• wurzelgummidge@lemmy.ml
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    9 hours ago

    I can’t remember where I copied this from originally but it seems pertinent here

    Americans are, of course, the most thoroughly and passively indoctrinated people on earth. they know next to nothing as a rule about their own history, or the histories of other nations, or the histories of the various social movements that have risen and fallen in the past, and they certainly know nothing of the complexities and contradictions comprised within words like ‘socialism’ and ‘capitalism.’

    Chiefly, what they have been trained not to know or even suspect is that, in many ways, they enjoy far fewer freedoms, and suffer under a more intrusive centralized state, than do the citizens of countries with more vigorous social-democratic institutions.

    This is is at once the most comic and most tragic aspect of the excitable alarm that talk of social democracy or democratic socialism can elicit on these shores.

    An enormous number of Americans have been persuaded to believe that they are freer in the abstract than, say, Germans or Danes precisely because they possess far fewer freedoms in the concrete.

    They are far more vulnerable to medical and financial crisis, far more likely to receive inadequate health coverage, far more prone too irreparable insolvency, far more unprotected against predatory creditors, far more subject to income inequality, and so forth, while effectively paying more in tax (when one figures in federal, state, local and sales taxes, and then compounds those by all the expenditures that in this country, as almost nowhere else, their taxes do not cover).

    One might think that a people who once rebelled against the mightiest empire on earth on the principle of no taxation without representation would not meekly accept taxation without adequate government services.

    But we accept what we have become used to, I suppose. Even so, one has to ask, what state apparatus in the “free” world could be more powerful and tyrannical than the one that taxes its citizens while providing no substantial civic benefits in return, solely in order to enrich a piratically overinflated military-industrial complex and to ease the tax burdens of the immensely wealthy.

  • yucandu@lemmy.world
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    15 hours ago

    Lisa’s only mistake was saying yes.

    Just do every single thing in socialism, but change every single word. Call it Americanism.

    Proletariat? No, just “worker”.

    Bourgeoisie? No, just “elites”.

    Capital? “Stuff”. Like how in baseball they say a pitcher’s got good “stuff”. Use your human stuff.

    Class Consciousness - “common sense”.

    Dialectical Materialism - Idk I’m still trying to figure out wtf that one means.

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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      1 hour ago

      Historically, this just doesn’t work, and it even risks supporting PatSoc movements like the American Communist Party (not to be confused with the CPUSA), also known as “MAGA Communism.” Essentially Imperialism combined with Communist aesthetics.

      In the lead-up to the Russian Revolution, there was disagreement over the necessity of reading theory. The SRs thought it was unneccessary, and got in the way of unity. Lenin and the Bolsheviks disagreed, as theory informs correct practice. The SRs became a footnotez and the Bolsheviks succeeded in establishing the world’s first Socialist state. One of Lenin’s most fanous lines, from What is to be done? is “without revolutionary theory, there can be no revolutionary practice.”

      As studying theory is necessary, people will realize you’re repackaging Socialism. This will backfire, and people will realize they’ve been tricked. This will hurt the movement.

      As for Dialectical Materialism, in a nutshell it’s the philosophical backbone of Marxism. It’s an analytical tool, focusing on studying material reality as it exists in context and in motion through time, as well as their contradictions. If you want an introductory Marxist-Leninist reading list that will teach you the fundamentals, I have one here that I made.

    • The Spectre@lemmy.mlOP
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      14 hours ago

      Dialectical materialism -> Scientific materialism to distinguish it from the common usage of the world “materialism”

    • pcalau12i@lemmygrad.ml
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      13 hours ago

      You people have good luck with this? I haven’t. I don’t find that you can just “trick” people into believing in socialism by changing the words. The moment if becomes obvious you’re criticizing free markets and the rich and advocating public ownership they will catch on.

      • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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        2 hours ago

        Correct, and it even risks supporting PatSoc movements like the American Communist Party (not to be confused with the CPUSA), also known as “MAGA Communism.” Essentially Imperialism combined with Communist aesthetics.

        Being honest with what you want and why has a far better track record, we see this in Socialist revolutions and in mg own personal experience with outreach.

