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Lefty Memes
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).
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.
- Absolutely no posts or comments meant to relativize(/apologize for), advocate, promote or defend:
- Racism
- Sexism
- Queerphobia
- Ableism
- Classism
- Rape or assault
- Genocide/ethnic cleansing or (mass) deportations
- Fascism
- (National) chauvinism
- Orientalism
- Colonialism or Imperialism (and their neo- counterparts)
- Zionism
- Religious fundamentalism of any kind
Since it took a while for you to respond to me long after anyone would be looking, it seems like you're interested in a legitimate conversation with me concerning my leftist values. It looks like you've been thinking about this a lot. I'm willing to engage with you in good faith and explain my personal thinking.
One thing that is very important to have a productive conversation is to agree on the definition of terms. I wasn't being dismissive when I was offering sources from the Encyclopedia Britannica. One thing that makes many conversations completely impossible is different understandings of the same words, causing the parties involved to be arguing completely different points often without realizing. The reason I bring this up is specifically in regards to "Private Property," which is a bit more nuanced than encompassing all individual items "owned" by any given individual. There are no serious leftists advocating for confiscating handtools, computers, furniture, or other such pieces of individual property from the entire population and redistributing them equally. Although the definition can be construed this way, no one is arguing for that. For a better understanding of what is meant my "Private Proptery" in a more common politcal context, below is quoted Marx's view in Capital:
Edit: If you're willing to engage in good faith and clarify what we mean by the words we use, I would be more than happy to address your points and answer your questions.
I totally agree with you on agreeing on definitions and terms. I also have had the experience of arguing at cross purposes because of a difference in accepted terminology. (ex. fascism, capitalism, corporatism, etc). As I'm reading through your response several terms and items jump out at me.
"There are no serious leftists advocating for confiscating handtools, computers, furniture, or other such pieces of individual property from the entire population and redistributing them equally. Although the definition can be construed this way, no one is arguing for that. "
I would have to contest this point. Does it matter if you demand that a man turn over a loaf of bread if you put in place food rationing or tax the price of that loaf of bread? Does it matter if a man has a his physical assets left alone if his liquid assets are limited or taken from him? I find it ironic that the left labels hiring someone as exploitation but denies that taxation is extortion. The same with denouncing economic monopolies but promoting government which is a monopoly on violence by definition. If power is to be distributed then everyone should be responsible for their own self defense and monopolies on violence should be dissolved with the same vigilance as economic monopolies. Where is the antitrust agency against governments?
"Private property, as the antithesis to social, collective property, exists only where the means of labour and the external conditions of labour belong to private individuals. "
What? Labor = private individuals. He who creates owns. He who labors trades. This is why I find Marxism confusing. You don't get capital without mixing your labor with resources. You can't trade for some other product without gaining some kind of capital. Laborers = capitalists. Capitalists are not some upper class rich folks. If you plant seeds, till the ground and reap a harvest then that harvest you yield is your capital. if you sell that food you are a capitalist even if you are only making enough to keep your home running and to plant next years crop. Trade = capitalism. This whole paragraph makes NO sense! I'm just going to say that up front.
"From that moment new forces and new passions spring up in the bosom of society; but the old social organisation fetters them and keeps them down. It must be annihilated; it is annihilated. Its annihilation, the transformation of the individualised and scattered means of production into socially concentrated ones, of the pigmy property of the many into the huge property of the few, the expropriation of the great mass of the people from the soil, from the means of subsistence, and from the means of labour, this fearful and painful expropriation of the mass of the people forms the prelude to the history of capital…"
First of all centralization of wealth didn't just happen organically. Corporate charters are a product of the state. So is colonization. Seriously where would Big Pharma or Big Media be without patants and copyright? Where would modern economics be without limited liability? What if we stopped backing corporations up with government protectionism? "That guy copied my drug formula!" "That guy won't stop making free copies of my music album!" "That business copied my logo!" " Help I'm being sued for making a dangerous product and useless warning labels!" Don't get me started on private banks, the federal reserve or the IMF etc, all of which are ALSO businesses backed by government. Governments didn't just magically get money and land either. They literally stole it from other people for the most part through force of arms. So when you take monopolies on violence out of the picture and government protectionism out of the picture what are you left with? Self owned businesses backed by labor and trade, ie what Marx would call "laborers". Granted there can be centralizations of wealth but this can be countered by people just copying, innovating and undercutting others.
