Fuck statists, all my homies hate statists
Statistically speaking, of course.
Statists or Tankies. Can we just find a nice happy middle ground ffs?
The amount of actual socialist communities on Lemmy is fucking absurd. I hate capitalism, but straight socialism isn’t any better.
Socialist countries doesn’t necessarily have to be authoritarian, although some may be. Its an economic system designed to put workers in more direct control, despite western capitalists who love to tell you socialism = dictatorship. Why would we even want that??
Socialist groups in north america also played a big part on why child labour was banned, why we have the right to weekends, why blacks and minorities can be trated like human beings ans so on.
True socialism, not just a mixed economy, will invariably be authoritarian. People will never democratically take it that far; history shows this.
History shows us quite the opposite actually. Socialism goes well most of the time whenever the US can’t interfere too much.
That is hilariously untrue. The USSR and PRC are the biggest and worst examples. Every other historically socialist country was generally more bad than good. Yes, there have been some tendencies in socialist countries to e.g. dramatically improve education and literacy, but generally at the cost of the people’s political liberties, the government taking political prisoners, mass killings, speech being censored, etc.
key phrase being " whenever the US can’t interfere too much"
investigate that correlation
Any form of socialism is inherently authoritarian. There are no exceptions.
Someone hasn’t done their homework.
Well, go on, do it!
I know you aren’t arguing in good faith, but I suggest you look into the life and writings of Peter Kropotkin and Nestor Makhno. Also do some research on Revolutionary Catalonia.
Good to see the quality of conversation is scraping the bottom of the barrel…
If your stanceeaves no room for nuance and discussion, it’s not a stance, it’s dogma & ignorance.
So, according to you, the Social Democratic Party of Germany is an authoritarian party… yea sure buddy.
Would gay socialism do it for you? Or fully-automated luxury gay space communism?
Oooh…I never considered that lol.
Big whoops on “straight socialism”.
Can I get a Lesbian Inter-Galactic Anarcho-Communist Federated United Front?
It’s a free universe, innit?
Some of successful implementations of Socialist policies is via Social Democracy, which is still a Capitalist country, but with a strong social safety net and a lot of regulations, and Democracy still exists (Eg: Norway). Then there’s Democratic Socialism, which seeks to establish Socialism via democratic means.
I believe that a socialized democracy is a best of both worlds approach. We need stronger safety nets for people. People shouldn’t have to live paycheck to paycheck and worry about if they are going to have a home if they lose their job. People shouldn’t have to worry about losing everything if they have to go to the hospital. Education should 100% be free - we should be investing in a smarter, more educated population. I believe that we’re seeing exactly what happens when we don’t properly invest in education.
Leaving capitalism even partially intact means there is room for it to claw back power from the people. The Nordic model is a temporary measure that is already being weakened in different areas. Not to mention countries like Norway and Sweden are able to keep their own wages, cost of living, etc reasonable by exploiting developing countries in the global south. Capitalism can’t be regulated into obedience, it’s an oppressive and coercive power structure that will always do what it can to survive unless.totally eradicated. Same for the state
I personally view Social Democracy as one of the stages you have to go through before achieving Socialism. Violent revolutions cause too much instability and is breeding ground for authoritarianism, and violence should be avoided as long as there is still a democratic system to achieve your goals. (Violence is a last resort, obviously if your country is a dictatorship, that might be unavoidable) Socialism is compatible with Democracy, and some might even argue that Socialist societies require Democracy. To prevent regression to Capitalism, we can write a new constitution that has Socialist ideals as an entrenched clause and such a country would also need to practice Defensive Democracy and ban political parties that are anti-egalitarian (basically like Germany’s Defensive Democracy, with with added Socialism). But it’s going to be a challenge to get it just right that it doesn’t regress into Capitalism, but also doesn’t become authoritarian. The biggest challenge is to convince a majority of the people to support Socialism, because forcing a country to become Socialist isn’t going to work if most people are against it. And because of the past failed attempts at Socialist/Communist ideologies and the totalitarianism that resulted from those attempts, it’s going to be difficult to convince people to try it again, because people would fear that this time, it would also result in totalitarianism again.
The ultimate goal of socialism, in any form it may take, is to democratize every aspect of collective society. Be it the work place, government, industry, schooling, etc. Socialism is fundamentally against one person having unjust power and influence over others. I’d say that’s the major thread that ties all of the different socialist ideologies together.
Revolution and revolutionary action takes many forms and is often a long process. The violent overthrowing of the powers that be that is often associated with revolution nowadays but we ignore the less dramatic and showy ways it operates before that. Not to say violence isn’t going to be necessary. For example, the state has power because of its monopoly on violence. The state says who they use their force against and for what reasons, regardless of the wishes or consent of their citizens. Radical democracy inherently involves taking the power of violence, oppression and coercion from the state.