  • IHave69XiBucks@lemmygrad.ml
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    14 hours ago

    I live in the USA and its so bad i just cant interact with most people. They are basically entirely vibes based. They dont research anything if they hear a new claim they decide if its true based on if they feel like its true. You can literally show them evidence and most will be like “nah thats bs”. I made a comment on 小红书 recently about how 54% of americans read below a 6th grade level and my replies are FULL of americans saying “uh i can read” … can you really?

    • blade_barrier@lemmy.ml
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      11 hours ago

      Truth is literally just your belief. What’s your problem with people “feeling like it’s true”?

  • umbrella@lemmy.ml
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    18 hours ago

    about what youd expect for a country thats been the global epicenter for anticommunist propaganda.

  • ssillyssadass@lemmy.world
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    19 hours ago

    American try to care one iota for your fellow man or really anyone other than yourself challenge (impossible):

    • Dessalines@lemmy.ml
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      16 hours ago

      During covid, going to a rural area in the US really got to me. The population is so individualistic / freedom-brained / “i do whatever I want all the time”, that their grandmothers all dying meant nothing to them. I got mine keeps meaning smaller and smaller groups of people.

      • yucandu@lemmy.world
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        15 hours ago

        Which is surprising because up here in Canada, the socialism started with the farmers. And it’s still going on with coop feed and grain silos and harvester sharing. Farmers don’t let other farmers starve, in Canada.

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          11 hours ago

          That’s not what socialism is. Socialism didn’t “start with the farmers”. That’s a ridiculous thing to say

        • Dessalines@lemmy.ml
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          16 hours ago

          USonians used to be more community-focused. In the 1950s polio was eradicated due to massive community efforts, showing that they were willing to do things to benefit their community.

          Nowadays they won’t even do the same to benefit their extended families.

          • shirro@aussie.zone
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            11 hours ago

            I think all “western” countries were considerably more community focused in the past.

            I am in rural Australia and as a kid our supermarket and hardware store were owned by farmer’s co-ops and the hotel is still community owned and puts profits back into local sporting clubs. I have old pictures of some of the community fund raisers in the past and they looked extravagant for the time for a small population. Everyone pitched in to help building sporting clubs or other community facilities or to fight natural disasters. One old timer said they thought the US influence of entrepreneur clubs (Rotary, Lion’s, Apex) was one of the first things to divide the community as the shop owners started to do their own thing separate from everyone else. We still have local community run child care, aged care and hospital. Increasingly people send their kids to the religious private school for social signalling despite the government school being well supported by parents and having excellent facilities and standards. The US funded churches are everywhere competing for customers and preaching hate and division. The disconnect between how people here naturally chose to build a community and what they are told to believe is interesting. I saw a silly old bugger wearing a MAGA hat last year. His parents probably came back from fighting fascists and helped build this community through unimaginable hard work and sacrifice.

            • vfreire85@lemmy.ml
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              11 hours ago

              back in the 80s my father worked for the largest state-owned bank here in brazil. apart from all benefits and a generally more laxed culture back then (goals were not that enforced, for example), the employees were more of a closely-knit community. they had clubs and were involved with it (the bank still has but not everyone care for it, the one we had in my home town was closed), organized a coop supermarket in state capitals during the inflation years, they were friends usually helped and cared for each other, the families used to visit each other, organized parties for the children, barbecues and the sort. in the 90s, there were heavy talks of privatization, people were fearful for their jobs, layoffs, and the bank generally had a lax policy on security at a time when robberies became more common. the employees slowly began to leave the bank and the few who were admitted to their places had not that culture, were more individualistic. it happened to other state owned companies, and all hell broke loose when many of them were actually privatized (state-level banks, telephone companies, electric distributors were among the most significant examples). now it seems that we’re getting more and more individualistic and losing the meaning of community and society.

          • The Spectre@lemmy.mlOP
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            16 hours ago

            But when he says “smaller and smaller groups of people” does he mean that this kind of mentality isolates people to increasingly smaller groups?

            • Dhs92@programming.dev
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              16 hours ago

              It used to apply to different groups in the past.