"Self-earned private property, that is based, so to say, on the fusing together of the isolated, independent labouring individual with the conditions of his labour, is supplanted by capitalistic private property, which rests on exploitation of the nominally free labour of others, i.e., on wage labour…"
Yeah this is another what? How is hiring and PAYING THEM free labor? You're out the cost of their pay cheque! They are literally trading their time and effort for money. How is that free labor either way? Moreover how is that exploitative? One could argue that one CAN exploit others by underpaying them but that's not what is being discussed here from what I understand. This seems to be a general statement about employment. So yeah, what?!?! Definitely a difference in terminology there.
"The capitalist mode of appropriation, the result of the capitalist mode of production, produces capitalist private property. This is the first negation of individual private property, as founded on the labour of the proprietor. "
As explained before there is no "capitalist" vs "individual" private property. The individual IS a capitalist. Ergo there is just "private property." Much of this seems to be discussing class divisions but trying to create a difference in terms between those who trade in goods and services and those who produce those goods and services. To use an example. A farmer grows a crop. He then sells that crop to a traveling merchant caravan. The caravan then transports those food stuffs to a big town market where they are resold by grocers in the marketplace. When does one start being an elite? Is it the caravan owner? The marketplace vendors? Who?
"But capitalist production begets, with the inexorability of a law of Nature, its own negation. It is the negation of negation. This does not re-establish private property for the producer, but gives him individual property based on the acquisition of the capitalist era: i.e., on cooperation and the possession in common of the land and of the means of production. (Chapter 32)"
You're going to have to explain that because that makes zero sense. None. Zip.
Thanks for agreeing to a good faith conversation. If you've ever heard of "leftist infighting," understand that the closest political label I can place on myself is "leftist infighter." The second closest would be "Anarchist" which I can't claim because I disagree that it can be suddenly achieved and believe it must be worked toward over an indefinite period of time. I do not represent anyone other than myself. I would not call myself a Marxist. I think his explanations of the problems with Capitalism are excellent, but I don't consider him to be a demigod to be quoted similarly to scripture especially when it comes to his prescriptions which I find myself often disagreeing with.
The main thing to understand about Socialism is that it's an ideal rather than a practical reality we already have a plan for. Socialism broadly is the desire for a system which allows every individual exactly as much autonomy, government influence, and ownership of their own labor as every other individual in that given society. This idea has existed long before Marx and is found throughout the world and even among historical Christians. However long this desire has existed, we have not yet figured out how to do this yet in a sustainable way. The societies that come closest haven't been able defend themselves from piracy-based cultures which have raped and pillaged their way through the entire world since armies were made possible (today on a scale never before seen), and the socialist states based on defending themselves from that suffer from their military having too much influence on their societies causing undue authoritarianism (China is doing a weird other thing which I'll touch on later). This being the case all governments since the advent of agriculture have been similarly experimental and almost all of them have failed or are failing in a kind of cycle depending on the proportion of credulous bootlickers around.
Since we haven't generally figured out totally stable systems for humans yet, I support moving in a Socialist direction according to the ideal I described above. I won't pretend to know the best way to do that because the world is far more complex than any of us could possibly conceive, so in my opinion the only thing we can do is experiment and learn from the results of our experiments. The experiment of Capitalism has yielded enough results for me to doubt it could last even if left undisturbed as the accumulation of wealth in few hands inherent to Capitalism has to be managed in some way while the full force of Capitalism is against managing it and has now overcome the traditionally more powerful nation states which dominated the last century. You may know some leftists and self-described socialists who do not desire total equality of autonomy, government influence, and ownership of their own labor. I can't speak for them. I will work with them as far as they progress the ideal of socialism and oppose them wherever they do not. Any experiment with a socialist system should not be considered an end state until the ideal is achieved in my opinion.
