Why are so many millennials getting into communism?

14dMoney

VinLieger wrote: »

How do you save for a deposit while renting? How do you also pay for childcare on top of the rent or mortgage? Neither of these expenses are anything close to the levels that people of 50+ ever had to deal with.

I think you're significantly damaging your chances if you have kids while renting.

I took up part-time work which went straight to my savings. Both myself and my partner worked an additional 10 hrs per week, which added up quite quickly.

The quality of life has never been higher in this country, and Ireland actually has far higher home ownership rates than most countries. Of course buying a property is expensive if your doing it in Dublin, but there are plenty of commuter towns.

djan

Yurt! wrote: »

Very few in Ireland, to my knowledge, speak of banning private schools - rather, they advocate removing the taxpayer subsidy of them. A view I'd have sympathy for. If you want Eton-lite for your little darling, to the exclusion of less well off kids in the community, cover the full cost yourself.

It costs the taxpayer less to educate a child in a fee paying school as they receive funding through the yearly fees. The child has to be educated somewhere.

There was an interesting discussion on newstalk a while back about this.

FTA69

There has been a marked increase in Communism and communist organisations over here anyway; the Communist Party in Britain hasn't had a bigger or younger membership in decades and many of their talented younger members are coming into my union as organisers and they're significantly younger than me, (I'm a mid-level official in a large union at 32). Social media pages pushing a communist line are hugely popular (the likes of Red London on Facebook) and a number of others - cleverly using memes and humour mixed with political critique a lot of young people find relevant. The Morning Star, the communist newspaper has a readership and click rate multiples higher than it was, the Marx Memorial Library in London has gone from near-closure to it being quite busy.

I mean, it's not a relevant political force nationally but it has become a lot more popular. What is far more significant is the rise of left politics in general and the age profile of that supporting it. The Corbyn phenomenon, Melenchon in France nearly got as many votes initially as Macron and his anthem is "Le Drape Rouge". Even Sinn Féin in Ireland gets something like half of the young vote and is the effective opposition; I remember when I first joined that party they had one TD and we used to get the cops parked outside our houses or videoing our meetings.

The reason for this is because wages have stagnated, rent is a balls, jobs are crap, public services are being sold off and run down and the climate is ruined. We used to be able to buy a gaff off a normal salary; nowadays a couple working 50 hours full-time can afford f*ck all. Most young people think a future has been stolen from them, and they're right in many cases. People can crack jokes about ripped jeans and avacados all they like, but people are p*ssed off for a reason and seeking alternatives outside of a centrist status quo that is increasingly devoid of answers and comes across as snide and out of touch.

14dMoney

FTA69 wrote: »

There has been a marked increase in Communism and communist organisations over here anyway; the Communist Party in Britain hasn't had a bigger or younger membership in decades and many of their talented younger members are coming into my union as organisers and they're significantly younger than me, (I'm a mid-level official in a large union at 32). Social media pages pushing a communist line are hugely popular (the likes of Red London on Facebook) and a number of others - cleverly using memes and humour mixed with political critique a lot of young people find relevant. The Morning Star, the communist newspaper has a readership and click rate multiples higher than it was, the Marx Memorial Library in London has gone from near-closure to it being quite busy.

I mean, it's not a relevant political force nationally but it has become a lot more popular. What is far more significant is the rise of left politics in general and the age profile of that supporting it. The Corbyn phenomenon, Melenchon in France nearly got as many votes initially as Macron and his anthem is "Le Drape Rouge". Even Sinn Féin in Ireland gets something like half of the young vote and is the effective opposition; I remember when I first joined that party they had one TD and we used to get the cops parked outside our houses or videoing our meetings.

