For A Very Long Time I Suffered From An Extremely Deep Unhappiness About The Way Things Are.

For a very long time I suffered from an extremely deep unhappiness about The Way Things Are.

When I learned about capitalism (and everything that goes along with it), I understood that I was pretty damn justified in feeling the way that I felt. What’s more is that it helped me realize that many of the ways in which I felt personally insignificant or flawed, were actually just side-effects of participating in a society like this.

This isn’t to say I don’t (still) struggle with mental health issues. But learning about all of these things alleviated a huge burden on my mental health that I don’t think would have been possible with traditional therapeutic coping methods. 

I’m not depressed, I’m just allergic to capitalism

"Once commodity production becomes the universal economic mode, all of man’s activities come to center around it.

Its main feature—the paramount role of exchange value—reaches beyond the merely economic realm and penetrates the whole of human existence. What this does to the relationship between human beings was strikingly brought home to me by a statement I read in a daily paper some time ago:

Joseph Brayshaw, former president of the British National Council of Family Relations, commented on a recent visit to the United States. He said the “fantastic material prosperity” of the United States has fostered the assumption that things are expendable “and I had the uneasy feeling that something of this attitude of mind might have tinged the American outlook on personal relations. If they go wrong, you can always find a more up-to-date model in a new wife or husband. I wondered whether, all unconsciously, people as well as things were coming to be regarded as expendable.”

The comparison of husbands and wives with old and new models, while shocking, is not the only reason why Mr. Brayshaw’s statement is significant. Opponents of socialism often claim that in a socialist society—for reasons within its very structure—the human being will not be recognized as an end in himself but will be used as a tool, and thus will become expendable. While I cannot go into this argument here, I will say that the statement seems to be hypocritical, because—if Mr. Brayshaw is right—we are already, under capitalism, living in a society that has produced human relations which make man an object, and thus expendable.

Exchange value enters not only the relationship between man and man, destroying the possibility for genuine friendship and fellowship. I believe that exchange value, which has long ceased to be merely an economic category, invades almost all realms of our lives: our art and education, our community living, our political struggles."

~ An excerpt from Alienation in American Society by Fritz Pappenheim

Postcard from the artist collective project THINK AGAIN

[Quote in image]: “Any theory you got, practice it. And when you practice it, you make some mistakes. When you make a mistake, you correct that theory … A lot of us read and read and read, but we don’t get any practice.” -Fred Hampton

internationale.mid (ringtone ver.)

Eugène Pottier / Pierre De Geyter - L'Internationale

here’s a ringtone version of l'internationale played on an old nokia phone soundset at double speed. for all you socialist followers of best of midi

midi / mp3 without introduction