Two problems. 1. The rich and the poor tend to be very conservative. 2. Most people are too uneducated to know they are going against their own best interests. Electing Trump is a perfect example. There was a fighter for the poor and what's left of the middle class. It wasn't Trump.
Trump spoke to the immediate concerns of the working class, which were charged with rhetoric about immigration, terrorism, and the like. They had been disenfranchised for a long time, and Trump was what they perceived to be their only option...it was either him, a...successful(?) businessman that oozed bravado and promises to take America back for the sections of the working class that had been forgotten by every administration that came before it, or the demonic entity known as Hillary Clinton. In short, the only reason he was voted for was because he claimed to have their interests at heart...populism is a novel concept in a government dominated by neoliberals with capitalist interests at the forefront of their policy decisions.
However, upon seeing what he actually does for the working class (which I predict to be very little), I believe that people will begin to understand that candidates like Trump are not the answer to their problems; the people themselves are.
Also worth mentioning, Bernie Sanders (though not a hardcore Marxist), a self-labeled socialist, almost won the DNC nomination. I genuinely believe a strong labor movement can be formed out of the left and the disenfranchised right.
We already have an American communist here.
Right JakeStarkey
Another American Communist?
*insert get off my lawn pic*
Labor is not the answer. Class is. As for labor the focus needs to be on a universal basic income to keep what capitalism we can manage going. AI and the robots will be doing most of the work soon. The humans are going to need money and something to occupy their time.
Those who perform labor, rather than control it, form a class. The Proletariat.
Also, if we won't be doing work, why is capitalism still important? If we're all living off basic income, why even have corporate executives and concentrations of wealth and power? Why not provide democratic equality instead of having some dystopian 1984-type future where a wealthy upper class can control everything?
What do Marxists think about Prison?
An interesting question. I can tell you what I personally think about it, to begin with:
It is necessary, but rehabilitiation should be the focus of most correctional facilities. If someone isn't pathologically disposed to violence and utterly hopeless, they should be brought back into society. A rehabilitative focus would also reduce the labor and (in a capitalistic society, at least) monetary cost in terms of taking care of inmates.
Also, prison shouldn't be so overused as punishment. Especially when it comes to nonviolent crimes, or drug usage.
As for Marx himself, he was a social constructionist, believing that humans feel at their best when contributing to a society, and the greater good of others, at the same time as their work provides for themselves. Thus, if someone who broke the law in some way...let's say, a burglar that has some sort of kleptomaniacal tendency, received rehabilitation in the form of directing their energies to productive work, like, getting a job they genuinely enjoyed, their tendency to commit wrongdoing would be greatly lessened.
Another thing worth mentioning; prison time shouldn't be something that hangs with you like it does in our current justice system. It affects peoples' abilities to get good jobs nowadays, when it should be a vehicle to becoming a better person than you were when you went in.
