About

We Have Nothing to Lose but Our Chains refers to an exploitable webcomic strip in which a man espouses the virtues of capitalism until he is presented with an inconvenient bill or other monetary problem, leading him to shout "We have nothing to lose but our chains!", a familiar Communist slogan.

Origin

"We have nothing to lose but our chains" is a line from The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. It has since become a political slogan for communist ideology.^[1]

On June 13th, 2018, webcomic SadGirlPop^[2] posted a comic in which a fan of capitalism is given a hospital bill, leading him to cry "We have nothing to lose but our chains!" The post gained over 1,900 likes on Instagram.

Spread

Later that week, the template began spreading on Reddit as users changed the bill that causes the character in the comic to cry the communist slogan. On June 17th, 2018, Redditor byzantine_lord330 posted an edit to /r/fakehistoryporn, gaining over 3,300 points (shown below, left). The same day, user WargRider23 posted an edit to /r/dankmemes that gained over 80 points (shown below, right).

Most of the edits over the following weeks were video game-related. Some other popular edits include a post by user Laqe_7 on /r/pcmasterrace, gaining over 5,400 upvotes (shown below, left). Another Redditor, AFzeeGrey, posted an edit about the Nintendo Switch to /r/MemeEconomy, gaining over 220 points (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References