What do you like about socialism? (lemmy.world)

submitted 11 months ago by RainfallSonata@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

104 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] rhythmisaprancer@kbin.social 19 points 11 months ago

Sounds like capitalism

[-] agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works 11 points 11 months ago

Nope. Capitalism doesn't have good intentions, just good PR.

[-] Zima@kbin.social -1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

at least the way a socialist teacher taught me in primary school (and i don't completely agree with him but it's a good charactherization) you have desirable values of freedom and equality and they are in conflict. again I don't necesarrily agree with that and it boils down to the fact that when equality is implemented is always by averaging down everyone which is at the expense of freedom. anyways so supposedly you have capitalism as a system that places freedom above equality and communism as a system that places equality above freedom. so it's not really about good and bad but a conflict of virtues.

it's completely besides the point but i do rank freedom slightly above equality. in reality i would like to ensure some minimum level of support for everyone , i think that should be a pretty low level of support. just the bare minimun e.g. ensured education and equal chance at success at life, and health care depending on the actual amount of resources that can be allocated to it, nothing unrealistic but just the minimum to live without suffering, including other stuff like food and clothing and shelther as well. and then to have the freedom so that if anyone wants more than the minimum they should work for it. I'm sure that the people that wanted to work would be able to produce enough value to provide that minimum life support for everyone. so about 80% freedom and 20% equality.

[-] agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works 1 points 11 months ago

Capitalism isn't about freedom, it's about exploitation. The "freedom" it prioritizes is the freedom of individuals to lay private claim to the value of public resources (land, natural resources, etc), then use their control of those resources to lay claim to the value of the labor of others (the employee/employer relationship). It's literally parasitism.

Capitalism is the "freedom" to extract profit. Profit is the difference between the price you sell something for, and the cost to produce it. It naturally results in paying employees less than the value of their labor, and/or charging the customer more than the value of a product. It is fundamentally a grift, profiting by skimming off value as a middleman. The freedom of the capitalist comes fundamentally at the restriction of freedom of everyone else, the majority "averages down", that's just a mathematical truth.

The longer capitalism exists, the more "freedom" is siphoned into generational wealth, and the more extreme inequality becomes. Capitalists gain the freedom to live a luxurious life without actually doing any work, while everyone else loses the freedom to use land and natural resources. It's literally just "dibs" metastasized.

this post was submitted on 26 Dec 2023

42 points (67.5% liked)

Ask Lemmy

26980 readers

611 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions

Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world

Rules: (interactive)

1) Be nice and; have fun

Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them

2) All posts must end with a '?'

This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?

3) No spam

Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.

4) NSFW is okay, within reason

Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].

5) This is not a support community.

It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.

Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.