Should Leftists Become Famous
Reflections on Fame Under Capitalism
I recently released a piece on not leaving Substack. There was a mostly positive response to this piece, though there was some pushback. This pushback had me reflecting on a few things. Things such as notoriety, fame, the spread of ideas, social media, and, I am sure, more.
In the past, I wanted to work on a piece detailing streamer Hasan Piker’s blatant opportunism. For those unfamiliar, opportunism, in the broadest sense, means changing one's political position to exploit circumstances for personal gain. In Hasan’s case, he would sell out the Socialist movement, which he claimed to be part of, to support the bourgeois Democratic Party.
I am not going to go over the numerous errors in reasoning that Hasan gives for supporting a pro-imperialist, pro-genocidal capitalist party. However, I will use that instance as a jumping-off point to discuss the dialectical relationship of fame.
Marx and Engels’ dialectical materialism discusses the reciprocal relationship between the material world and societal phenomena. In simpler words, what is the relationship between how resources are produced (the economy) and how a society functions (class society)? This functioning is dialectical, as it progresses through contradictions and change in response to material conditions.
Its task was no longer to manufacture a system of society as perfect as possible, but to examine the historico-economic succession of events from which these classes and their antagonism had of necessity sprung, and to discover in the economic conditions thus created the means of ending the conflict.
Socialism: Utopian or Scientific by Fredrick Engels
How people live determines how they think, not the other way around. Therefore, the contradiction between fame and the material world becomes apparent. If fame brings wealth, power, and prestige, the material conditions of that person’s life change. Why would that person then seek out societal change to make the world more equitable if they benefit from the status quo? Most wouldn’t, that’s the point of fame.
Capitalists know that the greatest tool they have to defang social movements is by having people sell out. The opportunism of the few can destabilize social movements and render them ineffective in challenging the system. We have seen this used in the 2020 BLM movement, in which many were attempting to focus their energy on challenging the capitalist-imperialist system, but were later defanged by the Democratic Party.
Furthermore, the issue of greatest concern for us is the relationship between the Global Network and the Democratic Party. This is hypocritical at best, as the Democratic Party has historically rejected and ignored BLM’s demands and has made it clear that they are pro-police, pro-prison, and committed to capitalism. From Obama’s support of police and his double-cross of Erica Garner, to “Top Cop” Kamala Harris’ denial of justice for Matrice Richardson, even going back to the 1994 Crime Bill authored by Joe Biden along with the Prisoner Litigation Reform Act that stripped basic human rights from countless Black people—the Democratic Party has literally created the conditions that led to the formation of this movement. Even now, the Democratic party continues to support imperialism, killing African heads of state, bombing Somalia, abusing immigrants (including those of the Black diaspora), and spreading the U.S. military throughout Black and Brown countries around the world. This is a party that is a threat both here and internationally. To ally with them is to ally against ourselves.
The opportunist sell-outs within the BLM movement, such as Patrisse Cullors, have led the ruin of a movement that had the potential to truly pose a challenge to the status quo. Where is the prominence of BLM now? Where are the reforms and met demands of that movement? The co-optation of the BLM movement should be a reminder to all of us of the dangers of opportunism that fame can bring.
Why am I discussing fame and the dialectical relationship of it?
Well, it has come to my attention that this newsletter has grown to over 3 thousand subscribers and followers. I never expected this newsletter or page to grow beyond 1,000 people, but with persistence and writing somewhat decently, this page has grown quite a bit.
While 3 thousand people are a drop in the bucket compared to other influencers, most people on Substack do not have thousands of readers.
Should I let that small sense of nortoriety go to my head? Should I seek to turn this into a personal brand? Should I include paid tiers and posts in my newsletter?
These are questions I once pondered but have since relinquished, given my current goals. My goal ever since starting Substack has been to grow this account. In the past, I had petty-bourgeois aspirations; I wanted to be an influencer and internet famous as a means of getting out of my impoverished position.
As was previously said, your material conditions determine how you think. People who are desperate to get out of their situations tend to do things they believe are in their own best interest, despite how they affect others or society at large. However, a few of us understand the bigger picture; we understand that personal gain at the expense of others is short-lived and ultimately hurts the world rather than helps.
People talk all the time about their motivation and reasoning for being a leftist. They talk about basic empathy, their own suffering, religious or philosophical conviction, or some other life/situational factor that spurred their thinking and actions towards something different.
For most of my life (even to this day), I struggle. I struggle mentally, physically, and socially. I struggle to do what’s right, to care about others more than myself, and to reconcile the contradictions within myself and what I see. Politics is personal when you know hunger, despair, and suffering.
