Transcripts / What's Wrong with Capitalism (Part 1)
Introduction
When you look into the pools of the 9/11 memorial at the World Trade Center, you start to ask yourself questions. Why is the world bad? What did all these people die for? Well, for freedom I guess. And like, American values? But what are those values? What kind of freedom is it that we have?
The 9/11 memorial shares the World Trade Center site with the largest shopping mall in Manhattan. There's a Forever 21, an Under Armour, a Kate Spade, and a pair of shoes that I want but they're too expensive, and my feet are too big and I'm too tall to wear high heels anyway ugh. Fucking neoliberalism–
What even goes on in these big buildings? I've been looking at them all my life, but I've never been inside one. Are these the towers where the ruling lizards gather? Drinking human blood? Licking whipped cream off the interns? What the hell even is this country? Just the same terrible shit copy-pasted all over the goddamn place: Longhorn Steakhouse, Golden Corral, Staples, the Red Lobster, Petsmart, Chipotle, Fridays, Dave & Buster's…
I guess it's not so bad, as long as you kick things up a notch… Yes I want to add the lava cakes to my order Domino's, of course I want the fucking lava cakes. I'm gonna put the cake on the pizza, put it all in me, fill me up… Oh god damn it, it was so good but I ate so much I think I'm gonna die. Look what capitalism made me do…
Political dissent begins with the vaguest feeling that something is wrong and a lot of people have that feeling but the problem with vague feelings is they can be channeled in any direction. The same vague angst can drive people to communism, or fascism, or anything in between. There's a general sense today among young people that we have been lied to, and that sense is perhaps the most acute among middle-class white men, who apparently were promised that they could be millionaires, or movie gods, or rock stars.
The term "special snowflake" is used today as a slur against queer teenagers, but it comes from the movie "Fight Club" where it refers to a generation of white guys who have become adults only to find that they're worse off than their fathers, that they don't have glamorous jobs, they don't have girlfriends, and more recently, that even in the escapist world of video games their absolute sovereignty is being challenged.
I've devoted half my channel to chronicling the deranged consequences of this situation: anti-feminism, alpha males, pickup artists, the surreal surge and support for a white ethnic homeland. But till now, I haven't talked about the underlying causes and it's important to do that because the thing is, the white men aren't even wrong that society is screwing them in some way. It's just that it's screwing everyone else even more.
So the masculinist alt-right analysis of society is exactly upside-down. Guys, you are not under the thumb of a Jewish feminist plot to turn you into girly soy boy cucks. Cultural Marxism did not turn you into placid IKEA consumers, capitalism did. So what you need to do is stop scapegoating non-whites, feminists, and trans people; and unite with the rest of us to actually do something about the real enemy, the blood sucking goddamn reptiles 🦎
Chapter 1: Capitalism & Spirit
–Oh god I sound like a philosopher, someone shoot me.
Remember that Nazi propaganda video where Richard Spencer says that "a nation based on freedom is just another place to go shopping"? A leftist could easily have said that. We think of leftist analysis as being very materialistic, but there's a spiritual dimension to it too.
Much of Karl Marx's early writings are primarily concerned with the state of the human soul under capitalism– with the alienation of working not for yourself, but for an employer who appropriates the value of your work– with the fetishism of commodities, the investment of inanimate objects with transcendent properties beyond their usefulness– with the system of lies and delusions by which capitalism understands and justifies itself– with fucking Comcast increasing my bill to $70 a month for no fucking reason. No, I don't want a landline. No one under the age of 60 wants a landli–
Of course it's not just Marxists who complain about a capitalist malaise. Fascists and conservatives notice it too, only they think the solution is to seek collective meaning and ancient customs, racial chauvinism, or fight clubs. And that shit's not really my scene, I'm really more of a pursuit of individual happiness person. But I think that capitalism as we know it is pretty bad at fostering individual happiness, and here's why:
Chapter 2: Alienated Labor
Ugh, this Marxist jargon sucks. Let's come up with something new:
Chapter 2: Shitty Jobs
Why is your job so shitty? Well probably it's because you work at the Comcast customer service call center, and you spend your day dealing with whiny and titled white bitches who don't understand that you're just a lackey without any actual power. And the system is organized so that people with no power just have to pointlessly shout at each other. You don't have any stake in the profit of Comcast as a company, so you don't really have any reason to give a shit about the success of the corporate machine in which you are a gear. The CEO makes 36 million dollars a year while you make $14 an hour, which means that a lot of the value of the work you're doing doesn't get paid to you, but goes straight up the chain of command and into the pockets of the chief lizards.
The ruthless hierarchical structure of the company means that you're competing against your fellow employees for a promotion, or even to not be laid off; Aad if that happens, you'll end up competing against other unemployed people for another shitty job as a concrete lifter, or a mud mule, or maybe even a coffee-shop Macbook person. This means it's difficult to even experience companionship with the other people in your shitty situation, because you're all being pitted against each other by the goddamn reptiles.
