1069
Both sides are the same (lemmy.world)
submitted 11 months ago by to c/politicalmemes@lemmy.world
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[–] 95 points 11 months ago (55 children)

That's not far left IMO, that's just left. This is a recurring problem we have in France too, where medias call "far left" parties that are just left. This is a slippery slope, the one on which Overton window slips towards the (far) right...

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  • [–] 72 points 11 months ago (51 children)

    Far left is: "We're going to destroy the very concept of private ownership and wealth accumulation"

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  • [–] 41 points 11 months ago* (48 children)

    "... to meet everyone's basic needs"

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  • [+] 12 points 11 months ago (5 children)
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  • [+] 4 points 11 months ago (2 children)
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  • [+] 0 points 11 months ago (1 child)
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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago

    How to lie with data, exhibit A:

    So i thought we're talking about how Mao's leadership lead to famine and millions of death, and normal people will be taking a look at his "Great Leap Forward" in 1958 and compare the life expectancy of the country from the time he took office and to the time he left and the effect of the plan, so let say maybe as far back as data available since he's the chairman of CCP to a year or two after he introduce the plan, that would be 1950 to 1959 or maybe 1960, the result would be:

    1950: around 43

    1959: around 44(the year he resign as the chairman of the country)

    1960: around 33(2 years after he introduced the plan)

    Whoops, doesn't look too good. So now compare the same year with india for some reason:

    1950: around 35

    1959: around 40

    1960: around 45

    It's great, i must say, that's a huge improvement.

    But here you just compare a random year to another random year because it proof your point, anything to defend a dictator. This is why i don't talk with tankie, or marxist if you wanna call yourself that, because not only you're egotistical and delusional, you also defend dictator while pretend to condemn the others that doesn't conform to your identity just so your idol will appear nice on paper, you're the far left that you pretend didn't exist. Have you try politics? You will fit right in, lying and misguide the public is a requirement.

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  • [–] 33 points 11 months ago (26 children)

    "..."
    "To meet everyone's basic needs, right?"

    /AnakinAndPadmeMeme.jpg

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  • [+] -2 points 11 months ago (26 children)
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  • [+] 7 points 11 months ago (25 children)
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  • [–] 9 points 11 months ago (7 children)

    Capitalism literally encourages human greed to accumulate wealth and destroy the societal system. Even if you tax and regulate them that's still what's encouraged, as its literally the entire point of the system

    And regarding "only some species share resources.." Yes. Us. That's literally what society is. How do you think humans grew to become the most successful species on earth? If you win I do not lose. It's not a zero-sum game. Cooperation is literally a win-win. Do you think technology and science would thrive and prosper in a cutthroat society where people kill and steal from each other over any tiny advantage they can get?

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  • [–] 7 points 11 months ago

    I mean, do you know what socialism is? Do you know what capitalism is? It's not really extreme in the objective sense, what is extreme is that someone can own a thing that they don't even use, and hire other people to use for them, and then them profit just because they own it. Or own land and make others pay to use or live on that land, just because they own it. I mean, I find that to be absurd in the grand scheme of things, but that is what capitalism is.

    Capitalism just feels like a very anti-social economic system

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  • [–] 4 points 11 months ago (4 children)

    I mean Russia did put people in space

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  • [–] 5 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    I agree with what you say except the last part about the entire concept of life being capitalist. It is not. All life in the natural world is in equilibrium. There is give and take but all work in tandem. Parasites are the capitalists, taking until there is nothing left to give and ultimately killing their host.

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  • [+] 1 point 11 months ago (1 child)
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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago

    Yup. I once saw a grey-jay standing atop a relatively humongous pile of moose guts trying to protect it from thieves. The natural world is actually a good metaphor for the plausibility of ideal capitalism but breaks down for RL capitalism because human nature and ingenuity destroys the system's ability to reach equilibrium.

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  • [–] 6 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (4 children)

    The entire concept of life itself is very capitalist — You have to exploit all resources available to you so you can survive and thrive. Only some species share resources — that too if they are in abundance for them.

    This is an incredibly inaccurate way to describe nature and you feed into narratives that capitalism is "natural" that stop us from thinking critically both about nature and humanity when you frame things in this way.

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago*

    Apart from that every multicellular lifeform is a collective. True, those multicellular organisms prey on each other and fight to keep their species thriving. They don't knowingly harm their own fucking species like capitalism does.

