Steban: The theorists Puncher and Wattmann — not infra-materialists, but theorists nonetheless — say that communism is a secular version of Perikarnassian theology, that it replaces faith in the divine with faith in humanity's future ... I have to say, I've never entirely understood what they meant, but I think maybe the answer is in there, somewhere.

You: Wait, you're saying communism is some kind of religion?

Steban: Only in this very specific sense. Communism doesn't dangle any promises of eternal bliss or reward. The only promise it offers is that the future can be better than the past.

People over profit.

As long as you are anti-capitalism and cool with everybody except the fascist assholes who are actively building fascism, you left in my book.

Let's quibble over the details once capitalism is on its last legs, and the mainstream discourse is about what sort of socialism/communism/anarchism do we want.

For me, The Left begins at anti-capitalism. There are diverse forms of anti-capitalism, but that is the foundation of leftism in my understanding. People over private property. Workers ownership of the means of production. No unjustified hierarchy. These are all forms of anti-capitalism with long histories.

For me, the bar is being anti-capitalist and the most basic form of that is not allowing capital to subordinate the will of the people. China does a lot of things that look capitalist to outsiders but there's a reason no one in China gives a fuck about the real estate "crisis". I see China as the bare minimum of what a leftist state should be. I would also love to see a Cuba freed from the shackles of American terrorism.

For me being a leftist means supporting the ideals of revolution, of class consciousness, and universal liberation. At the same time it's more than a position its something to strive towards and something to move toward.

It means retaining your humanity, or rediscovering it.

Capitalism teaches you to rationalize walking past a homeless beggar with the belief that either they had it coming, or that the problem is too complex and not solved by direct aid. More and more you are taught to see human beings as abstractions, because in capitalism we are abstractions, representatives of our narrow class interests. The role of capitalist, the role of worker — these roles have more reality than do the individuals performing them.

Capitalism teaches you to rationalize not merely animal suffering, not merely speciesism, but their industrialization and indefinite expansion. Capitalism did not invent these things but secures their basis. In the abstract it might be possible for any society to end its exploitation of animals, if there is a popular will to do so. In capitalism it becomes impossible because animal exploitation is profitable.

Capitalism teaches you to view nature as an external resource separate from yourself. There is no intrinsic value in a forest except its economic value. In the era of mass production, each material product contains less and less economic value; therefore we perceive less and less value in nature itself, as the material substance of these products. We view nature as disposable by the same degree that we see products as disposable.

Being left does start at anticapitalism, because capitalism alienates people from their own morality and human development.

Generally I consider "the left" to be anti capitalist and pro worker with diverse currents. I love the environment and the planet and I would like us to stop pillaging the natural world. I don't believe in free speech tho

Universal self-actualisation. Everything from humans to animals to rivers has needs to be met and does something valuable for everything else in the ecosystem. A leftist is someone who critically approaches those as intersectionally as possible. The right-deviations all revolve around some form of "needs for me but not for thee", but seeing the subject in the objectified thing is the closest I've found to what it means to do communism.

I guess I can sum it up with the oldie: "For each according to their ability. For each according to their need", communism, the left, marxism just makes the most sense to me and is the most rational way for society to be organized to protect the people, the planet, and humanity.

I'd echo a lot of the same things you and others have said. But at a personal level it's a liberation from systems that have abused me over the years.