this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2026
319 points (88.4% liked)
Socialism
823 readers
15 users here now
An international (English speaking) socialist Lemmy community free of "ML" (read: Dengist) influence. 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" (read: Dengist) (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.)
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
How exactly does wealth redistribution not solve anything? The disparity is the problem.
And how are you going to pay for that without wealth redistribution?
Yes, the disparity is the problem. But it needs to actually be spread out. Things like universal health care do that inherently if they properly raise taxes on the rich.
Redistributing wealth from the top 0.1% to the top 1% doesn't accomplish anything meaningful.
And yes, paying for it will come from taxing the rich. None of that has to do with capitalism exclusively.
I feel like we're after the same thing but you're more interested in attacking my idea than building something together or proposing something different. I'm sorry if that's harsh, but your questions are quite loaded and you didn't offer anything of substance yourself. The only thing you didn't deflect back to me was saying "the disparity is the problem", and that is precisely the point I was making. I'm specifically pointing out that it's about the full disparity.
I think I actually misinterpreted your original comment because of the typo in this sentence:
(I now realize you probably meant to write "among".)
I didn't realize you were saying, "it doesn't help if you redistribute wealth to the wrong people". And that sort of set the tone incorrectly for the rest of your comment. That materially changes how I read your comment, and I do mostly agree with your points.
I'm not sure I agree that this isn't exclusive to capitalism though. If you impose a tax that effectively caps wealth, then you are inherently compromising one of the core tenets of capitalism: private ownership of means of production. And I'm also not sure that this type of tax even goes far enough to prevent worker exploitation, but I guess we'll see if it ever actually happens.
Got it, apologies on the typo and subsequent misunderstanding.
I think we're both after the same thing - I guess I'm just trying to get the safety net before attacking the "top" of what is reasonable.
And I'm kind of OK with a nearly infinite top... As long as the tax rate makes sense. If you're at a 95% tax rate (and loopholes aren't rampant... Lot of ifs here) then go nuts. You'll be supplying a good life for many people, by force, as a result of good taxes and public policy.