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[–] 19 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Billionaires rigged the government so that they get the entire country and everyone and everything in it for free with zero ethical guidelines

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    It’s older than billionaires unfortunately.

    It was people who won (or led others to win) physical fights that determines how we distribute resources.

    We live in an economic system that is based on ‘might = right’ and here we are.

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  • [–] 51 points 1 year ago (21 children)

    Considering that the capitalists got us to literally pay for the glorified goon squads that represses us while protecting their precious private property for them out of our taxes, I'd say that it's them that's getting all the "free stuff."

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago (17 children)

    glorified goon squads that represses us while protecting their precious private property for them

    Yeah, this never ever happened in human history before capitalism.

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  • [+] -11 points 1 year ago (16 children)

    Ok, liberal... find me an example of a state-funded murder-institution dedicated to the protection of private property before the advent of capitalism.

    Should be easy for an enlightened shitlib like you, eh?

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago (15 children)
  • [+] -11 points 1 year ago (14 children)
  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago (13 children)

    What's the issue with their answer?

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (10 children)

    You liberals seem to be having a hard time understanding what basic words mean... so here. I'll post the challenge again.

    Find me an example of a state-funded murder-institution dedicated to the protection of private property before the advent of capitalism.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (9 children)

    You're not really describing what the issue what with their answer though

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (2 children)

    Not him, but feudalism wasn't a state sponsored system in the modern sense. There was no bureaucratic, state-funded army or police force enforcing property rights. Each Lord maintained their own. Also, private property didn't really exist. Land was held in a feif. Feudal institutions were set up to maintain feudal obligations and social order based on land tenure and status or whatever, not to protect private property or markets.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    I think you are reading a bit too into a single word quip to a leading question; asked by someone who doesn't particularly seem to be open to discussion, based on their use of slurs.

    If you strictly adhere to modern concepts - whose rise is after the advent of state capitalism and intrinsically tied to it - you are obviously not going to find a counterexample to the question. It is however, also wholly unsatisfying, as it is by technicality: you would both be requiring something to adhere to (and follow) modern concepts and precede modern concepts.

    As such, make an analogy where things are sufficiently similar, so that the primary point still stands. If you consider the soldiers and guards under nobility as a state funded (tax funded) group to protect them and their interests and land (their fief) (for example of the merchants they associate with) as private property; things still line up.

    The point is that people in power sending muscle after those they don't like to protect their interests and those of their group wasn't invented with state capitalism. It is just state capitalism is returning to its feudal roots.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (5 children)

    You mean apart from the fact that it doesn't meet the challenge in any way whatsoever?

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (4 children)
  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Is the explanation offered by the poster above not good enough for you?

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  • [–] 31 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Socialists and Capitalists both think you shouldn’t be able to freeload off the back of other people’s work. They only disagree on who exactly it is that’s doing the freeloading.

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    [–] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    actually i do want free stuff by the way

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  • Socialists famously always pushed for free universal healthcare and education, and achieved this to the highest degree in communist countries like the USSR or Cuba. I agree, free stuff is great when it comes to freaking human rights!

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)
  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago

    capitalism is just free stuff for the rich at the expense of everyone else.

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  • [–] 13 points 1 year ago (9 children)

    I don't think the text is that helpful really. Equitable is a highly contentious term. A 'right-wing' libertarian/anarchist would likely argue that the fruits of ones labours should be first devoted to oneself, and that you should have control over how it gets shared at a personal level: it's only 'fair' that your labour should benefit _you_after all. Socialism generally doesn't view that as equitable, and instead prefers that the collective/group gets to determine how the fruits of people's labour are distributed (eg. typically higher taxes, to fund social programs).

    Each approach, taken to an extreme and fuelled by authoritarianism, can lead to really negative outcomes for everyone.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago

    You’re missing an important distinction. The only thing that socialists really insist on is that the means of production are collectively owned. Everyone is still free to put in a day’s labor and come away with the fruits of it.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Collectivism is possible without imposition of taxes by rulers. Gift economies exist. I have witnessed neighbors sharing produce or helping each other without need for compensation.

    Communities can decide through consensus how to allocate resources. Achieving "From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs" is the ideal. Boo! That's Anarchism. Happy Halloween!

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    Possible, sure. But you need something to motivate people to organize into complex relationships in order to produce advanced goods and services. Socialism in an extreme form is essentially communism -- most socialist countries fall far short of that mark, in that they tend to provide a system of social capitalism. Workers are taxed heavily for social support programs, but there are still wide discrepancies between what people earn for their labour based on occupation. And their personal wealth, can be spent at their discretion.