The reason for this is because wages have stagnated, rent is a balls, jobs are crap, public services are being sold off and run down and the climate is ruined. We used to be able to buy a gaff off a normal salary; nowadays a couple working 50 hours full-time can afford f*ck all. Most young people think a future has been stolen from them, and they're right in many cases. People can crack jokes about ripped jeans and avacados all they like, but people are p*ssed off for a reason and seeking alternatives outside of a centrist status quo that is increasingly devoid of answers and comes across as snide and out of touch.

No.

FTA69

14dMoney wrote: »

No.

Yes. Everything I've said is fact.

1) Communist organisations are growing in many places.
2) The left has become hugely more popular amongst the young
3) Wages have stagnated, public services have declined, climate change is a huge and pressing issue, home ownership and secure work is declining massively.
4) Populism is increasing away from the traditional centre.

None of this can be denied for a second.

14dMoney

FTA69 wrote: »

Yes. Everything I've said is fact.

1) Communist organisations are growing in many places.
2) The left has become hugely more popular amongst the young
3) Wages have stagnated, public services have declined, climate change is a huge and pressing issue, home ownership and secure work is declining massively.
4) Populism is increasing away from the traditional centre.

None of this can be denied for a second.

Nope, none of it. You're just looking for handouts.

14dMoney

Doctor Jimbob wrote: »

The poster isn't expressing an opinion on whether or not those things are positive.

I know the type.

cgcsb

cgcsb wrote: »

So you got the susi grant to go to college then, I think that's €2,000 a year. And were a qualifying candidate for a university access scheme (I think it was €1,600 per year when I took it). And of course your college fees were waived (circa €3,000 depending on the course and institution). And now you're opposed to socialism? Assuming you went to college for 4 years, you could have taken a cool €27k off the state for your education, but you'll probably claim you opted out of those schemes because you wanted to pay your own way with the thin air in your pocket.

More than that.

3k is only a contribution. The State still pays tuition fees to the third-level institutions on top of that. So a medical or dentistry student costs the state something like 10k per annum in total fees.

rossie1977

FTA69 wrote: »

Yes. Everything I've said is fact.

1) Communist organisations are growing in many places.
2) The left has become hugely more popular amongst the young
3) Wages have stagnated, public services have declined, climate change is a huge and pressing issue, home ownership and secure work is declining massively.
4) Populism is increasing away from the traditional centre.

None of this can be denied for a second.

I haven't heard of communism growing in places but we are at a point where neo liberal politics has failed a huge segment of society. The yellow vest protests in France are probably just the beginning of maybe the next decade of uprising by working and middle class in the US, western Europe.

In the US wages have completely stagnanted while productivity is at record levels



In the 1950s a CEO would usually make on average 20 times as much as the average employee. In 2019 CEOs make 350 times that of their median employees.

Il Fascista

FTA69 wrote: »

2) The left has become hugely more popular amongst the young


None of this can be denied for a second.

Idealism has always been popular amongst the young and naive, I don't see it being any more popular than it ever has been though. I'd say there's a good argument for there being even less support considering that many of the youth of France & Italy voted for the right in the last elections.

Mad_maxx

cgcsb wrote: »

Facts remain, no matter how hard you work, you will not earn enough to have a modest home in the capital unless you are born wealthy and can start a business with daddy's money or you were born wealthy and could afford to get into practicing law. It may be possible to be born middle class and get into medicine and be well off but you'd need to have committed your teenage years to getting 600 LC points.

Any tradesman worth his salt can pull in 100k per annum right now, a lot more than most solicitors

Learn a trade, don't waste your time going to college

14dMoney

Mad_maxx wrote: »

Any tradesman worth his salt can pull in 100k per annum right now, a lot more than most solicitors

Learn a trade, don't waste your time going to college

Yeah, but then he wouldn't have time to focus on his spoken word poetry then.

Franz Von Peppercorn II

14dMoney wrote: »

Nope, none of it. You're just looking for handouts.

You handing back all those handouts you received until you graduated.

14dMoney

Franz Von Peppercorn II wrote: »

You handing back all those handouts you received until you graduated.