              Fuck you, my community got ours

              Fuck you, my friend group got ours

              Fuck you, my family got ours

              And now we’re finally at

              Fuck you, I got mine

  • deathbird@mander.xyz
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    13 hours ago

    “All classes working together” as a counterpoint to socialism? Where have I heard of this before…?

    • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml
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      5 hours ago

      It’s because it’s impossible. The classes will always be in conflict until the communism is reached, so it depends which class is in power.

  • miss_demeanour@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    19 hours ago

    Meanwhile, socialist Norway’s wealth fund could maintain everyone’s standard of living for 400 years if they stopped working right now.

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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      25 minutes ago

      Norway funds its safety nets off of super-exploitation of the Global South, ie Imperialism. It is firmly Capitalist and in no way Socialist, private property is the primary driving aspect of Norway’s economy, the higher standard of living comes from acting as a Landlord in country form.

    • umbrella@lemmy.ml
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      18 hours ago

      norway isnt socialist. they just excel at exporting capitalism’s issues to the third world.

      • 小莱卡@lemmygrad.ml
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        17 hours ago

        of course not, you can bet that “wealth fund” is invested in institutions that leech of the global south.

      • bloubz@lemmygrad.ml
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        18 hours ago

        I upvoted for the first sentence, don’t know enough about Norway to have a critical opinion on the second one. It does sound like imperialism though. When they don’t any more resources to exploit nationaly, capitalists must go elsewhere

        • umbrella@lemmy.ml
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          18 hours ago

          for the second part: i’m not well versed in norway’s specifics but northern europe in general uses brazil as a resource colony, i know norway engages in oil extrativism here, in some delicate areas of the amazon rainforest that really shouldnt be disturbed right now.

          i’m willing to bet good money they do it to many many other regions too.

      • yucandu@lemmy.world
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        15 hours ago

        In a democratic state, things like universal healthcare are also called “socialized medicine” because it is an example of the people owning the means of production in that particular industry.

        That’s why most countries are what we call “mixed economies”, that mix elements of capitalism and socialism.

        Norway mixes in a higher ratio of socialism to capitalism than most countries. But they don’t export any more of capitalism’s issues to the third world than other countries. It’s something to emulate, not discredit.

        • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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          21 minutes ago

          Social programs are not Socialism. Every economy is a mix of private and public property, that doesn’t make it mixed Capitalism and Socialism. Capitalism and Socialism are descriptors for economies at large, as you cannot remove entities from the context they are in. A worker cooperative is not a “socialist” part of a Capitalist economy, because it exists in the broader Capitalist machine and must use its tools.

          What determines if a system is Capitalist or Socialist is if private property or public property is the primary aspect of a society, and which class has control. In Norway, Private Property is dominant, so Social Programs are used to support that.

            • JacksonLamb@lemmy.world
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              10 hours ago

              Pretty sure no one with universal healthcare calls it “socialized medicine”. That’s just a buzzword Americans use to scare each other.

              It’s not a means of producing anything other than health. Health is seen as a human right and it makes sense even in most western capitalist countries for it to be extended to everyone.

              • yucandu@lemmy.world
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                9 hours ago

                I’m Canadian. It’s what the founder of our healthcare system, Tommy Douglas, called it.

                And yeah, it’s the people owning the means of producing health. Socialist healthcare.

                Americans scare people with these references to brutal authoritarian dictatorships that call themselves “socialist” but the real cause of all these problems is that they weren’t democratic, not that they socialized industries.

                Anyways, maybe it’s just my autism making me literal as fuck, but I think you guys need to clear that up. This is what the people owning the means of production looks like. It’s always going to be adjacent to capitalism, whether it’s a socialist industry in a capitalist country, or a socialist country in a capitalist world.

                • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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                  20 minutes ago

                  It is not Socialist. Social programs are not Socialism. Every economy is a mix of private and public property, that doesn’t make it mixed Capitalism and Socialism. Capitalism and Socialism are descriptors for economies at large, as you cannot remove entities from the context they are in. A worker cooperative is not a “socialist” part of a Capitalist economy, because it exists in the broader Capitalist machine and must use its tools.

