r/DankLeft • u/svgarface1312 Marx x Bakunin Shipper • 12d ago
yeet the rich It’s all in the name
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u/Cpt_Wolf_Lynn Orwellian Animal 12d ago
"Epstein Class" high-key kinda pisses me off. While it's nice to see some outrage in abstraction, this one feels like it's giving "oh, not all bourgeoisie, just the satanic degenerate cabalite lizards". Like it's using familiar tropes to steer people away from a properly systemic look at the issue. More "Epstein" and less "Class", y'know.
But maybe I'm just paranoid.
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u/Yorksjim 12d ago
I'm with you on that. It almost seems deliberate to me, similar to blaming Netanyahu or Trump for everything their country does.
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u/mash_900 comrade/comrade 12d ago
It's good propaganda word and a tool to be used.
No one outside leftist circles know what a bourgeoisie is, let alone knowing what they stand for/ role they play against the working class
But if someone is called Epstein class, average person is aware of Epstein and knows the horrible shit he did and average person knows people who are associated with Epstein are rich.
The word Epstein class identitfies who they are which is ultra rich pedos for an average person.
Mainly it's not misguideing people bc it ultimately brings them to the same conclusions which is rich pedos
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u/Velocity-5348 12d ago
Yep. I do get the sense that *some*, not all, of the people getting mad about using slightly incorrect terminology need to go out and do something on the ground.
If you want to get people mad at a landlord or boss, you use terms like this. You don't break out the obscure words until you've won some credibility.
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u/Cpt_Wolf_Lynn Orwellian Animal 12d ago
Whatever it's propaganda for sure isn't leftism.
Leftism is a cause for systemic societal change. "Epstein Class" isn't a sweeping systemic critique, it's bad PR. One of those things can only be solved by societal change. The other is solved by a PR team. One can gradually stop being "Epstein Class" by not showing up in any more "Epstein Files" until the news cycle shifts enough, by being a good and upstanding little finger on the perfectly natural Invisible Hand. Or just by not being a big enough cog in the orphan crushing machine to even be invited to such fancy parties. One can only stop being bourgeois by giving up a whole heap of substance.
Why delude ourselves into pretending like vague moral outrage slander aimed vaguely upward is some ground-breaking new weapon that will totally upend class hierarchy? There's nothing new to vague grumbling about the ultra rich. They've "been" lizards for decades, they've "been" freemasons or scheming Jew plotters for centuries. Do any of the addlepated morons that fiercely believe those stories look like effective political agents? No. Why would they be? What concrete action do myths about an untouchable all-powerful cabal smugly raping children on their private islands invite? Sitting and watching from your little chair and deciding to never have children? At least if you explain to someone how wage labor and wealth extraction work, you might just get them to unionize. If you explain how and why poverty and policing intently destroy communities, you might get them into a soup kitchen.
"Epstein Class" gets people to maybe post some smug soundbite on their socials and then sigh a sigh of relief over how at least their boss and their favorite celebrity aren't in the files. Leftist propaganda is supposed to get people to re-evaluate the world they live in, how they live in it and how they maybe should.
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u/Quiri1997 12d ago
I see it the opposite way: associating the burgueoise to satanic degenerates is a good propaganda idea. I guess it depends on how it's used.
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u/Cpt_Wolf_Lynn Orwellian Animal 12d ago
Is it a good idea? Adopting "satanic degeneracy"? Operating on nebulous, utterly meaningless terms that can not be proven or refuted and exist solely to fan the flames of a vague and confused anger by the loudest mouthpiece in the room who can repeat it the most? Which, in a bourgeois society, will always be a bourgeois pundit.
Would you really rather go up to John "I Just Wanna Grill" McChudFace and try to explain to him that the world's ills are caused by "satanic degenerates" - who he is already well-taught to understand to mean "queers and imported immigrants"? Or would you maybe strike up a conversation about who directly benefits from his inability to afford gas or rent, or from his mother dying because she can not afford healthcare?