I didn't receive any as I wasn't entitled to any and I worked through college. You'd know that if you bothered to read the thread.

Franz Von Peppercorn II

Mad_maxx wrote: »

Any tradesman worth his salt can pull in 100k per annum right now, a lot more than most solicitors

Learn a trade, don't waste your time going to college

The tradesman is much more dependent on the economy than most solicitors. Life time earnings ain’t all that.

Franz Von Peppercorn II

14dMoney wrote: »

I didn't receive any as I wasn't entitled to any and I worked through college. You'd know that if you bothered to read the thread.

You think you paid for the full college fee?

Look you made it from working class to lower middle class with massive help from the taxpayer. Well done. Now pay your taxes and stop whining about communism.

14dMoney

Franz Von Peppercorn II wrote: »

You think you paid for the full college fee?

Look you made it from working class to lower middle class with massive help from the taxpayer. Well done. Now pay your taxes and stop whining about communism.

No of course not. No Irish student does unless theyre stupid enough to flunk out. And no, I didn't have massive help from the taxpayer, I've had to support myself through college, whilst people like you whinge about how tough life is, demanding that other people subsidise your life.

Tony EH

14dMoney wrote: »

I'm 26 now.

This explains an awful lot.

FTA69

14dMoney wrote: »

Nope, none of it. You're just looking for handouts.

Yeah you’re just wrong mate and haven’t refuted anything I’ve said at all.

I must have been dreaming there when Corbyn became leader of the Labour Party, Melechon got 24% odd of the French vote and people don’t feel hard done by stagnating wages and high rents. Must have never happened.

You sure told me lad. I’ll think it over now in
my cheap apartment in London while enjoying the steady climate of 38 degrees which is totally usual for England.

FTA69

14dMoney wrote: »

No of course not. No Irish student does unless theyre stupid enough to flunk out. And no, I didn't have massive help from the taxpayer, I've had to support myself through college, whilst people like you whinge about how tough life is, demanding that other people subsidise your life.

Oh yeah, are you a hundred grand in debt for your degree like you would be in the US?

Because if you aren’t you benefited massively from taxpayer-subsidised education.

MrFresh

14dMoney wrote: »

No of course not. No Irish student does unless theyre stupid enough to flunk out. And no, I didn't have massive help from the taxpayer, I've had to support myself through college, whilst people like you whinge about how tough life is, demanding that other people subsidise your life.

Where do you think the money comes from to pay the lecturers in the colleges?

cgcsb

14dMoney wrote: »

That's a crock of ****. 2 salaries of 50k give you a purchase price of almost 400k. Plenty of houses/apartments for that and under in Dublin.

Secondly, there are other lucrative industries besides law and medicine. Stop expecting to have everything handed to you.

So you have to have 2 full time working people? the single income household is nomore?

cgcsb

Mad_maxx wrote: »

Any tradesman worth his salt can pull in 100k per annum right now, a lot more than most solicitors

Learn a trade, don't waste your time going to college

Trading in what? cocaine?

cgcsb

14dMoney wrote: »

Yeah, but then he wouldn't have time to focus on his spoken word poetry then.

That's quite the assumption. I'm actually opposed to communism and the more extreme end of socialism, the OP is asking why it seems to be on the rise, my answer is, the current system is a failure for the working and lower middle classes. It is too difficult to achieve the standard of living of the previous generation without being simply lucky.

14dMoney

FTA69 wrote: »

Oh yeah, are you a hundred grand in debt for your degree like you would be in the US?

Because if you aren’t you benefited massively from taxpayer-subsidised education.

The original point that the poster made was that I received a heap of grants which never happened. I'm actually all for free education for certain degrees that will contribute to society.

14dMoney

cgcsb wrote: »

That's quite the assumption. I'm actually opposed to communism and the more extreme end of socialism, the OP is asking why it seems to be on the rise, my answer is, the current system is a failure for the working and lower middle classes. It is too difficult to achieve the standard of living of the previous generation without being simply lucky.

