Flippant Anarchism. A lighter take on social criticism with the aim of agitation.
Post humorous takes on capitalism and the states which prop it up. Memes, shitposting, screenshots of humorous good takes, discussions making fun of some reactionary online, it all works.
This community is anarchist-flavored. Reactionary takes won't be tolerated.
Don't take yourselves too seriously. Serious posts go to [email protected]
Rules
If you post images with text, endeavour to provide the alt-text
If the image is a crosspost from an OP, Provide the source.
Absolutely no right-wing jokes. This includes "Anarcho"-Capitalist concepts.
Absolutely no redfash jokes. This includes anything that props up the capitalist ruling classes pretending to be communists.
No bigotry whatsoever. See instance rules.
This is an anarchist comm. You don't have to be an anarchist to post, but you should at least understand what anarchism actually is. We're not here to educate you.
No shaming people for being anti-electoralism. This should be obvious from the above point but apparently we need to make it obvious to the turbolibs who can't control themselves. You have the rest of lemmy to moralize.
Join the matrix room for some real-time discussion.
ID: WookieeMark @EvilGenXer posted:
"OK so look, Capitalism is right wing.
Period.
If you are pro-capitalism, you are Right Wing.
There is no pro-capitalist Left. That's a polite fiction in the US that no one can afford any longer as the ecosystem is actually collapsing around us."
“Perfect being the enemy of good [enough]” is also rhe argument republicans use against any liberal/social policy. If there are any flaws, we should do nothing at all.
Liberals also love saying that to justify "vote blue no matter who." But what have the Democrats been doing differently other than giving breadcrumb policies?
Sorry liberals, but the truth is that you guys also benefit from the status quo at the expense of the working class but don't want to admit. Senior Democrat leader, Nancy Pelosi is, after all, the biggest player in the stock market earning millions. If America has a multiplural party system and could articulate their positions better, the Democrats are centre right and would be very much described as close to centrist French president's Macron neoliberal ideology. Socially liberal but economically conservative, and he's one of the most unpopular president in French politics. He dislikes the far right, and yet does nothing policy-wise to alleviate the working and middle class concerns which only slowly nudges them to the far right. Doing nothing economically and telling people to support the status quo is tacit support for the far right despite hating them on the outset.
I don't think you'll find anyone here defending Nancy Pelosi, she can go against the wall with the rest of them.
I'm not even sure the liberals you're talking to are on lemmy honestly.
There are many on Lemmy, but they tend to be down voting instead responding when you criticise the thirty years of neoliberal policies of outsourcing and de-investment of public services is what made the working class, especially those in rust belt and others, embrace the far right. Instead, liberals blame people as being plainly stupid. Even if some respond, they shy away when you mention that jobs outsourcing without offering alternatives, and lack of affordable healthcare and houses are what made the poor vote for Trump. American liberals are remarkably similar in behaviour with those in Europe. They wonder why the far right is gaining ground, but are tone deaf even from experts who say the lack of jobs and affordable housing is what makes populist on the rise. The most obvious reason is that liberals don't want affordable housing because it brings down the value of their property. In California, it's the same NIMBYism and so is here in Europe. It's the socially progressive and yet economically conservative (this is what liberalism in the classical sense means) property owners do this as much as the right does. The former express sympathy for the homeless, but when there is proposal to build affordable housing they would object. Liberals just don't want to admit it.
Look at you. Just throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks? Why don’t you just go ahead and mention the Clinton's while you’re at it. Someone who has retired from politics and someone who isn’t even a US politician is your argument? “Butwhatabout! Look! Over there! Someone else did something!” If you’re going to span the globe for comparisons I’m sure I could find plenty of right wing theo- or other fascists who have destroyed countries.
Well the retired Democratic leaders still benefit from it. "You scratch my back I scratch yours." Hillary Clinton got the DNC nomination in 2016 primaries because she paid off DNC's debt; even though Bernie Sanders is the more popular candidate. The Clintons are out of politics but they are comfortable retired from the money they made while the country burns.
