This is as simple as it gets

The only cure for your anxious mind is solidarity.

This is a summary/review of a new podcast I came across, The Entry Level Left Podcast. I’ll link it at the bottom. After only hearing the first episode, I am hooked. *note: the first episode was re-recorded. I listened to the newer version, not the original.

The second episode is on liberalism, I am listening as I type this up from my notes. Fun fact: the main difference between leftists and liberals are drawn on the lines of property rights and welfare programs. Another way of putting it: who owns the means of production?

The pod opened talking about social media, seemed like it threw you into the middle of an already-going conversation. I like that. The hosts explained why they chose to re-record the podcast, and described what they would cover in the first episode.

Defining what you mean by economy is important before diving into an analysis of a system. How does society sustain itself? What is the economy structured around? Leftism is a push to get the means of production back into the hands of the people are producing.

Capitalism, on the other hand, is a profit-driven system. The people who own the means of production (factory, land, labor) and collect the surplus are commanding and making rules for the workforce. Capitalism institutes hierarchy, and it creates a dependence (creating the need for a welfare system). People have no choice but to sell their labor, and the system is inherently predatory. Business are driven to always make more money, so there is motive to keep wages and prices low.

Capitalism was the result of a revolution away from feudalism, which was based in sustaining yourself from someone else’s property: same as capitalism. The difference is that everyone’s capital holds equal value: otherwise known as the free market. The industrial revolution was the acceleration of the souring of capitalism.

There are too many contradictions within capitalism. It creates so much waste - if this system worked, why would we need to throw away food instead of feeding it to people who cannot get a healthy meal? If the system works, why are people so unhappy? If it worked, why has productivity skyrocketed, especially in the past year, during a pandemic, and wages are still stagnant?

It is an individualistic system, and it’s based on the idea that there is not society; only the individual and the family. It’s an extremely conservative way of thinking, from the Middle Ages. It breeds alienation, ignores the complex relationships between people, it takes away real connections and makes them transactional. Having a healthy connection with your body costs. Some people have to pay a therapist to feel a real sense of connection with another person. Social media illustrates this perfectly: obsessed with outward image, we don’t care about depth. Alienation is a useful tool, and social division is extremely profitable for the working class. If you don’t know who’s screwing you over, it’s harder to be mad. If you don’t have any control over your choices, or if your choices don’t hold any weight, how can you do anything other than put your head down and work for as long as possible?

One of the largest and most obvious contradictions of capitalism is the creation of useless jobs. Jobs that only exist to prove the usefulness of the success of capitalism; really it’s just wasted wages.

The hosts also talked about the many downstream negative effects of capitalism. It is not a moral system, and the hosts of the podcast talk about the dangers of believing that it is.

I would recommend this podcast to anyone that is beginning to learn about leftist ideology, these guys summarize the basic concepts very well in the first episode and commit to going deeper on some topics in later episodes. There are many podcasts, YouTube channels, books, Twitter accounts dedicated to this, and they all accomplish essentially the same thing.

I would also recommend analyzing your learning style and deciding what platform or combination of mediums would be best for your learning experiences. Don’t waste your time reading books if you don’t learn from text!