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  • [+] -2 points 11 months ago (2 children)
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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago (1 child)

    You claim communism is impossible to implement yet you have no issue in attempting to implement a democracy that capitalism won't be able to pervert, despite one never having existed before and it being impossible for one to exist.

    It sounds less like genuine rationality and more like rationalising a status quo bias. Even worse when people are claiming capitalism to be the natural order of life, despite existing for less than 0.0000001% of it and humans being egalitarian for far longer than they were capitalist.

    Peak homoeconomus experiencing "capitalist realism." They even colonised your dreams.

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  • [–] 3 points 11 months ago (9 children)

    In a naive attempt to "meet everyone’s basic needs" sure, but in practice it would almost certainly end up enriching and entrenching a new ruling class, or collapsing under external pressure even if there are some early wins.

    Many things sound simple from the outset. But tearing down and rebuilding an entire society isn’t something you do without significant (and often lethal) force and with plenty of intended and unintended casualties along the way (and there’s still a very good chance we'd screw it up).

    If it's not "the good guys" wielding overwhelming force, it’ll be "the bad guys" stepping in. Every political system ultimately rests on the realistic threat/application of force; the only question is who controls it and how accountable they are.

    I'm not inclined to trust anyone waving guns in my face, nor encourage situations that make that more likely. So, things would have to get a lot worse for me (and I'd venture most people) to want violent overthrow of my current (far from perfect) political and social system. That said ... at some point, for many people in many countries, it may be too late. Apathy isn't appropriate either.

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  • [–] 7 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    You guys are talking about basic capitalism, right? You all understand that, don't you?

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  • [+] 2 points 11 months ago (3 children)
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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    Are you trying to say that communism leads to a failed authoritarian state resembling the US in terms of income inequality? Do you have the same stats for wealth inequality too?

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  • [+] 4 points 11 months ago (2 children)
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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago

    The USSR is dead and cold, replaced by an authoritarian warmongering machine. It had its moment in the spotlight, but it failed, and it failed its russian and former citizens.

    China promotes many good principles (in many ways so did the USA, cough cough), but it is heading in the wrong direction under Xi. It's Communism with a human exploitative flavour, with the occasional public fig leaf of justice. That said, it could offer an umbrella of security for some more interesting experiments in the years to come. Watch this space, I guess.

    Circling back to my original point, I maintain that communism isn't going to gain popular support so long as the only viable way to achieve it is through violence and oppression, and so long as it buckles so easily under the pressure of outside forces.

    I will continue voting and protesting for sensible left-leaning policies that promote fairness and well being for all, while steering clear of the extremists and simpletons who promote hate or explicitly or tacitly support genocides, wars of aggression, etc. The scales may tip enough one day to justify radical action, but not today - the risks of it going terribly wrong are too high.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago (2 children)

    You always have this problem if you have people with concentrated power aka a “ruling class”

    Only way to prevent this is transparency and tools that the people of country can control the ruling class

    Very important for such a setup is, that politics, media, law enforcement and courts are separated and controlling each other

    And that private companies are not allowed to fuck with the system

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    I couldn't agree more. Although I'll add that education and basic health/social support is also needed for long term stability, or large swathes of the population will be manipulated by fear and dis/misinformation, and will likely end up voting against their own interests. Social cohesion is important, which is why it is used as a weapon by nation states and other political actors.

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  • [–] 0 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    Except removing those rights is not required to meet everyone's basic needs

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  • [+] 4 points 11 months ago (2 children)
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  • [+] 1 point 11 months ago (1 child)
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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago

    Wrong. The homeless people in my country choose to be homeless as they are offered free housing and community support workers. My country is currently expanding their public healthcare and increasing the salaries of nurses as well as expanding publicly funded gp vists. This is all done within a capitalist system with no large wealth funds and we are not particularly rich as a nation.

    You shouldn't speak so confidently when you seem to have no idea of the world outside America.

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  • [–] 3 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    typical

    We're talking about the ultra wealthy sharing the stockpiles of resources they have stolen and enslaved to gather, and the first spin is that they "aren't allowed to have private things" and "we aren't allowed to accumulate wealth"

    eat shit

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  • [–] 3 points 11 months ago

    Yeah, this thread is full of people who have lived their lives under absolute capitalist doctrine and cannot see an alternative and have never considered the underlying philosophy and morality of that system and can't even imagine another, so they backfill the blanks and rationalize what they have so they don't have to deal with actually thinking about it deeper because that would require effort and discomfort.

    Politicalmemes? Yep, another right wing breeding ground, it always is.

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