Speaking of Clintons, it is under Bill Clinton who started the outsourcing. Hence, why Trump ran on the platform of re-shoring jobs and is one of the main reasons he won out of many (but his approach to it is very brash by imposing tariffs in order to coerce American companies to re-shore). Neoliberal policies did not offer any alternatives and cast aside their concerns, which made the working class welcome the embrace of a demagogue. Ancient philosophers have made the same observations before about what makes demagogues popular but people never learn.
Anyhow since you are asking if there are any current liberals in politics who can be blamed, why not ask the current DNC on why they haven't picked Alexandria Ocasio Cortez for the Oversight committee? That's right, they don't want a progressive so as not to ruffle the feathers of the same oligarchs who support Republicans.
Stop. Get help. Defining things to make sure your position is the right one and the only correct position is the one that does no harm to anyone and is in no way evil or exploitive. STOP.
It is not useful, it is not constructive. While you're lecturing about who has the correct beliefs to have a place at your little left wing table, a billionaire has gotten more wealth and power. Find common ground with people who work, and who believe in working to make the world better for society. It is more important to do something beneficial than to make sure you can't be logically judged poorly.
Go help someone. Go work to improve your community. Go find common ground with the people who are doing the same.
Hey, liberal:
The fascists deliberately redefine what words mean to their idiot wage slaves as a method of stiffling dissent and controlling narratives.
The end goal is the ability to slap labels like "communist" on simpering liberals like Biden and Harris, so the brainless base knows they're free to inflict violence on them and their supporters.
Fuck off with your insistence that actual leftists play along with it instead of educating people.
It's for your good too.
Lol, this would hit better if A. It didn't start with some kind of weird name calling rather than any attempt to communicate respectfully. B. It weren't defending an objectively bad take around defining the completely relative and subjective term of "left" and "right" rather than a word like capitalism and communism and C if the liberal label were even accurate, I am a democratic socialist, it doesn't matter though, it doesn't change the validity of any part of this argument, not is it a more important fact about me than my class, the fruits of my labor, and most importantly my ernest desire to do good in my community.
Hear hear.
This is exactly the right thing to say here. Bravo.
Capitalism is the fundamental belief in private ownership. That I can own a factory, a store, a restaurant, and therefore be entitled to the profits produced from them. Modern capitalism is inextricable from consumerism, from business, and from stock exchanges.
Capitalism is any resource or good harvested or produced that is not shared by all who produced it. Capitalism is the idea that some labor is more deserving of the fruits of production than other kinds of labor. Capitalism is violence against the working class. Capitalism is the means by which a new ruling class was created over the past 200 years that presently controls the entire world while utterly ravaging our environment and wasting more resources than we literally every could have thought possible.
You are NOT a leftist if you support capitalism. You are ANTI-WORKER if you support capitalism. If you want to support workers and if you want to support progressive leftist causes, ORGANIZE. Join your local anarchist community. Agitate, push leftist politics. Start mutual aid networks for vulnerable workers in your community. Support unionization efforts. Support striking workers. Participate in civil disobedience. Show up at protests. Organize demonstrations.
The world has never been changed by accepting the crumbs they threw at our feet. It was changed by those who refused to bow their heads. By the communities who resisted oppression and fought for their fellow workers. By people who fought for us all to live better lives. Count yourself among them.
Meh, I don't necessarily disagree with the sentiment, but don't like black/white dichotomies (though I'm personally anti-capitalist). Unions most definitely care the businesses they work for make money. The more money the better, since union members can bargain for more. They have incentive to be pro-consumerist and to protect their business/industry. Even at the expense of others.
Unions are workers coming together to advocate for their rights. I don't know what you mean by the unions having an incentive for companies to make more money. Companies making more money does not translate to increased wages for workers. It translates to increased profits for shareholders. And unions do not own companies. Unions are a form of collective action against the capitalist ruling class. Workers who are a part of unions are making commitments to each other to fight for their rights as a group. They have nothing to do with what capitalist ceos or shareholders do. Not unless a union has been corrupted and is being manipulated by ruling class forces.
I am not a syndicalist, but I do think that the widespread unionization of workers is objectively a good thing. Tenants unionizing against their landlords, workers unionizing against their bosses, the working class as a whole unionizing against the ruling class.
