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] 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" (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.
(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.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/43287453
Under socialism, your utility bill would just be a massively subsidised token price you pay because housing and everything related would not be treated as a means of extracting profit...
To preface: Scotland does not have socialism.
But, water here is controlled by a quasi-publicly owned company and paid for via general home taxation (known as council tax). There is no meters tracking usage, we're free to use as much as we wish.
I never have to think or worry about usage. If I need water I get water. It's paid for as part of my general taxation, as you put it, a token price.
As an added bonus to being quasi-publicly run, as opposed to privately for profit, we've had very few of the water scarcity or quality scandals that have plagued England for years now. Resulting in national headlines, political campaigns, and court cases.
If the same were offered for other utilities I would be delighted.
I'm posting this comment so that people have real life examples they can refer to.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_Water
Note: businesses still pay per usage, this setup is only for home use
Now try to implement that in Las Vegas. Pay per use is the way to go anywhere with constrained water supply, regardless of whether is a public or private utility. (I should definitely be public.)
If only America were the richest nation on the planet and humanity had invented some kind of tube that can transport water from places rich in water to places scarce in water...
If you'd given the example of Nouakchott or Timbuktu then I'd perhaps understand your point but your example has more than enough resources to achieve socialised water. The thing preventing it is political will, not economics or technical inability.
You really know nothing about the water situation in the American southwest. Good luck piping enough water (from where exactly?) when the entire Colorado River is being used up and aquifers are approaching empty. And that is with usage metered water.
'Member when the USA was capable of feats of world class engineering?
'Member when building pipelines across continents was easily achieved in the middle of the 20th century?
'Member when you used to actually build shit in your country?
'Member when you weren't defeatist cry babies that went "wahhh, it's too difficult to provide basic necessities to our population at a price that doesn't financially cripple vast swathes of the population 😭"
In the richest nation on earth, with huge tracts of land, consisting of multiple varying biomes and geographies...
The transport of water was figured out hundreds of years ago. The Romans built impressive viaducts. I'm sure the world's foremost industrial and economic superpower of the last 100 years can figure out how to move water across state lines.
The state isn't there to lower utility bills for the "people", it's there to grow, protect capital (and subsequent expansion of exploitation) so it can compete with other states in the global market. You'll only see mass renewable adoption after bourgeois state prices everything in and decides that it's best course of action for capital growth
Before ai I was wondering what cool stuff could be done with excess power from cheap solar if it surpasses battery charging for overnight use