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Simple, really
(jlai.lu)
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this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2024
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Lefty Memes
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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.
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If you are new to socialism, you can ask questions and find resources over on c/Socialism101.
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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)
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The only dangerous minority is the rich.
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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.
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That's a decent write-up, but has some issues like:
"[China, Cuba, North Korea, Laos and Vietnam] can be classified as communist because in all of them, the central government controls all aspects of the economic and political system. "
Uh... in every country the central government controls all aspects of the economic and political system. In a standard western democracy like say the UK, the government passes laws which regulate the economic and political system. They may choose to be hands-off when it comes to certain things, but ultimately they're in control. At any point a law can be change, or a court decision can be changed so that what was once hands-off is now regulated.
What would it even look like for a country to not fully control all aspects of the economic and political system? IMO that only happens in a failed state when the government simply lacks the power to enforce laws. The difference between China and the USA is just a matter of degree. In China there are more regulations in general, and there are more state-owned enterprises.
Also, Social Democracy describes the US. It's again a matter of degree. Yes in the Nordic countries there are more state-owned things, and more public benefits. But, in the US, even though ambulances are mostly private and for-profit, fire trucks are not. Privately owned toll roads exist, but they're rare. The government pays for and runs schools. Potholes are filled by government employees. Mass transit is almost always city-owned. And, instead of the Pinkertons, cities use police forces where everyone's a government employee. There are a lot of things that could be privatized in the US, but almost nobody actually wants everything to be a privately-owned for profit capitalist enterprise.