And it gets even worse. You could be employed by New Age reptiles, who force you to participate in team-building exercises, company scavenger hunts, mandatory fun, which means that not only do you have a shitty oppressive job, but you're not even allowed the basic pleasure of openly hating your life. You have to constantly pretend that you're having "fun", all for the sake of maintaining the overlord's comfortable delusion that he's not your overlord.
These lizards are smart, and they keep coming up with more elaborate ways to lie to you. If you work for Uber, they won't even be honest about the fact that you're their employee. They'll call you an "independent contractor". You get to be your own boss and set your own hours. You only have to take out the initial loan, buy the car, pay the insurance, pay for the cleaning, take on all the risk, and give Uber 25% without getting a guaranteed wage, benefits, paid leave, or pension. So much better than being an old-fashioned employee, right? No, PLEASE don't transfer me to the billing department. They already transferred me here–
Chapter 3: Advertising
Is it pretentious to use chapters in a YouTube video? What if each section is named after an episode in the Odyssey–
If you've lived your life in America, you've spent every day since birth assailed from all directions by propaganda campaigns for cereals and cigarettes and sugar snacks, and now you can't get no satisfaction. Jesus! People have been complaining about advertising so long, it's come to seem like a basic feature of the human condition. But it's not a basic feature of the human condition. It's a situation particular to life under capitalism. I mean, North Korea is a dystopian shithole, but at least the train station isn't cluttered up with advertisements for– Oh, so many fans–
"Contrapoints is a tankie confirmed. A neoliberal tankie"
The purpose of advertising is to manufacture desires, which brands across the world spend nearly $500 billion dollars a year doing. The ubiquity and apparent effectiveness of advertising seems to contradict one of the fundamental assumptions of capitalist society; namely, there were all autonomous individuals making rational choices in pursuit of our own well-being. Advertising uses a lot of rhetorical strategies that are not very rational. For instance:
– randomly correlating the product with sexual desire
– generating new insecurities the product promises to alleviate
– associating the product with social status
– associating the product with random famous people
– associating the product with degenerate decadence
– associating the product with progressive social movements
– associating the product with communist revolution
– gazing longingly at dreamy Argentinean philosophy professors
– join the clone army
– completely original lighting
– gay orgies
– love cannot survive without diamonds
Is this rational? Does it help people make genuine decisions about their own best interests? Of course not. The goal of advertising is not to satisfy the pre-existing needs that people have, it's to endlessly create new needs.
And that's a lot to keep up with and it takes a lot of stamina, which is why it's a good thing I discovered Vitalimax Plus! Every evening before I start writing or shooting a video, I insert two Vitalimax Plus suppositories for a sustainable blast of power! With all-natural ginseng and opium extracts, Vitalimax Plus gives me the reckless euphoria and indifference to pain that I need to GET IT IN. I start with a couple dozen oysters, eat some molly, maybe hit a couple amels, then I take my Vitalimax Plus and I'm ready to RIP IT OPEN. Vitalimax, for bottoms! 💊
Consumer society is all about goddamn lizards inventing desires which they implant in your brain through advertising. Then they sell you the product that fulfills the desire that they invented, irrespective of whether the fulfillment of the desire actually contributes to your well-being in any way. So what we have is a society built not around meeting basic human needs or maximizing human happiness, but around the extravagant profits of powerful reptiles who tell you what to want and then sell it to you. And this would be a grim state of affairs in any circumstances, but it's especially egregious in a country where many of the basic needs are not met.
On the one hand, we have 40 million people living in this country with medical debt, spiraling tuition costs leading college students to take out loans they may never escape, more than half a million homeless people, and 13 million children who have to go to school hungry. And on the other hand we apparently have the resources to mass produce $400 juice-packet squeezing machines, and $300 luxury ice cubes, and there are apparently Americans who are willing to spend 50 million dollars on Barnett Newman paintings. I mean, it's a fine painting, it's got a lot of great red on it; but is it really worth the cost of feeding every homeless person in America for two weeks?
Is this what an efficient economy looks like? If GDP is your only measure of efficiency, then maybe. But shouldn't the economy serve humanity rather than the other way around? If millions of people are struggling under the weight of student debt, underemployment, and outrageous medical costs, then who gives a shit how many golden doughnuts we can produce?
Canto 4: Message to the Rich
Alright you filthy goddamn reptiles, listen up. I have a pretty good barometer for internet politics which is to say, politics. I mean, I noticed the alt-right thing pretty early and you can assign as much or as little significance to that as you choose. But what I'm picking up at the moment is that people are getting fuckin' mad and they're starting to get mad specifically at you, the rich. And you don't just have to trust my intuitions here. Recent polling data shows that a majority of adults under the age of 30 do not support capitalism, and almost a third support socialism.
This is not the 80's anymore, you can't continue to get richer and richer while the rest of the country is underemployed, in debt, and unable to afford health care. What you're doing has been tried before and it doesn't end well. You can't just stroll around town dressed like this, and live in houses like this, when there are millions of peasants who don't have enough to eat. They will eventually try to cut your heads off.
