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.
Agitprop (I.E. everything that would be more fitting on a poster than a meme) goes here.
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. Please post agitprop here)
0.5 [Provisional Rule] Use alt text or image descriptions to allow greater accessibility
(Please take a look at our wiki page for the guidelines on how to actually write alternative text!)
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.
0.5.1 Style tip about abbreviations and short forms
When writing stuff like "lol" and "iirc", it's a good idea to try and replace those with their all caps counterpart
Why? Because otherwise (AFAIK), screen readers will try to read them out as actually words instead of spelling them
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 irrationally 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.
Projection is when a socialist says it's bad to give a failed economic system another try.
The height of human prosperity was under Keynesian economic policy. If we're giving stuff another spin, why not something that actually worked? Maybe next time just not get suckered by grifters pushing trickle down supply side reaganomics voodoo economic policy. That shit is almost as bad a failure as communism. Almost.
The height of human prosperity*
*If you are a white Christian man of European decent
plz bro, just one more time, bro
To be fair experimenting is good. It's still better than feudal system. I just wish we experimented with other models once in a while too.
I will read a sci-fi novel thousands of years into the future with fantasy-magic system, and economic model is still "21st century capitalism but we replaced the word money with credits so it's future now."
Capitalism exists to replace feudal systems. It’s easier to have kings, and to have a handful of them so they aren’t fighting as much for a single spot, when you convince the average idiot that now they can also be a king and its their own fault that they aren’t(or better yet, another person’s fault as you oppress them both).
When all the people who had gotten rich by being parasites because of who they were related got afraid they just changed the rules so that it wasn’t ahout blood relation anymore(on paper) but they still had all the money they’d stolen. Nothing functionally changed.
The entire system “the rich get everything they want and no one gets to stop them” does not have a good version. It’s fucked every single way.
It’s still better than feudal system.
According to whom? I wonder what we would see if we were to compare the average amount of labour time feudal peasants had to put in to survive vs. that of the current global proletariat.
I'd agree that capitalism has been better for some - like, for instance, white ex-peasants who now gets to be members of the (so-called) "middle class" or gets to cosplay as pseudo-nobility in colonised spaces- but it has been an unmitigated disaster for lots of others.
The unmitigated disaster part existed under feudalism also. Capitalism is slowly turning back into feudalism, which is kinda why it sucks so much now. I hate capitalism, but feudalism was worse.
Fuedalism with a fuckload of democracy might work. But it always turns into a bloodline thing.
Blue Raspberry Capitalism. No, wait... Peanut Butter Capitalism
Baja Blast Capitalism
spirits deliver me, but I do love baja blast
Best economic system ever, they say. Unlike communism, this is a situation where you can say it has been tried many times throughout history.
Why do you tankies always say communism has never been tried? Power hungry people exist no matter the system, and so far...as much as the system is rigged, capitalism has brought a lot more people out of poverty than anything else. Communism has been tried countless times, it just ends up not working because power hungry people exist.
rofl you think I'm a tankie for shitting on capitalism!?
ahahaha way to broadcast how pitifully tiny your understanding is...
People being lifted out of poverty as an economic test COMPLETELY IGNORES the reality of technological advancement. Way to further demonstrate how you do not know even the major milestones of history, let alone economic history...
I'm by no means in support of communism but I think you're assuming that these systems have been tested in a vacuum. Specifically with regard to communism in the global south where Western capitalist entities act as agents of sabotage in order to secure the people of these nations as a helplessly destitute global underclass. So that their corporations can continue to have access to exploitative labor. Which you and I benefit from in some way shape or form.