818
Growth as an end
(lemmy.dbzer0.com)
Edit: I was proven correct
wat
Like out of all arguments against a socialist state, saying it’s like cancer which is like capitalism is… dumb? Like how? Which socialist state metastasised and “grew” without natural limits? What even is this argument?
That's not what this says. It says the real problem is authoritarianism, not the economic system.
load more comments
(3 replies)
Found a tankie!
There is no such thing as a socialist state. That's state capitalism
The reasoning is based on two axioms of anarchist system theory:
- Systems of hierarchical power structures beget authoritarianism (i.e. monopolization of power) and domination.
- Power structures seek to perpetuate themselves.
I don't know if he came up with that theoretical framework, but I got those ideas from Anark. Check him out.
You may disagree with the idea of the necessity of a socialist state, but saying it’s “not a thing” is just ignorant.
What even is socialism to you?
load more comments
(16 replies)
While I agree in principle with you (except for where a socialist state is basically capitalism?!), I disagree very much with your condescending tone. The other person you were commenting on has obviously not got what you meant and you dismissed them outright as a tankie.
I just listened a bit into the video until the guy talked about that the means have to be in line with ends. If you are a prick like this to other people enjoying your power of knowledge over them you definitely won't get to a compassionate community free of hierarchies. Same goes for the guy in the video, reeking of male privilege.
So why not give people a chance to learn something? (Except if they are trolling of course.)
load more comments
(1 replies)
Denying that State Socialism exists at all is to deny the entirety of Marxism and discredits Anarchism as well. You don't have to deny Marxism being Socialist to be an Anarchist, all denying even the validity of Marxism does is weaken the leftist movement with sectarianism.
Democratically accountable administrative positions do not beget a monopolization of power except in the Class that controls the state. In a Socialist, worker owned state, this does not result in increased power in fewer and fewer hands, as there is no accumulation.
Again, you can be an Anarchist, but stating that Socialism cannot have a State is absurd.
Denying that State Socialism exists at all is to deny the entirety of Marxism
No, only Marxism-Leninism, Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, etc. I can stomach that, as I don't really care for Lenin and those that succeeded him.
and discredits Anarchism as well
I'm curious: please explain how it discredits anarchism.
all denying even the validity of Marxism does is weaken the leftist movement with sectarianism
Historically, whenever authoritarian leftists claimed that they're all about "left unity", they usually turned on anarchists as soon as they had the chance. Thanks, I'll pass.
Democratically accountable administrative positions do not beget a monopolization of power except in the Class that controls the state. In a Socialist, worker owned state, this does not result in increased power in fewer and fewer hands, as there is no accumulation.
As soon as you have a state which owns the means of production, the workers aren't the ones who own those means, but rather a new class of bureaucrats. That monopolisation and concentration of power is intrinsic to so-called stats-socialism. Which is why I call it state-capitalism. The burgeoisie is merely replaced by the class of bureaucrats.
Again, you can be an Anarchist, but stating that Socialism cannot have a State is absurd.
No, it's consistent with my beliefs and definitions.
Lenin and Mao were not the ones who came up with the necessity of a Worker State, Marx was. You can disregard Lenin and Mao if you want, Marx still firmly advocated for a worker-state. This is plainly spelled out in both The Communist Manifesto and Critique of the Gotha Programme. Marx was no Anarchist! He regularly argued against Bakunin.
When I say denying Worker States as a valid form of Socialism discredits Anarchism, I mean that you reveal yourself as an Anarchist that doesn't believe Marxism is Socialist. That makes Anarchists look bad, and is purely sectarian.
Anarchists historically have fought Marxists as well. You can pass on long-term unity, but in the short term the only viable path to Socialism is a mass-worker coalition. You can argue why you believe Anarchism to be better, but by making enemies of other Leftists you weaken the movement and thus solidarity. I personally don't waste my time disparaging the hard work of good Anarchist comrades.
As soon as you have a state which owns the means of production, the workers aren't the ones who own those means, but rather a new class of bureaucrats. That monopolisation and concentration of power is intrinsic to so-called stats-socialism. Which is why I call it state-capitalism. The burgeoisie is merely replaced by the class of bureaucrats.
