I was a bit fatigued last night, so I cut that post short.
Question: why is it that Communists hate the bourgeoisie so much? Culturally, of course, they are presumed to be banal and uninteresting, to pretentious unemployed “thought esthetes” (my term for intellectuals).
Politically, though, the problem is that the bourgeoisie stand between them and their revolution. The way it is supposed to work is a very neat, tidy distinction between “us” and “them”, where for the sake of intellectual congruence, if not honesty, thought esthetes conflate their own interests with those of workers they neither understand nor respect.
The middle class, the “bourgeoisis”, sits in the middle. These damnable human beings make it much harder convincing “workers” that their best option lies with following silly people who read a lot of books into a violent and uncertain future, rather than with trying to join the class of the comfortable.
The naked fact which makes leftists squirm is that Capitalism works. By “work” I mean that the workers become middle class in conditions of growing wealth, which inevitably follows free markets, property rights, and political liberty. Our “workers”–pipe fitters, factory workers, welders–drive Ford F-150’s, have boats, and own homes. They are not being “exploited”. They are being enriched by the system.
The leaks in our system are twofold. First, socialists make everything worse by retarding business investment, which costs jobs, through punitive tax rates and abusive regulations. Second, the Federal Reserve sucks the value out of our money, and gives it to the already rich.
That the first should at times join the second, or vice versa, seems likely.