#ive gotten into fights with ppl irl about how running off to the woods to start a comune isnt real socialism

[macrotiis]

Ppl rly don't understand that the redistribution of wealth isn't JUST for those of us in wealthy "first world" countries.

For the destruction of capitalism to mean anything, for socialism to mean anything, we in the global north need to be comfortable with giving up a lot of luxuries because all of those luxuries come from the theft of wealth from the global south.

Throw out the idea of post scarcity luxury communism, because that is not what's going to happen.

Learn & understand what socialists mean when we talk about imperialism. Learn & understand where your food, clothes, tools, everything you use in your day to day life. Where the food is grown, where the cloth is made, where the minerals are extracted from the earth. Learn who is doing the work to make what you are using now & learn who is forcing that labour on to people, learn how much these laborers are being payed, IF they're being payed at all & not just forced to work under threat of death.

Actually engage with the history of colonialism in places like Africa & South America. Colonialism is more than just settlers moving in & displacing people, it is also enslaving, forcing people to work to fund the economy of empire somewhere else while the enslaved don't get to see any of it.

You do actually need to acknowledge the blood that went into creating your smartphone or your laptop. Just because you never asked for these people to be harmed doesn't absolve you of complacency & when the time comes, are you willing to go without these comforts you've grown accustomed to so that the people who mined the ores, who weaved your clothes, who picked your food can live freely?

If you're expecting these people to continue doing all that work to fuel your lifestyle so you can live comfortably & you think that somehow they'll get a leg up, you're not being realistic.

Redistributing wealth means redistributing the wealth from the US, Western Europe & its colonies back to the places it was stolen from.

a lot of self professed socialists and left wing people have absolutely no consciousness on imperialism and when it comes down to it could easily be convinced of being fascists