                  What determines if a system is Capitalist or Socialist is if private property or public property is the primary aspect of a society, and which class has control. In Canada, Private Property is dominant, so Social Programs are used to support that.

                • JacksonLamb@lemmy.world
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                  Interesting, thanks for the Canadian history lesson Perhaps that’s where the Americans got their weird terminology from.

                  you guys need to clear that up

                  Who needs to do what? I’m not sure what I said that somehow gave you the impression I was an American.

                  My society pays for universal free healthcare, like everywhere in the civilized world.

        • umbrella@lemmy.ml
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          and in a demoratic world norway wouldnt be doing tax-free extrativism in my country (and others’), so that you can pay for your socialized medicine in a capitalist economy, where the money to finance it has to come from the poor. in this case we are your poor.

          • yucandu@lemmy.world
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            11 hours ago

            Socialized medicine is always cheaper than capitalist medicine. It’s inherently more cost effective for people to pool their money together. It isn’t paid for by some rich miner buying mining rights in some other country.

            • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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              19 minutes ago

              Close. Communism cannot exist until the entire planet is Socialist, but Socialism can be determined at a country level.

          • stickly@lemmy.world
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            12 hours ago

            I’m not sure how that link is supposed to refute anything? It says basically what the comment above says without using the phrase “mixed economies”.

            If you meant the power structure and public/private balance is heavily capitalist for Nordic countries then you’d probably want to post something else supporting that statement.

            • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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              Hey, I’m the author of that post! I don’t see how my post says the same thing at all, it very much talks about which aspect, private or public, has power in society is what determines the nature of its economy.

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        18 hours ago

        Its so fucking dumb, you wouldn’t believe it! If he isn’t retarded and have an Elon Musk moment then he would and this is making me genuinely sick contribute to society, theoretically making a net plus to society

    • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
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      14 hours ago

      Whenever people say this they neglect to point out that all the money came from selling oil.

      • miss_demeanour@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        14 hours ago

        They forget to point out that only dumbfuck yanks would consider Norway to be socialist, so the comment, in a meme community, is misleading from the get-go.

    • 小莱卡@lemmygrad.ml
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      17 hours ago

      thats not something to boast about, it tells how deeply embedded the nordic socdems are in financial parasitism aka imperialism.

      living off interests is parasitism

    • TheOubliette@lemmy.ml
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      15 hours ago

      Norway is a capitalist country. It us an OECD hanger-on to the US-led imperialist world order.

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    19 hours ago

    Wait, isn’t socialism all about class solidarity? “Working together regardless of class to fight a common enemy” sounds more like nationalism where at the end the upper class profits most. Unless we are talking about a classless society but that’s not “regardless of class” but “with no class distinction” which sounds very similar when I think about it.

    • TheOubliette@lemmy.ml
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      15 hours ago

      Socialism is about making the working class the ruling class. It is explicitly about oppressing the bourgeois class, which is itself the current ruling class oppressing the working (and other) classes. The idea is to take the means of production and run it for ourselves rather than the profit of a class defined by merely owning factories, buildings, tools, etc.

      The cartoon may be confused.

    • brisk@aussie.zone
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      16 hours ago

      Every character there is working class, so I’m imagining in this case “regardless of class” is implicitly “regardless of perceived class”

    • grrgyle@slrpnk.net
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      18 hours ago

      Sounds more like social democracy, which can include managed capitalism and cooperation between workers and owners. To a degree.

    • ssillyssadass@lemmy.world
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      18 hours ago

      Socialism is about the government playing a central role in the economy to ensure wealth and resources are distributed more fairly, rather than being concentrated in the hands of corporations or individuals. Socialism can still allow for private businesses and a market economy, but key industries and services are often publicly controlled to prevent excessive inequality.

      • TheOubliette@lemmy.ml
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        15 hours ago

        Socialism is not about the government’s size. Socialists, particularly Marxists, emphasize using the state and nationalization after proletarian revolution to reflect the working class’ interests and build socialism, but the size of the state itself is not what makes something socialist, both because (1) socialists seek to eventually end the state itself once productive forces and consciousness are sufficiently advanced and (2) capitalist states can also have large governments, generally to serve the interests of the ruling class, albeit sometimes in a roundabout way.