In the same way the capitalist will not readily give up their wealth because we told them to pay their fair share, a state will not give up it’s monopoly on violence because we told them we don’t want them to kill us any more.
As an anarchist, many of us believe in a balance of means and ends. Which is what I feel you’re alluding to moreso than the use of political violence. We think that the situation you’re in limits the means available to you, and therefore the ends you can achieve. Your means MUST justify your ends. And if you’re looking for a specific end (i.e. the abolition of capitalism and the state) you need to work to provide the correct means to meet it. Anarchists have many ideas on how to avoid the pitfalls and are doing work every day to see that through.
If you’re interested, I’d be happy to provide some reading/listening material on the subject. Many people.much more eloquent than myself have dedicated their lives to addressing the very things you’re worried about and I wouldn’t want to misrepresent.them as I’m still learning the ins and outs myself.
My problem with Demsoc is that it doesn’t work in 3rd world countries to really address the issues, only to improve on them a little bit (see south america).
I think it only really works that well in europe because of imperialism.
What works really well in developing nations is capitalism (i.e. outside investment).
You never been to a developing nation have you?
Yes, I absolutely have.
I doubt so. You sound like someone who would fold under the conditions of the working class in most of these “capitalist utopia” sweatshops.
How does Georgism sound to you?
It’s a liberal ideology based on sound economic policies (primarily land value tax, but also things like carbon tax-and-dividend are very Georgist policies), which seeks to maximize freedom, minimize monopolism, and maximize prosperity for all.
Land and the means of production should be held in common, not taxed.
The shit on hexbear makes Trump look sane, and thats no easy feat.
makes Trump look sane
Let’s not go too far, now. I could be tripping on acid while listening to a tankie buzzword lecture and still not reach the sheer incomprehensible dribble of a Trump speech.
Okay, maybe a little hyperbole, but I got my point across.
Tankie buzzword lectures always end up in praising genocides. If you’re tripping on genocide, you’re the problem as well.
They support authoritarianism but claim China is totally a democracy.
Something tells me you’ve also had unpleasant encounters with hexbears
Something tells me you’ve also had
unpleasantencounters with hexbearsFTFY
Totally a democracy. I asked my relative in China the last time they voted for representatives, they were like “what?” Apparantly they believe it’s a “Democracy” as long as the government listens to the will of the people, but to them, “Democracy” doesn’t necessary have to be “one person, one vote”. So technically, by that definition, they’d be correct that China is a “Democracy”. Even though most of us living in Democracies with elections, that would not be considered Democracy. If you just adjust the definitions of words, anything can be true.
They’re so wrong they’re accidentally right. Democracy is not the process of voting, else the DPRK would be a democracy. Democracy is a culture, and must take many forms to manifest itself. It’s the fair elections, yes, but it’s also the social dialogue, free press, freedom of speech, freedom to assemble, independent judiciary, human rights, etc. It’s the shared belief in and willingness to uphold the ultimate sovereignty of the people, for the people.
Don’t forget “by the people.”
Successful democracy is a participatory process.
Apparantly they believe it’s a “Democracy” as long as the government listens to the will of the people, but to them
this is exactly what a hexbear told me.
Their example involves elected representatives? It sounds like they are saying democracy is elections plus more, which I would agree with. Elections are necessary but not sufficient for democracy.
Ah, so to them democracy is benevolent* authoritarianism, it all makes sense now.
*benevolent for #worthy citizens
Maybe they should start with some definitions so that they don’t deliberately obfuscate the meaning of what they are saying.
What really gets me is the DPRK apologists that are like*Nah bro, it’s a totally rad place to live, you were just told capitalist lies, trust me bro, very happy people."
OK hang on: “support authoritarianism” or “said something that implied a support for some kind of authority.” These are not the same thing, and if you’re lumping them together, that’s in bad faith.
The left includes Anarchists, but also a lot of people who aren’t Anarchists. Believing that the concept of authority is not inherently flawed doesn’t make you not-a-leftist. A leftist will acknowledge that authoritarianism is bad: the belief that authority is inherently good and should have supremacy across all aspects of society. But, unless they are an Anarchist (in the literal sense), they may still support some forms of authority with appropriate societal controls.
If you don’t acknowledge that, you’re gatekeeping leftism.
This meme is about being disappointed with tankies.
The term “tankie” is, on this site, widely in use to refer to anyone left of Joe Biden. I know the origin of the term but I can’t read it as anything any more, it’s just another casualty of the right-wing language corruption. Same thing that happened to “woke” but in reverse: now you’re a tankie if you like anything about communism. It doesn’t help that lots of people still use it in the original sense of “someone who supports an authoritarian regime that labels itself communist”.