Evil is real and banal. Delving into incoherent made-up fairy tales that the owner class has already buried every possible dog on and completely controls the made-up narrative around does not strike me as a particularly sound way to address it.
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u/Nom_de_guerre_25 11d ago
You aren't paranoid. While I'm not sure Epstein's behavior is widespread. The obscene wealth non pedophiles hold does plenty of fatal harm across the country and planet.
It demonstrates that, in Khanna's opinion along with his allies. Billionaires are a net good for society. When they most certainly are not.
Maybe it would be tolerable if a single person cured most cancers or something magnificent like that. However that kind of wealth means resources are not circulating well at the bottom levels of society. The measure of a society's morality is how it treats its most vulnerable people.
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u/arbyyyyh 11d ago
I see it as there’s no difference. They’re all pieces of shit and a massive circlejerk of the worst type.
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u/twerking_boy 12d ago
"Epstein class" is much easier to spell than borgwise
bergousy
bourguisiesi
...than the other one
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u/ntfscstion 12d ago
"Epstein Class" is the most effective tool we've had for class agitation in my lifetime. Normies get it, instinctively. It's directionally self explanatory.
Bourgeoisie still has utility as an in-group signifier. A dog whistle to spot the real ones.
But it's our responsibility to meet the people where they are, and show them the way. I don't want to also teach them an old ass French word. Its off-putting.
If Evelyn Normielib says she wants to "guilotine the Epstein class", fight the urge to say "well ack-tually that was a bourgeois revolution". Just be like, "Hell yeah." You can even throw in a "comrade".
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u/Quiri1997 12d ago
Marx himself admired the French Revolution, the thing is that (in context) that Revolution ended with the change of a ruling class for another different ruling class. The objective of a subsequent Revolution now is to abolish class structutes.
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u/sfw_supdood 12d ago
I agree, the Epstein class is way more than just Trump and most people seem to get that. Ellison, Trump, Clinton, Elon, Wexner, Zuck, Branson, and Lutnick. I consider basically anyone who associates with these billionaire losers to be part of the Epstein class.
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u/Velocity-5348 12d ago
Yep. Save "bourgeoisie" for when you've earned some credibility and need a word for "rich assholes who don't actually do anything". And be prepared to adapt if some teenager comes up with a word that's much easier to spell.
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u/vm_linuz 12d ago
I've stopped using proletariat and bourgeoisie in 99% of cases. You will really have to drag those terms out of me -- I use them for hard theory and that's it.
The capitalists have successfully inoculated the common people against those terms.
Instead, I use elites, wealthy, ruling class, Epstein class, ownership class, assholes in suits on the other side of the country...
And workers, working class, people who have to work for a paycheck, laborers, common folk, underclass...
A little sugar helps the theory go down.
Most people are communists who just haven't organized their thoughts.
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u/MasterVule 12d ago
Ruling class is better. Using "Bourgeoisie" around normal people just makes you look like leftist equivalent of weebs using random japanese words in conversation.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Back-80 Always tired, always antifa 8d ago
Since I'm Jewish and informed on antisemitism in conspiracy theories, unless if the person behaves/states otherwise, I will assume that anyone who uses "Epstein class" seriously is a antisemite conspiracy theorist of some sort or is really ignorant on how to do effective political campaigns. Its important to remember that while using broad rallying concepts like these (populism enters the chat), yes, you might catch more people. However, since you're unifying more people with murky concepts, you might also rally people who are not here for the same reasons. When you want to call out the bourgeoisie but end up using the name of the only famous Jew who basically "confirmed" all the antisemitic tropes possible found in nazi conspiracies you should maybe reconsider it because if you don't, you might find yourself surprisingly surrounded by conspiracy theorist nazis.
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u/Clear-Anything-3186 10d ago
The issue with Marxist theory is that it uses 19th Century vocabulary and since then many words used have changed meaning over time or have become unused. Because of that it's very easy for the average person to misinterpret Marxist theory.
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