Ah, I see you’ve found Engels’s description of Social Murder
The fundamental problem you have with this concept is that it runs headlong into the Americanized theory of Individualist Personal Responsibility. If you are being Socially Murdered you should simply… not be. “Don’t be a victim” is what you’ll be told. The public response to this must necessarily be some form of economic austerity - belt tightening, better personal habits, improved economic education, stronger (protestant) work ethic, and a greater degree of deference to your patriarchal superiors.
If you argue otherwise, you will be presented with an orgy of “evidence” that it is - in fact - the individual who is responsible for their own harm. Bum fights videos, thousand word articles about welfare cheats and secretly wealthy vagrants, drug abuse statistics, cartoon caricatures of miserable or stupid working class people, macro-econ statistics asserting there’s simply not enough to go around for everyone, testimonials from executives and administrators detailing the disreputable conduct of their inferiors, a broad condemnation of “the culture” (music, movies, and other media) that is indicted for its glamorization of poverty. And, of course, the ever-present specter of Communism, which poisons the minds of the proletariat against their best interests and always leads to mass starvation, disease epidemics, civil war, and an authoritarian military intent on slaughtering the hard working to appease the appetites of the degenerate left.
How do you break the siren’s song of libertarianism and galvanize the public at-large (even within your immediate neighborhood) into a single cohesive social movement without the benefit of a multi-billion dollar 24/7/365 propaganda stream that modern capital has built for itself?
Even Luigi Mangione himself was pilled on this shit. In an era of Neoliberal-on-Neoliberal violence, where Dark Enlightenment Longtermist techbros decide to go ham on their corporate seniors, what kind of purchase does an idea like Social Murder have on a public convinced they’re the wronged exception to a righteous rule?
One of the core tenants of neoliberal education is that violence is always wrong, it’s never the answer, etc. They repeat it so often and in so many places because it’s at obvious odds with the state. They use violence against us so often and on such wide scales that their only option is to convince that it’s not violence.
Over producing with limited resources is violence. Throwing away food while people starve is violence. Leaving buildings empty while people die of the cold on the street is violence. Preventing the sick and dying from accessing healthcare is violence. Evicting people from their homes is violence. Depriving the chronically ill and physically disabled of the means of survival because they can’t generate capital for capitalists is violence. Climate change is violence.
The truth is that they deeply fear what we would do if we actually recognized all those things as violence. They do literally everything in their power to prevent us from achieving class consciousness. They have infected literally every single facet of society in an effort to keep us from seeing each other as human.
Excellent writeup.
Adding another one: Refusing to stop a pandemic thats killing tens of millions because otherwise capitalists won’t accumulate capital is violence.
I have not looked at the definition of violence from this viewpoint before. Thank you.
“Social murder” is a term coined by Friedrich Engels in 1845 and used to describe murder committed by the political and social elite where they knowingly permit conditions to exist where the poorest and most vulnerable in society are deprived of the necessities of life and are placed in a position in which they cannot reasonably be expected to live and will inevitably meet an early and unnatural death.
Also the Nazis did the olocaust with an order (the final solution, they called it), and most just followed it blindly. Always raise questions! Never stop thinking for yourself!
Millions of us bat eyes at casual death. Don’t pretend we haven’t been talking about this kind of tragedy for years.
(It’s a classic deflection tactic. Pretend public awareness didn’t exist to justify past failure to act, ostensibly pretending future action is soon to follow.)
Corporations protect owners from the consequences of their actions
Americans who hate Communists: corporations in America are behaving exactly like Stalin
It’s similar if you kill someone with a car.
I don’t think people have been so reliant on systems before. Like, the airplane isn’t quite ready to fly yet.
It was government, church, and loose systems that brought food from the soil to your plate, not an extensive system.
Do you really think that the ones who make the rules will pass rules that may put then in jail?
That’s the crux. The rule has to come from the common people for this to work.
But the majority of common people vote against it or don’t believe in democracy to start with. Honestly a real conundrum.
or don’t believe in democracy to start with
I seriously have no idea where this started. For the vast majority of my life democracy was something that everyone fiercely believed in, and would die to protect. Then completely out of the blue people’s attitudes started radically changing. Much of it must be astroturfing.
It started from the idea that both parties are the same and that your votes don’t matter. If people really believe that then they think they have to tear that system down and stop it from ever happening again.
This is then exasperated by the amount of outside influence, internal forces such as anti-tax corporations, and algorithms polarizing people with the goal of toppling the US Empire, because the USA has powerful enemies whose own democracies eroded long ago.
People bat an eye and they take their rage to the polls to hold them accountable. And more people go to the polls with rage over taxes, immigrants, or sexual identity and suddenly the systemic murder becomes the congressional majority.
Making the world better is going to take more than voting blue, we need to figure out a way to convince others to do so as well.
Sorry to tell you, but blue is fine with this system too.
Which policy vote made you think that?
When was the last policy vote that improved the murderous status quo?
What like the very last chronologically?
The new spending bill that just passed the house extends many health programs that would have expired otherwise.
American Rescue Plan from 2021 gave out stimulus for medical costs and started enforcing that hospitals offer debt relief options and stop using illegal debt collections methods, also removed medical debt from credit history and forgives about 7 billion USD worth of debt by 2026.
2020 CARES Act.
9/11 Responder and Survivor Health Funding Correction Act which was written by democrats, passed by them, and then expanded upon in 2023. Republicans almost let the previous 2010 bill expire until pressured heavily.
2010 Medicaid expansion and Protections for Preexisting Conditions, helped cover Millions of Americans without any medical coverage.
THIS WOULD HAVE GIVEN SINGLE-PAYER AND DEFEATED PRIVATE INSURANCE FOR ALL TIME IF THEY HAD 1 MORE VOTE FOR THE SUPERMAJORITY.
1997 CHIPs Act, not only was this a Democrat bill but it also almost expired under Republicans until a campaign of people contacting their representatives barely got it through.
Theres a ton more but its easier for you to make shit up than me to disprove it, so make your fucking case anon.
It would be easier for you to say what policy made you believe they aren’t.
Oh thats perfect, if it’s a long list then there are plenty to choose from. Pick a bill.
Truth always does
Honestly, I think we’re more likely to continue the current system of one CEO a year getting the Scrooge treatment.
We have the Christmas Ghosts on the payroll already! LET THEM DO THEIR JOBS! ENFORCE THE GHOSTS ON THE BOOKS!
Scrooge got to see the response to his death and reform his attitude. Brian Thompson had the misfortune of living in the timeline the ghost of Christmas future would have shown main story Brian Thompson
It’s a crime to kill someone, yet billions of animals are killed for food daily. Kinda fucked up
You make a decent point, but in the context of this tweet it feels a little problematic, almost like comparing disabled people to animals.
Wasn’t my intention, sorry. I was just pointing out the parallelity
Disabled people are animals. As is every human. It feels a little problematic to imply nonhuman animals are inherently inferior
“My pronouns are ME/LC.”
