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.
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)
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 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.
ID: A Sophie Labelle 4 panel comic featuring Stephie in different poses, saying:
Landlords do not provide housing.
They buy and Hold more space than they need for themselves.
Then, they create a false scarcity and profit off of it.
What they're doing is literally the opposite of providing housing.
If there are alternate options for renting a place, then I'm open to hear it. As of now, though, simply walking up to someone and asking to rent their place seems like the easier and more straightforward option.
I am only speaking from experience here. I understand the situation varies from person to person. I'm not personally concerned with my own wealth. I have found apartments with comfortable monthly rent, and I have found places that don't seem to have a fair rent that I've quickly moved out of. I can afford groceries and save a bit for some personal expenses. So far, I have had no negative experiences with any landlord I've rented from despite the rent pricing.
If it's the idea of landlords owning places and offering them for rent that people here are bothered about, then I'm not sure I understand their perspective. I respect it nonetheless, but I suppose I am just not as frustrated as most people are with the situation
Yeah, we're speaking on different terms here. I have also had a good overall experience renting, but that doesn't really have anything to do with crux of the issue, which is that landlords exploit a renter's need for shelter at their own personal gain. We rationalize this by claiming things like "well, the landlord offers a service," but not really, because for the most part the landlord does not need to do any work, they just need to invest money, which in turn increases the value of their property, anyways. Everything they do increases their own personal wealth. That's not to mention the concentration of wealth and power that landlords perpetuate.
This isn't to say all landlords are bad people. We are all taught to make our money work for us, to try to achieve passive income, etc. in order to get out of the rat race. That doesn't change the fact that the relationships that landlords and renting creates are inherently unequal and therefore wrong.
I don't think I agree with your conclusion here. Some relationships are going to be inherently unequal, and that doesn't necessarily make them wrong. Take the doctor-patient relationship as an example. If I'm in need of life saving medical care, the doctor has far more power in that relationship. For me it's "buy or die" while for him, not treating me has essentially no negative consequences. This relationship isn't "wrong", it's just unequal due to its nature.
With landlords (and with the medical industry), it's not that the relationship is inherently wrong, it's just extremely open to abuse due to that unequal nature. It's the abuse that's wrong, not the relationship itself.
I'll have to think about that...you may be right.
Although, the doctor-patient relationship does come up fairly often in anarchist thought. I think it falls under "justified hierarchy." In this case, it is justified because the relationship is meant to end equally (ie the patient is cured, and the inequality between doctor-patient ends). Similar with parent-child, teacher-student relationships.
But your point about unequal relationships not being inherently wrong still stands...gotta think about it! thanks