    Anarchism, to my recollection at least, was only tried as a form of government in Spain, around the time of the world wars. In essence, the structure of that govt was largely kinda like a labour-union run government. So like the road/maintenance workers had a rep in govt, because they'd generally follow his lead -- and actions tended to need to be done via consensus as you couldn't 'coerce' labourers to work for higher compensation etc. In order to have a say in how things went, you essentially had to be one of the working people -- while that approach arguably gets rid of the land-owner class, it also gets rid of things like senior votes, unemployed votes and disabled person votes. That govt was also very short lived, as they couldn't agree to get anything done to defend their country, as Germany strolled in to capture their steel mfg etc. I think Anarchism works in a small scale community, but it's not something that works at scale -- same thing with the more extreme forms of socialism.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago*

    So the best way of implementing anarchism would by having a federate country that has as only concern to defend the country and maybe infrastructure maintenance?

    Well that sound not very much anarchist but better than nothing i assume

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    I think this is one area where our messaging really breaks down.

    the collective/group gets to determine how the fruits of people’s labour are distributed

    For a lot of people, this is an absolutely terrifying proposition. Imagine you are part of the half of american adults that struggle with reading. Maybe you're neurodivergent and didn't get support. Maybe you dropped out to work and don't even have a GED. You're ashamed of your struggles, and never fit in well with a group because everybody thinks you're dumb. Your only friends are down at the bar, and they're also barely literate at best.

    Fox News writes at a 4th grade level and tells you that the left hates you for being smarter than them, they just say your dumb because they're jelly of how cool you are. You're not living a luxe life working in an office somewhere, you're out in the real world doing real work, and that means you know how things work, not them.

    Maybe you initially did want to give it a fair shake, Momma always said to look at both sides, but leftist theory is written at a college level, and doesn't make any sense to you. You go online to try and figure it out, but the rhetoric online is a mix of people saying that it's your own fault for being poorly educated, that they can't comprehend your struggles so you must be lying about it, that the government would work better if dumb people didn't get a say, that we shouldn't need to dumb things down for morons like you.

    Then there's this little group of people over here going "just trust us bro, the group will decide who gets helped, it'll be fair, I promise!"

    Would you take that bet?

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    This is a well crafted narrative, but i just don't buy it.

    What did the trump admin run on last election? What are conservatives running on all over the world?

    They all run on "brown man bad".

    Sure there are some sprinkles of other elements in there, afterall, they have to sell their corporate overlords ideas as somehow being good for the common man, but ultimately it boils down to projecting a hierarchy where the people you talk about, are not at the bottom, and while they may be further than the top, if they can feel infinitely better than others through racism and bigotry, they're happy enough to have it.

    Why do you think, to go back to American examples, that issues like which bathrooms trans people are allowed in are even "issues"? The trans people can be put into a pool of people who are , to them, worth infinitely less than they are.

    Instead of solving problems in their own lives, they want to make sure that at least some folks are for sure lower than them.

    To them its all relativistic, but in the worst way possible. They're fine if their lives get worse, if the lives of marginalized people get exponentially worse by comparison.

    They don't see campaigns that raise all boats as being attractive.

    The ones they resonate the best with don't have any indication of doing anything equitable, and instead talk vaguely about things that they haven't been conditioned to think disproportionately help the marginalized.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    I mean, it's a well crafted narrative because I'm just describing some kids I went to school with lol.

    Yes, Trump ran on racism, but you're missing the fact that the right-wing media has, since before the Civil War, wanted to convince people that brown people bad. The right has been attacking education since before I was born.

    Meanwhile I'm still struggling to find good leftist material written for the average reading level. How can we fight fascism if the common person can't even understand us?

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago

    Yep one the main points is to stop the theft of labor value by the bourgeois.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago* (3 children)

    The thing about socialism is that it's about the social aspect of life. (it's right there in the name). You see an old lady and you take some time from your day to help her cross the road. You have 2 apples but only need one so you give one to a person without one. We're all people and it's not about OUR stuff or OUR time. Fucking share a little and be equals.

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  • [–] 16 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Actually, the thing is we don't even have to be equals, that never works, we just have to make sure everyone has what they need.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Exactly this. The small amount of socialism we have in Canada, where I am, allows otherwise destitute people to have a place to live, food on the table, and the ability to see a doctor and recieve medical care.

    Also, the fire department will show up if their house catches fire, and the police will show up if someone robs them....

    All social services.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    Just want what we're already paying for

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago*

    Too bad the libs will continue to attack socialism in lockstep with their fash allies.

    Never gonna hear this explanation from a democrat. Maybe Bernie paying lip service.

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