Consumerist ethics is a red herring and a dead end. Adopt whatever aesthetics are pleasing or useful to you and the people around you, but direct your energy towards materially impactful action.
I’m in agreement with comrade fanonfan over here somewhere. As to say the answer is no, at least for the reasons you stated, this type of individual action is pointless towards making a dent on the system, you should make your surroundings comfortable, and the most important part is to understand the harm of the system and of its parts and of buying a particular type of product makes you feel extra bad, by all means avoid it, but just express yourself in the manner you like best, a comrade happy and active is better than a sad comrade in boicot of companies that often cannot fail under capitalism. Do what feels right to you, if being minimalist is rewarding and gives you that rebelious feeling great, but it js by no means a general recommendation.
u should be whatever u are, if u like decorations have them if u dont dont. consumerism isnt having stuff in ur house its throwing away everything in ur house every year or so u can buy new stuff that serves the same purpose and buying stuff u dont even want just for the hell of it or to show off.
Pointless consumerism? Maybe. But much of consumerism isn’t pointless, and I think first and foremost, we must always remember to maintain a materialistic outlook- if not for ourselves, ideologically, because that is the reality people live in, and it is what holds the broadest appeal. IMO communism will not prevail through celebrating austerity, through telling the masses who already are deprived of so much to “consume less,” and providing less goods and services than the capitalists.
There’s nothing wrong with minimalism, exactly… as an individual choice. But the mainstream idea of it in itself strikes me as bourgeois- having a quaint few things sounds nice on paper, but it’s not realistic for most. And when we’re talking about “saving the planet”- similarly, the notion that individual minimalism and a denouncement of consumerism is going to do much more than make someone feel better about themselves, is once again a capitalist scam, gaslighting as far as I’m concerned- it’s going about these very real issues in an entirely wrong way- what we need is systemic change from the top down to save the planet, or rather the biosphere as we know it- not to mention that people’s immediate needs should always take first priority over some notion of the “planet.”
I agree, and when talking about consumerism, I’m always reminded of these two great essays on it:
https://redsails.org/women-and-the-myth-of-consumerism/
https://redsails.org/the-logic-of-stupid-poor-people/
Also, Marx’s own view of consumption is that it’s a real social need which capitalism itself restricts only to the bourgeoisie (we could also add the labour aristocracy) while the vast majority cannot engage in consumption like they need to. Of course, the goal here isn’t a form of bourgeois luxury, but the ability of everyone to live a fulfilling life.
IMO communism will not prevail through celebrating austerity
Exactly, and there was quite a big debate around this in the early years after the October revolution and the founding of the USSR (as there seems to be every time a revolution manages to survive the initial time of great crisis and then needs to build up the forces of production and increase quality of life). After the horrors of WW1 and the civil war, both caused by capitalism, there was a long period of crisis which meant that no one really had a lot, and the little that people had, they had to all share equally. It was a sort of rationing program that was necessary during the wars. This, however, cannot be continued forever, and both Lenin and Stalin (and others) understood this. It’s why the NEP was necessary, but these decisions caused outcry from some Soviet and even Wester European socialists who didn’t understand the actual situation, but clung on to an abstract principle.
From Losurdo’s ‘Stalin: History and Critique of a Black Legend’:
In the climate of horror at the carnage caused by capitalism and the auri sacra fames [accursed hunger for gold], a religious distrust of gold and of wealth as such is reproduced, alongside the idealization of poverty or at least of scarcity, understood and experienced as an expression of spiritual fullness or revolutionary rigor. And Stalin felt compelled to emphasize a central point: “It would be absurd to think that socialism can be built on the basis of poverty and privation, on the basis of reducing personal requirements and lowering the standard of living to the level of the poor”; instead, “socialism can be built only on the basis of a vigorous growth of the productive forces of society” and “on the basis of the prosperity of the working people,” for that matter, “a prosperous and cultured life for all members of society.”
I wouldn’t call myself a minimalist but I do try to have as less of an impact as possible. I rarely buy new clothes, only second hand and if I buy new things they have to be eco friendly, worker friendly, sustainable, etc. I take cold showers and lower the heating in my home because I don’t need it that much. I rarely drive my car and am able to do everything by bike or public transport or walking. I eat plant based and I try to eat as much local produced food as possible. There’s much more I can do and will do if I have the room and money for it.
But that’s because I want to do this and can afford to do this. Individual efforts are not going to change the problems we face. You can do only so much if you have no say in the companies that exploit us and pollute the earth. Systematic change needs to happen and the proletariat needs to own the means of production so that we can truly make our societies greener.
That being said you can always start doing things yourself. It’s always a good thing to lead by example.
Comminism is when one spoon!
I mean, sure, its probably a good idea to take stock of the things you partake in and maybe curb some excesses when you find them. But trying to be an ascetic or a hermit for the rest of your life isn’t exactly going to help you in any real way if you’re actively wanting to work towards communism.
It can be cool to see how long you can go without certain things that you’re used to. (Sleep, hot showers, paying for movies, etc) But at some point in your life, it will wind up being more work trying to maintain a minimalist lifestyle than just allowing yourself to be a person who has things and does stuff.
Individual action does not change the ultimate outcome. Protesting capitalism through the way you consume or the amount you consume does nothing on the individual level. There is no harm to it and should you wish to live that way I’d encourage it certainly but this methodology is short sighted. If it were a large collective movement aimed to reduce corporate profits it might accomplish… Something but it probably wouldn’t be much more than making some rich people angry and they might suggest the government subsidize them or do something to encourage consumerism or they might withhold investments to further crash the economy. That’s only if we try really hard though and I don’t think that could ever happen on any large scale.
Currently efforts in the imperial core are best used in teaching people and organizing with your local party. volunteer work and unionizations are much more beneficial to your community long term.
Sure if it doesn’t detract in any way from actually impactful communist praxis. Sometimes the capitalists will sell you the rope to hang them with and that’s not pointless consumerism.
I want my home to look like a witch/wizard lives there, so maybe minimalism isn’t for me. But I also don’t pointlessly consume everything, I’m a bit of a penny pincher anyway. I think slowly accumulating stuff that’s meaningful is great rather than following trends that you’ll end up hating later.
I’m similar but ‘Marxist librarian’ rather than witch/wizard.
Dark bookcases filled with, well, books and trinkets is the vibe!
Good vibe. I have a couple of pots of ink, which might look good on your shelves with a ‘dip pen’. My ink bottles are quite plain but some of the glass bottles are intricate. You can get some that shimmer or sheen, too. I’m a standard dark green kind of guy.
OP look what you’ve done. Now we’re sharing tips on what to buy next!
It’s absolutely a fine and reasonable thing to promote, however I think it would be far too idealistic and dogmatic to expect from working proles. The ability to a occasionally indulge in a bit of consumerism is quite literally the only thing that capitalistic societies provide to offset all of the oppression and misery.
Some good comments already but one thing I don’t like about minimalism is that I don’t otherwise have a creative outlet. Buying stuff gives me this. Choosing clothes, pens, pencils, paper, thread, linen/cloth (for embroidering), even a baking tin or a good knife so that I can be creative in the kitchen. Using a nice pen takes some of the drudgery out of taking minutes in meetings, for example. And taking a sketchbook and some charcoal to a park makes multiple days out from a few dollars. The alternatives would still involve consumption. Maybe I wouldn’t need to buy all this stuff for myself if we lived more communally or something. It’s the same with books. I buy books because the library doesn’t stock the ones I want to read and won’t buy them when I ask.
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