And judging by the mood I'm picking up on social media right now, if you don't fix some shit and make life better for the masses, they are gonna cut your fucking heads off. I mean they won't actually cut your heads off, but they will try. And you'll have to deploy militarized police and you will crush them ruthlessly, but it's gonna be a whole thing, bad for profits, and just all-around a real inconvenience for you. Nosey humanitarians will butt their heads in and they're gonna make things awkward. The point is, shit cannot continue the way it's going; something is gonna have to change. We can do this the easy way or the hard way, the choice is up to you. 🦎
Lizard 1: Well, are you going to answer the phone?
Lizard 2: There is no phone. There is only the side of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, the soul of a soulless condition. It's best to just try and ignore it.
Episode 5: Message to the Youth
Alright kids, so you're angry. Well, good! The world sucks! There's a lot to be angry about. What we have to do next is decide what to do with that anger. I don't think tweeting aggressively is gonna cut it, so what do we do?
Tabby: Smash? 😼
Natalie: Tabby, get in here! Sit down! Look, I know I've been kind of hard on you. Harsh words have been exchanged. But I need young radicals like you in my life. The minute I stop listening to people like you is the minute I become irrelevant, so I apologize. I never meant to hurt you. Baby I'm sorry! I mean look, I get it. Smashing is fun, but we also need to have a real plan, that's all I'm saying. So what's the plan?
Tabby: Revolution.
Natalie: Okay, yeah! Revolution! I mean, you're right! Donald Trump is president. Fuck it! Revolution! We've gotta get better people in office. We've gotta vote in a whole different kind of politician right?
Tabby: No, revolution.
Natalie: Ye- yes, I know revolution, but what kind of revolution? Like Project Mayhem? Gather your muskets ye militiamen and water the tree of liberty, what?
Tabby: No, I mean direct action.
Natalie: Okay, so like a general strike?
Tabby: No, end capitalism.
Natalie: Tabby I'm not trying to say I have all the answers here, because I really don't. But I think we should at least try to come up with something a little more substantive than just saying the word "revolution". Like, I'm in support of radical movements: Occupy Wall Street, 1960's uprisings. I think these kinds of movements can generate a lot of energy. They shift the Overton Window to the left, and they can have a big cultural impact. But none of them so far has ended capitalism, and capitalism needs the state to maintain its power. And we can change the state through electoral politics, so why not direct some serious energy toward that?
Tabby: Well, revolutions have worked in Russia and China. But no elected politician has ever even come close to ending capitalism in the U.S. So why do YOU think that will work? What's to stop whoever you elect from getting absorbed by the same corrupt-finance backed system that every politician eventually has to swear allegiance to?
Natalie: Well, you're not entirely wrong. But on the other hand, Chinese and Soviet communism were not exactly super great. And in any case, I'm having a little bit of trouble imagining a 1917-style revolutionary army marching down Pennsylvania Avenue in 2018. Shouldn't we focus on protecting abortion, and getting affordable health care, and education, and ending mass incarceration, and other achievable goals?
Tabby: What if the 2020 election is postponed?
Natalie: Well, then I WILL transition into you and become you unironically.
Tabby: Why not just be honest about your political stance? Are you a Democratic Socialist? Or would you actually support a revolution?
Natalie: Well, I prefer to just describe my positions and let others decide on the labels.
"Now, for you, Contrapoints, I mean, you're still a heretic and an enemy of the Imperium and you are a daemonette of Slaanesh and everything like that, but I still like you–"
Tabby: But what exactly are your positions?
Natalie: Um... Well...
"Kill everyone now! Condone first degree murder! Advocate cannibalism, eat shit!" - Divine
Natalie: Filth are my politics? Eat reptiles?
Tabby: Why do you keep saying reptiles when you mean capitalists?
Natalie: Oh because Marxist analysis is boring, and it's more interesting if the capitalists are reptiles.
Tabby: But you sound like a conspiracy theorist. Aren't you discrediting yourself by using David Icke's vocabulary?
Natalie: Well, David Icke is selling a lot of books. Can the same be said of Horkheimer?
Tabby: Have you read Horkheimer?
Natalie: Yes.
Tabby: Have you read Kropotkin?
Natalie: Yes.
Tabby: Have you read Bakunin?
Natalie: …No.
Tabby: You really can't understand these issues until you've read Bakunin. Have you read Plekhanov? Have you read Goldman? Have you read Zetkin? Have you read Gramsci? Have you read Grindelwald? Have you read Slobodan Zarthusian? Have you read Sexus Arcanis? Have you read Slutsgonarevski?
Natalie: Tabby! I have half a PhD in reading tedious blowhards, and I'm telling you right now I ain't reading any of that shit. And if being an encyclopedia of long-winded Eastern Bloc gibberish is a prerequisite for talking to you, then no one is going to listen to what you have to say.
Tabby: I think I'm just gonna go, this isn't really working out.
Natalie: Wait, Tabby… Before you go, let me say one more thing. 🎹
♪ "Bring It On Home to Me" by Sam Cooke ♪
Natalie: Bring it on home catgirl.
Tabby: Unsubscribed.
Natalie: It's fuckin 2018 man.