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this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2023
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So everybody on Lemmy is non-capitalist is what you're saying?
A large proportion of Lemmy are not pro-capitalist, yes.
Thats still very much generalizing. What this meme essentially says is that if you're a capitalist, you're not part of Lemmy.
On a seperate note, you cant possibly know how many people on Lemmy actually support capitalism or not. It has a left tendency, yes, but I bet the majority of Lemmx users do support caputalidm in some shape or form.
No, it is saying that if you are capitalist, you will get pushed into a corner by downvotes and can't enjoy the discussion as much as everyone else.
As is clearly shown with this comment.
If you actually read the posts made here on Lemmy (and I don't mean the hexbear lemmygrad ones) you should still clearly see a contempt towards the capital class.
The upvote ratio on this comment (which is at 15up to 15down currently) is in no way representative of Lemmy. At best its representative of this specific community (memes@lemmy.ml).
Does anyone here own capital? As in being haut bourgeoisie? Probably not.
If you support capitalism and you're not a capitalist you're just a bootlicker.
And you live on your own self-sustaining compound, posting from your open hardware, fabricated in free factories, Libre software OS and applications, with compost-generated power? Didn't think so. Welcome to the gray zone bootlicker.
"If you dont own factories you dont benefit from the system, you should not defend it"
"Oh okay, so you have completely isolated yourself from the system then?"
No, that's not the point, the point is to end the exploitation, not escape it, which is always a fanciful idea as you cannot escape the indirect effects of it. Also do you think almost anyone is capable of doing the things you mentioned? You'd have to be really wealthy to do those things.
You used the wrong quote from yourself. What you quoted from me was a reaction to this gem of a statement:
which is black and white, and typical of us-good versus them-bad argument fallacies. If you live and participate in a capitalist system, as the vast majority of humanity does, you are, to some degree, supporting it.
Based on the comments in this thread I take your position to be it's a matter of degree of support. Owning a truck isn't capital, it's apparently got to be a lot to make someone a capitalist. That is not leftist or anti-capitalist, but simply "eat the rich". Most people exist in classes that participate in ways that keep the lower earners below. I do not believe most humans think this great system for all but feel helpless, and participate as a way to simply exist.
Surely spreading insulting, erudite rhetoric in online is not the solution.
Owning a truck for personal transportation is literally personal property, not private property. Can you give me a quick definition according to Marxists of personal and private property?
Because you speak as if you're qualified to define leftist:
That is capitalist realism for you.
It is possible, but not worth it.
That is realism. Which is usually quite valuable if you want to change a system.
You seem hell bent on apply the label capitalist as an epithet on just about everyone you respond to. Can you quickly tell us what you think it will accomplish?
Okay, so no, you don't. And you're more interested in coming off as knowledgeable than learning (because you could just look it up in 5 seconds and give a definition), which is cowardly behavior.
Capitalist realism isn't realism, it is specifically referring to the "end of history" narrative
I'm using preciae language that would be understandable if you knew the first thing about socialism, which you claim to.
It is cowardly behaviour to refuse to look something up that "takes 5 seconds" because you wanted me too?
Nowhere was capitalism equated to realism in my posts. That does make any sense. Why would you write that?
You claim I do not understand precise language, and therefore do not know the first thing about socialism. That also makes no sense.
These are non-sequitors.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalist_Realism
I am referring to the specific concept talked about in this book, which most socialists are aware of.
When someone tells you a way they are using language and then you insist on holding onto your misinterpretation it is silly.
Skim the link and discover why capitalist realism is different from realism.
Does anyone here own capital? As in being haut bourgeoisie? Probably not.
If you support capitalism and you're not a capitalist you're just a bootlicker.
How do you define "capital"? I own a paid-off vehicle. That's my biggest single asset. Am I therefore evil? It's parked in the garage of this home I rent. Used car market right now means it's worth a bit more than it would be otherwise.
Oh, and I'm also a shareholder in my employer. Gasp!
All this talk is highly dangerous us-vs-them, black-and-white divisive crap that isn't going to go anywhere productive. Stop it. Grow up.
Owning a car is not bourgeois. Owning a business is.
If you could stop going to work tomorrow and still pay your bills because your assets are generating sufficient income to cover your expenses and still accumulate, you're in the capital class. If you trade your time and labour for income and quitting work would mean your resources will get depleted, you're working class.
And if you think that you're not working class because you sit in an office and work on a computer, then that's exactly what the ownership class wants you to believe so you'll be happy with your lot and not rock the boat.
Oh my god, we aren't coming for your toothbrush. The idea that owning anything makes you a capitalist is absurd. We are talking about businesses that alienate workers like yourself from their labor.
