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.
"This is basically communism"
Look inside
Happened due to profit motive
[a lens distorted cat stares at us naively]
https://thebad.website/comic/everything_wrong_about_capitalism_is_communism
The US surveillance state is communism, you read it here first.
Political literacy.
What a fking chud, its hilarious to see him getting blasted in the comments 🤣
"this is the future the left wants under COMMIESOCIALMARXISM!"
dystopian picture of current day late-stage-capitalism in the US
Anon opens a history book.
Sees communism examples.
Looks closer.
It's an obvious dictatorship with aspects of slavery.
Finds capitalism examples.
Looks closer.
It's a non-obvious dictatorship with aspects of slavery.
Anon is confused and throws book away.
The fact that communism hasn't ever worked on a large scale without authoritarianism should tell you something.
Or the fact that it hasn't ever worked on a large scale without authoritarianism due to a wildly uneven distribution of resources and capital before communism happened
Potato Potato
Communism relies on the government controlling everything to function. It requires some level of authoritarianism.
don't make me tap the sign
bolshevism is not communism
you're focusing on a single form of government and saying it's the only way communism could exist when a lot of scholars can't even agree on if it should exist within the discussion of communism or if it should just be considered socialism, or if its coalescion of authority was extensive enough to just be another example of another capitalist society.
Communism relies on the government controlling everything to function.
First off, "communism" is a stateless society¹. By definition. That already makes your claim an oxymoron.
You meant "socialism". Confusing socialism with communism is as silly as confusing capitalism with feudalism. For the same reason — it's a succession chain: feudalism → capitalism → socialism → communism².
And not even for socialism this is remotely valid. There are multiple ways to implement a post-capitalism society (aka socialism), from full hierarchy to complete self-governance. It depends on the material conditions.
Notes:
Yes, as opposed to all those super democratic capitalist third world countries.
Everything wrong about capitalism and communism is human nature.
Nope, it's the nature of hierarchies and gaps in human perception that happen to line up, not our intrinsic nature. We can build something more than this, it's just slightly harder to do.
You do realize that large scale classless civilisations existed in the past right?