“Communism bad”
“Why?”
200 year old tropes so ancient they were debunked by Marx himself
Of course, you go through the motions of explaining the most basic political concepts that could be grasped by skimming the cliff notes for literally any Marxist works
“Friedrich Engels? Is he like the president of Germany or something?”
It’s like a kindergartener trying to teach you calculus.
We’re so used to thinking of our fiscal debts to financial institutions and creditors as an extension of our social obligation to one another. It’s perverse. Liberals especially love thinking along these lines - it appeals to their love of politics as a vessel for virtuous self flagellation (austerity politics, bootstrapping, individual choice/responsibility, etc, all the shit that exemplifies how liberals are in fact right-wing), as well as their sycophantic and undiscerning adulation for institutions. You’ll probably never get any of these people to pick up Capital, let alone give you a rebuttal to something like the labor theory of value (as you mention, these people are not serious), but you might be able to make inroads by pointing them to David Graeber. The first chapter of Debt, “On the issue of moral confusion,” addresses this topic directly.
Side note, Trillbillies just had a guest author on whose work dealt with this concept, and I could not believe they didn’t mention Graeber even once.
:graeber:
I have a copy of Debt sitting on my bookshelf, I got it as a Christmas present last year, I should really get around to reading it finally