This is wrong! If the Workers run the state and thus control the allocation of its products, it fundamentally is not Captalism. Does the manager of your local post office own that branch? No! Does the secratary of transportation own the US public transit system? No! Managing a system is not ownership, and production whose results are owned and directed in common are not used for accumulation in an M-C-M' circuit. The Bourgeoisie are not replaced by beaurocrats, because beaurocrats merely manage Capital, they do not rent-seek.
Marxism is fundamentally Socialist, all you've done is display a lack of understanding why Capitalism itself is truly bad and must be eliminated.
Lenin and Mao were not the ones who came up with the necessity of a Worker State, Marx was.
One thing anarchists are objectively better at is accepting flaws in the people who wrote anarchist theory. Marx was capable of holding believs that were internally inconsistent. History has proven Bakunin right and Marx couldn't have known this. Just because a socialist state is an oxymoron doesn't make Marx a not-socialist.
Marx was no Anarchist! He regularly argued against Bakunin.
I know.
I mean that you reveal yourself as an Anarchist that doesn't believe Marxism is Socialist.
It has a fatal contradictionin its' worldview, yes.
That makes Anarchists look bad, and is purely sectarian.
Being consistent in my beliefs makes anarchists look bad? O.o
Anarchists historically have fought Marxists as well. You can pass on long-term unity, but in the short term the only viable path to Socialism is a mass-worker coalition. You can argue why you believe Anarchism to be better, but by making enemies of other Leftists you weaken the movement and thus solidarity. I personally don't waste my time disparaging the hard work of good Anarchist comrades.
ML vanguards have betrayed anarchists way too often. Broad coalitions: yes, please. But not under the direction of authoritarian commies.
This is wrong! [...]
Yeah, you didn't get my point about that class of bureaucrats, did you? That's why MLism is fundamentally idealist.
Marxism is fundamentally Socialist, all you've done is display a lack of understanding why Capitalism itself is truly bad and must be eliminated.
sure. /s
load more comments
(5 replies)
Despots, as bad as they are, do not necessarily need to grow their empires.
load more comments
(2 replies)
"I'd like to share a revelation I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with their surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to another area, and you multiply, and you multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a plague, and we are the cure." -Agent Smith
Humans lived for 200,000 years before we started acting like a cancer. It's not our species that is cancer, it's the dominator culture that evolved within our species that is the cancer.
It's Capitalism. Capitalism is humans as cancer. It's why we joke about late stage Capitalism.
You're not wrong.
I see capitalism more as a tool that arose due to the rise of the dominator culture in our species. A species without dominator instincts would not invent capitalism.
Capitalism arose as a natural conclusion to the contradictions of feudalism, not out of some vague sense of Human Nature.
Ok, but why did feudalism come about, after 200,000+ years? Capitalism is just a current incarnation of an exploitative system brought to us by dominator culture. Before Capitalism it was Feudalism. If you back far enough, you get to stable groups that operated for millennia apparently without the need for domination being the primary driver of society.
Using game theory, if the players start out cooperating, this can go on indefinitely, but once someone cheats the game becomes exploitative. Sounds a lot like what happened in our species.
The history of humanity is the history of class dynamics. Feudalism came about as a result of agricultural development and the ability to store products, rather than needing to use them before they expire.
load more comments
(15 replies)
Based and Bookchinpilled.
load more comments
(7 replies)
Animals don't form equilibriums on purpose, eg invasive species
Eh, roughly 1-2% of people are psychopathic and we've only really destroyed the Earth since we adopted capitalism, the system in which a very small, unempathetic minority has control of pretty much everything.
But that's not my largest issue with Smith's comment. It's more that an program of his stature definitely should have a better grasp on taxonomy. Viruses aren't even alive according to some current classifications. Parasitic organisms would be much closer. Unfortunately there aren't really any parasitic mammals. Vampire bats, perhaps? And that simile — capitalists as vampires (the human kind) — is a bit older than Smith's virus metaphor.
Marxferatu "The figure of the vampire is the ultimate individual: predatory, inhuman, anti-human, with no moral obligation to others."
load more comments
(6 replies)
I mean, yes, we're seeing a general rapacity balloon out of control, but hey, electric vehicles will make everything better.
load more comments
(3 replies)
And we have the pleasure of enjoying the last stage of it.
May it crumble under it's own contradictions.
