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.
Ever seen someone doing their "unskilled job" all their life? It's just fucking magic!
The truth is that capitalists hate skilled workers, because those workers have bargaining power. This is why they love the sort of automation which completely removes workers or thought from the equation, even if the ultimate solution is multiple times more expensive or less competent than before.
Nothing is more infuriating to a boss, than a worker that can talk back with experience.
There is more to it than that. You may be able to be trained in a few hours, but mastery and efficiency come with time. Someone who works in retail or farming can output more productivity in a shorter amount of time than an average person. It's not about how long it takes to train someone to start the job, it's the mastery you learn over time. As you do a job longer, your productivity increases, as you move deeper and develop more skill at the job.
There is no such thing as unskilled labor.
Of course people tend to get better with experience. But the retail worker who gets trained in 2 days can be reasonably good at the job within a few weeks and an expert in a few months.
Compare that to the years of training required prior to the first day on the job for an engineer or a doctor, who also get better with experience.
The thing is, “unskilled” jobs have a huge worker pool. Just about anyone can do it. Perhaps not that well, but it doesn’t matter much how well you do it for most of these jobs. Take a cashier. At best you might be twice as effective as the “normal worker”. Then compare that to what people call “skilled jobs”. Say a civil engineer. Here, your “normal worker” straight up can’t do it without years of training, and failure costs lives. For this reason, “skilled jobs” have a tiny worker pool and of those, only a few are adequate. It’s only natural that these few would ask for and receive a much larger pay. That’s not to say that “unskilled workers” shouldn’t be paid a living wage, but in a capitalist world, they will always be paid less.