#marxist analysis

Alright, since we’re getting intense, I’m going to get intense too, because I’m honestly sick of people having such a bourgeois, neoliberal understanding of vulnerability and privilege.

First of all, Lily wasn’t a proletarian or an oppressed minority by the standards of the wizarding world, but rather part of the dominant class within it, especially considering that muggleborns didn’t actually face any kind of real systemic discrimination until Voldemort took over the Ministry in 1997.

The magical system is, essentially, a highly stratified class society. At the top you have the “pureblood” wizards, owners of inherited wealth — both economic and cultural prestige — and a monopoly on culture, though not political power, which is key here because they don’t hold absolute legal or political control, but merely symbolic superiority in terms of status. Just below them sit the half-bloods and muggleborns who, despite being considered “lower” by pureblood discourse, still enjoy the same legal rights (access to Hogwarts, jobs in the Ministry, the ability to own property, bank accounts, economic independence…) as their pureblood peers. And then at the margins, you have squibs, muggles, and in an even more precarious position, non-humans (house-elves, goblins, giants, werewolves).

Lily, therefore, was never born into those margins: she had full access to the elite reproduction system, shared class privileges, and could actively participate in the structures of magical power. From the very start, her position was that of a “plebeian nobility,” granted selective inclusion mechanisms but at every moment, she had the same rights and opportunities as any pureblood, because there was no social or systemic tool that actually excluded her from anything.

And let’s be clear about what those rights and privileges were, because this matters: she had full educational and professional rights. Being muggleborn never closed doors for her, neither for education nor for any job she might have wanted in the wizarding world. She had the same rights and resources as any pureblood and on top of that, she was favored by several professors. So not even in that sense did she suffer discrimination or barriers.

Lily also had a solid family structure and relational capital. Her muggle parents had enough resources to support both of their daughters decently, they adored her and treated her like some kind of prodigy. And then she went on to marry James Potter, who came from a wealthy, influential family with generational wealth and social capital tied to his blood status and last name. All of this guaranteed Lily a political, economic, and social safety net that no exploited or marginalized member of any system possesses.

And let’s not forget that she didn’t just have the right to study, work, and marry whoever she wanted like any pureblood, she also had the same privileges as any wizard, including the capacity for exploitation. Lily could’ve literally owned a house-elf if she wanted to. The capacity to exploit sentient life is a clear marker of a position at the top of a social pyramid, only those with power or privilege have the legal and social right to decide over others’ lives.

And this is exclusive to magical humans. Not all humans are treated equally in Harry Potter’s world: squibs have no access to magic or respectable jobs, muggles are treated like useless, clueless children, and non-human beings like elves and goblins aren’t even recognized as political subjects. So talking about Lily’s “vulnerability” is like comparing the position of a landowning noble to that of a peasant: sure, both get rained on — in this case, by Voldemort — but one has the machinery, networks, and capital to weather the storm, and the other has nothing.

The war against Voldemort wasn’t a conflict between oppressors and oppressed, it was a power struggle within the magical bourgeoisie and aristocracy, wealthy families fighting over who gets to define the social order. The Order of the Phoenix wasn’t defending the oppressed masses, they were defending the status quo that had always benefited them. The opposing side simply wanted to reshuffle aristocrats (and some non-human auxiliaries) in the distribution of power quotas.

If there had truly been a revolutionary impulse for the emancipation of marginalized groups, they would’ve dismantled house-elf slavery, ended the marginalization of goblins, and secured political representation for squibs. But the Order never intended to abolish the corrupt, discriminatory, unequal system they lived in, they just wanted to maintain their privileges while ensuring that human wizards remained on top and everyone else stayed in their place.

Painting Lily Evans as a “victim of persecution” serves a clear hegemonic function: it legitimizes the intervention of the upper middle class in the name of the “oppressed,” without ever questioning the system itself. It’s a simulacrum narrative that smooths over the essential contradiction: the same families claiming to “defend muggleborns” were clinging to their feudal privileges. In Marxist terms, it’s classic “moderate leftism” that lends legitimacy to the existing power structures, diverting attention from the real class struggle into a moralist “good versus evil” play between members of the same ruling class.

