this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2026
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Analysis and critique of identity fetishism as a political phenomenon, from a Marxist perspective.

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https://old.reddit.com/r/stupidpol/comments/1qdzct8/how_could_a_large_sum_of_money_be_used_to_advance/

My cousin is an Eastern Orthodox monk of a very small monastery. He doesn't use the internet so I'm not creating any serious risk for them by talking about this.

After the hegumen died, he was appointed to take over the fiscal and fiduciary responsibilities for the monastery, where he discovered that they have about €200 Million in assets, all from a childless oligarch who died in the early 2000s and donated what I assume was his entire stock portfolio to the monastery.

Discussing this with my cousin, they have mostly kept this a secret to avoid getting raided by bandits and thieves. Beyond paying to sustain the property, as well as a lot of goodwill and welfare for those in need, they've largely kept this money untouched. With the other members getting older, they'd like to find a way to use this money in a way that will help the public, but not in a way that furthers capitalism or dependence on it. Some ideas they had were to build a massive housing project/new city (talking 10,000+ units), where the rent would be just €200 per month to cover upkeep and future renovation costs. This probably wouldn't be enough to make a serious dent in the housing issue though. So I had a more ambitious idea of using this money to hire engineers, and start some employee-owned industrial companies to starve out the worst oligarchs in the country. And this would likely be more sustainable than a simple housing complex.

In short, how would you spend your money to fight capitalism in a way that is the most helpful and effective to the most people possible?

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[–] Skyrmir@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago

Create a housing investment commune with neighborhood services. Basically build it yourself as an investment families can move into.

Id suggest taking a close look at long running communes. See what worked for them, and look into the ones that failed and why. Usually it's an imbalance of some sort, that could have been avoided if not for someones ego.