I also push back against this notion of capitalism not being a hard and fast specific ideology that takes specific actions at the expense of workers. It is the truth. In countries that are more socialized but still maintain capitalist systems, less capitalism is still an improvement for the material conditions of workers. Private ownership of the means of production is still problematic even if there are more regulations from local government. Those things could still be collectivized and made worker owned so that everyone can have the fruits of production. And so that everyone has the same political power as everyone else.
Keynesian economic policy resulted in unprecedented prosperity for 60 years. It ended by Reagan's trickle down supply side economics.
Seems now there's a false dichotomy between supply side economics (which is an obvious failure) and communism (which was an obvious failure).
Crazy idea, maybe we should consider using economic policy that was proven to work? I guess that makes me hated by both the "right" and the "leftists" (two peas in a pod). So where would that put me in your made up political spectrum?
communism (which was an obvious failure)
Compare any communist country to a capitalist country at the same level of technological development and the communist country comes out ahead in wealth and happiness. Communism only seems like a failure because US and EU propaganda does a trick where they compare isolated (often literally blockaded) Communist countries to the wealthiest empires on the planet and say "look how much more money we have! Our system must be better!"
The trouble with Keynesian economics is that it created the conditions for Reagan's neoliberal revolution to occur, and any country that tries to recreate that economic system will fall into the exact same trap that America did, because the fundamental underlying problem in Capitalism is the ownership of Capital. Capitalists accumulate wealth, and they use that accumulated wealth to capture the system that is supposed to keep them in check, and they sabotage that system for their own profits, and they will do that every single time.
I remember reading somewhere that one of the main reasons for the USSR's failure was that they immediately shot down any idea that had the tiniest bit in it that could be interpreted as capitalism-related. Even a suggestion that's 100% communist values but was using some capitalist-sounding terminology would get immediately disqualified and place it's supporters in hot water.
I think the USA - even if not as extremely - is doing the same thing but from the other side.
With such a mindset, "using economic policy that was proven to work" is outright impossible. Any policy that works (and not just in economy) will need to address the problems raised by all major ideologies - because even if an ideology got the solution completely wrong, at the very least that problems it was born from are real. Refusing to acknowledge these problems on ideological basis will not make them go away.
You're getting close, but you're still not quite there. The solution isn't to address all of the concerns of all the ideologies since that would be impossible. The solution is for people to realize that ideology is the problem. When we get to the point where we realize capitalism and socialism are tools that are good for different purposes we could have a healthy economy and we'd all be prosperous. But as long as we continue think in ideological terms which centers around creating false dichotomies that prevent us from using the best tool for the job we're always going to be living in a failed economy.
We'd be no better off living in a failed socialist economy run by the ideology obsessed than we are living in a capitalist economy run by the ideology obsessed.
In the end politics is always tribal, ideologies are just rationalizations made by a tribe to make them feel like they're the rational ones while the other tribes aren't. It's all bullshit.
What is Finland though? Social democracy seems pretty good but still fits in with capitalism as far as I can tell
Neoliberal, just like the rest of the "socialist" nordics (E: having socialised aspects to the state and or economy, or even being a "social democracy" does not socialism make), which are all on the exact same trajectory as the rest of us, only a few years behind.
Since people don't work for free and some people have more money than others, finland is obviously an extreme right wing faschist oligarchy where people live in miserable slavery and needs the proletariat red army invasion like right now. Wouldn't even be hard for a landlocked nation. The capital Reykvetsvhik would fall in minutes thanks to the liberated people welcoming their saviors.
Yes im American, how could you tell? /S
Finland still pollutes the world at unsustainable levels, exploits the global south for raw materials and cheap labour, and is on a downwards trend to fascism like all of Europe. Liberal democracy only has one conclusion, and it's fascism.
Whatever social safety nets and programs they have will be dismantled as Western capitalism devours itself. As is happening all around Europe
I think it’s important to clarify that markets and the use of money are not exclusive to capitalism. Under capitalism, the point of markets is to accumulate money absent of any actual project or goal, and money is the way the capital holding class keeps score. In other systems, the point of markets is to connect people who have some item with people who need or want that item and money is the means of exchange. Markets are fine for distributing excess materials and labor, once people’s basic needs are met.
Left and right are completely arbitrary semantic categories so you can define them however you like, as long as it has a clear and internally consistent definition.
