An international (English speaking) socialist Lemmy community free of the "ML" influence of instances like lemmy.ml and lemmygrad. This is a place for undogmatic shitposting and memes from a progressive, anti-capitalist and truly anti-imperialist perspective, regardless of specific ideology.
Agitprop (I.E. everything that would be more fitting on a poster than a meme) goes here.
Serious posts, news, and discussion 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] Use alt text or image descriptions to allow greater accessibility
(Please take a look at our wiki page for the guidelines on how to actually write alternative text!)
We require 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" seen on lemmygrad and more specifically GenZedong (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.
(if you are reading the rules to apply for modding this community, mention "Mantic Minotaur" when answering question 2)
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.
To be fair experimenting is good. It's still better than feudal system. I just wish we experimented with other models once in a while too.
I will read a sci-fi novel thousands of years into the future with fantasy-magic system, and economic model is still "21st century capitalism but we replaced the word money with credits so it's future now."
Capitalism exists to replace feudal systems. It’s easier to have kings, and to have a handful of them so they aren’t fighting as much for a single spot, when you convince the average idiot that now they can also be a king and its their own fault that they aren’t(or better yet, another person’s fault as you oppress them both).
When all the people who had gotten rich by being parasites because of who they were related got afraid they just changed the rules so that it wasn’t ahout blood relation anymore(on paper) but they still had all the money they’d stolen. Nothing functionally changed.
The entire system “the rich get everything they want and no one gets to stop them” does not have a good version. It’s fucked every single way.
It’s still better than feudal system.
According to whom? I wonder what we would see if we were to compare the average amount of labour time feudal peasants had to put in to survive vs. that of the current global proletariat.
I'd agree that capitalism has been better for some - like, for instance, white ex-peasants who now gets to be members of the (so-called) "middle class" or gets to cosplay as pseudo-nobility in colonised spaces- but it has been an unmitigated disaster for lots of others.
According to whom?
According to Marx, Engels, Lenin and any other respectable communist.
Capitalism is a historical progression rather than something you adopt willy nilly, and it has expanded productive forces significantly allowing us to produce stuff far more efficiently in far higher quality and complexity. With feudalism, it's mode of production was far more individualized, with peasants essentially producing for their and their family's subsistence only, and artisans in guilds would only work in small groups, limiting to what they can produce.
Therefore, this expansion of productive powers in capitalism in theory leads to better life quality, less socially necessary labor time to provide for everyone, less mortality given how we can now produce things like insulin in complex labs, etc.
Keyword is in theory - in practice, everything else in the system goes against that, leads to overproduction and having us proletariat work for much higher hours than is socially necessary, it concentrates wealth to private owners giving them immense political power. That's what communists are trying to do - progress forward so we produce not for profit, but for use based on need which would solve these issues.
Btw, comparison between feudal peasantry and proletariat is flawed - peasants were based in countryside and essentially were the middle class of it, owning a small amount of land that they worked for themselves. Proletariat are urbanized, work in factories they don't own and produce for thousands of people. A more apt comparison in work hours would be proletariat vs guild apprentices - their exploitation and work hours were essentially the same and this system was precursor to capitalist wage labor.
Concerning peasants, some (serfs) didn't own any land, while others (freemen) did. Serfs could be better off than freemen though.
The unmitigated disaster part existed under feudalism also. Capitalism is slowly turning back into feudalism, which is kinda why it sucks so much now. I hate capitalism, but feudalism was worse.
Fuedalism with a fuckload of democracy might work. But it always turns into a bloodline thing.
The unmitigated disaster part existed under feudalism also.
Perhaps, but I have to wonder how many feudal peasants would willingly exchange their existence for the precariat one we exist under.
Capitalism is slowly turning back into feudalism
If that is true, then it must mean that capitalism never replaced feudalism, but was instead built on top of feudalism - which is not that difficult to believe if you live in a 3rd-world extraction zone (like I do).
Its also not hard to believe if you ́look at the continuation of power across much of Europe. Its not a 1:1 comparison but lots of families of feudal lords are still wealthy and powerful today if they didn't completely fuck up. The power has spread out but has concentrated in other ways.
Blue Raspberry Capitalism. No, wait... Peanut Butter Capitalism
Baja Blast Capitalism
spirits deliver me, but I do love baja blast
Surveillance capitalism
Best economic system ever, they say. Unlike communism, this is a situation where you can say it has been tried many times throughout history.
What the fuck even is "stakeholder capitalism". You mean the people with money???
It is the fantasy that corporations can serve the interest all stakeholders (employees, customers etc.) rather than a minority of shareholders as is currently: https://www.investopedia.com/stakeholder-capitalism-4774323
They could serve their employees if they're ~~employee~~worker-owned. 😄
Then that's Mutualism lmao
Mfw Ezra Klein III is streaming holo-eds to my great grandkids excoriating the left for not supporting his new book "Mutualist Capitalism" after David Hogg failed to stop Barron Trump getting elected president for life
Sure. That can happen when all corporations have a legal duty to all ~~shareholders~~ stakeholders and they all have an equal right and access to influencing/suing them.
It really just sounds like hand wavey bullshit.
I wouldn’t say it’s a fantasy, it’s just a currently different cultural perspective that is being taught to the next generation of business leaders.
Some people are bought into the idea, but unless the actual laws change it’s not so easy to legally be able to prioritize the needs of all stakeholders equally.
I personally don’t see stakeholder theory as the “fix”, but it’s a good start to get more ethical capitalism that’s not actively hurting the planet, workers, and communities.
Well all the business leaders who think that's a dumb cultural perspective just bought all three branches of government.
They got what they wanted, but will they like it and will it stick? On a technical note things can improve and the three branches could flip back within 15 years at the most. For that to actually happen though people need to start feeling progressive wins now.
For that reason, the focus should be on trying to implement all the progressive programs we’ve been wanting federally, to be at the state level instead. States will likely need to be willing to go into debt to fund these programs, but if they do then the people living in those states will be much better off than they are now. Many people living in purple and red states will be much more likely to want those progressive programs when they actually are seeing how successful they are in Blue states as well.
I assumed it meant capitalism where everyone is a stakeholder of the company they work for or something like that.
Oh I like this! Packaging communism and socialism as capitalism!
Yeah like giving you a few non-voting shares that give you the stakeholder vibes with none of the actual power.
The ongoing monopolisation, that will eventually become governmental monopolisation at which point the whole thing will go bust.
plz bro, just one more time, bro
soon they will get the one they really want, fascist capitalism.
working as intended