this post was submitted on 09 Dec 2024
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Lefty Memes
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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!
Rules
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.
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Where has this shown progress towards undermining the Capitalist system, and then not been curtailed by said Capitalist system? It sounds nice on paper but I doubt it's possible.
The problem is people. Greed is a human trait. You could wave a magic wand tomorrow and delete capitalism and greed would resurrect it before the wand cooled off.
You need a system that subverts greed, harnessing the human potential for selfishness to drive common social selflessness. The best answer humans have found is highly regulated capitalism and graduated taxes. This answer (and others) never last because capitalism either breaks out of jail when capitalists gain control of government, or another capitalist society physically (or politically, or economically) destroys or undermines the non-capitalistic one.
It's kind of the same reason cancer kills: It's really good at spreading, and really bad at stopping.
This is idealism, and has no basis in reality. You are projecting the functions and systems of Capitalism as a human problem based on individual moral failings and not on the self-propelling nature of Capitalist accumulation. The best answer is not regulated Capitalism, but Socialism, because that is when humans gain supremacy over Capital, rather than the inverse.
Well, you kind of mean Ideal Socialism. I'm saying none of the solutions humans have implemented have worked, as evidenced by the fact that the planet is not a socialist utopia. The closest we have to that nowadays are the countries that have harnessed capitalism with the yoke of socialism, and even they're constantly fighting their own right wings that are trying to call more back for fewer.
Capitalism isn't a thing, it's a label for a specific human behavior.
I'm talking about Socialism as it actually exists, not some ideal version that only exists in the minds of dreamers. You really need to read some more theory, none of what you say makes any sense, like claiming Capitalism isn't a "thing." Economic systems are real, material relations of production.
I'm not arguing with you! I agree that socialism exists! It does not, however, exist in a vacuum completely free of the influence of capitalism. Every implementation of socialism on the planet has had to work with, or work around, the human propensity towards selfishness to continue existing. The ones that worked against capitalism failed, or were subverted into adopting capitalism in some form. Maybe Cuba got the closest. Even non-contacted tribes that exist outside the sphere of influence only continue to exist because the capitalists haven't decided to try and extract value from them or their land.
You're under a confused idea that markets are Capitalism and that there are no Socialist countries left.
Sure! Show me a socialist county with no capitalism.
Systems are not "mixtures" of one or the other. The existence of Private Property does not mean the system is Capitalist, nor does the existence of Public Property mean the system is Socialist. Capitalism and Socialism are used to describe which is dominant in the overall system, guiding its trajectory. Per Engels: