Don’t make me laugh, it’s not socialism! it’s bro-ism, 'cause, I got you bro. If everyone got their bros and we all bros then we can do absolutely anything bro!
Unfortunately, socialism discourages and eventually kills off broism.
You don’t get, socialism doesn’t exist, it can’t hurt you, it was just a boogeyman created by the billionaires so you’ll go back to the wagie cage. There’s only bro-ism
I live in a post soviet country so I experience the impact of socialism to this very day. It’s appalling.
You experience our destruction, we stole the world from you are we’re coming for seconds. Let us in more, let us finacialze you, your dreams will have advertising in them, we will strip whatever is left of your public transporter for copper, we will put your nana in the streets after converting her house into empty condos and stealing her pension. This is what happens when you let to imperial powers come in and loot your dwellings.
😨 …
Fuck pensions btw, pensions are communist shit and should be abolished.
“if we all work together regardless of class” collaborationism is bourgeoisie propaganda and is not tolerated here, Comrade. Please face the wall.
america is a classless society because even the upper class is still powerless in the face of the corporatocracy
Genuinely a “what reading no theory does to someone” bit.
You contradict yourself by saying “classless” and then “upper class.” Additionally, the “corporatocracy” is just Capitalism functioning.
If you want to get started with theory, I keep an introductory Marxist-Leninist reading list you can check out if you want.
democratic centralism is when all the tankies simultaneously miss a joke
I don’t really see the humor in what you said, though.
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“All classes working together” as a counterpoint to socialism? Where have I heard of this before…?
It’s because it’s impossible. The classes will always be in conflict until the communism is reached, so it depends which class is in power.
Lisa’s only mistake was saying yes.
Just do every single thing in socialism, but change every single word. Call it Americanism.
Proletariat? No, just “worker”.
Bourgeoisie? No, just “elites”.
Capital? “Stuff”. Like how in baseball they say a pitcher’s got good “stuff”. Use your human stuff.
Class Consciousness - “common sense”.
Dialectical Materialism - Idk I’m still trying to figure out wtf that one means.
You people have good luck with this? I haven’t. I don’t find that you can just “trick” people into believing in socialism by changing the words. The moment if becomes obvious you’re criticizing free markets and the rich and advocating public ownership they will catch on.
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Dialectical Materialism
How about “a tug-of-war between owners and workers for jobs, resources, and technology”
Three examples:
Factory Work and Labour Unions
Early 20th-century factory jobs involved long hours, low pay, and unsafe working conditions. When workers tried to unionize, factory owners often resisted, viewing unionized labour as a threat to profits. This created a direct conflict: owners wanting to keep costs low vs. workers demanding better wages and safer workplaces.
Automation in Warehouses
Warehouses (e.g., Amazon fulfilment centres) are increasingly adopting robotic systems to speed up sorting and packing. Employees might feel pressure to meet higher performance metrics set by a partly automated workflow, while also fearing that further automation will reduce human jobs. Here, the “tug-of-war” is between technological efficiency (and profit) vs. workers’ job security and well-being.
Tech Industry Outsourcing
Companies sometimes outsource tech-related jobs to countries with cheaper labour costs. This lowers expenses for the company but can lead to local layoffs and economic hardship for employees in higher-wage regions. The conflict revolves around the benefit of increased profit margins for the company vs. the material needs of domestic workers who lose their livelihoods.
Too long, I’d suggest “boss-busting”, after “rentbusting”. Or “bosses keeping workers hostage”, maybe?
What about anarchism?
Anarchism is preferable to Capitalism, of course, but as a former Anarchist I find Marxist theory and historical practice to be more evidently effective.
Wait, isn’t socialism all about class solidarity? “Working together regardless of class to fight a common enemy” sounds more like nationalism where at the end the upper class profits most. Unless we are talking about a classless society but that’s not “regardless of class” but “with no class distinction” which sounds very similar when I think about it.