While my suffering is nothing compared to the suffering of others under the boot of my country’s (the US) imperialism… I understand others' perspectives because of this suffering. I understand that the people of Gaza, Sudan, Congo, Cuba, etc. are no different from myself in that they dream, they want, they aspire, they suffer, because they too are human beings.
Leftism is the ultimate humanization process; it shows that people are not less because of something like their class, country, gender, race, sexuality, etc. This humanization process shows us that fame is not the goal.
The goal now is to bring awareness to greater issues, foster important conversations, and express thoughts within a space that can actually grow in the hopes that these conversations and thoughts will lead to action. To side with the oppressed is to struggle to relinquish one’s own comfort.
Selfish individualism will not improve the world. Therefore, we in the imperial core, those who benefit materially from the subjugation of the world, need to make the difficult sacrifice of renouncing our privileged position by siding with the super-exploited.
Does this mean we reject fame?
I think fame overall in our bourgeois capitalist society is shaped by that society. “Fame” in the capitalist sense will always be tied to upholding the current system as a person benefits from said system. The concept of becoming famous will always tie into the society in which you are becoming famous.
If a person wants “fame,” the follow-up question should be why?
Why do you want to become famous?
What do you think fame will bring you?
More importantly, what do you want to become famous for?
Some of us have this naive expectation that we can become famous by exposing our political program: standing against oppression, standing up for the oppressed, and wanting a more egalitarian society. But capitalist society regularly punishes and marginalizes the political program of the left.
Why would the capitalists want a political ideology, organization, or person who seeks to wrestle power away from their control to become famous?
This is why numerous figures become infamous or de-radicalized irrespective of their historical nuances.
For example, how many of you know of Martin Luther King Jr.'s speeches in which he spoke against capitalism?
Again we have deluded ourselves into believing the myth that Capitalism grew and prospered out of the protestant ethic of hard work and sacrifice. The fact is that Capitalism was built on the exploitation and suffering of black slaves and continues to thrive on the exploitation of the poor – both black and white, both here and abroad.
The Three Evils of Society by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
If a radical figure like King, who is “famous” within the American consciousness, can be this whitewashed and de-radicalized, then what does that tell you about more radical figures who are infamous?
They will call revolutionaries “monsters”, “tryants”, or “authoritarian”. They will call the people who dared to stand up to the empire “terrorists”.
All the while, the USA is built on settler colonialism, has destroyed democratic nations, and aided in a modern-day genocide as it continues to terrorize the world.
This tells us that our understanding of fame comes from a distorted place. A society that upholds those deemed safe, sweeping under the rug all misgivings, and highlighting only the parts that they want to be highlighted.
This is ideology in action.
This is the mythos of capitalist society within America.
We cannot seek fame within a society that wants to defang our movements as the anti-capitalist/anti-imperialist left.
So what does all of this mean for those of us trying to write, organize, and struggle within a system designed to neutralize us?
It means we must remain conscious of the contradictions we operate within. Social media can spread ideas, but it can also transform ideas into commodities. Visibility can help movements grow, but it can also elevate individuals in ways that pull them away from the very struggles they claim to represent. Fame, within capitalist society, is rarely neutral. It is shaped by a system that rewards compliance and punishes genuine threats to power.
That is why revolutionary work must always return to purpose.
The goal was never notoriety. The goal was never personal branding. The goal was always liberation, the dismantling of the systems that produce exploitation, imperialism, and human suffering. If writing, speaking, or building platforms helps illuminate those systems and connect people to struggle, then those tools have value. But the moment those tools become ends in themselves, they risk reproducing the same individualism that capitalism thrives on.
Ultimately, the task of the revolutionary is not to become known, but to remain committed. To remain clear-eyed about the world as it is, and unwavering in the effort to change it.
Movements endure not because individuals become famous, but because people choose, again and again, to stand with the oppressed rather than with the system that oppresses them.
Agreed 100%, with the exception of putting others first. The biggest lesson I learned in my struggle with the American fascists and the PTSD they left me with is that if you are not healthy, happy and free, you cannot help others.
The larger problem is that they think they own the internet, so this post has already been shadow-banned by the NSA and the Substack algorithm…
As a full time communications professional, I would add that wanting heroes to believe in is intrinsic to human nature, and I would be hard pressed to name ANY professional success that didn’t involve leveraging an influencer or celebrity. It’s also hard to think of any successful leftist movement that didn’t lionize or make a celebrity of its leader(s). Yes, most instruments for spreading info/propaganda are controlled by capitalism at the present time. The message is not that fame is intrinsically corrupting and leftists should avoid it— that is a horrendously non-pragmatic conclusion. The message is that the most urgent imperative for the leftist movement is to create information distribution systems that can rival the capitalist ones in creating heroes. We will not succeed without that. We just won’t.