Stop pretending you’re a commie

It makes you look stupid, not cool.

Is there anything some people won’t blame on capitalism?

From sexism to homophobia, extreme nationalism to Kim Kardashian, capitalism is the root of all problems.  To support capitalism is to support evil.

The writer goes on to talk about about how we “become unaware of ourselves while being distracted from the realities of our social and economic exploitation”.  It sounds like it’s lifted straight out of Marxist theory because it is pretty much lifted out of Marxist theory.

The amazing thing is not that some people still hold these views but that so many students at this beautiful university ensconced in and benefiting from a capitalist society agree with him.

Capitalism is becoming a dirty word on campus.

Kim Kardashian. Thanks, capitalism.

The reality is that some students throw around this anti-capitalism because it’s a slightly more acceptable way of signalling that you’re a communist or a Marxist.  But it’s something I have very little patience for.

It’s all very well and good for you to stand there with your rolled cigarette and Che Guevara t-shirt in the smoking area of some God-forsaken low-grade club, moaning about how we ‘need to just, like, stand up to the structural oppression, man’.

But communism’s been tried, mate.

Communism – not capitalism – is responsible for the collectivised farms that resulted in millions of deaths.  The revolutionary purgings. The quashing of liberty.

What’s this I hear you cry? It’s not real communism? Bullshit. 25 countries have tried communism and it’s fair enough to assume one of them’s close enough to the real deal for us to reject it.

The reality is you’re only pretending to be a communist.  This is why you only ever hear communism-lite.  You like to talk about Marx, ‘alienation’ and ‘structural oppression’.  You only talk about the ‘revolution’ with your inner sanctum of wannabe commie friends.  You like to slag off capitalism – like you’re a communist – but you’re not willing to go the whole hog and start a revolution, and most of the time, you avoid the c-word altogether.

If you really hate capitalism, do something to stop it. Expedite the revolution.  In the good old days at Cambridge, being anti-capitalist meant conviction. It meant spying for the USSR.

Cuba’s still an option.  Write to Castro. Offer him your services.  Don’t just piss around having a go at capitalism.

North Korea: one of the many success stories of the anti-capitalist world.

Apparently capitalism divides us – whereas communism – which has its basis in a dichotomy of classes that will come to be at war with one another – does not.

Actually, capitalism doesn’t make us ‘left wing’, ‘right wing’, ‘male’, ‘female’, a ‘belieber’, a ‘juggalo’.  Human nature does.  We don’t have sexist advertising because capitalism is sexist.  We have sexist advertising because people are sexist.  Capitalism reflects the differences between humans and the problems in human culture but it doesn’t make them.

Representative of so many good things in life.

Capitalism has its faults.  But it’s created a much better world than what we had before.

I believe in capitalism because I believe freedom is an intrinsic right and that no matter an individual’s background they should be able to move up in society.

Capitalism – rather than alienating ourselves from each other – has meant that we’re so interlinked and rely on each other so much that we no longer wish to fight each other but would much rather build relationships and work towards a common goal.

Capitalism has made us better off and lifted millions of people out of poverty.  The Economist tells us that the Millennium Development Goal of halving poverty between 1990 and 2015 was achieved five years early.  Most of the credit, they say, “must go to capitalism and free trade, for they enable economies to grow—and it was growth, principally, that has eased destitution”.

Food for everyone (or at least more food than we’d have otherwise). Thanks, capitalism.

Thanks to capitalism, Cambridge students can eat, live and study in fancy buildings, using their Apple hardware to compose ill-conceived opinions about the world with no serious consequences.

Frankly, what’s most worrying is the stigma around the word ‘capitalist’.  It’s terrifying that so many students think it’s more acceptable to call yourself anti-capitalist than to be a Tory.

I’m not arguing that capitalism is perfect. But it’s a label I’m happy to defend.