An international (English speaking) socialist Lemmy community free of "ML" (read: Dengist) influence. This is a place for undogmatic shitposting and memes from a progressive, anti-capitalist and truly anti-imperialist perspective, regardless of specific ideology.
Serious posts, news, discussion and agitprop/stuff that's better fit for a poster than a meme go in c/Socialism.
If you are new to socialism, you can ask questions and find resources over on c/Socialism101.
Please don't forget to help keep this community clean by reporting rule violations, updooting good contributions and downdooting those of low quality!
0. Only post socialist memes
That refers to funny image macros and means that generally videos and screenshots are not allowed. Exceptions include explicitly humorous and short videos, as well as (social media) screenshots depicting a funny situation, joke, or joke picture relating to socialist movements, theory, societal issues, or political opponents. Examples would be the classic case of humorous Tumblr or Twitter posts/threads. (and no, agitprop text does not count as a meme. Please post agitprop here)
0.5 [Provisional Rule] Try to use alt text or image descriptions to allow for greater accessibility
(Please take a look at our wiki page for the guidelines on how to actually write alternative text!)
We encourage alternative text (from now referred to as "alt text") to be added to all posts/comments containing media, such as images, animated GIFs, videos, audio files, and custom emojis.
EDIT: For files you share in the comments, a simple summary should be enough if they’re too complex.
We are committed to social equity and to reducing barriers of entry, including (digital) communication and culture. It takes each of us only a few moments to make a whole world of content (more) accessible to a bunch of folks.
When alt text is absent, a reminder will be issued. If you don't add the missing alt text within 48 hours, the post will be removed. No hard feelings.
0.5.1 Style tip about abbreviations and short forms
When writing stuff like "lol" and "iirc", it's a good idea to try and replace those with their all caps counterpart
Why? Because otherwise (AFAIK), screen readers will try to read them out as actually words instead of spelling them
1. Socialist Unity in the form of mutual respect and good faith interactions is enforced here
Try to keep an open mind, other schools of thought may offer points of view and analyses you haven't considered yet. Also: This is not a place for the Idealism vs. Materialism or rather Anarchism vs. Marxism debate(s), for that please visit c/AnarchismVsMarxism.
2. Anti-Imperialism means recognizing capitalist states like Russia and China as such
That means condemning (their) imperialism, even if it is of the "anti-USA" flavor.
3. No liberalism, (right-wing) revisionism or reactionaries.
That includes so called: Social Democracy, Democratic Socialism, Dengism, Market Socialism, Patriotic Socialism, National Bolshevism, Anarcho-Capitalism etc. . Anti-Socialist people and content have no place here, as well as the variety of "Marxist"-"Leninists" (read: Dengists) (actual ML's are welcome as long as they agree to the rules and don't just copy paste/larp about stuff from a hundred years ago).
4. No Bigotry.
The only dangerous minority is the rich.
5. Don't demonize previous and current socialist experiments or (leading) individuals.
We must constructively learn from their mistakes, while acknowledging their achievements and recognizing when they have strayed away from socialist principles.
6. Don't irrationally idolize/glorify previous and current socialist experiments or (leading) individuals.
Notable achievements in all spheres of society were made by various socialist/people's/democratic republics around the world. Mistakes, however, were made as well: bureaucratic castes of parasitic elites - as well as reactionary cults of personality - were established, many things were mismanaged and prejudice and bigotry sometimes replaced internationalism and progressiveness.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/36828107
ID: WookieeMark @EvilGenXer posted:
"OK so look, Capitalism is right wing.
Period.
If you are pro-capitalism, you are Right Wing.
There is no pro-capitalist Left. That's a polite fiction in the US that no one can afford any longer as the ecosystem is actually collapsing around us."
None of that is capitalism.
Capitalism is when a small number of people (an elite, by definition) control the majority of the Capital, which is property that can be used to conduct business and make money. What lefties call "the means of production." Capital is things like factories, data centers, power plants, mines, large acres of land used for farming, and so on.
What you're failing to describe properly is Markets. Markets aren't evil, free trade between well-informed parties isn't evil. Money, in fact, is the root of all evil but is not in itself evil. None of those things are Capitalism.
Wrong. Capitalism is not defined by its criticisms nor by any eventual outcome. Everything OP said is the definition of capitalism. Everything you're saying are the criticisms of Capitalism which state that eventually, Capitalism will lead to that. Early capitalism does not have a small few controlling the majority of the means of production, but it is still capitalism.
That's like saying Communist governments are defined by never reaching full communism, or that a First Past the Post voting system is defined by a two party system. Those are not what define those things, but they are the criticisms of them and their eventual outcomes without something new implemented to correct it.
The way to uncover the nature of domination and exploitation, to prove that it isn't just an economic system, is to instead of thinking of it as an objective thing with certain defining characteristics, but instead look at it as interconnected relationships that drive infinite growth, then it becomes apparent how it actually functions as a mechanism of class domination. The way you look at it, you only see the appearances of capitalism, you have an idealist view.
This is why so many people say things like "such a policy doesn't make sense, its irrational." But when viewed as a class struggle, it makes perfect sense, the system exploits the problems created by the relentless search for profit, by exploiting those problems for profit. Its the system that is irrational, and your desire to make it rational is well intentioned, but is basically just naval gazing. "This is what I learned it is so that's what it is". Its easier to see the illusions of capitalism for what they are than to hold on to them, but because they are a part of our identity, how we evaluate the world and our place in it, we don't want to let them go. This is understandable.
But the stakes are higher than ever and the system is destroying, not building, killing and starving, not emancipating. This isn't progress, its suicide.
The way anyone here looks at Communism is idealistic and Communist governments never fall into that ideal definition. Does that mean Communism is a bad thing? No. It simply means we haven't found a way to make it work. Is Capitalism a bad thing? No. It can be great when it works. It's just not working right now in Amurrica.
That would be great if it weren't definitively proven to be otherwise. Just because you aren't familiar with Karl Marx doesn't mean he didn't write extensively on the subject. Specifically you could look at critique of the Gotha Program by Karl Marx, Reform or Revolution by Rosa Luxemburg and State and Revolution by Lenin for comprehensive arguments against your view.
Even the ruling class, which once had many socialist-y sentiments among them, hasn't subscribed to your views since WW2. I used to make arguments similar to yours, but if I followed through and tried to prove those views the only "evidence" was either just experts making claims to that effect, or people literally misconstruing data to suit that assumption. Its almost as if the consensus reached by the experts is itself a way of hiding the true relationships produced and reproduced for and by capitalism.
It's not like they reset the fucking market when they boot up capitalism. The king had the most money, the king's heirs and friends still have most of the money. The small ruling elite come with the system, because they brought it.
Nothing you underlined indicate that it's owned by a small number of people, just that's privately/corporate owned.
1 person can own one business in a market, and a separate person can own a second business in the market. A million different people can own a million different businesses in that market. All are privately or corporate owned.
Please look up "wealth inequality over time", or watch this video on the topic https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EdqxBNgnmxU
Wealth directly represents control over resources and ownership of the economy. The more wealth you have, the more power you have (under capitalism) so massive disparities in wealth are also massive disparities of power