this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2023
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Lefty Memes

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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

Version without spoilers

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.



  1. Absolutely no posts or comments meant to relativize(/apologize for), advocate, promote or defend:

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (8 children)

I mean you could even take the bottom number and leave them with the top number and they could still live in unimaginable luxury forever. Or just take the lot because fuck em lol.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (23 children)

I couldn't imagine spending $1 billion in my entire life, let alone 3-4.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

If they are self-made millionaires/billionaires as they claim, take everything they have/own and tell them to start the quest again, no glitches, DLC, or saved progress.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Tax billionaires until there are no more billionaires

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's really insane that we legally treat the tenth billion dollars at the same level as a working persons house or car.

Everything is legally just "property".

No, fuck that.

The law should protect the first million of every citizen with ferver. (and when we tackle wealth inequality, most people will have this level of wealth at the end of their working life. The fact that most currently don't is due to inequality. )

Up until 100 million, it should be taxed at a reasonable level. Because at some level, it's fair that people prefer watching Taylor Swift instead of me sing on a stage.

Above that it should be taxed heavily.

And above a billion, it should be just confiscated. As in, oopsie, our system malfunctioned, you weren't supposed to end up with more wealth than what a thousand normal people would save up after a whole lifetime of work, so we are taking it back.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

At a billion you get a small plaque that says 'yay you won capitalism', they name a park bench after you and you replay from scratch.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Wealth taxes are stupid. That said, nobody needs multiple hundreds of billions of dollars.

The solution is to have regulations and laws in place that prevent them getting this large in the first place. The fact that Amazon and Google own 90% of the internet is absolutely fucked.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I agree, no one should be able to hold such an obscene amount of wealth. Right now they do, though. How do you propose this be remedied?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Fuck the billionaires, tax them all by 100% of their income beyond 1 billion.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

None of these guys has income anywhere near a billion in yearly income. They have stock and other assets that are worth billions but it is not income per se. If anything they go to extreme lengths to minimize their income.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

See? that's another thing. Why is some income not considered income?

People who actually have to work ALWAYS have to pay taxes, but the parasites that gamble in the stock market get to keep all that money they won, and if they lose they get a bailout from the taxpayers.

There are billionaires out there that have become so narcissistic that they just say it outright. "I'm going to privatize the profits and socialize the losses"

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

is there anyway to classify new/gained assets and tax that?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Ate they not taxed when they are bought and sold?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Sad day when "billionaires should pay taxes" is considered a far left position.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As of this point every wealth tax that has been implemented ends up getting abandoned because if how inefficient they are. It's like rent control, it sounds great on paper bu historically never works out like it was planned.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Here's the basic idea of what I'd think is fair

You have a basic rate for income below the 20th percentile of all incomes

Multiply that by 1.5 for income between that and the 40th percentile

Multiply that by 1.25 for income between that and the 60th percentile

Multiply that by 1.125 for income between that and the 80th percentile

Multiply that by 1.0625 for income between that and the 95th percentile

Multiply that by 1.03125 for income between that and the 99th percentile

Multiply that by 1.015625 for all income above the 99th percentile, with the additional caveat that people who top this bracket even once cannot hold public office, donate to political campaigns, or hire lobbyists and lobbying firms for ten years following them topping out.

Imagine something similar for taxes on units of housing owned, dividends earned, and so on and so forth.

The idea being that the highest rate can't be adjusted without significantly reducing the tax burden of the poorest, basically erasing the only way conservatives have been able to balance the books whenever they try that shit.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Wealth tax should absolutely be a priority. In my state, MA, we voted in a "millionaires tax". One thing it will cover is state wide free school lunch.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Billionaires shouldn't exist. Their fair share is more like 95%.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Only $4.6 Billion for Musk? I'm sure he'd appreciate that, since he paid $11Billion in 2021.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/10/investing/elon-musk-tesla-zero-tax-bill/index.html

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Do billionaires actually have billions in real money sitting around? I've always thought the billions were in stocks and couldn't be taxed until they cashed it out and they could technically lose everything if the stock price falls. That's really fucked up if true

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Nobody keeps that amount of cash. Even below a million, most people have most of their wealth in either real estate (their own house) or financial securities (stocks, ETFs, bonds).

Yet, we all gotta pay property tax and capital gains.

The billionaires just have loopholes that they use to never realize gains with loan schemes and trust funds.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

As a temporarily embarrassed billionaire myself, I have reservations about this

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Wealth taxes actually work, that's why the rich attack them so vehemently.

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