Lily wasn’t “forced” into the war, she fought because that conflict aligned with her class interests: protecting her social circle, her wealthy friends, and her own status. She could’ve easily left for the muggle world, gone anonymous, and lived comfortably. She wasn’t driven by poverty or systemic repression, but by loyalty to her own class and a voluntarist political impulse that was, frankly, condescending towards the truly oppressed because, remember, she was fighting to preserve her privileges in the wizarding world, not to make it fairer or more democratic for everyone. She wasn’t fighting for a systemic restructuring where, say, free elections would break the Ministry’s plutocracy. She wasn’t fighting to abolish slavery. She wasn’t fighting to grant non-human beings political rights or full citizenship. No, she was fighting to maintain her access to the ruling elite.

If we conduct a realistic sociopolitical analysis, Lily is the embodiment of Hogwarts’ bourgeois elite: she shared with purebloods all the levers of power, held capital (economic, social, and symbolic), and actively participated in reproducing that system. The “danger” only came when that system risked aligning itself with Voldemort. But the real structural oppression was never against muggleborns like her — it was against those not even considered political subjects with rights.

So, if you insist on portraying Lily as some kind of class martyr, you’re romanticizing the “resistance” of a privileged woman against another sector of the privileged. The real revolution, the one that would abolish house-elf slavery, shatter the monopoly of magical humans, grant voting rights to squibs and muggles regarding decisions that affect them, and dismantle the pseudo-feudal society they lived in was never the Order’s concern.

As a marxist myself, this criticism reminds me of some of the criticism that creationists fling at evolutionary biology.

"Evolutionary biology is unfalsifiable!"

How so?

"Because every time you get evidence that defies your expectations, you don't throw out your theory, you just change the theory to fit the new evidence."

Yes. that's how science works.

"But every time I come up with an explanation of why your theory is wrong, you reject it."

Because all of the counter evidence you present does not hold up to scrutiny and is wrong. Just because I reject your attempt to falsify my theory doesn't mean that the theory is unfalsifiable.

Evolution is technically falsifiable, but it never has been falsified because it is correct and true. It is a falsifiable hypothesis that at noon on a cloudless day, the sky will be blue., All you would have to do to falsify that is to go outside at noon on a cloudless day, look up, and see a color other then blue. But that will never happen because the sky at noon on a cloudless day is blue due to the laws of physics and the composition of the atmosphere. It will never be falsified because you cannot falsify something that is true.

There are plenty of times Marx was proven wrong or made incorrect predictions. And marxists followed up by adjusting their theories to account for the new evidence.

There are plenty of attempts capitalists have made to "debunk" the labor theory of value that still don't explain the fact that for the most part, the general price range of a commodity largely corresponds with its costs of production, which itself is largely determined by the amount of labor needed along the chain of production. And these "debunkers" have never taken the time to understand where marxists have acknowledged and explained why price and labor time are not 100% correlates.

There have been plenty of attempts to explain people's political behavior as being driven by irrational ideology instead of class interests, only for the "irrational" ideology to prove to be inline with class interest when you dig a little deeper.

Do you like dragons? Do you like Marxism? Boy, do I have an episode for you...

Classism isn't just about economic disparity; it's about the power dynamics that keep certain groups subjugated, ensuring that they remain in their "designated" place in society.

Women in the working class often bear the brunt of both classist and sexist prejudices. They're doubly disadvantaged, facing barriers not just because of their economic status but also because of their gender.

Now, here's where things get even more intricate. One might wonder why we can't address sexism within the working class without hesitation. The reason is both sinister and deeply rooted in the mechanics of capitalism. Capitalism, as a system, thrives on hierarchies. It requires a stratified society where there's always a lower rung—a safety net, so to speak, but not the kind that catches you. Instead, it's a net that ensures there's always someone beneath you, a group that those teetering on the edge can crash upon if they fall.

In this setup, women, especially working-class women, often become the "bodies on the floor." They're the cushion for those tumbling down the socio-economic ladder. By ensuring that sexism remains rampant within the working class, capitalism guarantees that there's always a demographic that bears the maximum weight of the system's failures.

So, what does this mean for us, the observers, activists, and advocates? It means our fight is multi-dimensional. Tackling classism without addressing the inherent sexism within it is a half-battle. Similarly, addressing sexism without understanding its ties to capitalist structures is an incomplete effort.

