Well, you got me reading the Communist Manifesto again (it's been at least 20 years). But I'm not sure why. It's interesting, but also a little outdated for modern times. For one thing, the modern western democracies thwarted the contradictions that he said would lead to massive worker movements by adopting the prescriptions that weren't necessarily inconsistent with capitalism--those we've been discussing--universal free public education, progressive taxation, end of child labor, etc. Adopting those things weren't pushing western democracies toward communism, they were responses to movements for reforming capitalism (and also, capitalists saw a more educated workforce as a positive).

EDIT: And look, we agree on one thing: corporate elites, corporate monopolies all of that is bad. So how do we deal with that? If we just look at that one thing we agree on and put aside things like gender dysphoria and Islam, how do we, the people, deal with corporate elites?

Well, you got me reading the Communist Manifesto again (it's been at least 20 years). But I'm not sure why. It's interesting, but also a little outdated for modern times. For one thing, the modern western democracies thwarted the contradictions that he said would lead to massive worker movements by adopting the prescriptions that weren't necessarily inconsistent with capitalism--those we've been discussing--universal free public education, progressive taxation, end of child labor, etc. Adopting those things weren't pushing western democracies toward communism, they were responses to movements for reforming capitalism (and also, capitalists saw a more educated workforce as a positive).