this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2023
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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.
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!
Rules
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)
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).
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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.
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Any person who uses money to buy commodities is, in fact, a capitalist. Money used to invest in other people's business output is very much what capitalism is all about. And why is the word "Capitalist" so dirty and scary to people? Trust me, I've seen parts of the world so impoverished people live in boxes with trenches for sewers. I say we have it pretty damn good to be part of a capitalist society and have enough wealth to buy the newest iphone or game system the minute it hits the stores.
Using money to buy commodities is a currency system. (As opposed to a barter system, where commodites are directly exchanged for other commodities.)
Capitalism is where there is an ownership class and a labor class, and the ownership class operates businesses for profit. The profit which flows to these owners comes from value which labor adds and is not compensated for; that compensation is diverted to the owners, who receive a (much) greater amount of compensation than the value they add.
Otherwise related, when the currency is not backed by a commodity (most commonly a rare metal like gold), that's fiat money. It's value is affected by the faith in the government which supplies it, as well as the total supply of said currency. When the price of products and services is determined by consumer demand, that's a free market economy.
Capitalism is so good. Would you rather be insert nation exploited by capitalists?
"They're not underdeveloped, they're overexploited."
Praaaaise
Buying goods is not even slightly the same thing as investing in the business selling them, of course.
I'm gonna assume you realized how dumb that claim was just after posting it, and I'd just like to say I appreciate your integrity for removing your default self-upvote.
Ah, yes, the good old sumerian capitalists buying bronze ore then complaining by clay tablets to their suppliers that quality has gone to shit because of how capitalist they are.
I can confirm this. I'm the last living sumerian king and this is all true.
spoiler
Look up the word for king in sumerian. I don't expect many people to understand the joke without help, otherwise I wouldn't explain the joke.Traditionally, the term "capitalist" means "person with capital" in contrast to workers who only have their workforce to sell. The term "capitalism" is a later development linguistically.
If you have been to other countries, you saw what the capitalist world systems does. It's not that some countries are capitalist and others are not, it's that some are exploiting others in the capitalist world system. That you can buy the newest iphone means that someone made it.
This community is for posting anti-capitalist memes
So no one else with any differing opinion of any kind is allowed to post here. Got it. You only want to hear what supports your narrow point of view. Great way to go through life, bud.
Well if you want to see anything that supports capitalism you can go to millions of other places, it's exhausting hearing the same tired comebacks over and over again so people that support true leftism tend to like spaces that are more specific for that. This is a community called "Lefty Memes", I'm sure most people that follow this follow other communities as well that are less specific. Though I think it can be good for less left or pro-capitalists to discuss their views in these sorts of places.
If you went to a sub for a hobby just to say you dislike it then you'd expect a similar reaction. Just saying this place exists to spread anti-capitalist memes so you shouldn't be surprised that people disagree with pro-capitalist opinions, if anything it's the one thing you should expect, and if you don't like it just don't engage, easy. Doesn't mean you can't comment as long as you're in line with the same rules as everyone else.
I don't think my point of view is intuitive because I didn't come to it easily, but it's not like you know my point of view anyway you're just expressing a prejudice. I'm surrounded by a society that is fueled by a suicide pact with the planet and fundamentally disagrees with my point of view, a random angry internet commenter doesn't even register on this scale.
I'm expressing a prejudice? Well look in the mirror. I'm not the one all upset over someone else's meaningful comment that deserves to be recognized as a valid if differing point of view. The problem with the world is, it's become a suicide pact because of this attitude; if an opinion doesn't align with yours then it must be wrong or "just a hobby." You're just as judgmental as everyone else.
Expressing a contrarian opinion for the sake of getting people to disagree so you can call them dumb basically, on a meme page, then being self-aggrandizing about it. Assuming that people who disagree with you simply haven't considered your point of view is a touch grass moment.
Okay whatever. I'll get over it.
They are a supporter of capitalism but in the terminology of socialist critique they are not a capitalist, as in a member of the capitalist class who owns the capital and therefore does not need to use their labor to earn money. This is in contrast to the proletariat or worker class who must use their labor to earn a living.
Many people in the world are impoverished, but what causes that? Was that caused by the lack of capitalism there? I assure you most people in poverty in the world are living under a capitalist system.
One factor in the impoverishment of the global South is due to people manipulating markets because of their ownership of the means of production. They are able to shift manufacturing to where they can get the most profit, while governments benefit from their business at the detriment of their citizens who are pushed into poverty by the corporations and governments who reduce regulations to benefit the capitalist class.
Those are good points, and in fact my college thesis was on the capitalist class vs the proletariat as it related to the global economy. In fact I researched it for months, so I'm familiar with the pro and con arguments about labor and market manipulation. It's true that many economies in the world are impoverished, but not because of lack of capitalism, because of the "animal farm" model of social economy - some groups will always believe they are entitled to a bigger slice of the pie, and will horde it or hide it before they ever let it trickle down.
Those economies generally ARE as capitalistic as ours in the U.S. As for the South - that's a regional problem of impoverishment and can be legitimately traced in part to enslavement of the already downtrodden. But once established that pattern is held in place by corporate greed and lobbyists for deregulation that favors the rich. I don't disagree with that - it's the way of the world that we live in.