The contradiction between small retail traders and large hedge funds such as Melvin Capital Management is a contradiction between the petit-bourgeosie (which literally means small bourgeoisie) and the big bourgeoisie and finance capitalists that manage hedge funds.
The big winners of this week weren’t small traders, although they made some modest money provided they bought their shares when the stock was still in the double digits and sold when it was in the triple, the winners were big hedge funds like Blackrock, which is projected to have made $2.4 billion over the course of this week.
The memes claiming that “reddit bankrupted a hedge fund” are erroneous, as Melvin has not gone bankrupt. While the memes regarding the “small guy sticking it to the big hedge funds” are amusing and hilarious, we should not act as if the majority of the working class and proletariat who can not afford to lose even a hundred dollars, never mind $1,000, over the course of a few days can afford to dabble in the stock market.
The class character of those who engage in activity around r/wallstreetbets should also be taken into consideration. A cursory glance at the subreddit shows that many of them have vaguely progressive views, are certainly opposed to the big financial bourgeoisie, and in many cases are politically educated through losses and the blatant double standard afforded big institutions versus small investors. The appropriate term to describe the general sentiment would be petit bourgeois left populism, reminiscent of the Occupy Movement.
Communists regularly need money for our variety of projects, and the financial markets in many cases can be used to make money (or lose it) — there’s a choice between being a “pure proletarian”, which is a myth inspired by petit bourgeois idealism and lifestylism (even most proles hustle on the side), or taking opportunities to get money which can be used to grow the movement. Of course, money making should not be the primary or even secondary role of Communists, but it would behoove Communists to be a bit more pragmatic and creatively use things to our advantage and the advantage of our organizations when possible.
Fundraising is fundraising - and stock trading is probably less harmful than, I dunno, trafficking cocaine, lol.
That being said this obviously wasn’t that kind of co-ordinated leftist movement, and I expect most people bought a PS5 or something with their profits. Although the stories of people paying off debts is somewhat nice to hear, sadly it’s not much more inspiring than hearing someone paid off their student debt by winning the lottery imo.