The standard of living has never been higher in this country.

cgcsb

Franz Von Peppercorn II wrote: »

You think you paid for the full college fee?

Look you made it from working class to lower middle class with massive help from the taxpayer. Well done. Now pay your taxes and stop whining about communism.

This cohort of the population, of which I admit I'm a part of, seem to be the most classist cohort. They're the type you'd see on the journal comments section complaining about cyclists because 'I pay mee road tax Joe!!'

cgcsb

14dMoney wrote: »

No of course not. No Irish student does unless theyre stupid enough to flunk out. And no, I didn't have massive help from the taxpayer, I've had to support myself through college, whilst people like you whinge about how tough life is, demanding that other people subsidise your life.

You supported yourself working part time in the lidl in Maynooth while paying all of your college fees? I suppose you went to a completely private secondary school also?

14dMoney

cgcsb wrote: »

You supported yourself working part time in the lidl in Maynooth while paying all of your college fees? I suppose you went to a completely private secondary school also?

No, I took out a credit union loan to help and worked in Lidl to pay rent, if you bothered to read the thread.

Fionn1952

14dMoney wrote: »

cgcsb wrote: »

That's quite the assumption. I'm actually opposed to communism and the more extreme end of socialism, the OP is asking why it seems to be on the rise, my answer is, the current system is a failure for the working and lower middle classes. It is too difficult to achieve the standard of living of the previous generation without being simply lucky.

The standard of living has never been higher in this country.

Actually Millenials are the first generation to ever have a lower standard of living than the previous generation. This isnt exclusive to Ireland, but it certainly applies.

cgcsb

14dMoney wrote: »

No, I took out a credit union loan to help and worked in Lidl to pay rent, if you bothered to read the thread.

The socialist, not for profit network of credit unions backed by the state to help the poor access credit and discourage unscrupulous hyper capitalist lending?

14dMoney

cgcsb wrote: »

The socialist, not for profit network of credit unions backed by the state to help the poor access credit and discourage unscrupulous hyper capitalist lending?

Which you have to pay back. I paid interest on a loan, which I paid back.

Ulysses Gaze

FTA69 wrote: »

Yeah you’re just wrong mate and haven’t refuted anything I’ve said at all.

I must have been dreaming there when Corbyn became leader of the Labour Party, Melechon got 24% odd of the French vote and people don’t feel hard done by stagnating wages and high rents. Must have never happened.

You sure told me lad. I’ll think it over now in
my cheap apartment in London while enjoying the steady climate of 38 degrees which is totally usual for England.

London had temperatures as high as now in the 1970's and also in 1990 too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_British_Isles_heat_wave

1990 – Cities across the United Kingdom broke their all time temperature records in the dramatic 1990 United Kingdom heat wave temperatures peaked at 37 °C (99 °F). This led to one of the hottest Augusts on record going back to 1659.

Mad_maxx

Franz Von Peppercorn II wrote: »

The tradesman is much more dependent on the economy than most solicitors. Life time earnings ain’t all that.

Build a war chest during good times

Ulysses Gaze

Franz Von Peppercorn II wrote: »

The tradesman is much more dependent on the economy than most solicitors. Life time earnings ain’t all that.

A hell of a lot of solicitors lost their jobs during the last recession.
I personally know 6 that were let go.

Mad_maxx

cgcsb wrote: »

Trading in what? cocaine?

Builder, plumber, electrician, tiler, plasterer

Mad_maxx

Ulysses Gaze wrote: »

A hell of a lot of solicitors lost their jobs during the last recession.
I personally know 6 that were let go.

Most solicitors don't earn that much, considerably less than your average guard for example

Church on Tuesday

Tony EH wrote: »

But some socialist principles might.

You know what, the shit you enjoy now in your job, whether it's paid lunch breaks, holiday days, or your weekend off came from left wing thinking.

