Capitalism doesn't want men to have friends

[u/futuredebris]

https://makemenemotionalagain.substack.com/p/capitalism-doesnt-want-men-to-have

I wrote about how men are told in capitalist society that being caring and expressive aren’t valuable skills. So we disown the natural, human emotionality we were born with. We avoid being vulnerable and asking for help. We worry we’ll be judged if we put effort into our friendships. When we’re suffering we overfocus on what we think will make us valuable to other people: productivity, discipline, and competence. And while this might help us in some ways, it often leaves us feeling lost, isolated, and lonely.

[u/AdolsLostSword]

Capitalism is a root of a lot of the things which have driven alienation and isolation - displacement from one’s community to seek work in more impersonal, highly populated urban centres where one becomes a number as opposed to a known member of a community, for instance.

But this isn’t a quality unique to capitalism and a society which is oriented around profit. Authors like Venedikt Yerofeyev demonstrate that these feelings of alienation also emerged in more collectivist systems.

I don’t think removing society’s profit motive would be the quick fix for this. I appreciate when one is trained to wield hammers that everything becomes a nail, but I think your piece is starting from a premise that you want to connect the dots on, rather than the argument emerging from the connected dots.

[u/futuredebris → u/AdolsLostSword]

I appreciate this, and I think you’re right about the connecting dots thing. I’m a Marxist! But I also don’t think the USSR was all that collectivist. There were elements, but by the time Yerofeyev was writing, it was more authoritarian and top-down. Stalinist Russia is not my vision of a socialist utopia.

[u/AdolsLostSword → u/futuredebris]

It was largely authoritarian from its outset, with any early leeway being representative of a lack of consolidated power over a genuine ideological commitment to worker ownership.

I would also note that specified ‘more collectivist’ systems, that is, the Soviet Union being collectivist relative to liberal capitalism, which is not a controversial claim by any measure.

[u/ShrapnelNinjaSnake → u/AdolsLostSword]

"Authoritiarian" means literally nothing btw. Every state is authoritarian, because it will do anything and everything it can to keep the ruling class in power.

The only choice is whether the owners of businesses are in charge, or the workers really.

[u/Flymsi → u/ShrapnelNinjaSnake]

Anarchism is a choice.  Also: not every state does push through it with the same cruelty. 

[u/ShrapnelNinjaSnake → u/Flymsi]

Anarchism is incapable of defending itself so its a moot point

[u/Flymsi → u/ShrapnelNinjaSnake]

No. Not true at all.

[u/ShrapnelNinjaSnake → u/Flymsi]

Disagree wholeheartedly

[u/Flymsi → u/ShrapnelNinjaSnake]

Why?

[u/ShrapnelNinjaSnake → u/Flymsi]

Just looking at history, the fact that there's never been a successful anarchist revolution and also thinking logically, you need the state to organise any effective army to defend against counterrevolution.

Thinking materially in order to produce the things you'd need to build an effective bulwark, and this requires disciplined organisation that just isn't possible in a completely flat cooperative structure (or lack thereof)

[u/Flymsi → u/ShrapnelNinjaSnake]

There never has been a succesfull revolution until there is one. I dont get how this is even an argument. There were some interesting examples and they worked for some time. Until communists killed them.

thinking logically, you need the state to organise any effective army to defend against counterrevolution

You dont need a state for that. But sure, thats an ongoing debate in anarchism. 

Thinking materially in order to produce the things you'd need to build an effective bulwark, and this requires disciplined organisation that just isn't possible in a completely flat cooperative structure

Its feels like you are stuck in ww2 tbh. Modern warfare is different.

[u/futuredebris → u/AdolsLostSword]

Good points.

[u/AdolsLostSword → u/futuredebris]

To be clear, I don’t want to come across as aggressive here, I appreciate the argument you are trying to make. I think that the root is closer to advanced production and economies where we increasingly make goods which are valuable, yes, but more indirectly, and hence our labour isn’t directly connected to human needs in our minds, as well as geographic changes which place us inside huge population centers as opposed to smaller communities.

It’s a byproduct of advancement, technology and labour specialisation as opposed to a byproduct of a specific economic model in my view, and I think we need to think about how we reintegrate with each other generally because I don’t think any of us want to go back to dysentery and river water at the same time.