Studying and learning the reality of what happened everywhere socialism took hold - higher life expectancies, better working conditions, advances in minority rights, the toppling of hierarchies and the empowering of ordinary workers. I had had it drilled into my head by liberal capitalist media that any attempt to revolutionize society was doomed to failure and tyranny, that our current system with its war and genocide and homelessness and poverty and bigotry and unchecked environmental destruction was all anyone could ever hope for, inevitable human nature. Studying socialist history opened my eyes to the kind of world we can have if we fight and win.

I won’t deny that that second “if” is a big one. I certainly don’t expect us to overthrow global capital in my lifetime. But the possibility alone is enough to give me something liberal capitalism never could - real hope.