Socialism
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.)
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How?
Don't make me pull out the leftists, liberals, and conservatives Venn diagram.
Edit: Pulling it out.
The terms left and right are only useful until they are not.
These days you need to dig down into peoples ideology until you ask the question, should all people be cared for by society? I dont know how many levels up from that we skate around on but its almost insane how we are scaffolded over real human principles.
Its as if we have a bunch of people yapping, jumping into every conversation, with no idea about the pillars we are build on.
Maybe it's just me but it really bothers me that the far right is on the left of the diagram, and yet, I think it would also bother me somewhat if it were rotated 90 degrees so the the far right was on the right but then liberals would be on top. Also, it doesn't make sense that the part where all three overlap says "hate leftists" which would mean that leftists hate leftists and ah ok I see that checks out.
Only relevant to the progressive bent of neoliberalism, which is just rebranded conservatism.
You are just stating what classical liberalism. If this isnt classical liberalism then what is the definition of classical liberalism? You should look up neo liberalism.
Also liberals are hardly leftist since they want free markets and zero regulations. Your picture says so
You are just stating what classical liberalism
Are you asking a question?
Liberalism is inherently left wing. In this sense im referring to autocracy vs democracy and nothing to do with capital. Big L Liberals still sit to the left in many regards. You might find some classical liberals in the conservative party but that is usually found to be faux virtue signaling, like the libraterians.
I give zero fucks about people who identify leftist as if opposing the right side of a spectrum is some sort of virtue.
"If youre violet then im ultraviolet"
Markets free of regulation is not inherently left wing. Markets must be regulated. Liberals disagree. Lockean theory is not left wing inherently.
Ok just ignore what I said
I am not ignoring the screenshot you posted. Thats your evidence. Your evidence shows liberalism isnt a left wing ideology inherently.
Im showing capitalism isnt inherently right wing. The complete opposite.
I disagree. You cannot be a leftist and a capitalist. You can be a centrist, but I will never let you call yourself a leftist while defending private property and the military necessary to defend it. You don't have the ability to argue with me and win because you lack all of the necessary evidence to prove me wrong, because it doesn't exist because it's a falsehood. Liberals are not leftists. They're capitalists and therefore not leftist. Leftism is necessarily an anti-capitalist position.
If you define leftist as communist, sure. But that doesnt mean liberals arent to the left of right authoritarians. Youre really pushing the bounds of a left right spectrum.
You can be an anti capitalist and not be a communist. I wouldn't call myself one but I do sympathize with a lot of marxists (but only the non leninist variety). You can be other things including, but not limited to, a socialist (see: democratic socialists like Zohran Mamdani) or a mutualist. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-capitalism Read more into the theory here. Anti capitalism is leftism.
Zohran is a leftist. You will notice he does anti-capitalist things. Graham Platner, while he does have some anti-capitalist bends, is not a leftist and has no anti-capitalist principles. He's an anti-corporate populist which is great stuff for Maine, I have family up there. He's a left-leaning centrist for sure. I would not call him a 'leftist'. Bernie Sanders and AOC etc etc all the same. Zohran is a Democratic Socialist, though, as well as those new house members coming in from NYC that he endorse. Brad Lander is not a leftist. He's another left of center populist. They are very useful for swinging the overton window to the left, though, so I'm thankful for them in times like this.
Gee thanks for educating me. Its obvious that I am the misunderstand judging solely by the fact that this is in no way sarcasm and if it were you would definitely be able to tell.
Bankrupt ideology because of 3.