Now that you have a better idea of where I'm personally coming from, I can answer your questions
Some of it certainly should be. I may draw the line differently than others, but broadly I would be totally for immediately abolishing all rent-seekers who produce nothing and leech off of others only by "owning" their means of basic survival such as hedge-fund managed housing for example. "Natural Monopolies" make absolutely zero sense to be private enterprises even according to the logic of Capitalism which benefits the consumer only when there is competition. As far as seizing and redistributing I think there are some examples which would cause minimal disruption and would be ultimately good even for a liberal society. Those are easy ones. More gray area is in massive private institutions have the ownership changed over to the employees. The businesses themselves could run essentially the same as they did before because the owner or owners typically don't work in businesses on that scale. This would immediately destroy a massive amount of "wealth" which never existed in the first place though which could cause any number of consequences so it would have to be done carefully.
How would an individual accrue these things? If this individual accrued these necessities of life, thus prohibiting others from accessing those necessities of life, wouldn't violence be the inevitable consequence of that from starving people who have lost all rationality from hunger? As far as territory, how would an individual accrue territory and by what means would that individual maintain their claim? How would it benefit them to maintain it so, unless they plan on creating a family cult system?
This is touching on an extremely important dynamic. Why do Westerners live in such privilege while the people living in their colonies do not? The answer here is not to redistribute, it's to end the exploitation. I think Westerners are competent enough to sustain themselves and their cultures without the need to bleed people from across the world. I believe it's possible that minimum standards of health greater than what even I have access to now (racketeers are between me and healthcare in my country) are achievable in every part of the world in a fairer system.
We agree here. As far as where the cut off point should be, I think that could have a definite answer depending on the individual circumstances of any given place. (cont)
Lol replace "Socialism" with "Individualism" or "Individualist capitalism" and pretty much the definitions match. So socialism = Capitalism? Right I don't think capitalism means what you think it means.
I don't think you understand the implications of this. He who creates owns. So he who creates can create a license to rent or he can sell that right to another. So say Bob builds a house. Are you going to tell Bob he can't charge someone for using his creation? Do you even realize how bizarre that sounds? Now what if Bob wants to sell his house to Charlie? Just like one would sell any other widget. Again are you going to tell Charlie he can't charge for use of his purchase? That is what rent seeking is. If you banned rent seeking it would set a precedent to limit any monetary gain from any use of a created object. Are you going to ban Air BnB? What about subletting? Software licensing? Video rentals? Where does that ball of yarn end?
Also if you don't like monopolies why is it okay to use a monopoly on violence to tell someone else what to do or not do with their stuff in the first place?
So long as it was voluntary does it matter?
Possibly but then no one forced those other people from selling their food stocks. This is essentially the same kind of debate Nestle is having with Canada. Nestle believes that no, people do not have a right to water and everything is for sale. However Canada's water is essentially collectively owned as part of Crown land and part of the commons. Technically Canada is still under British rule even though we're independent and self governing. Ergo all that collective land is technically owned by the Crown, in this case now King Charles. Thus is why you can go to any lake or river in Canada and the cost of the water is like $0.01/gal. Nestle tried to take advantage of this and there was a huge court battle. IIRC they were banned/fined. But yeah the core issue is are resources owned collectively or competed over? Also a nice middle ground might be a cooperative. Or you might do what the FN did and do away with the concept of owning raw resources entirely. You can't own water, dirt or land, just what you make. You could also make x territory a legal entity to prevent excess harvesting and pollution. Or just disassociate from those that didn't respect the earth. But yeah. So what if people are starving? If they have nothing to trade then they starve. This is where we get back into the gift economy bit.
Do you know how much land is required to run a farm? To grow grain crops like wheat, corn, oats, barely? You don't need to have a cult to need a ton of cubic. And maintanaince is simple: hire some people or get some volunteers. What if you wanted to start a homestead? Or start building a settlement? Also back in the day you could accrue it by just working the land. If you don't need the govt's permission then you just go out and claim an area of land and start developing it.
The inhibiting factor for land development is land taxes and aquisition. If any random person could find a spot of undeveloped land and start building you'd find a lot more homes built and stuff being made.