We're not talking about socialism though are we.

leonffrench

Its probably inportant to make a distinction between economic communism and the cultural Marxism that is prevalent today. I think a lot of the ill will towards socialism or communism, my own included, comes from the cultural far left who have little interest in economics but have big interest in telling people what they should be offended by, outraged by, and what people should and shouldn't say or even think.
The tide of cultural Marxism is far more dangerous because it could genuinely lead to a class/race war.

Mad_maxx

leonffrench wrote: »

Its probably inportant to make a distinction between economic communism and the cultural Marxism that is prevalent today. I think a lot of the ill will towards socialism or communism, my own included, comes from the cultural far left who have little interest in economics but have big interest in telling people what they should be offended by, outraged by, and what people should and shouldn't say or even think.
The tide of cultural Marxism is far more dangerous because it could genuinely lead to a class/race war.

The far left have no traction when it comes to the economic direction, they focus heavily on the culture wars instead

Tony EH

leonffrench wrote: »

Its probably inportant to make a distinction between economic communism and the cultural Marxism that is prevalent today. I think a lot of the ill will towards socialism or communism, my own included, comes from the cultural far left who have little interest in economics but have big interest in telling people what they should be offended by, outraged by, and what people should and shouldn't say or even think.
The tide of cultural Marxism is far more dangerous because it could genuinely lead to a class/race war.

There's no such thing as "cultural marxism".

Yurt2

Greyfox wrote: »

In theory communism sounds like a good idea, everyone can earn the same amount so there's no getting jealous of someone who has way more then you etc.. It always falls apart in practice though

I'm not defending the Soviet Union, it was a system that collapsed under the weight of it's own contradictions, but you're peddling a myth about the USSR that workers all got paid the same regardless of skill level or experience. Wage levels and renumeration were heavily directed by the state, but it's complete bunkum that a nuclear physicist got paid the same as a factory worker on the shop-floor.

If you're going to proffer an argument, do it honestly.

meeeeh

cgcsb wrote: »

So you have to have 2 full time working people? the single income household is nomore?

I grew up in socialist country. Women staying at home was considered bourgeois or even sign of overly religious families. Vast majority of women were in full time employment, there was very little of part time employment.

14dMoney

Tony EH wrote: »

There's no such thing as "cultural marxism".

Yes there is. It's a blanket term applied to social theory that emerged from the Frankfurt School. It's also a term that's been hijacked by the far-right to describe the far-left.

The term has become polarized and meaningless now though, a bit like 'nazi'.

Tony EH

14dMoney wrote: »

Yes there is. It's a blanket term applied to social theory that emerged from the Frankfurt School. It's also a term that's been hijacked by the far-right to describe the far-left.

The term has become polarized and meaningless now though, a bit like 'nazi'.

It's not a thing that exists outside of a catchphrase used by the more simple minded on the right.

14dMoney

Tony EH wrote: »

It's not a thing that exists outside of a catchphrase used by the more simple minded on the right.

Did you even read what I wrote? The term existed before the alt-right.

Yurt2

14dMoney is the kind of guy you avoid on a night out. Slurring his words, telling you about the latest edgy YouTube video he saw and boring the crap out of people talking about his new mid-market motor he bought with PCP finance.

Tony EH

14dMoney wrote: »

Did you even read what I wrote? The term existed before the alt-right.

I didn't mention anything about the "alt-right".

Sofiztikated

Alt right, far left, g'way about your business.

A lot of under 30's I know are doing the same thing I did. Go to work, get paid, get pissed, and want to get their hole.

I will say a lot more seem to be more mindful others, but still fairly self absorbed.

meeeeh

Tony EH wrote: »

It's not a thing that exists outside of a catchphrase used by the more simple minded on the right.

I studied it in university and I suspect Jurgen Habermas wouldn't want to be reduced to catchphrase by the more simple minded on the right.

I don't know what right defines as cultural marxism but it is very influential field in sociology and theory of communication.