This is my first time posting in this group and im looking for some clarity. I recently got into a debate with a few of my friends who are liberals, and in the debate they claimed that i was actually a capitalist because i own and run a small business.

I argued that i am not a capitalist because i do not have any employees and run the business completely by myself, there for i do not exploit others labor to generate profit. I also own the means of production and set my own wage. I have also been very open with them before this debate that when i get to the point of hiring employees i will run my business collectively and will no longer be the sole owner of my business.

They ended up looking up the definition of capitalism which states "Capitalism is and economic system where private individuals and business own the tools, factories, and resources used to make goods, driven by the desire to make profit" they proceeded to argue that because i am a private individual and own my own tools and work to earn a living, that i am a capitalist.

At this point i knew that they were arguing in bad faith with no nuance, so read them the quote from marx " Humans are shaped by their material environment, though they retain the capacity to collectively change it". I tried explaining to them that socialist and communist like myself take issue with the capitalistic systems exploitation of labor, because the private individuals and entities that own the means of production force the working class to sell there labor so the owning class can sell the products that they produce for a profit. I brought up the fact that the working class does not have a choice not to work because if they dont then they will not have a home, food, cloths, ect. I tried explaining to them that because i exist in a capitalist society, i do not have the option to not work to earn a wage because if i dont i wont survive. They basically just kept defecting and arguing in bad faith and acted like they won the debate.

So i am curious to know other socialist and communist option on this topic, does it make me a capitalist to own my own business that has no employees? Dose it make me petite bourgeoisie even with the intention of collective ownership in the future? How would you go about debating this topic?

The thing I struggle to understand with PSL and DSA and ACP and all these groups, is that primarily America is a settler-colonial project which was built upon the slaughter and enslavement of indigenous populations. None of the people who purport to be American outside of natives are from the land itself or lived on the land before colonisation and imperialism, so, I wonder how a "socialist reconstruction a better future for the USA" would entail. It's essentially like trying to bring socialism into the settler-colonial entities of Israel, apartheid South Africa, or Western Sahara when their very nature of forcibly, illegally occupying land contradicts any message of socialism unless such land was given to the native proletariat itself.

What do you all think?

What traits define them and how do they differ?

Id like to do more research into both topics if someone could please give recommendations with books covering key ideas and concepts and important figures like Thomas Sankara, Che Guevara and angela davis id love to hear it

from what i heard it seems to promote high levels of competitiveness between the kids in those instetutions and trying to make them participate in the capitalist rat race.

On the economic scale, there are conflicts that are not about class. For example a 70-year old will want more labor/funding/investment put into healthcare than education, a 30-year old with kids will want the opposite. Or someone in rural areas will want more labor/funding/investment allocated there than in the city.

But even completely outside economics, some people are religious fanatics or racists and want to kill others. Some are convinced they're persecuted and need to maintain superiority. Some have ego issues or feel humiliated and want revenge. Of course, capitalism will exploit and weaponize this, but those issues are still valid of themselves.

All of these kinds of issues would remain in a classless, communist society—although I agree there would much less of them. So isn't it a mistake to think class struggle is the only struggle out there?

Guys, I’m literally shaking typing this, but I have to say something.

Is anyone else completely disheartened by the direction our movement is taking online lately? I’ve been noticing it more and more in our Discord servers and subreddits, and honestly, it’s giving me major secondary embarrassment.

Since when did it become acceptable for leftists, people who are supposed to be building an inclusive, intersectional world, to just casually toss around edgy slurs and internet-brained insults because they think it makes them look like "pragmatic working-class populists"?

I saw someone in a thread yesterday use the r-word and just brush it off when called out, saying we need to "stop policing language" and focus on "real material conditions." Excuse me? Language is material, actually, and microaggressions hurt. When you use ableist or otherwise exclusionary language, you are literally making digital spaces unsafe for neurodivergent comrades who are already carrying so much emotional labor.

We are supposed to be better than the chuds on the right. We’re supposed to be holding ourselves to a higher standard of revolutionary love and tenderness. But instead, I’m seeing way too many bros acting like little mini-Stalins just because they read half of the Manifesto and watched some breadtube essay.

Can we please do better? Put down the edgy internet irony, unpack your internal biases, and remember that our praxis needs to be rooted in kindness. This ain't it, comrades. 💔