And if you had enough shares to live off of you wouldn't be renting. You're a member of the proletariat, not even the petite bourgeoisie who still have more to gain by overthrowing capitalism.
Maybe instead of being afraid of shadows you should read what socialists actually believe. We believe that the means of production (aka your workplace) should be owned and managed by the workers (you) and not some board who see the business as a paycheck every month (and probably don't understand how it actually functions) overseen by a democratic body to coordinate between businesses. We claim to live in a democracy but nowhere is this more evidently wrong then workplaces, which are almost always run as dictatorships..what little political agency employees exercise has to be won in conflict to the goals of the system.
We oppose land commodification. People, especially children and the elderly, should not be at risk of being evicted from where they live, and if they have income they should just contribute to the collective maintaining and construction of property which is generally 5 percent of income, not 1/3 of a paycheck like it is under capitalism with all the middlemen leeches.
Yes, I probably have assets valued at .5-1M that I've accumulated with my family.
Okay, that at most makes you petite bourgeoisie not haut bourgeoisie. But I'm guessing you can't live off of your passive income so you're still proletariat. You have more in common with the proletariat than not, and you have more to gain by overthrowing capitalism then preserving it.
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Keep moving those goal posts.
Yes, the goal posts of definitions created by a guy who has been dead for more than 100 years. Clarifying a misunderstanding on a basic concept of Marxist analysis of capitalism written more than 100 years ago is moving the goalposts.
Also, can you live entirely off your passive income? If not, youre not even petite bourgeoisie.
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The quality content I've come to expect from lemmy.world users.
You are going around tossing your communist dog whistle as passive aggressive insults. I gave up on quality conversation a long time ago.
Dogwhistles? Lol I'm straight up using explicitly communist language to communicate communist ideas. And the only time I insulted you was the previous comment. Unless you think being haut bourgeoisie would be a good thing?
You wouldn’t be any better off on a socialist system. The people at the top of the party would control everything and the working class would be even poorer than they are now. You’re just licking the left boot instead of the right one.
This is empirically untrue, but also just nonsense. Politicians do not have the same class relationship as capitalists with the proletariat.
Oh I’m sorry i didn’t realize there was empirical evidence for socialism. Please send me a link to some of these successful socialist societies.
I'm not a socialist by any means (well, I have been called one by republicans...) but I've always hated this argument. The USSR and China are the only two I'm aware of that weren't massively screwed over in their infancy by the US, and/or (usually and) manipulated by the USSR.
Then you shouldn’t go around saying it’s “empirically true” because at best there is no evidence.
I've literally cited evidence before you left this comment lmao.
The USSR was literally invaded in its infancy by France Britain and the US. Trust me the USSR was getting fucked with by bourgeois dictatorships since the beginning.
Cuba, Vietnam, and Laos for starters China went from a century of humiliation to a superpower in less then a century thanks to socialism. The USSR was better than the feudalism before it or the dictatorships of the bourgeoisie that came after it by a wide margin. For a place much poorer than the US, they had similar nutrition, better education, more rights for women both legalistically and practically.
Oh, throw in east Germany too. Do you know what the Stasi did to the lgbt movement that they saw as subversive? Destroy it by ending discrimination against gay and trans people, including a massive education campaign to eradicate homophobia and transphobia and state funded gay bars. Compare that to how the US was treating gay people at the time.
Dang, for a moment I considered that you might have independent thoughts. This LemmtGradChatGPT BS ruined it.
Yes, yes. It is cool and subversive to support capitalism, or at least oppose its alternatives.(aka support capitalism) You're part of the cool club of people who act in the interests of the bourgeoisie and not of your own class. A real independent thinker.
(Not that any of us are independent thinkers, but one of us is defending the powers that be and calling the other a chatbot)
You have no idea what systems I support, yet you assume I support capitalism because I didn't agree with you, which says a lot. The only evidence of my beliefs I have provided is that I do not support your approach. Further, I do not believe your rhetoric is a genuine attempt to make the world any better for anyone.
Oh, so you are an anticommunist "leftist" then?
Edit: your post history seems to indicate you're a social democrat, which is just capitalism with a welfare state. Aka capitalism.
Fun with labels. Generalization is for the lazy.
My deep, multi week long, post history? You must really know me.
It isnt generalization it is categorization. You come at things from a social democrat perspective very clearly based on a few comments talking about your politics.
Your categorization is too general, and counterproductive. You're apparent need to pigeon-hole strangers on the internet is sad.
Okay, so what do you believe then? I am under the impression that you want the current system but with a welfare state- free Healthcare for example- which is social democracy. Do you want society to be organized a different way?