The biggest trick the bourgeoisie pull on the working class is convincing the working class that it doesn’t exist.

The second biggest trick the bourgeoisie pull is convincing us that everything we make, all the culture we do, all the progress we make, is somehow owned by them.

Even many of us fall victim to this thinking. But, just because capitalism now has to pay lip service to feminism, native struggles, queer identity, and oppressed nationalities does not mean we have lost.

They have convinced some of us, and we often convince ourselves, that once the ruling class start paying lip service to our struggle and use our language that the struggle is lost. They said this in the Roman Empire.

The Roman Empire was convinced that the contradictions both internal and external would relax and that they could simply make all the barbarians Roman. The Empire would last forever because any rebels could be co-opted and made into Romans. But one day Alaric the Goth did not get a military promotion and the Western half of the Empire fell forever.

Do not let capitalism tell you that because it bottles up your identity to sell it back to you that you’ve lost.