That's the worst possible case for everyone & everything.
Let's hope we kill it first.
The Earth isn't a closed system. The Universe might be but I feel pretty confident we'll have moved on from any currently recognizable economic system by the time we fill that up.
For practical purposes, the earth might as well be a closed system. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Overshoot_Day
load more comments
(5 replies)
The Earth isn't a closed system.
Where else in the universe there are trees and animals?
For all ecological purposes Earth is a closed system.
The sun would like to have a word
With how climate change has been accelerating lately, I wish I shared your optimism.
If we just let a self selected group of people have total control of our economy, things will turn out better this time. They promise.
"The previous attempts failed because they didn't do it right. We will get it right, this time."
The solution for cancer is usually killing the cancer or removing the cancer. I wonder what the capitalism equivalent is…
load more comments
(1 replies)
Capitalism does not require infinite growth, this idea is not taken seriously in economic circles. Keynesian and neoclassical economics do not consider or require infinite growth.
You can be profit driven and not require infinite growth, if you make 2% profit every year you are not requiring infinite growth.
It's not true that maximizing profits is the duty of a company to it's shareholders, here it is from NYT and supreme court:
There is a common belief that corporate directors have a legal duty to maximize corporate profits and “shareholder value” — even if this means skirting ethical rules, damaging the environment or harming employees. But this belief is utterly false. To quote the U.S. Supreme Court opinion in the recent Hobby Lobby case: “Modern corporate law does not require for-profit corporations to pursue profit at the expense of everything else, and many do not.”
You can bloviate theoretically all you want, but practically, as it has played out since its inception, this is how capitalism works. This is the only way capitalism works. Very simply because those who do not grow endlessly, are consumed by those who do.
load more comments
(5 replies)
If you profit 2% every year, whether or not it’s a “requirement,” that is limitless growth.
Regardless, the Supreme Court’s opinion about the lack of an on the books law around an obligation is not relevant. We also don’t have a law on the books about how gravity works, nor one about rain making the ground wet.
load more comments
(2 replies)
But capital that stops dies, and if you are outcompeted you stop. So you always have to do better than everyone else. And capital has to accumulate exponentially to keep growing, and not stop and die.
The mechanics of the system make sustainable growth impossible. Tweaking the surface of the system will never change that core.
I take it more as humans acting out of individualist self-interest (which capitalism incentivizes above all else) as being more likened to cancer. All it can take is one mutated-individualist-greedy cell to ignore the signals from the surrounding tissues to cause cancer.
view more: next ›
this post was submitted on 15 May 2024
818 points (100.0% liked)
Lefty Memes
5851 readers
13 users here now
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 shitposting and memes from a progressive, anti-capitalist and truly anti-imperialist perspective, regardless of specific ideology.
Serious posts, news, and discussion go in c/Socialism.
If you are new to socialism, you can ask questions and find resources over on c/Socialism101.
Please don't forget to help keep this community clean by reporting rule violations, updooting good contributions and downdooting those of low-quality!
Rules
0. Only post socialist memes
That refers to funny image macros and means that generally videos and screenshots are not allowed. Exceptions include explicitly humorous and short videos, as well as (social media) screenshots depicting a funny situation, joke, or joke picture relating to socialist movements, theory, societal issues, or political opponents. Examples would be the classic case of humorous Tumblr or Twitter posts/threads. (and no, agitprop text does not count as a meme)
0.5 [Provisional Rule] Use alt text or image descriptions to allow greater accessibility
(Please take a look at our wiki page for the guidelines on how to actually write alternative text!)
We require alternative text (from now referred to as "alt text") to be added to all posts/comments containing media, such as images, animated GIFs, videos, audio files, and custom emojis.
EDIT: For files you share in the comments, a simple summary should be enough if they’re too complex.
We are committed to social equity and to reducing barriers of entry, including (digital) communication and culture. It takes each of us only a few moments to make a whole world of content (more) accessible to a bunch of folks.
When alt text is absent, a reminder will be issued. If you don't add the missing alt text within 48 hours, the post will be removed. No hard feelings.
1. Socialist Unity in the form of mutual respect and good faith interactions 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
That means condemning (their) imperialism, even if it is of the "anti-USA" flavor.
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 "Mantic Minotaur" 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.
- 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
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS