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 !anarchism@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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.
And we literally had Democratic Socialism under FDR in the 30's and 40's that fixed many of the problems of capitalism, until Reagan broke it all down in the 80s
Boomers experience was literally growing up in the solution, yet they fucked it up for everyone.
That wasn't democratic socialism, it was social democracy. Seems like a small difference but the impact is huge. Democratic socialism eschews capitalism entirely while social democracy preserves capitalism with heavy regulation. Boomers didn't grow up in the solution, they grew up with the symptoms of the disease being treated, but it was no cure. Because the underlying causes of inequality were not addressed they eventually overcame and reversed the regulations designed to keep them in check. We should learn from the mistake and go beyond half measures next time.
I mean the same thing.
The main benefit of capitalism is the free market that it establishes. But it requires regulation to prevent control being centralizes by private oligarchs.
Communism has the same problem of central control of capital and markets, but in their case, its state connected oligarchs.
If we could have the free market without the incentives to centralize wealth and control, I would be very interested.
The main benefit of capitalism is the free market that it establishes. But it requires regulation to prevent control being centralizes by private oligarchs.
The "free market" and regulations are mutually exclusive. You can't have both, unless you consider a "free market" to exist on a spectrum between no regulations and maximum regulations and draw an arbitrary line between free and not free.
Communism has the same problem of central control of capital and markets, but in their case, its state connected oligarchs.
This is an issue with vanguardist marxism-leninism, not necessarily communism. I understand that this is the ideological strain of communism that people - especially Americans - are most familiar with for historical reasons, but there are many other strains that oppose centralized command and control economies, preferring more federal and democratic or consensus-based systems. In fact, the Bolsheviks initially rallied around the slogan "all power to the soviets." Soviets are workers' councils - the primary decision-making bodies and drivers of the Russian revolution - and they operated independently, freely associating with one another by choice. It was only after the revolution succeeded in siezing the state that the soviets were dissolved and replaced with "one big soviet" which was loyal to Lenin. It was briefly still somewhat decentralized and democratic (at least relative to what came before) until Stalin came to power and rapidly centralized the economic and political structure of the soviet union.
If we could have the free market without the incentives to centralize wealth and control, I would be very interested.
What exactly do you mean by "free market?" If we go by the conventional definition of a free market (capitalism without any regulations or checks of any kind) then what you're asking for here is fundamentally impossible. The economic system of capitalism is one that creates the incentives to centralize wealth and control by allowing - and then enforcing - private ownership of the means of production.
I think it important to distinguish between a free trade market, which should be largely unregulated. People should be able to buy and sell goods on an open market.
Capital markets, or ownership and control of wealth should be heavily regulated.
Derivatives should be outlawed and stock trading should have minimum asset holding periods of 24 months or more. Return it to a platform for making investments and raising capital, rather than a gambling and market manipulation platform.
I would also change the law that the duties of publicly traded company's board and executives is not profit, but the long term sustainability of the organization.
communism is stateless and classless and moneyless
In theory, in practice, it was a tool for state control over ownership.
Did we?
How do you think we ended up with a weekend, overtime and the right for woman to vote?
The greatest generation striked, fought and died against the capitalist billionaire oligarchs and monarchs to get it.
...women got the right to vote in Australia over 20 years before my GG grandma was born....
You're assuming everyone here is American to the point of using an acronym like FDR. I know who you're talking about but still
edit: the person who you're responding to is Australian based on their instance and I'm Canadian
Valid point, thank you.
With many things, most of the western world tends to track the trends that the US is doing. (Something I hope Trump cures people from)
I am South African myself, so I should be clear in my language.
Did we?
The person they're responding to should choose their words more carefully, then.
I like the pre-internet days when everyone just blamed their dad, not all dads.
If democratic socialism had fixed the problems with capitalism, then capitalism wouldn't have won.
Better? Sure. The solution? Sadly it wasn't.
It only started breaking down when people stopped maintaining it. People grew complacent, but not the 1% they were busy, motivated and ruthless.
Nothing in human society lasts, unless you maintain it. Even capitalism.
What do you think might be a solution to the maintenance problem?
Worst part is that we do not even know if we hit the point of no return :(
Capitalism is the best system we've got because capitalism killed every other system, not due to any virtue on capitalism's part.
I'd be down to try just about anything else at this point.
This serial killer is the best doctor weve got, because hes wearing an eye necklace of every other hospital employee.
At first blush that sounds insane, but reality these days is giving The Onion a run for its money.
He may not have ever been to medical school (except during the 05 massacres) but he can pass for a nearly competent orthopedjc surgeon!
Killing other systems is a form of "virtue" though, because as idealistic as anyone wants to be, whatever system we make will exist in a competitive ecosystem. Want to make a functional communism? Well, it has to be able to survive assaults from capitalism. A system cannot just be "moral" or "good", it also has to be strong or ruthless enough to protect it's existence from the many forces which will seek to destroy it.
That's why I advocate for capitalism with significant socialist policies, strong safeguards, and extreme restrictions. Tax the rich and give everyone UBI. Make the minimum wage a multiple of the inflation factor (and fix "inflation" to actually measure how the cost of everything has increased over time).
Knowing lemmy, most people will stop reading six words into this comment.
I would prefer a better system from the ground up. I'm willing to compromise for making the existing system not suck (which would actually take more work but I think will be easier to sell to the general populace).
Of course, this is the overly idealistic side of me, the part that still believes that playing by the rules is the correct thing to do. I'm more likely to believe the anarchists these days. It's amazing how far left I've moved In the past handful of years, I used to think of myself as liberal (actual liberal not what most people who call themselves liberal are).
At this point I'm willing to try just about anything else, and that includes burning it all down and starting over.
Yes, capitalism has been forced on us at gunpoint, literally (as in Graeber and Wengrow, The Dawn of Everything)
Whoever says this has not played a fallout game (or watched the show). At some point the only way for evil companies to continue to chase infinite growth is to create the situations that make them rich. This works out terribly when it applies to weapons, bunkers, pharmaceuticals, even the news is incentivised to see the world burn.
It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism
Maybe if you don't know what capitalism is. A lot of people seem to confuse capitalism with markets. It's had to imagine a world without markets, but capitalism is just an ownership system. It's easy to imagine a world made up of cooperatives. It's basically the same world we already have but everyone gets paid more and there are no shareholders.
There's nothing stopping people from working for or with cooperatives or not working for or with corporations. It's just that most people can't be bothered to care. If everyone stopped buying from corporations, corporations would die pretty quick. If everyone bought from cooperatives, they'd be a lot more stable. We're only picking winners and losers via government contracts. The res of the economy is a free for all.
What I said is a quote. I thought it's known enough to be recognized but apprehendly not. Sorry. Mark Fisher wrote a book about it: Capitalist Realism
It's difficult to imagine an alternative when every politician since Thatcher and Regan repeat some form of "there is no alternative" and media says the same in different ways.
All the more important to talk about alternatives, so thanks for doing so. That's what I love about authors like Graeber and Wengrow. It's not that I want to live in every society explored in The Dawn Of Everything but it's great to read about them.
You're not wrong, which makes me think you're probably fantastic at imagining the end of the world too.
It's because of propaganda. That phrase, and (in the US) the idea that "we are the greatest country in the world" is planted very deep in our minds. That means that no matter how bad things get here, we are assured that nothing better is possible.
Shows a real lack of imagination.
On purpose, yes. Their way of life requires it.
Capitalism is the best system at eliminating other systems before they eliminate it.
Time for some more Chamelling !