It’s expensive to be poor. It’s harder to get out poverty than to be born wealthy with family that has connections and opportunities. Spend your money extremely wisely, because it’s the real way we vote in this system.
I’ve asked myself the question a lot lately, “What am I spending money on that’s a waste perpetuating this broken system which I could stop spending today?”
The only way to rise is to be smarter than the systems designed to drag us down. If you need a clear example, just look at a casino.
Labor may be the source of your power, but consumption is how you fritter it away. Trade your labor for subscription plans, little conveniences that prop up the oligarchs, big luxuries like fancy car or home, and you lose your ability to withhold your labor in safety.
Withholding your labor only works if you can recruit a lot of like-minded people, each with their own safe ability to withhold labor. We can get there eventually, but you have to start with yourself.
The best thing you can buy with money is your freedom from having to earn wages to live.
The one caveat I’d add to this is that because we have to exist in this system, you don’t have to deprive yourself of all joy all the time. It’s ok to spend a few bucks on something frivolous every once in a while (within reason, of course). Do what you can, however much you can, but also make sure you’ve got the energy to keep going.