Socialism
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 and constructive discussion from a progressive, anti-capitalist and truly anti-imperialist perspective, regardless of specific ideology.
A certain knowledge of socialism is expected, if you are new to/interested in socialism, please visit c/Socialism101 before participating here. Socialism101 will gladly help you by answering questions, providing resources etc.
Memes go in c/Lefty Memes
Please don't forget to help keep this community clean by reporting rule violations, upvoting good contributions and downvoting those of low-quality!
Rules
1. Socialist Unity in the form of mutual respect and good faith discussion 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,
as well as condemning (their) imperialism, even if it is of the "anti-USA" flavour.
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 "Xenial Xerus" 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.
7. 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
(This is not a definitive list, the spirit of the other rules still counts! Eventual duplicates with other rules are for emphasis.)
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Probably because there is some inherent flaw in human psychology that pushes many to hoard wealth and material objects to the point of absurdity, and somehow they or their like minded humans corrupt the system to allow more power and control consolidation. I don’t think we’ve manage to come up with a system that contains enough stabilizing rules to prevent wild excesses to damage the whole over time. There’s always going to be a segment that views themselves as exceptions and they will reshape, bend, and break rules to their advantage, and they’ll have their supporters.
I don’t think there’s any way to prevent people like that unless we have such rigid controls that society begins to look a different version of totalitarian, so is corruption, collapse and rebirth of all large systems inevitable?
I wouldn't say it'll always be inevitable, but I don't think any current systems in place or theorized are the answer. I think so long as people try to think of developing a system of government with that in mind, there will be many answers presented and we'll eventually find one that works.
Personally, I think one way forward is to use both UBI and capitalism for necessities and luxuries. The UBI gives everyone what they need - utilities, food, basic shelter, supplies like mattresses and toothpaste, healthcare, transport, fuel, ect. However, all material objects are generic in appearance and function. Corndog #1 (Jumbo), all clothing is white and boring, ect. Capitalism is used for buying interesting items, bigger housing, and so forth.
People like their individuality, which is something that capitalism is terrific at supporting. Unfortunately, capitalism is also terrible at allowing people to survive and establish a foundation for success. Thus, separation of necessity vs luxury. All work is for earning the money to upgrade lifestyle.
There are other things that I have in mind for making things more egalitarian, such as making schooling into a paid job. Many seemingly weird reforms like that would be needed to make economics work for society, rather than the other way around.