"In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage."

"And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed."

"A fella ain’t got a soul of his own, just a little piece of a big soul-the one big soul that belongs to ever’body."

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Sure, monkeys might be upset at inequality, the fact that one of them has grapes while the rest get cucumbers. But we, as humans, have something more: an understanding of the struggles of our friends, families, and neighbors. We are not merely driven by resentment. No, we are capable of solidarity, of working together to change a system that denies so many even the most basic dignity. And this has been demonstrated countless times throughout history. Even in our worst points, we have had tremendous resolve and the willingness to improve our situation.

The notion that revolution inevitably leads to nothing but purges, starvation, and collapse is a tired one, repeated by those who would prefer to justify the injustices of the present rather than imagine something better. Yes, history is complicated, and no movement has been perfect. But even in the so-called "failed" socialist experiments, there were undeniable periods of transformation, where poverty was drastically reduced, literacy soared, and entire nations once ravaged by imperialism and feudalism were lifted into modernity.

Take Cuba for example. After the revolution, they eliminated illiteracy in a year. They built a healthcare system so strong that even in the midst of a nonstop US blockade which has been ruled now for decades to be inhumane by the rest of the world, they send doctors to other countries in times of crisis. Or take Vietnam for instance. After fighting off multiple imperialist invasions, they rebuilt their country and lifted millions out of poverty. Even Chile under Allende, before the US backed coup crushed it, was making massive strides toward a fairer economy.

This isn't to say that these experiments did not still contain its fair share of inhumane treatment of its people, or that they didn't have their class distinctions and inequalities throughout their histories. But to say that the many capitalist nations throughout the world and its history are somehow better I think is ignorant at best, and maliciously disingenuous at worst.

Even the leaders of the US understood this as the Great Depression continued its trudge onward. The only reason we ever had a welfare state and a strong middle class was because of social democratic reforms by FDR. It was the concession of capitalism to its workers, an understanding that if things get worse, there will no longer be a class of capitalist who can accumulate wealth and continue to perpetuate class distinctions.

I think it's naive and childish to just sit back and expect the oppressed to simply let resentment burn itself out until people are so starved and beaten down that they learn to "accept market realities." That is not healing, no, that is submission. That is accepting that nothing better can every be accomplish, or even imagined. The real question isn’t whether a better world is possible, it’s whether we are willing to fight for it.

"It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism"