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this post was submitted on 07 Feb 2026
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Yes, being fine with the system of capitalism and all it entails when it's clear that we need to advance to socialism is a problem.
Every Western country is a mix of capitalism and socialism. The US absolutely should move towards the socialism end but capitalism won't vanish, most importantly because it's detractors never offer a viable alternative.
Pretty much a guarantee that a big chunk of people wasting time and resources on an internet discussion board are in some way benefitting from capitalism.
Capitalism and socialism are modes of production, ie descriptors for the principle aspect of a given economy. Having a public sector does not mean you have a socialist sector, just like having a private sector does not mean you have a capitalist sector. Public sectors in capitalism serve to support the private, and private sectors in socialism support the public. Determining which aspect is principle, ie governs the large firms and key industries, and which class controls the state, is how we check for capitalism vs. socialism.
Socialism is a viable alternative, see the PRC, where public ownership is the principle aspect and the working classes control the state.
The English-speaking internet does have a large portion of labor aristocrats, ie those who benefit from super-exploiting the global south, but that doesn't mean socialism isn't a necessary advance. Imperialism is decaying, thankfully, which necessitates socialism, not to mention the moral victory.
I'm also looking for a reason to believe that the MLs here aren't a bunch of angsty edgelords who just use ML as an excuse for lashing out. You definitely seem like the rare exception, Cowbee, and I appreciate you for it.
i used to mock my woke older sister when i was young for espousing ml perspectives because i assumed it was just angsty teenage edgelord know-it-all behavior and it prevented me to learning about leftism until i was middle aged.
i've learned that others characterize mls as you've done; so it's clear that it's a social phenomenon; and i wonder if this sort of characterization is leveraged somehow to social engineer americans away from socialism, since the epstein files suggest global scale mass social engineering.
I can't assess if I think this way because of American indoctrination right now, but y'all just seem so mean and angry.
Everything I see come out of ML instances here has the same sneering, tribal in-group-good-out-group-bad attitude that I see not only MAGA people post, but also what I've seen queer people post that drive "normies" away and push them into conservative rabbit holes.
I understand y'all are frustrated with liberals and liberalism and the capital-W West. I agree that the injustices of these systems is sickening. But these memes are being broadcast outside any echo chamber, and they attack individuals personally, who also use very different terminology.
Lemmy's MLs have terrible optics and, frankly, I think that's hurting your cause a lot more than MLs seem to care. You'll never get their support and they'll resist you and your cause.
It's fascinating that you chose these words because Republican strategists focused on "nice" and "friendly" aesthetics to make Trump win and I'm wondering if this vindicates their strategy. (You can see this in Trump's penchant for labeling his enemies as "angry" or "nasty" rather than using any sort of substantive arguments like he used in the past before running for president).
And frustrated is putting it very lightly. The likes of the state department and the icc have been confirming Marxist talking points for decades but liberals dismiss it as nothing more than unsubstantive conspiracy theory nonetheless; literally making things worse while patting themselves on the back for being the "adults in the room" as a result.
The Epstein illuminati reveled in their ability to control both maga and "lesser evil" liberals and they're successfully getting the entire world to blame Russia for a mossad kompromat operation despite the American government admitting that this has been happening .... in writing .... Again.
I don't... this is so far removed from my experiences that I'm confused. I see that Trump supporters like that Trump is an aggressive, foul-mouthed bully. His supporters found it appealing that he isn't a run-of-the-mill placating, conciliatory politician that Washington tends to produce; he wields whatever leverage he has like a barbed-wire baseball bat and calls it negotiating. Anyway.
The rest of your post I think I agree with.
the aesthetics were a ploy targeting the same moderates that kamala harris tried to get to vote for her; it was never intended for his followers.
This is a memey Internet forum not a ML party formation. Genuinely what do you expect?
Also the stuff about the queer posting is just wierd. How many "normies" are wandering onto lemmy queer spaces in the first place? And if seeing some wierd memes is enough to "push" someone into conservatism then they were already a conservative.
This is some pretty severe pot calling the kettle black coming from a .world liberal
See? This is precisely what I'm talking about
You were talking about people pointing out blatant hypocrisy?
Not, people being antagonistic. But I see why you see hypocrisy.
We deal with a lot of people telling us all sorts of bs and speaking over us when we talk about historical facts that we actually researched, or even our own lived experiences for those of us who live through invasions, coups and so on.
We see the genocides going on right now, and when we sit down to learn more we find out that there have been endless such cases perpetuated by the same capitalist class for capitalist interests, we learn about the torture, the humiliation, the meticulous extermination of whole peoples with their languages and cultures gone forever, just because their labor or their land has value that capitalists wanted to extract and plunder. I'm too young to have lost someone personally, but when my parents were children we had a US backed dictatorship that disappeared children like them, alongside leftists, liberals, indigenous people... The US taught our military torture methods and bribed them to keep going, and when they were finally gone we inherited a fucking DEBT that we literally can't repay you, and because we can't repay you we need to keep getting loans from your country, with strings attached, like more austerity, as our people die homeless and cold. And if we succeed to get a proper socialist government while playing by the rules that your government imposes, they'll just coup us, like they did to Salvador Allende. Surely you see why we're angry now. It's not personal. If you don't wanna talk to us, you can opt out, it's whatever to us.
I 99.5% agree and sympathize. I know how lucky I am that the biggest existential threats I've faced are depression and joblessness, and a lot of my friends are much less lucky. I don't know how to fight for them while also making sure they're safe.
The remaining half a percent is when you say it's not personal. A lot of these memes and a lot of comments I get from MLs seem quite personal, treating "liberals" as a monolith.
That's just because you lack understanding. Liberals are "treated as a monolith" because each individual on their own is irrelevant compared to the systems and superstructures they uphold. You're stuck in the individualist view which is largely unhelpful for serious or proper political analysis which the jokes and memes then flow from.
I don't agree but I understand. I find it extremely frustrating that it's so difficult to organize my fellow Americans to respond to the injustices we all see and agree on. That said I'm not at all convinced to give up whatever individualism I have. I don't see individualism/collectivism as so black-and-white, or even one-dimensional.
MLs have a lot to be frustrated about. We advocate organizing in real life, which has its own frustrations, and when most people are still supportive of capitalism it's a constant uphill battle. We arn't angsty edgelords using ML as an excuse, but often tired and drained because we are MLs, leading to many of us lashing out.
So Marxist socialism and classical liberalism are mutually exclusive?
Leftism starts at anti-capitalism. Liberalism is pro-capitalism. Simple as.
This makes a lot of sense to me.
Yes
My curiosity is genuine piqued. Any recommendations to read about this in particular?
If you want to learn about Marxism, I made an introductory Marxist-Leninist reading list. I'll also copy over @Sodium_nitride@lemmygrad.ml 's reply to you, which you cannot see:
Thank you comrade for copying over my comments
No problem!
Engels and lenin had good writings for beginners. You might want to read principles of communism, or state and revolution to get some basic context and theory. The first one is structured like an FAQ and is short. The latter you can find english translations that are quite accessible.
Once you understand the basic principles of marxism, you will understand just how different the whole philosophy really is. If you get deep into the theory, you might see that Marxism is basically a whole separate branch of philosophy that breaks away from the enlightened tradition of western philosophy. In some small sense, I see Marxism as a refuation of liberalism.
Sadly .world accounts won't see this.
Any kind of socialism is mutually exclusive from classical liberalism; not necessarily on every bullet point but broadly speaking. The common thread among the various socialist ideologies is typically that the economy and society exist to provide for the needs of the people.
Liberalism is the ideology supportive of capitalism. Marxism is supportive of socialism. I think it's important to recognize that liberalism was driven by capitalists to fight the aristocracy while justifying their own future rule.
Marxism opposes it in theory, not practice. Soviets had nomenklatura - senior party members and officials who controlled key positions in government, industry, the military, and media. They didn't "own" factories but they controlled them.
This place is so overwhelmingly biased that it will most likely refuse to acknowledge this and maintain their simplistic black-and-white views. Marxists simply abolished the term "aristocracy" in a formal sense while continuing such practices.
Administration is not itself a class, and is necessary for any large-scale economy. Marxism opposes capitalism in theory and in practice. Management of industry is not the same as owning said industry. Marxism has never been about eliminating managament, because managers are not a class in and of themselves, but instead a section of the proletariat that perform necessary roles in coordinating production, distribution, and logistics.
Where did you get the idea that Marxists oppose administration from? It certainly isn't found within Marx and Engels' writings, without severe misunderstanding. Moreover, you're displaying black and white thinking in believing administration under socialism is the same as capitalist ownership outright.