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Lefty Memes
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, upvoting good contributions and downvoting 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, as well as 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.
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.
7. Absolutely no posts or comments meant to relativize(/apologize for), advocate, promote or defend:
- Racism
- Sexism
- Queerphobia
- Ableism
- Classism
- Rape or assault
- Genocide/ethnic cleansing or (mass) deportations
- Fascism
- (National) chauvinism
- Orientalism
- Colonialism or Imperialism (and their neo- counterparts)
- Zionism
- Religious fundamentalism of any kind
(This is not a definitive list, the spirit of the other rules still counts! Eventual duplicates with other rules are for emphasis.)
Will you pay them to collect the candy too?
Sure. Out of the 50 pieces gathered by 5 children, each will recieve 1. The owner of the bucket needs to be compensated for their risk, after all!
You collected 36 pieces of candy.
Coincidentally due to forces beyond my control your rent this month is 35 pieces of candy. You understand I’ve got bills to pay too, right?
of course. They will recieve 30% of the candy the collect as payment
What a generous rate! And a great way to ease them into the shock that the real rate is much, much worse
Well, lets see, I make my company about 3 orders of magnitude more money than they pay me every year, so I suppose if my kids gather 1000 pieces of candy, I'll give one back to them as payment.
That'll be 50 snickers bars please
And in a communist society, the candy belongs to everyone in the neighborhood, so they have to go around passing it out until it's equally distributed...
Communism isn't about equal distribution. Communism is about addressing everyone's needs from everyone's collective abilities.
And who gets to decide that?
The collective. Democratic processes and councils.
Lol so people who you elected, just like the system we have now.
Not at all, Capitalism would be abolished.
So you're back to a committee telling people what they need to do and how much they get, just without the freedom to change jobs...got it.
Where did I say you couldn't change jobs or decide what to do?
You're committee did, or if they didn't then they're just gov bosses over everyone since they dictate what people are worth. So you're back at capitalism...just with a voted in committee telling people their worth, or we're talking about a committee that dictates what people are going to do. Which is it?
You don't seem to understand basic concepts of democracy, Capitalism, or Socialism.
Workers democratically deciding policy and electing leaders is fundamentally different from Capitalism, where they have no say over production, nor what they are worth.
I don't, you all do. The majority will always overrule the minority and you will have leadership that represents some but not all. Someone is going to get screwed always in your little utopia.
Having democratically accountable managers and production based on use and not on profit is entirely different.
Yeah it's even worse...if you don't like your boss you have no option of moving to a different job to get rid of them. The same people you all hate in this government are the same people who will now be bossing you around.
You can vote them out, lol.
You're deeply unserious.
How's that currently working for you? RvW was just repealed and anti-abortion laws in place in a bunch of states....
Yep, the US is not a democracy.
And you think a communist society is?
Yes.
ROFL The delusional naivety from you tankies is hilarious.
What makes me a tankie? Being a non-anarchist Socialist? Tankie must've lost all meaning, then.
ah yes, the classic room temperature IQ dunk
Yes because your comment has totally provided a ton of rebuttal.
No, the buckets would be communally owned, and those who were luckier - perhaps they got to the good houses earlier - would be made to give some of their surplus to Jimmy, who fell ill just that morning and couldn't go trick-or-treating to not infect others. They'd still have enough, but Jimmy wouldn't be left out just because he was unlucky.
So how does that work for real life? You going to cut off a bedroom and give it to jimmy? Or give him one of your cars?
I don't even have a car, because I can't afford one, nor do I have a spare bedroom because I live in a small apartment, paying a chunk of my monthly earnings to a person whose only contribution is having a piece of paper that says they're allowed to charge for the fundament necessity of having a place to live.
My neighbour has a big house, three cars in their driveway and most of the time, at least two of them are standing around unused. He probably could afford to share. That's the meaning of "everyone, according to their needs" - that guy most likely doesn't need as much as he has, so it won't hurt him to give some away to people that do need it.
But the issue isn't him having something nice. He can have his house for all I care. I want him to have a nice house. I want Jimmy to have a nice house, and you too! I want all of us to have nice things, because a bit of luxury isn't the problem, and covering a symptom won't cure the disease. And the disease is the belief that property rights matter more than human welfare.
You wouldn't achieve anything by taking a little from those that have a little more than the rest. You'd have to take away the systems that constrain us.
There's an empty flat? Great, let's give it to Jimmy! What do you mean, if he can afford the rent? Man needs a place to live, for fuck's sake. Jimmy needs medical care? Get him to a doctor. The community carries the cost, because we all would want the same if we needed care.
How do we reach that? That's a tough one. Eventually, a concerted effort to uproot that system will have to take place. I'm not positive that'll succeed on ballots alone and as has become increasingly evident, peaceful protests tend to meet violence all the same.
But whether through coordinated civil action like protests and disobedience or through outright revolution, awareness is the first step. Informing people of the injustice done to us all, that it doesn't have to be this way, and that together, we're strong enough to change it.
The only people that don't profit from it are the ruthlessly selfish ones that think "I'd rather have a second car than let someone else have one" is a reasonable sentiment.
Because yes, if I had a car I didn't need, and Jimmy needed it, I'd let him use it. What good would it do standing around?