Socialism is about making the working class the ruling class. It is explicitly about oppressing the bourgeois class, which is itself the current ruling class oppressing the working (and other) classes. The idea is to take the means of production and run it for ourselves rather than the profit of a class defined by merely owning factories, buildings, tools, etc.
The cartoon may be confused.
What if was socialism, but for a nation? What could go wrong? /s
Meanwhile, socialist Norway’s wealth fund could maintain everyone’s standard of living for 400 years if they stopped working right now.
Norway funds its safety nets off of super-exploitation of the Global South, ie Imperialism. It is firmly Capitalist and in no way Socialist, private property is the primary driving aspect of Norway’s economy, the higher standard of living comes from acting as a Landlord in country form.
Whenever people say this they neglect to point out that all the money came from selling oil.
They forget to point out that only dumbfuck yanks would consider Norway to be socialist, so the comment, in a meme community, is misleading from the get-go.
Norway is a capitalist country. It us an OECD hanger-on to the US-led imperialist world order.
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I upvoted for the first sentence, don’t know enough about Norway to have a critical opinion on the second one. It does sound like imperialism though. When they don’t any more resources to exploit nationaly, capitalists must go elsewhere
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In a democratic state, things like universal healthcare are also called “socialized medicine” because it is an example of the people owning the means of production in that particular industry.
That’s why most countries are what we call “mixed economies”, that mix elements of capitalism and socialism.
Norway mixes in a higher ratio of socialism to capitalism than most countries. But they don’t export any more of capitalism’s issues to the third world than other countries. It’s something to emulate, not discredit.
Social programs are not Socialism. Every economy is a mix of private and public property, that doesn’t make it mixed Capitalism and Socialism. Capitalism and Socialism are descriptors for economies at large, as you cannot remove entities from the context they are in. A worker cooperative is not a “socialist” part of a Capitalist economy, because it exists in the broader Capitalist machine and must use its tools.
What determines if a system is Capitalist or Socialist is if private property or public property is the primary aspect of a society, and which class has control. In Norway, Private Property is dominant, so Social Programs are used to support that.
But in another comment you referred to the USSR as “the world’s first socialist state”, yet it existed in the broader global capitalist machine. You have contradicted yourself. Which is it? Can socialism exist in a world with capitalism, or not?
Socialism can, Communism cannot. Socialism is a gradual process towards Communism. A worker cooperative does not endanger the Capitalist system nor move agaInst it, but Socialist countries and economies working towards Communism do.
Communism, however, must be global.
1·5 months agoThat’s why most countries are what we call “mixed economies”, that mix elements of capitalism and socialism.
No. They are capitalist.
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I’m not sure how that link is supposed to refute anything? It says basically what the comment above says without using the phrase “mixed economies”.
If you meant the power structure and public/private balance is heavily capitalist for Nordic countries then you’d probably want to post something else supporting that statement.
Hey, I’m the author of that post! I don’t see how my post says the same thing at all, it very much talks about which aspect, private or public, has power in society is what determines the nature of its economy.
By that logic, socialism cannot exist until the entire planet is socialist.
Close. Communism cannot exist until the entire planet is Socialist, but Socialism can be determined at a country level.
This seems needlessly arbitrary and reductive. Socialism exists all around us, it isn’t defined by a country’s borders.
I don’t know what this means, Socialism is not a gas.
No. “Socialized medicine” is not “people owning the means of production”
It is in a democratic state. Who else do you think owns it?
How is democracy related to ownership?
A democracy is a state in which the government is owned and controlled by the people.
No wtf. Democracy is state that holds elections. Wtf is “owned and controlled by the people”? How are people supposed to control the government? The government is controlled by govt officials. Common people don’t control shit. How can a government be owned by people? Is government even a property that can be owned? That doesn’t make any sense.
So not Norway, or any Western capitalist pseudo democracy.