Insofar as the term is rapidly losing all meaning, the meme could also have been made by anyone, to refer to anything they didn’t like and I’m not going to read it at face value.
Nah bro, I’m wildly left wing, but don’t get called a talkie because I don’t support genocidal dictators.
You don’t get it: yes, you do. There are users on this site who will happily lump you in with genocide and oppression because they don’t like that you’re to the left of them.
we don’t need to acknowledge or address the efforts of those acting in bad-faith to delegitmize egalitarian leftist philosophy.
“Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past. Jean-Paul Sartre”
The choice being made here is to ignore that those efforts exist.
Even as an anarchist, I support the only form of authority nature provided us, and also the authority of a collective will.
That’s 95 percent of lemmy users
Nah, I’ve also seen about 3% legit Nazis and 6% normal people…
Above 90 percent yes
I think the poster is implying it can only be approx 91% of Lemmy users.
Ok
Where?
Pretty much
but have you considered putting the right smart guy in charge?
Well sure y’all can put me in charge. Surely, I wont do the same thing the last person did…
Trust me, bro 😉
I do wonder how many anarchists are on lemmy
Web anarchists? Most are. Real World anarchists? Just some idiots.
I thought most anarchists of any sort went to raddle?
All I am saying…
Is give authoritarianism a chance
We did (well the previous generation did), we let the Communist Party of China ruled mainland China since 1949 and we still haven’t acheived whatever “utopia” they promised. It just became yet another capitalist country that they seeked to destroy. If China wasn’t so bad, so many Chinese people like my family and I wouldn’t even want to immigrate to the US.
I hope this is a joke lol
It’s a play on the John Lennon lyrics give peace a chance
I hate the term authoritarianism. Pretty much everything on that stupid political spectrum graph is nonsense.
Some things should be allowed and some shouldn’t and some can’t if you want to maintain a leftist society when you’re fighting against a worldwide capitalist hegemony. And those things differ depending on the situation.
I also hate how people draw the line at where authoritarianism lies. It’s almost always in bad faith.
Authoritarianism is when the people have no practical method of holding the leaders accountable (I mean short of a violent revolution), when leaders aren’t held accountable, they can stray from egalitarian ideals. The Communist Party of China promised to establish a class-less society, yet because there were no accountability, the leaders strayed from their original ideals and just relabel it as “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics” and now it became yet another Capitalist country. Just search “Richest People in China” and look at their net worth. Is that Communism to you?
No, as China has essentially transformed into a fascist state in all but name.
I wouldn’t call it a fascist state. Far from a fascist state. Just your average poorly mismanaged dictatorship. As long as you don’t protest, your life would probably be fine. You don’t have unlimited access to the internet, you cannot easily find certain information the government doesn’t want you to know (Eg: Tiananmen). But believe it or not, LGBT+ people aren’t actively hunted down like the media always depict it to be. It isn’t like countries with Islamic law. The worst thing LGBT people have to live with is that they don’t have any legal protections against discrimination. You aren’t allowed to protest for better protection for LGBT+ people, you just have to live with it. Everything the news talked about essentially boils down to censorship. You aren’t allowed to make any LGBT+ chat groups. But thats far different than literal genocide (although, I wont deny the possible genocides of other groups of people, I just don’t have enough reliable information to ascertain the validity of those claims, although I wouldn’t be surprised if those claims were true). China obviously isn’t a paradise, but it’s nowhere near as bad as Nazi Germany. You’re probably thinking of Mao-Era China, not modern China.
Basically: Don’t criticize the government and they leave you alone (for the most part)
Source: My experience from living in China before I immigrated to the US, and the life stories my parents and grandparents told me, and relatives currently living in China.
(Oh you know the Censorship thing? Lol my relatives in China basically has free access to outside information via calling overseas relatives like my family in the US. If they want to censor that, they’d have to cut off all phone calls.)
You say that but I wonder if you’ll say it again when the Red Guard put you in a labor camp because you listened to a song they didn’t like.
You’re an idiot.
I have encountered way more posts shrieking about tankies than actual tankies on lemmy.
Havent even seen a tankie yet and if I did at this point I’d be sure to browse their post history.
Tankies are the new woke.
At least they’re more open about it than you
Nope. They will do shit like super China but claim it is not authoritarian. Totally delusional.
Then it’s right for me to say that you believe in gassing Jews, no?
Dude… What?
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God this is some top tier /iamverysmart shit.
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Lmao I can practically smell the fedora and neckbeard through the screen.
