I’ve been thinking of writing a critique of the Settlers thesis, but I’ll try to reply with some thoughts here.
Communism is “from each according to his abilities to each according to his needs.” Entertainment and food are needs. An immense amount of competing commodities produced with only ‘taking advantage of needs to get money’ in mind is not necessary. Capitalism perpetually creates more and more use values but each can make less profit. We get cheaper and cheaper goods yet have to work more and more. Living in the US sucks for a lot of people. That’s why we have Trump. “Everything is fine” doesn’t make sense to millions of Amerikans living paycheck to paycheck. The problem is how they explain this suffering. If they understand the problem inherent with working for a wage to produce commodities then they can seize power and build a more rational society. If they find immigrants a good enough explanation then they’re nothing but bootlickers.
A lot of leftists are intellectuals. Their class interests are opposed to the bourgeoisie and proletariat. If they understand what’s actually wrong with capitalism instead of succumbing to the moralism of their own elitist outlook then they can learn to communicate the necessary understanding for realizing working class interests rather than preaching about their “duty” to own up to all the evil in the world.
The “cope” is thinking our problem is that people are just “too well off.” There are many worse off countries that are less revolutionary. We need to criticize the errors in our movement so that we can be ready when the next crisis hits (and it will). “The masses” need to know that they don’t have to endlessly consent to different bosses.
Why? Some puritanical ritual? What’s the point of attacking people for looking for their own enjoyment through commodities in an alienated society? Can you really build a movement based on shame? The problem with capitalism is that people are poor in spite of the abundance of private wealth. We want to end poverty, have workers turn production towards their own needs/desires. We might need to ration and remove excesses, but you can hardly blame someone today for pursuing their own interests. Socialism is about pursuing our own interests as a class.