Pretty sure no one with universal healthcare calls it “socialized medicine”. That’s just a buzzword Americans use to scare each other.
It’s not a means of producing anything other than health. Health is seen as a human right and it makes sense even in most western capitalist countries for it to be extended to everyone.
I’m Canadian. It’s what the founder of our healthcare system, Tommy Douglas, called it.
And yeah, it’s the people owning the means of producing health. Socialist healthcare.
Americans scare people with these references to brutal authoritarian dictatorships that call themselves “socialist” but the real cause of all these problems is that they weren’t democratic, not that they socialized industries.
Anyways, maybe it’s just my autism making me literal as fuck, but I think you guys need to clear that up. This is what the people owning the means of production looks like. It’s always going to be adjacent to capitalism, whether it’s a socialist industry in a capitalist country, or a socialist country in a capitalist world.
It is not Socialist. Social programs are not Socialism. Every economy is a mix of private and public property, that doesn’t make it mixed Capitalism and Socialism. Capitalism and Socialism are descriptors for economies at large, as you cannot remove entities from the context they are in. A worker cooperative is not a “socialist” part of a Capitalist economy, because it exists in the broader Capitalist machine and must use its tools.
What determines if a system is Capitalist or Socialist is if private property or public property is the primary aspect of a society, and which class has control. In Canada, Private Property is dominant, so Social Programs are used to support that.
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Hmmm, interesting. But what if we gave it all to one guy?
Its so fucking dumb, you wouldn’t believe it! If he isn’t retarded and have an Elon Musk moment then he would and this is making me genuinely sick contribute to society, theoretically making a net plus to society
Socialism in america only exists for corporations. “Hey bankers! Screwed up again? Here’s more money to play with.”
I appreciate the sentiment, but the public sector supporting the private is not “socialism.” Socialism describes an economic formation where public ownership is primary in an economy, ie where large firms are publicly owned and controlled. Segments of an economy cannot be Socialist or Capitalist just like an arm cannot be a human, it can only exist in the context of the whole.
Socialism, in reality, refers to a broader economy where public ownership is primary, while Capitalism refers to a broader economy where private ownership is primary. All Socialist societies have had public and private Capital, and all Capitalist societies have had public and private Capital, it matters most which one has the power.
I recommend reading my post here on common problems people run into when determining Modes of Production.
Original commenter: jokes in class solidarity
Response: « I appreciate the attempt, but what you said was wrong on sooooo many levels, in this essay, I will… »
There is legitimately a problem with miscommunication on the Left, getting on the same page helps information flow more effectively.
I understand what you mean, really. I just think the methods of circulating that info can sometimes seem or feel ecclesiastic.
In my opinion, context and rhetoric matter. That’s why I joked a little. But I don’t mean no harm, truly. And I appreciate what you do.
That’s of course a fair point, and I did laugh, I am extremely guilty of “essay posting” and try to minimize that when I can while still getting my point across. And I appreciate the compliments, too! Right now there is a big influx of new users from Reddit, so I’m being more of a stickler than usual as in my experience this legitimately does have an impact on the broader stances on Lemmy, given its size.
That’s state welfare/insurance, not socialism.
A rose is a rose is a rose. I get your point though. Terms must be defined specifically in order to hold academic discussions. Welfare is called socialism by some.
The USA actually spends several billions, if not trillions on Medicare (meant for the old) and Medicaid (meant for the poor, and single mothers, and young children) combined.
In 2023, the federal government spent about $848.2 billion on Medicare, accounting for 14% of total federal spending.
source - and that’s just Medicare.
I agree with you that it’s weird that corporations get a bailout, instead of selling the company to competitors, but no need to act like the USA doesn’t spend a TON of money on its citizens, keeping their head above water :)
“All classes working together” is called capitalism
Yep, this is the concept behind “Social Democracy.” Class collaborationism is a myth used to justify the perpetuation of Capitalism, not ending it.