      • lugal@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        17 hours ago

        That’s state socialism, a specific kind of socialism that wants to keep the state apparatus, not realizing that it will always (re)create a ruling class. Different from Libertarian Socialism which unironically want a stateless society, not as a never to reach end goal.

        • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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          29 minutes ago

          This isn’t true, unless you have a different conception of what “class” is from Marx and Marxists. The State is the only path to a stateless society, in that the state disappears once all property is publicly owned and planned, and thus the “state” whithers away, leaving government behind.

          For Marx, the State is chiefly the instruments of government that reinforce class society, like Private Property Rights, not the entire government.

        • Olgratin_Magmatoe@slrpnk.net
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          16 hours ago

          How would society handle critical functions such as water sanitation for millions of people without a state to enforce equitable share of the cost?

            • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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              27 minutes ago

              This retains class, though. If your councils only have ownership of their own jurisdictions, then the members of each council are Petite Bourgeoisie. Marx specifically advocated for full centralization because chiefly it becomes a necessity anyways with increasingly complex production, but also because it gives more democratic control over the whole of the economy, not just individual bits.

            • stickly@lemmy.world
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              12 hours ago

              I see this in various flavors of anarchism and I don’t get how it would work in practice. Hierarchies form to simplify the logistics and social cohesion of a disorganized network of subunits.

              As a basic example, how the hell do collectives even communicate with those on other continents? It took millenia for humans to develop reliable seafaring technology, only made possible through the direction of state actors. Sea cables cost millions to maintain; satellite communication is even harder to achieve.

              Assuming that any of these could even be accomplished strictly via collectives (“Why the hell should I give you my Chilean copper so you can throw it in the ocean to talk to Europe?”), operating these essential services gives access to power and coercion.

              Somebody has to launch the ships or run the heart of the telegraph network. Will you centralize the authority of multiple collectives to regulate and monitor it?..

              And if you don’t do anything to bridge the ocean, what’s to prevent ideological drift for that continent; getting a little too centralized for more efficient resource use? Even if your accessible web remains strong and ideologically pure, you have to pray that completely separate webs will be just as strong.

              Anarcho-primitivism is the only critique that seems to own the inherent anti-civilization logic, but even then there’s nothing stopping a collective-of-collectives from making a bigger pile of sharp rocks to subjugate you.

            • Olgratin_Magmatoe@slrpnk.net
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              13 hours ago

              How is that different from a state, aside from the decentralization of power?

              What would prevent centralization of power?

            • yucandu@lemmy.world
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              11 hours ago

              Would these councils be elected by the people they represent?

              Would they sit in a parliament and form a legislature?

              That just sounds like Canada.

        • TheOubliette@lemmy.ml
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          15 hours ago

          Socialism is always about recreating a ruling class: it is to make the working class into the ruling class.

          There is no practical alternative to this. Imagine trying the only way: to immediately end class relations. You’ve won the revolution. Your ideological brethren are in power and the Great Workers’ Council is going forward with your plan. How are you going to force people to end class relations? Won’t it require a state? Who is enforcing the end of relations? If someone buys up an extra-big plot of land and starts charging tenants rent, reinventing semi-feudal relations, who is going to stop them? And what are you going to do about the bourgeoisie who still exist, especially those overseas, and are working against you to reopen your country for exploitation?

          All of these basic realities require a state. And you cannot simply end all class relations instantaneously, as the wider public will not all agree with you ideologically. Unless you plan extreme forms of oppression for the entire population, you will need to deal with the remnants of various class relations in various forms, engaging, ideally, in a process that will whittle them away. That entire process will be recreating a ruling class, i.e. the working class, to impose this process on the other classes.

