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!
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)
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.
Oh hey, also the same thing with environmental issues
Yup. Programmes that have experimented with giving homeless people hundreds in no-rules cash find that within a couple of months most of them have secured accommodation and reconnected with family and friends. After a while the majority are in paid employment.
Who would have guessed that the most of the problems of extreme poverty could be solved with money?!
Next you're going to tell me you can solve homelessness by giving people housing
Yes. But in more controversial news, you can solve hunger with.... money!
It's like giving people money empowers them to choose to fix their problems, most important ones first.
The surprising bit is that drug use rates drop substantially if people can cope with everyday life.
Drug use rates also decrease with accessible medical and mental health care. It's almost like treating the cause works better than punishing the symptoms...
Well then, seems to me like money itself is the issue
Who'd've thunk it?
Problem: poverty.
Solution: money.
Problem: no money
Solution: you guessed it it's money
Problem: money
Solution: get rid of money.
Obviously, we should stop people from sleeping outside by adding pikes everywhere. That's how you solve the problem!
But I'm using these bootstraps, they can go find their own!
I almost thought this was going a different way. I'm happy to be wrong.
I imagine some capitalist, right-wing fucker is screaming at their screen going "nu-uhhh" and furiously typing that you're wrong despite having done zero research.
I'm employed, and I live like I'm in poverty. As much as I want to lift up the homeless, I would also appreciate fair wages for the employed.
Since rent/housing has gone insane, I'm having a hard time making things work on the money I'm making. I'm well over the "poverty" line and I can't afford to put fuel in my car and buy name brand products, even if I wanted to. Products like.... Idk, Campbell's.
But to take it a bit further, high capacity public infrastructure can go a long way towards improving the lives of low income working people.
Trains, buses, and subways can eliminate the need to own and maintain a car. Public housing can get people off the street, where they won't be at risk of harm from interpersonal violence or exposure to severe weather. Public education and public health care have more benefits than I could list.
At an individual level, "Just give people money" is an immediate and useful generic panacea. But at a more macro level, geographic access to grocery stores and clinics and colleges and bus stops and permanent homes and factories matter just as much.
Clearly, the Venn of those who're empowered to make those changes and those who've played at least a couple hours of SimCity is two estranged circles.
It needs to be quality of those things, as well. And they know this. It's designed to keep us too tired, broken physically and mentally to get off the wheel, and not just under it, either. There's enough for everyone, just some few want to hoard it like decades worth of paper, not because it may come in handy, just because bloodsport is still entertainment, no matter how well they dress it.
It needs to be quality of those things, as well.
Oh absolutely. I have a bus stop on my corner, but it only picks up every 2 hours and then doesn't go to downtown.
There’s enough for everyone, just some few want to hoard it like decades worth of paper, not because it may come in handy, just because bloodsport is still entertainment, no matter how well they dress it.
Kropotkin was saying it over a century ago. Bread Book, baby.
People periodically ask how a country like Denmark or New Zealand or Japan can have such high standards of living relative to their individual incomes. Or why a country like the UK or Saudia Arabia can be so rich and yet appear so poor from a street level view.
So much boils down to who has access to quality infrastructure.
But to take it a bit further, high capacity public infrastructure can go a long way towards improving the lives of low income working people.
Trains, buses, and subways can eliminate the need to own and maintain a car.
The real problem is zoning. If the density is high enough (and mixed-use enough), people can just fucking walk places whether you've got public transit or not!
Even in areas where we have zoned for dense real estate, we've built these four lane boulevards with barely a crosswalk between them.
At some level, we could use a little zoning. Pedestrianization isn't going to happen via the free market.
I Sweden a liberal lobby group suggested "build apartments without kitchens" for poor people. It is so fucking dystopian.
Isn't that just a hotel room?
When I took out a loan from my bank I swear to God for the first 6 months they were absolutely terrified of my spending habits and I got emails daily about how to spend and and how my spending habits were reckless. I've made every payment I don't understand what f****** high horse they were coming from.
And on the flip side, when you're not spending much money, you're being accused of ruining the economy. Especially if you like avocados.
So ... People who have billions of dollars sitting around doing jack and shit, are ruining the economy?
That actually checks out.
Actually yeah. Sequestering money from the economy is one of the worst possible things to do according to economics.
Damn ~~Uncle Scrooges~~ Uncles Scrooge ruining the economy with their improbably swimmable money bins! Where's Magica De Spell when you need her?
I admit that I haven't finished the book "Utopian for Realists", but the author showed numerous studies and practical examples that universal basic income works. And believe it or not, Richard Nixon was close to introducing UBI but his Friedmanite-advisors dissuaded him.
I'm definitely in the not believe it Camp because the president doesn't have that kind of unilateral power to just apply something. It would have required the support of the house and the Senate.
We actually got as far as running a trial of it back then. But we couldn't keep going with it because... The divorce rate went up. And that was obviously super bad. Can't have women escaping, uhh er, deciding they want things.
When they can finally decide on somewhere to eat we can talk about more choices (massive /s just in case)
I suppose my comment could have been phrased better, but by introducing I mean he wanted to forward UBI to be legislated/legalised by the house and Senate.
I'm gonna be that guy, since there are a lot of comments saying that "research suggests".
Source?
I do fully agree with it. The drug trade is impossible to stop, but decriminalisation and funding of healthcare will help many that are homeless. From tackling these aspects, helping those that want to free roam to do so safely, basically leaves you with those that just need some money to get back on their feet.
But, even if these things seem obvious, they need a source if you're going to speak from a position of fact.
Assuming the link works, this is a great resource of research papers on the topic - https://www.givedirectly.org/cash-evidence-explorer/
Ok but have we tried telling them about Jesus instead of giving them money? They're poor because they're bad. If you give them money then they'll use it to be bad again, which will keep them poor. /s
Fun story. My FIL couldn't afford to travel to our wedding. I loaned him 3k for travel and a tux and hotel fare for his family. That Christmas we got one of those books from Ollies titled "500 ways to save money" from him. I lost the fight to send it back with torn out pages and a note that would say "1-500. Don't lend money to family".
The wealthy's deathgrip on their money is phenominally strong
Guillotines have a way of loosening one's grip.
Money is religion now. It's scary to be rational about it. There's a dogma and that's that. Any other way and we freak out.
Ok reusing clothes is not a bad thing. Even in a perfect world with no poverty, it's important to reuse.