Our approach needs to be holistic. We must recognize the intersections of various forms of discrimination and understand how they feed off each other. Only then can we hope to dismantle the systems that thrive on keeping large sections of our society oppressed.

I see a lot of kids under pressure from the Progressive crowd to transition or to believe they're trans when the only thing they know for sure is they're not straight in the traditional sense, or like cross dressing, but are too young and too inexperienced to know much more beyond that.

And equivalently I see a lot of young parents under pressure from their own Liberal crowd to allow their teenage kid to go ahead with the multitude of potentially dangerous drugs and life changing procedures transitioning entails.

Has anyone stopped to think who's profiting off the incredibly confusing emotions that go along with not being traditional cis-gendered straight teenager?

For one, obviously a fuckton of doctor's, pharmaceutical companies, medical supplies companies, etc. But also therapists, Doctors, Psychiatrists, Councilors, and others.

And then, as regulations change State by State and at the Federal level, Health Insurance companies, Private and "Non-Profit" Hospitals and other Medical Services.

But also, as Transgender Rights are normalized in society and medically transitioning becomes a Big Business, these Health Insurance Companies, Hospitals, Pharmaceutical companies, Medical Supplies companies and everyone else listed, as well as some Rights groups themselves are hiring big K-Street Lobbyists to go up on Capital Hill and (essentially) bribe our Politicians with millions to support or Oppose this Law, that Regulation, and this Tax-Exempt status for this industry and the Federal Reimbursements to Insurance companies for Low Income Trans People on Medicare and Medicaid.

This isn't just about Trans Rights anymore, this has been a Big Business for quite a while now.

First off, I apologise if any of this sounds insensitive, I'm not always the best at being subtle, but the bone I have to pick isn't with the Trans Community or the struggling Teenagers and their parents. The Problem I have is with the insatiable greed that makes up the entire Capitalist System and how it pounces like vultures on people's struggles or Medical Issues.

Maybe we all need to take a step back for a minute and see how Public pressure may be being applied on vulnerable kids and confused parents and see where that pressure may be coming from, as well as who may be benefiting from it.

Mind you, my list of those Profiting off transitioning excluded the biggest Profiteers of them all.

The bankers and Investors on Wall Street who certainly are elbow deep in financing new Medical Supplies companies, Health Insurance schemes, and others who stand to profit by pressuring kids one way or another.

It's these Financiers who always are pulling the strings in background.

This is what Finance Capital is most expert at. This is what they do best.

Specifically:

Finding the Public's most vulnerable issues of the moment, financing the future Companies that stand to rake in Profits off the new Industry or sector within an Industry, then apply pressure through popular music, through cable News and how they present the issues they stand to profit from, use the Media, especially movies and shows to influence their target crowds opinions using movies and television, then they apply pressure on the Politicians who hold the keys to the Tax scams, Loopholes, Funding Mechanisms, Research Dollars, Regulatory Oversight, and more.

When all's said and done, people are usually hurt or psychologically damaged by the way they were manipulated, and meanwhile, the Financiers on Wall Street just lay back, and reap the profits from their "wise" investments. (There's nothing brilliant or wise about finding the Public's vulnerabilities and the bribing Politicians to manipulate the System to maximize your own Profits)

It's important we recognize the forces at play in the Present moment of exploration, expansion of Rights, Public vulnerabilities and change.

If we get to a point where people feel uncomfortable or unable to analyze critically a Public Health Issue, than it's not the Trans Community that gains, it's the vultures on Wall Street manipulating Public sentiment and corrupting the Political and Economic Systems for their own gain.

These vultures stand to gain if we don't turn a critical eye on a massive issue that's gone through a tremendous amount of change in an incredibly short time.

Being critical doesn't mean having to put up with prejudice or ignorance. Rather it means supporting one another to make sure no one's going to get hurt for someone else's gain.

So those were just some thoughts. Again, I want to mention that I'm not always the most skilled writer when it comes to contentious issues, and I absolutely and unquestionably support my Trans brothers and sisters in the Socialist Movement. They represent the very BEST of our Movement. I just don't want to see people get hurt by Capitalist predators looking to manipulate people who are already going through a tremendous amount difficulties, and the last thing they need is artificial pressure or confusion being stoked on purpose by Profiteers.