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this post was submitted on 06 Feb 2025
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The world is in a mess is that we were told to choose between fascists and pro-market technocrat libertarians pretending to be leftists. This is a worldwide issue that’s doubly important because those liberals guilt trip us for not supporting them and that’s why I’m just laying little bricks here and there. At the end of the tunnel we either rework our society into a socialist one or we succumb to feudal lords again. Years of neoliberal hegemony needs to be undone so I try to go against the grain like that sometimes, hoping I made someone think.
When you call yourself a socialist, what do you mean by that term?
I assume you probably want to know how this kind of leftism is different from others or other ideologies calling themself leftist, rather than for me to write an essay on myself.
I believe in equal opportunity but reject that you should be able to „win” in any system. I believe in empathy over soulless meritocracy. I believe in collective ownership but don’t reject that one is owed for his work. You could say it all stems from egalitarianism but this term has been caricatured by liberals too. For a long time I thought social democracy as an ideology gives you enough levers in the system to steer it toward that goal but time and time again it turned out that in most places SocDem parties are no different from liberal ones and so I learned from past mistakes.
What confuses me is that you argue that property owners should be able to demand payment for the use of their property without any further consideration. That is a very conservative capitalist stance. It's not compatible with any flavor of socialism that I am aware of. In fact, most pro-capitalists would reject it as too far right. The only ideologue, I can think of, that holds this stance even for copyrights is Ayn Rand. Your ideas seem compatible with hers. I don't understand why you would think of that as socialist or even left.
When you think payment you think „money” but I think „fair” :) We’ve been broken by capitalist hegemony to the point it’s hard of thinking of something different.
Still sounds like Ayn Rand and not socialism.
It sounds like a European soviet republic. Most of them were working reasonably well and were really good at preventing poverty but were stuck in-between being exploited by Russia and artificially cut off from half the world (big reason why they had to fail). Those countries solved problems progressive western democracies couldn’t ever solve, for example gender wage inequality (to the point it endures today). Unfortunately all of us in the „west” are stuck in a death spiral after US and Russia went tits up in the 70s/80s. Maybe we’ll have another go once this is finally done.
I'm not sure what you are trying to say here. Do you think that soviet states would have negotiated with owners of private property before using it for public benefit?
No, why would they? There’s a difference between strong taking from the weak and community taking surplus from everyone.
I'm trying to follow you. It would be ok if a soviet government did it, but if a private company does it, then it's stealing. Because a soviet government is strong? Has control of the military and all that, unlike some start-up or even an established company?
I’m not sure I’m following you either, it appears to me that you don’t see a difference between tax and theft. It was common to outgrow this belief but it appears to be common now. I’ll try to explain.
When Meta takes from everyone it’s a bully that takes from the weak who can’t fight back. Meta does it so that they become the biggest fish in the pond as an end goal.
When a state takes from everyone and rich in particular it’s because we don’t to have this kind of big fish in the pond. We just want to chill.
That's an odd thing to write. Why do you believe that?
Ok, I think I get this now. You believe in far-reaching intellectual property, and that property is inviolable, except to limit inequality. So, you reject US-style Fair Use which has a public benefit in mind. Instead, copying only doesn't require permission if the rights-owner is wealthier than oneself. So, most people could freely copy Taylor Swift songs but perhaps not songs by some street musician. Does that cover it?