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.
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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.
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.
You can't post this often enough.
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.
left = not capitalism
right = capitalism
this definition has formed since more or less (...) since the french revolution and has consolidated along with capitalism itself.
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.
"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.
It is not enough to be correct. You also have to be smart. And telling people who could be won over that actually, no, you're not on our side, you're one of them—"you are Right Wing"—is a monumentally stupid opening move.
Stop telling people they are right wing. A lot of people—especially those most susceptible to right-wing rhetoric—think that who they are is fixed. Instead, insist that they are people who want the best for others (even if you don't think that's true enough yet). Tell them that they're dragging around the anchors of right wing ideology, and that if they want things to be better, those ideas—which harm most people for the benefit of an unscrupulous few—should and can be left behind.
You're still not going to win very often, but at least you aren't throwing the game immediately.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Whatever social safety nets and programs they have will be dismantled as Western capitalism devours itself. As is happening all around Europe
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.
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
News flash: most democrats are very much right-wing.
That's the really uncomfortable part about all of this, that it's Fascism plus imminent environmental collapse.
Silver lining is that they have the same solution.
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.
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.
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..
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?
So where do Co-ops fall, one where all the workers own everything equally and vote on hiring and firing etc?
Socialism. Plenty of models that use or aspire to that system, especially when it's part of a larger capitalist society and one can't expect the workers to change it all.
Few large coops are truly equal partnerships or that democratic though.
Generally speaking, what prevents it from falling under capitalism is non-transferable ownership stakes. Otherwise the workers can sell their stake and the system inevitably declines into capital interests hiring employees instead of a partnership.