this post was submitted on 14 Apr 2025
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While I don't make much money and can't afford to move out, I sometimes still feel guilt for not coming from a very poor background, even if my family isn't that rich, because then I tell myself that I can't be a true socialist. Does anybody else feel something similar?
I feel this way because my parents have a middle class income and they own their own house. My dad is a lower manager in healthcare, what is the marxist vision on that type of work? My mom also works in healthcare but as a worker.
Marxism isn't about poverty worship, it's about ending exploitation. Being a rich fuck doesn't automatically make you evil or something. But you should try to minimize or end exploitation (if any, and as much as possible under a capitalist system). However, for some middle class nobody who doesn't have the MoP this basically doesn't mean anything.
I mean Che himself came from a relatively well off family, was studying to be a doctor, decided to fuck around traveling for a while like the rich kid he is and he became one of the most influential marxist figures there is. I think we should not let ourselves get hung up on puritan views of the ideal socialist because it is pointless to our cause.
It's always good to be aware of the privileges you may have but don't feel bad for having them per se. Just like poor people never asked to be (born) poor you didn't ask for being born into a middle class family, if that makes sense. What counts is that you found marxism and are contributing to achieving communism in this world.
Class traitors are every bit as helpful, it's just a thing where due to circumstance, it's not as expected that someone well-off will join a revolutionary cause against the furthering of their own position in class.
But also, I don't think having their own house makes them rich. It means they have a bit more to fear losing than some in a societal upheaval, but if they have to work to make a living, they are still working class. It's more the ones who own and rent out multiple properties, who own loads of stock, etc., who I'd expect are unlikely to ever change their ways and support a revolution, because their wealth is directly tied into the capitalist financial system and its exploitation.
Either way, you could be Bill Gates level of wealth background and still become a socialist. Unlikely if you were from a background that wealthy, but it's not impossible.
Engles was rich as fuck.
Being poor doesn't make you a better socialist. Its is more noble to go against your own self interests to fight for the betterment of all people than it is to fight for your fair share.
First of all, if the majority of the earnings of your family come from their labor (wages, self employment, small businesses), doesn't matter if the earnings are small or high, your family is working class.
Secondly, doesn't matter even if you were born in a bourgeois family, socialists aren't like Nazis that strive for racial purity. As long as you share our values, meaning you understand that we need to end class exploitation and advance for a class-less society, you are our ally. In fact, we had some bourgeois class traitors to join our ranks, like Zhou Enlai and Friedrich Engels.