The "American Dream"--Communism-- was created by Fordist capitalists with the goal of "total employment" & the maximization of wages in order to avoid social revolution. The Soviet Union, rather, was a 19th century capitalist oligarchy in which state officials were industrialists

With the collapse of the Soviet Union from within itself, & the threat of a social revolution dismantled herein-- the strategic value of "total employment" & the maximization of wages disappeared. Americans were now content to accept a decline in wages & quality of life.

Neoliberalism was invented as a means of transitioning the former USSR into the Russian Federation by means of "Shock Doctrine"-- coordinated & planned by American free-market economists like Milton Friedman. This meant-- making state officials into "industrialists" again.

The "Fall of Communism" was, truly, in America. The USSR had never been Communist-- it had only become a 19th century State Capitalism. When America imported this Shock Doctrine into itself, it dismantled its own Communism (& this was precisely how it was described).

"Political leaders in capitalist countries who cheer the collapse of socialism in other countries continue to favor socialist solutions in their own. They know the words, but they have not learned the tune."
-Milton Friedman

Friedman taught them the tune-- which was that America had "too much Socialism" now that the USSR was gone. A narrative of "Communist infiltration" was deployed in order to justify the liquidation of the "American Dream"-- which was, Communism, which was, "The Middle Class"

Today, we have greater unemployment than during the 2008 recession. Today, the Stock Market no longer requires total employment. The great enemy of the "Left" is now the Middle Class quality of life, that is, Communism-- which has proven deleterious to "the environment"

The Malthusian philosophy of the East Indies corporate cartel-- the inventors of "environmental protection" against "the over-propagation of useless eaters"-- is the moral justification for returning the american middle class to a subsistence quality of life, of peasants.

59% of Americans live "paycheck to paycheck"-- which is to say, they live with the same quality of life as serfs. They are not unable to receive health care, education, housing (etc)-- but in order to satiate their animal needs-- they must take on a debt that they can never repay

This is the lot of indentured servitude. One can, potentially, "buy one's freedom"-- if one accepts, first, an ascetic withdrawal of "luxuries" which have become "necessities" in "appearing Middle Class." One can "get out of debt" by living in one's car & eating rice & beans.

But this is not a popular route. The more popular route is to remain in debt, but to avoid recognizing one's state as an indentured servant, by entertaining oneself in the meantime. Rather than "paying off the debt" (which grows continuously)-- one can buy a Nintendo Switch.

One can "participate in activism"-- one can donate to Bernie-- one can subscribe to Chapo-- one can play video games-- one can watch TV shows-- etc. However, each of these activities, insofar as they are not "paying off the debt"-- are compounding it.

If the "activist" had, instead, taken all of the money they spend on these superfluities-- all the time one spent, on these consumptions-- & instead turned it into money, to pay off the debt-- one would be closer to freedom (which is bourgeois property ownership).

All of that money, if it had been invested into the stock market, would be worth more now than it was then. The permanent inflation of the Fed pumping money into corporations only dilutes the "mattress savings" of the parochial "bank account."

This is to say-- that the only way to have "the american dream"-- is to live more LIKE a peasant, even when one is out of debt-- by curtailing all spending & routing it to investment. This is the "RISE AND GRIND" mentality.

Every second that you are not making money-- you are increasing the impossibility of freedom for yourself. If you have no debt now, you will eventually. You will encounter a circumstance which forces your enslavement to debt. For most of us, this happens when we go to College.

Quite cunningly-- the recognition of this fact is occult. What is the difference between a Mutual Fund, an Index Fund, an ETF? Who knows such things? Why is this not considered "necessary information" in your pedagogy? How much do you have in your HSA? Do you have a Roth IRA?

I can tell you one thing for sure-- there is not a single "leftist activist" who can answer any of these things-- their reaction to their slavery to debt which they call Capitalism-- is based in their fundamental alienation from the actualities of the economy.

Because everything is Capital-- your attention reading this, is Capital, it is "time spent" in consumption-- each decision is an "investment" of time in a very literal sense. Could you have made $5 instead of reading this? That $5 could have gone into an Index Fund.

Buy my book-- you will note that it is dedicated to my outstanding debts. I am almost done paying them off. I live an ascetic life. All of my money goes to my debts. The only luxuries I afford myself are used books. I have, naturally, made "bad investment decisions" with my life.

That's all anyone is doing at any time. Being "against Capitalism" doesn't change anything-- "Being against Capitalism in a way that makes you money" does-- & it changes things for the producer of content which is "against Capitalism." The rest is ideology.

“I exploit myself under the illusion that I am expressing myself.” -Byung-Chul Han