"The good news is that these policies are highly popular and can form the basis of a winning political platform. Democratic socialism is a viable path — indeed, the only path — to a safe and just future."

tribunemag.co.uk/2025/09/can-...

There's nothing wrong with this, of course... but it seems to me that it is not at all adequate to the challenges we face.

Without this, it seems that leftism becomes little more than an aesthetic project, more focused on critique than on material change, or at most succeeds in creating gradual improvements, or change only in the interstices of the system.

How do you propose to remove the capitalist class from power?

Clearly protest alone - or even strikes - will not work to achieve this without a popular political vehicle that can actually replace the capitalist class in government.

Or, if you reject capitalism, but don't accept the socialist strategy of building a people's party that can win elections, take power and align investment and production with democratically-ratified goals, what is your strategy for achieving a post-capitalist economy?

If so, it seems what's needed is a more honest reckoning with the fact that capitalist control over production and government ultimately prevents us from ending human deprivation, inequalities, ecological breakdown and war, or at minimum will radically slow our progress toward these goals.

Is it that you believe capitalism is more or less okay - in other words, you believe the capitalist class should remain in control of production and government - but we just needs some tweaks here and there?

I have also seen claims that Israel backs the RSF. If anyone knows more about this, please share.

english.noonpost.com/p/what-role-...

For the UAE, this is a strategy to secure access to Sudan's gold and agricultural land.

The UAE is a US client state, and must have at least tacit US approval for this proxy war. The UAE must be held accountable for these atrocities, and we need to know the extent of US involvement.

They are playing us all for fools.

Here is the original study, led by Evan Valdes and published in the journal Political Psychology.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Here is the study on people's perceptions of system fairness: jasonhickel.substack.com/p/is-your-sy...

And here is my summary of the literature on the robustness tests: jasonhickel.substack.com/p/support-fo...

These studies point to an important reality that we must grapple with: the Chinese people have a much higher regard for their political and economic system than people in the West tend to assume.

In short, robustness tests - such as list experiments and implicit association tests - systematically demonstrate that people's support for their system is genuine.

It turns out researchers have spent a lot of time investigating this very question! So, in a second post, I wrote a summary of this literature, linked in the reply.

This study confirms several other recent studies finding high levels of popular support for the political-economic system in China.

Now, some people question the accuracy of the results, wondering whether people in China overstate their support because they fear repression for political dissent.