this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2023
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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (9 children)

This has nothing to do with any of that.

The best results (for certain degrees of "good", see the "Fuck Cars" movement, #MoreThanJustBikes and Racist by Design for its downsides) from any socialist experiment to ever be undertaken was, of all things, the US Interstate Highway Act. Yes, the highways that serve as the beacon of Capitalist freedom are also socialist; they're funded by taxes.

Now, Communism is another beast entirely. In a Communist society, 100% of the economy is planned and funded by taxes; this quite simply puts too much power in too few hands, much like America's current corporate oligarchy but as a nationalized monopoly. Authoritarians adore a concentration of power and will consume and violate powerful positions if given the option.

A government railroad is not communism. A public school system is not communism.

The reason to fear communism is because it is designed by extremely authoritarian individuals, not because it runs off your tax dollars.

Socialism is an aquarium within which the communist fish (communist nations) are dead but the capitalist fish (corporations) are the tiny fish feeding of the remaining government fish (the modern globalized nations of the world, regardless of stability, technology or form of government), which vary in health and size but are generally bigger and healthier than the capitalist fish... Except day by day the government fish get thinner and weaker and certain capitalist fish get fat off the blood they leech. The blood is tax-funded resources like health care, and the capitalist fish which aren't growing fat off the government fish are the charities, unions and the average persons who collect food for and pick parasites off the skin of the government fish.

Obviously that's abstract, but the relationship is basically that. You are already socialist, you just don't realise socialism can exist beyond the trap that is planned economics.

[–] [email protected] 58 points 1 year ago (31 children)

So many words to tell us you’ve read zero theory…

Also, how on earth is “Fuck cars” a successful “socialist experiment”? The biggest action anyone associated with that movement is flatten a few tires from SUV’s

[–] [email protected] 57 points 1 year ago

socialism is when I listen to NPR. capitalism is when I go to my parent's house for Christmas. communism is when I get to program the radio presets in mom's Honda Odyssey. social democracy is when I go to Starbucks. liberalism is when I look through the LL Bean catalogue.

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[–] [email protected] 54 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Highways aren't socialist. The government building infastructure is not what socialism is.

You are politically illiterate, yet very confindent. You don't know what socialism or communism is and yet you pretend to have this all fugured out.

Did it ever occur to read any of the many books or pamphlets written by actual socialist thinkers that explain what we believe?

[–] [email protected] 45 points 1 year ago (19 children)

Yes, the highways that serve as the beacon of Capitalist freedom are also socialist; they're funded by taxes.

Socialism is when the government does stuff

Socialism is an aquarium within which the communist fish (communist nations) are dead but the capitalist fish (corporations) are the tiny fish feeding of the remaining government fish (the modern globalized nations of the world, regardless of stability, technology or form of government), which vary in health and size but are generally bigger and healthier than the capitalist fish... Except day by day the government fish get thinner and weaker and certain corporate fish get fat off the blood they leech. The blood is tax-funded resources like health care, and the capitalist fish which aren't growing fat off the government fish are the charities, unions and the average persons who collect food for and pick parasites off the skin of the government fish.

jesse-wtf Jesse, what the fuck are you talking about?

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I acknowledge that 'socialism' is a vague term with dozens of definitions, but this strange strictly-American idea that publicly-funded infrastructure is socialist isn't a useful definition, nor a common one. It will really just confuse people.

Historically and presently, socialism is a labour movement which, despite all the variations, had the common goal of the workers controlling their means of production, rather than the owning class. Almost every political dictionary and socialist will back that up, and also Wikipedia (for something we can check right now). It's not about whether something is private or public.

Paying taxes and voting in a (systematically broken, throroughly corrupted) government representative democracy isn't really accomplishing this. We are arill beholden to the owning capitalist class. How I spend my working hours is still governed by a bourgeois board of directors, I don't own the tools I use, I don't have meaningful power to make democratic decisions about my work or my society governance.

You are correct that socialism exists (present tense! see: Zapatistas) without planned economies. But if you want to see what socialist modes of organisation look like within capitalism, it would be a workers cooperative.

Anti-car movements are not socialist nor socialism. They are good and pro-society, but are completely incidental to the socialist movement.

Collectively-funded operations like roads, police and our military airstriking hospitals aren't socialist nor socialism. We have no control over the use of our money and labour; even if voting was democratic power in practice, a campaigning platform isn't a guarantee of policy, they can completely ignore that once elected. And also, no matter who you vote for, your tax money will still go towards anti-socialism!

As for the parts about communism, well, no. The definition you've invented wildly conflicts with both theory and historical events. You're gonna have to start from scratch on that one, even just looking at the Wiki article will provide a much better base. Very popular ideologies like anarcho-communism just completely contradict all that.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago

Is this a bit? Or are you really doing the "Socialism is when the government does things, and the more things it does the more socialist it is." Bit.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago

You are unironically suggesting an act that forced more car infrastructure is the greatest socialist experiment ever undertaken?

are you fucking INSANE?

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

A good example of western socialism is the "Fuck Cars" movement

A good example of western socialism is the "Fuck Cars" movement

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Don't bother friend. I know from long experience that they will insist on defining the terms of the discussion on their own, as if some whack job fringe theorist is somehow to be accorded the final word in adjudicating our use of language.

The problem therein is of course that when your opponent gets to set the parameters of meaning and discussion, you aren't really exchanging ideas on an intellectually even playing field.

I've pointed this out many times over the years, but it still hasn't taken with your true believers/idiots.

Long story short; don't waste your time; you aren't arguing with good-faith interlocutors.

They are playing semantic games and have no interest in honest discussion.

To them. You and I are simply uneducated morons who have yet to receive the true message.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Noted fringe theorists no one ever heard of Marx and Engels.

I'm sure people have tried to define basic terms like socialism to you because you're politically illiterate. Thats not a scam to "define terms" to win an arguement it is a literal defining of terms, of actual words, that you don't know the meaning of

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago

Don't bother friend. I know from long experience that they will insist on defining the terms of the discussion on their own, as if some whack job fringe theorist is somehow to be accorded the final word in adjudicating our use of language.

Ahh right, why should adherents of an ideology have any say in how that ideology is defined and how terminology specific to that ideology means?

The problem therein is of course that when your opponent gets to set the parameters of meaning and discussion

Your opponents shouldn't get to set the definitions, but the opponents of socialism should get to set the definition of socialism. Makes sense.

you aren't really exchanging ideas on an intellectually even playing field.

Correct, thought the intellectual disparity clearly cleaves in the opposite direction to what you believe.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

as if some whack job fringe theorist

Fringe figures like Marx