          • IHave69XiBucks@lemmygrad.ml
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            13 hours ago

            “Gramsci shows that one of the main historical concerns of the Catholic Church has been to control the reading and the diffusion of Christianity, blocking the rise and spread of popular, autonomous and base level interpretations and thereby saving the purity of the historic doctrine. […] Many Marxists act the same way. Their biggest worry is the purity of the doctrine. Every time that historical facts challenge the doctrine or show the complexity of the practical operationality of elements of the theory, they deny that these elements are part of the story of Marxist theory and doctrine. This is, for example, what doctrines of betrayal are built on. Every movement that appears to stray a bit from these ‘pure’ models that were created a priori is explained through the concept of betrayal, or is explained as ‘state capitalism.’ Therefore, nothing is socialism and everything is state capitalism. Nothing is socialist transition and everything is state capitalism.” – Jones Manoel, Western Marxism, the fetish for defeat, and Christian culture

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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      1 hour ago

      Yep, this is the concept behind “Social Democracy.” Class collaborationism is a myth used to justify the perpetuation of Capitalism, not ending it.

  • Commiunism@beehaw.org
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    18 hours ago

    “if we all work together regardless of class” collaborationism is bourgeoisie propaganda and is not tolerated here, Comrade. Please face the wall.

    • Match!!@pawb.social
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      15 hours ago

      america is a classless society because even the upper class is still powerless in the face of the corporatocracy

      • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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        49 minutes ago

        Genuinely a “what reading no theory does to someone” bit.

        You contradict yourself by saying “classless” and then “upper class.” Additionally, the “corporatocracy” is just Capitalism functioning.

        If you want to get started with theory, I keep an introductory Marxist-Leninist reading list you can check out if you want.

  • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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    18 hours ago

    Of course, you could just talk about “Tax The Rich” or “Bring Back the New Deal” but then how could people know you read Karl Marx?

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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      47 minutes ago

      Only taxing the rich or bringing back the New Deal perpetuates Capitalism, we are talking about Socialism here, not Social Democracy. In that respect, when we analyze AES states, all have a firm understanding of Marxist theory, showing that it indeed has practical merit.

      If you want to get started with theory, I keep an introductory Marxist-Leninist reading list you can check out if you want.

      • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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        40 minutes ago

        So?

        If the workers have a 25 hour week with universal health care and great pensions who cares if the billionaires have spaceships to Mars?

        • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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          37 minutes ago

          Considering we are speaking about the US, those safety nets would come from the massive Imperialism the US commits constantly. Workers in the Global South would continue to slave away so workers in the US can live cushy lives.

          In a Socialist system, we can end that, but under Capitalism there is no path to deliberately end the practice of Imperialism, as it forms the basis of US foreign policy, and why the US Empire has hundreds of millitary bases around the world.

          • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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            34 minutes ago

            Or we could be doing asteroid mining and getting raw materials from off-planet.

            Marx and Lenin never wrote about that because they both died a century ago.

            • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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              17 minutes ago

              And we would continue to centralize and give power to fewer and fewer hands, when we could provide much better living standards for all.

                • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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                  7 minutes ago

                  We don’t live in that theoretical fantasy world, and moreover that still does not logically justify allowing a small handful of people to live like gods. I am talking about reality, not a dream you had.

    • TheOubliette@lemmy.ml
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      15 hours ago

      It’s the opposite, actually.

      The people who talk about “tax the rich” or the New Deal don’t actually do anything, they are armchair activists who have no real idea of how they would ever accomplish this outside of pretending the Democratic Party, which constantly opposes them and crushes such ideas, is the vehiclr, and the way to make it happen is complaining on the internet.

      Communists know that actually addressing our collective problems is a much more difficult task, nothing less than the overthrow of capitalism, something that would need to survive attempts at cooption by liberal power structures like the aforementioned party. So we build from the ground up, educating one another and developing practice so that we can balance growth, education, and having impact through actions. We go to the meetings, we run the meetings, we teach one another, we organize the protests and marches, we build the strategic mutual aid events, we embed with workers’ spaces and unions, we embed with and build from within the marginalized so as to be of them. Communist organizing is adding a part-time job on top of your other obligations.

      • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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        11 hours ago

        Yes, we should definitely not have something like Sweden or the old New Deal. We should let children grow up in poverty, let old people suffer, and let the planet burn while we sit around discussing Trotsky and the Second International in hopes that the revolution will come.

        iirc de La Cruz got less than 100,000 votes.

