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)
0.5 [Provisional Rule] Use alt text or image descriptions to allow greater accessibility
We require alternative text (from now referred to as "alt text") to be added to all posts/comments containing media, such as images, animated GIFs, videos, audio files, and custom emojis.
EDIT: For files you share in the comments, a simple summary should be enough if they’re too complex.
We are committed to social equity and to reducing barriers of entry, including (digital) communication and culture. It takes each of us only a few moments to make a whole world of content (more) accessible to a bunch of folks.
When alt text is absent, a reminder will be issued. If you don't add the missing alt text within 48 hours, the post will be removed. No hard feelings.
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.
My favorite was death panels.
"The government is going to decide who lives and dies by gatekeeping access to healthcare!" Motherfucker, that's what insurance does now. The potential failures of a collectivized system are treated with more scrutiny than capitalism working as intended.
Well it's not the government doing this it's private insurance companies. You're free to shop around or start your own insurance company. This makes me feel much better about gatekeeping healthcare. 🦅🇺🇸
The government is allowing it to be that way, though.
THIS IS WHAT COMMUNISM LOOKS LIKE: detroit.jpg
Thats detroit? Looks exactly like a picture from sao paulo, brazil.
(Those buildings are now vacant)
Detroit was a different meme.
Can't have shit in Detroit. Not even actual pics of Detroit in Detroit memes.
Those "slums" don't even look that bad in that shot. Just looks like a very lived in city. The area in the meme could use some cleaning up, but it was probably selected out of dozens of shots for the contrast.
I love it when they show price gouging and panic buying and long lines at grocery stores (pictures of capitalism in action) and say “this is what communism looks like!”
It’s like they’re soooo close to getting it, but never will make that connection.
My take is that regardless of what system of government you use, there will be the affluent/aristocrats that run everything, get all the nicest shit, etc, and the unwashed masses who get whatever is left over.
This is a people problem, not a system of government problem.
The only way to balance everything is to basically make everyone in the country responsible for voting on all policy, which is impractical at best; the only alternative is to have a very altruistic leader in charge of making the final decisions.
If the leader can't consistently make decisions that benefit the people at the cost of his own happiness, affluence, wealth, etc, then what is demonstrated by this meme, is always going to be inevitable.
IMO, someone that altruistic will not hold power since those that are supposed to implement their orders, will quickly turn against them, resulting in a coup, and the leader being ousted for someone more selfish, who will reward the those with power unfairly by taking the rewards away from the "lower class" to give to them.
Everything is doomed to failure. Move to the forest and start from scratch.
It's a problem of scale. A utopian system where everyone knows everyone else can work quite well, but once it bets bigger than that it all goes to shit.
This exactly. Every system of government will have leader(s) who take advantage of the system, resulting in them obtaining more money for themselves and their group. Power corrupts.
I think it's more accurate to say that power attracts corrupt people, and protects them from the consequences of their actions, allowing them to show their true colors without fear
They just have to pull themselves up by their bootstraps! See it worked for some!
Communism: the Party nomenklatura | the workers
State capitalism with a red flag
Mean while theocracy.
I don't know how this will be received here, but both panels are true
You're not too wrong.
But despite all of the inexcusable ethnic cleansing shit of the PRC they have drastically raised the standards of living of the poorest.
You'd be hard pressed to find anyone (who isn't a member of a persecuted minority or political dissident) in conditions as bad as a Brazilian favella in the PRC. Let alone a favellasworth of them.
(And to preempt, bright spots of favella culture such as community centres, art, and people succeding are despite the conditions (even if in response to them), not a sign that they're "good actually".)
Not here to discredit the social improvements in China of the past 50 years, but there are still places in the countryside that are comparable to favelas.
But they are disappearing, favelas are not.
You're absolutely correct.
I'd also add that while they exist, it is also with fewer food and water poverty/access issues compared to favelas since they're rural rather than urban spaces.
Only as far as authoritarian systems that are communist in name only always end up that way.
While communism is often misused as a tool by authoritarians who fake being communist to implement their corruption, I think by its very nature it invites these issues. I love the ideals, don't get me wrong, but it needs an answer for enforcement. The only one I've seen-- community enforcement of expectations-- only works if everyone in the system is 100% on board. Let me know what you think if you'd like, I admittedly don't know a lot about communism.
I agree with you. Its a great system if everyone knows everyone else. On a large scale, human nature means pure communism will always fail.
Yes and I'd rather have everyone poor than some guys being extra rich.
