The link is just a CTH/Hexbear post without citations, but it pretty well explains something that’s been rolling around in my brain the past few days. I think the patsoc obsession with pandering to conservatives and the anarchist obsession with pandering to liberals are both fundamentally flawed for the same reason: they divide the proletariat into aesthetic/ideological camps rather than attempt to assess them based on class indicators.

Who is more likely to abandon their principles during a strike? Liberals or conservatives? Right away, you can see how this thought process breaks down. Liberals and conservatives have both unionized, historically and in the present day. Both ideologies have pro union and anti union elements. Both ideologies have organized reactionary protest movements and strikes.

The question we should be asking instead is: who has more to lose if a union strike is drawn out or starts to go south? Who is more likely to scab? People with more wealth and larger paychecks or people with very little wealth and smaller paychecks? Who is more likely to empathize with a fellow proletarian and who is more likely to simp for bourgoise influencers?

A. A computer engineer with a comfortable lifestyle, and few at-home struggles
B. A programmer doing grunt work for the engineer on a temp assignment

Take another example: Who is more likely to fight harder for abortion rights?

A. Someone who can afford medical tourism
B. Someone who can’t afford medical tourism

Material conditions are key. FDR’s reforms took some of the wind out of the sails of American socialist movements. India has recently been investing in infrastructure and schooling in Naxalite regions with some success. All the ‘socialist’ nordic countries are in the cultural sphere of the former USSR for a reason.

We cannot allow ourselves to get distracted by the illusions put in place by liberalism. When asking whether a potential comrade will be radicalizable, we should not be focusing on their favorite neolib team, including radlib anarchists. We should instead focus on their actual material place in society: Are they wealthy? What’s their financial situation compared to their family’s/their childhood? Are they subject to racism, sexism, homophobia, etc and are they excluded from resources and wealth due to said bigotry? Is it normalized for people of their race/ethnicity to be racist to others? Are their finances tied up in investment capital or digital assets? Have they experienced food insecurity or homelessness? Do they work more than one job or side gig? Do they struggle to provide for their children? Do their finances affect their ability to form relationships or start a family? Do they have mental health issues and can they afford to treat them?

In essence, I think whether a person is radicalizable actually has very little to do with politics and everything to do with their intersectional position in society.