We are constantly bombarded by lies and propaganda designed to mask the inadequacies of private property owners. Our media and popular culture promote the idea that capitalists are gods (e.g. “job creators”) who deserve all their power and privileges.
But all the propaganda in the world falls short of fully convincing the public that rich jerks deserve to force us to work ourselves to death for scraps.
Remember: The rich are not better or smarter than the average worker. They do not deserve their money and power. They are terrified that you will recognize this truth.
This applies to Mark Cuban, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, the Walton family, literally all of them. If our current world economy is a bus, it is about to be driven over a cliff by idiots who believe (or pretend to believe) incredibly stupid lies, like the idea that we can have infinite economic growth on a planet with finite resources.
Billionaires are people who devote their lives to actively making everything worse for everyone for the purpose of enriching themselves. And, adding insult to injury, they expect the rest of us to thank and honor them for hurting us.
So, people are increasingly waking up to the fact that billionaires are illegitimate. Why do you think Elon Musk is destroying Twitter? Why do you think Google has optimized YouTube for right-wing brainwashing? Why do you think Reddit is now in danger? It’s not a conspiracy, but it is a pattern, driven by capitalists’ insatiable need for profit and their recognition that they are losing control of the narrative.
Elon Musk in particular has been very open about his desire to empower racists and destroy the “woke mind virus” (aka basic awareness of social dynamics). They don’t want their workers to be woke because they profit more when the masses are ignorant.
It helps the rich who cause our pain to direct some of peoples’ rage at vulnerable minorities (e.g. transgender people), or the nerds who actually understand a narrow slice of the world and try to share their knowledge with others (e.g. public health officials).
Remember: The rich are not better or smarter than the average worker. They do not deserve their money and power. They are terrified that you will recognize this truth.
r/antiwork regulars know that business owners are divided from workers primarily by the fact that they do not actually have to work. They make massive amounts of money based solely on their “ownership” of and control over the means of production (enforced by the government and their hired thugs).
I put “ownership” in quotes because capitalists’ control over our lives is illegitimate and increasingly untenable. Workers should control our own work environments and the fruits of our labor, not capitalists. The more people who understand this, the better.
And even if Reddit and r/antiwork ultimately fail or become distorted beyond recognition, we can continue to keep this truth alive and spread it to people in our communities.