this post was submitted on 31 Aug 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.
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.
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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)
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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.
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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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So do you have a plan to abolish capitalism?
Just one more meme will do it
They don’t have to. It will implode on itself eventually when it eats up the final resources available to it.
Can we figure out a method that won't take 95% of the population of the Earth along with it?
The idea that someone can have a plan is pretty silly (Pinky and the Brain silly).
The real question is do you have a plan to organize and survive when capitalism fails.
Abolishing capitalism will never happen in our lifetime, so you have to think smaller but more effective. What needs to happen is moving to a cooperative based capitalism, where a company or corporation is owned by all of the workers, with protection of independent unions. This will very quickly reduce the divide between the rich and the poor, as well as closing the gap between productivity and wages that has worsened since the 70's.
Do I expect this to happen? Fuck no. But it has a much higher chance than the abolition of capitalism, and has more support amongst people I've spoken to over the years when I've suggested it as a path forward.
Why? By all metrics, it is increasingly strained and on the verge of collapse, only accelerated in recent years.
Again, why?
Having spoken to so many people about this subject over my many years on this planet, the number of people that would actually want a revolution is so low that it's effectively zero. They don't want that kind of change. Having seen how resistant people are to give up their cars for the sake of their children's future, do you really think people would give up their many comforts to remove capitalism from the world? Fuck no would they.
But simple, small, understandable changes to the current system are much more agreeable. When I've suggested a cooperative approach, even the most resistant to change agrees that it would improve the situation for themselves, and that's a change that can be worked with, without others perceiving that change as coming from an absolute loon.
As others have said in this very thread, the western world is so resistant to revolution that the very idea of it will always be fringe. But cooperatives have been demonstrated to work, they just need to be applied to a much larger degree. It's understandable to the majority, it doesn't rock the boat too much, it's a feasible approach and it removes power from the top and returns it to the workers.
Capitalism's necessary mechanical contradictions that will lead to its collapse do not need the magical will or consent of the public to happen. Collapse will happen regardless.
You can't get change just by getting people to agree with you, otherwise America would have Ranked Choice Voting, Medicare for All, free public College education, and legalized weed and abortion nationwide. You're repeating the failures of Utopian Socialists like the Owenites, you can't vibe policy into being, especially in a system hostile to said policy.
How and why? You're trying to magically summon these structures. How do you expect the ones at the top to allow this?
MLs have been predicting the "inevitable" collapse of capitalism for a century now. When can we expect some progress? :p
I think this is great point. In spite of majority public support for issues like these, it's seemingly impossible to get either party to take action. That's not how healthy democracies are supposed to work. I'd probably agree that public support is a pre-requisite for change, but it's not always sufficient. If the public want something and the government don't agree (say, over suspending arms shipments to Israel), what can the public actually do about it? Really nothing, other than disruptive protests or taking direct action to physically stop the shipments. And then it's obvious what would happen to the protestors.
I mean, regardless of what anyone individually or collectively wills, disparity is rising, wages are stagnating with respect to productivity, and enshittification is continuing. The logic and math behind Capitalism's unsustainability hasn't changed. Monopoly and Financial Capital are growing ever-more grotesque and are crushed under their own weight in search of endless growth. The fact that the US hasn't collapsed yet doesn't mean it hasn't been working towards that collapse.
That's why the Owenites and Utopian Socialists all failed. They thought they could just convince everyone of a better path, and that it would magically appear and form around them.
Revolution. Build up dual power and destabilize the existing system from the outside, rather than grinding yourself to dust trying to work it out from within the system.