        • TheOubliette@lemmy.ml
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          11 hours ago

          Yes, we should definitely not have something like Sweden or the old New Deal.

          I think you need to refamiliarize yourself with what I said, as this is not it.

          We should let children grow up in poverty, let old people suffer, and let the planet burn while we sit around discussing Trotsky and the Second International in hopes that the revolution will come.

          I said something that is the exact opposite of sitting around, actually. Do your best to read a little more carefully before sharing opinions.

          iirc de La Cruz got less than 100,000 votes.

          And?

    • JustAnotherKay@lemmy.world
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      18 hours ago

      I’ve been thinking a lot recently about how to rephrase socialist ideals as capitalist bills for the sake of America.

      I want to propose a “Proof of Economic Viability Bill” somewhere if I can find the right influence point.

      Basically, financial advisors suggest that people should pay no more than 30% of their income towards living expenses. Knowing that the vast majority of Americans only have income from their primary job, this means that any business should be expected to pay no less than 30% of their income, evenly divided across the entire workforce (cart pusher to CEO), as a “living expense allotment” to prove they can afford to pay their workers enough to live and stay afloat. This will push out companies who are doomed to fail because of a lack of available workforce, allowing more economically viable options to reign king.

      Edit to add: you can make this sound a little nicer to the maga crowd by telling them they can reduce wages by doing this. I don’t necessarily care that you’re paying minimum wage as long as you can afford to put your worker in a home and fill their stomach.

      • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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        34 minutes ago

        Historically, this just doesn’t work, and it even risks supporting PatSoc movements like the American Communist Party (not to be confused with the CPUSA), also known as “MAGA Communism.” Essentially Imperialism combined with Communist aesthetics. You need to be honest with people, otherwise they will learn they have been tricked and resent you. Further, this isn’t really Socialism, but Capitalism with bigger safety nets.

        The problem with policy is that it needs material foundational backing, otherwise it will be walked back if the class in power doesn’t like it.

      • stickly@lemmy.world
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        11 hours ago

        You just described what the minimum wage was supposed to be, and plenty of red blooded American patriots already hate that.

        • JustAnotherKay@lemmy.world
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          10 hours ago

          I realize my other comment didn’t actually properly answer your concern. You are right about this being the equivalent of minimum wage. However, the meaning of wages have changed since the time when those laws were made. We don’t need companies to prove they can pay their people for today, because we have technology that lasts hundreds of years if properly maintained. We need them to prove they are economically viable forever.

        • JustAnotherKay@lemmy.world
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          10 hours ago

          You’re absolutely right. However, if you use the right magic words you can convince them that it will be good for them. Constituents will be happy because their bills will be guaranteed to be paid by their company, and investors will be happy because they can look at a company and instantly see whether they can make money off it. It just so happens that politicians tend to be into the same things as investors

          • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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            32 minutes ago

            However, if you use the right magic words you can convince them that it will be good for them.

            This is Utopianism, and was practiced by early Socialists like the Owenites. The problem is that such a practice never works. One of Marx’s major advancements was in developing Scientific Socialism, which looks at material reality and its trends to see how to better guide them.

      • yucandu@lemmy.world
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        15 hours ago

        Stop using polysyallabic words like “proletariat” when trying to appeal to the American working class who read at a 5th grade level.

        Seriously. Like the guy in Severance said. Apologize for the word. It’s too long.

        • JustAnotherKay@lemmy.world
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          11 hours ago

          No no, you just have to use the right ones that they like. The “magic words” so to speak. Investors really like “economic viability” because it means they can instantly look at a company and see if they can make money off it. Politicians just so happen to be interested in a lot of the same things as investors for some reason.

      • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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        16 hours ago

        I go even simpler.

        The New Deal.

        Make the GOPs explain why we could pay salaries that let one earner support a family of four in 1940 and can’t do it today.

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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      1 hour ago

      In what manner is a Capitalist company’s ecosystem able to be considered Socialism? Capitalism and Socialism are descriptors for entire economies, not slices of one company.

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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      1 hour ago

      Anarchism is preferable to Capitalism, of course, but as a former Anarchist I find Marxist theory and historical practice to be more evidently effective.