and live within a social and commodity production amongst themselves. Marx believed that only when they were proletarianized would they be able to achieve the nessecery class consciousness that is required for a social revolution, otherwise they are too ingrained in the competitive logic of their class, competing for the larger scraps at the table of the bourgeoisie.

    That and he is also a working doctor, so definitely in the skilled professional category, regardless of how you slice it.

    It is in this precarious class state that people like Hakim find themselves in, and why they have a class consciousness, but one that expresses itself through works of artistic documentation, not direct organization or class struggle.

    Also, it is amazing how much economic and political illiteracy is required to have that understanding of Marxism. It is in fact possible for most people in the world to have a low-end non-precarious Western middle class commodity life, provided that efficient public services are developed and available. You will lose out your high-end western luxuries, but let’s be fair, do we really want to live our lives of toil for a couple days of happiness, if that?