I’ve even seen ancaps who have almost the same definition as I do but completely reversed which is pretty funny but also gives me a headache.
Politically speaking, I don't believe there's such thing as "right" or "left" except in the relative sense. Even then it's questionable.
Edit: I'm really curious about what people downvoting think it fundamentally means for there to be an absolute political "center" from which there is an objective "right" wing and an objective "left" wing. Furthermore, I'd like to know what advantages this model has that makes you value it so much.
I agree, politics aren't a line where some are in the right, some in the left and the center is some kind of mythological beast (if they are we are screwed, but they aren't)
Politics are complicated, politicians are simple. Capitalism isn't an ideology it's an economic system, it's as good or as bad as the mechanisms put in place to govern/control/rule it. It's supposed to be free but it can't be because no one can't trust corporations, it's also not supposed to be controlled by the State but when they inject money in it that's what they are doing.
Capitalism can work in any kind of environment, and fail too.
Personally I believe democracy is failing, technofeudalism is coming in hard for it. In my country we replaced nobility with politicians and they are the caste, the president is the King, if you defy the party stand you are kicked out, they claim to be socialdemocrats but all the social aspects are worse than 5, 10, and 20 years ago and although keynesian economics plays a part on the reason I believe it's democracy's fault.
Capitalism isn't an ideology it's an economic system
Well, it's both. All economic systems are ideologies with specific values and concerns.
it's as good or as bad as the mechanisms put in place to govern/control/rule it
This implies that economic systems can't be good or bad in themselves. But every implementation of capitalism (or any other economic system) is going to reflect that system's values, and those values can be judged to be good or bad. So I think it's reasonable to label different economic systems as "good" or "bad", so long as you precisely define the system and its values before judging it.
This is very stupid.
Not all capitalism is completely unrestrained.
I do love when idiots insist the world must conform to their own internal definition.
The problem is the idiots never realize you're talking about them when you say this.
No lies detected.
To people using this as a reason to not vote: It's going to be capitalism. You have a choice between free for all capitalism with fuck the environment and fuck the workers (GOP), or regulated capitalism with environmental protections and workers rights (Dems). If you don't vote or vote third party, you just voted for the free for all one.
What fucking dem party are you talking about?
"Pro capitalism" and harm reduction are not the same thing. Some form of capitalist-like economics will exist until we achieve post scarcity economics. The best we can do until then is work towards that end, while also working to minimize the harms imposed by material and labor scarcity.
This is just another stupid purity test by people who care more about their own righteousness than actual action. You can call my praxis whatever you want. I don't care.
We've been post-scarcity on a global scale for decades if you count the essentials. We've been producing all the food that's needed to feed the world, and that's with only 2% of people working on agriculture in the developed world.
The reason for housing shortages is also due to policy, not because we somehow don't have the resources and labour to build enough.
Capitalism is not a market. Markets have exactly nothing to do with capitalism.
Capitalism is not only not needed before total post scarcity, it prevents it as capitalism requires artificial scarcity to function.
News flash: most democrats are very much right-wing.
Being right-wing isn't even a bad thing. Problems occur if you go too far to the right.
I know its hard to believe these days but nuanced beliefs exist.
Lmao. "Capitalism is right wing. Period."
Braindead.
Lmao. "Braindead."
Braindead.
Your eloquent way with words convinced me op is wrong goddamnit. /s in case your braindead ass can't understand sarcasm
Everyone is so eager to upheld their extreme positions, that the real work, that need to happen in the middle, by people that work together and are willing to compromise, never gets done.
To be honest, I stopped paying attention years ago. The negative effects of getting pissed by all that stupid shit going on far outweighs the positive change I am able to create. I can't even be sure that my point of view is right. Why even bother...
Ignorance sure can be bliss.
Ignorance sure can be bliss.
If you're privileged enough, meanwhile your ignorance and apathy impact those of us who aren't so lucky.
As for
the real work, that need to happen in the middle, by people that work together and are willing to compromise, never gets done.
I wonder why that might be..
If you could just understand that creating the narrative of you against them doesn't help at all. Don't you see how you are pushing everyone away that doesn't think the same as you?
Now I am the asshole too. What a joke...