this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2024
965 points (94.5% liked)
Lefty Memes
4298 readers
298 users here now
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
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
How is that simpler?
It sounds way more complex to logistically set up a system like that. Best case is a lot of regulation needed, worse case is a complete overhaul of the economy.
It already exists. See for example Mondragon
The major issue is that it has to compete on a global market that's exploitative.
100% agree with the exploitative global market.
Also, that was an interesting read and a great example of an ideal company's practice.
Though it was a bit vague on where the start up funding came from. Which is what I was most curious about (and my main reason I consider the practice complex to implement)
Mondragon seems to be founded by a generous man that created the company from the ground up with these principles in mind, but unfortunately most people with the resources to this kind of business do not have such great ideals (and for the most part, they have these resources because they don't have them and thus exploited workers)
How would a business take off the ground in this scenario without a selfless benefactor?
Also it's a much different beast to convert an already established company like amazon and convert that to the same system. Mainly in that the owners and shareholders do not want to give up their investment for nothing.
What are the options then? Steal the company from the amazon investors in spite of the capital they invested to the company? Or pay them off?(would be expensive if going by market value)
Stealing would still be dystopian. I have no love for amazon investors, but imagine a lovely small family-owned business that invested all their life savings into it, before being taken from them because they hired some teenagers to help them for the summer.
It's complex, and not likely compatible with the current economy (unless the rich bastard's hearts grow 3 sizes large), but it would be nice if this business type was more widespread.
I consider the tax rate suggestion a good way to integrate the employee vote with capitalism. it still "survival of the fittest" but the "fittest" would be a profitable company that looks after it's employees.
Yeah, it's not an easy problem to solve. As someone who is mainly versed in the socialist tradition I view class conflict as the primary impedement to social progress. And any system that incorporates competition will, in my view, generate class conflict. It's all or nothing: you can't have a cooperative structure operating within a competetive framework.
In practical terms, this has meant a lot of different things over the past few centuries. Nobody has found the correct answer. In the present system, the first step is unionization and increasing class consciousness among the labor force. The second step is coordinated action via targeted mass action (think cross-industry work stoppages that disrupt production and logistics). Essentially you cripple the owner class at large by disrupting their profits and force them to make concessions. You could have a gradual move towards cooperative ownership by forcing down the ratio of CEO to average worker pay. You could force the passage of the types of tax reform that you are arguing for. You could force the passage of social welfare reform.
But ultimately this movement would have to be worker-led, because the ruling class will always invent new ways to entrench themselves in power. John Maynard Keynes referred to the "euthenasia of the rentier class". In other words, they would humanely pass into the dust bin of history because they would no longer exist as a class, because the workers would not tolerate them.