Part of This Series of Posts:

Some people have an incorrect idea that Caleb Maupin wants socialist billionaires.

The so called ‘socialist billionaires’ argument is a strawman of Caleb calling Chinese billionaires ‘socialist billionaires’ (As in billionaires under a socialist system who are not actually in power). Compared with Caleb calling anti-wealth, degrowth and the ‘abolish billionaires’ slogan bad in a debate with Jason Unruhe from a year ago. This was confusion from that, he never actually said ‘socialist billionaires’ is what he wanted in the context of the ‘abolish billionaires’ argument except for when he was talking about a society close to Communism hundreds of years in the future where being a billionaire (As in someone who owns over a billion in value, remember that billionaire itself is not a class, it is the bourgeoisie, being a billionaire does not necessarily have to imply being a capitalist, but of course all billionaires today are capitalists) could be possible without exploitation as there would be so much wealth and abundance that a stateless, classless, moneyless society would be possible. This is also known as higher stage Communism. What he is not saying is that billionaires in a capitalist society are good, no in fact it is the exact opposite. He is simply pointing out the fact that it is not the wealth itself that is bad, it is how they got that wealth, as in through exploitation (stealing of surplus value) of workers.

It is human nature to innovate, it is because of human ingenuinity and how we can work together that we have been able to advance. Ants have been making their ant hills the same way since forever but us humans have been able to innovate and reach higher stages of development and advance our society.

Consider that even a thousand years ago the richest kings would have had lived under worse material conditions than the average person today who enjoys far higher living conditions and life expectancy, this is the advancement of the productive forces and it is fundamental to Marxism which you would know if you read ‘Critique of the Gotha Program’. The problem is that average people incorrectly think that Communists want ‘everyone to be equal’ when this could not be further from the truth, we want everyone to have a solid societal base from which they can thrive allowing themselves to be unleashed to their full potential for the benefit of society, we do not want some moralistic fantasy of full equality. This is the reason he is pointing this out, however even though that is a caricature of actual Communists spread from the establishment, there are still some people who call themselves Communists and live up to that caricature and every other caricature invented by the right, living up to it, and in the process diminishing our message and drowning it out which is then what is shone down upon by the media and the cycle continues where average people believe all the McCarthyist caricatures.

It is Marxism which gives us the tools to put behind the barbarism of the past and move forward, Marxism came to light because of the stage of history Marx was present in, the globalism of the age which made it possible for the first time to analyse human history from a complete perspective and it was this analysis which allowed Marx to know that Communism was inevitable even though it was ‘two stages’ of human development ahead.

Caleb Maupin explains his argument here:

Carlos from ‘Midwestern Marx’ offers his insight here:

  • enigmaOP
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    2 years ago

    Socialism is not ‘redistribution’, all systems redistribute wealth. It is a caricatural understanding of socialism, as well as one adopted by liberals who co-opt the radical aesthetic and fit into that very caricature, which make people associate socialism with poverty. When in fact socialism is about achieving vast material abundance. It is for this reason that we MUST fight against this notion as what we say, the slogans we use and what we focus on matters. When it comes to wealth, we must focus on how that wealth is created and why that is bad, not that the wealth itself is bad and that must show in our messaging as well as our slogans.

    We must focus on building a new, as opposed to focusing on tearing everything down. We must be optimistic, only then can we win the masses and be victorious.