I've pointed a couple folks to Lemmy.world and it's uhhh, pretty hard Left for them (as one girl, who volunteered for the Democrats said "I just got yelled at because I can't be Left wing unless I want to destroy capitalism? Which feels weird.") We're much farther Left than reddit which itself was definitely Left of centre...

I don't know if decentralized open source social media actually attracts many mainstreamers but assuming we want to grow the fediverse, I'd like to have somewhere I can point people to without feeling very nervous for them.

Thanks!

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[–] Lauchs@lemmy.world 2 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Properly regulated capitalism is my Left but...

[–] Eldritch@lemmy.world 7 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Then you are technically left. Although leninists Will loudly denounce anyone who doesn't follow their authoritarian ideology as being no true Scotsman.

Capitalism as I stated above is regulated by capital. Anything other than capital regulating capitalism is not capitalism. The whole point of capitalism is that Capital regulates itself. If you want something other than Capital regulating capitalism, i e the people or government. Then you are against Capital regulating itself. And therefore anti-capitalist.

The tricky bit is. That wealthy oligarchs have spent centuries at this point conflating markets and capitalism. They are two different things. Markets have existed for centuries, Millennium even. It's one of man's oldest inventions. Coming right about the same time as agriculture. Predating capitalism by thousands of years. Capitalism as a concept is barely older than the United States itself.

[–] ShadowRam@fedia.io 5 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

That's a very absolutist view of the meaning of Capitalism.

With that view, how could anyone be against Capitalism then?

It's technically never been tried with that definition.

[–] Eldritch@lemmy.world 6 points 18 hours ago

It's not absolutist. Mildly reductive perhaps. But not remotely absolutist.

How could anyone be for it? It's literally rule by the wealthy. It was a response created by wealthy mercantilist. Frustrated that no matter how much money they had there was an echelon of power always denied to them.

It's always been tried with that definition. At the founding of the United States, wealthy white land owning males. The capital class with all the capital controlled it. It was oligarchy from it's establishment. It was more beneficial on average than mercantilism. But still a failure.

Even today in China. The vanguard, their capital controlling class controls and regulates their state capitalism. Capital regulates capitalism. Not the people.