capitalism is just free stuff for the rich at the expense of everyone else.
this post was submitted on 01 Nov 2025
1151 points (98.6% liked)
Socialism
672 readers
330 users here now
An international (English speaking) socialist Lemmy community free of the "ML" influence of instances like lemmy.ml and lemmygrad. This is a place for undogmatic and constructive discussion from a progressive, anti-capitalist and truly anti-imperialist perspective, regardless of specific ideology.
A certain knowledge of socialism is expected, if you are new to/interested in socialism, please visit c/Socialism101 before participating here. Socialism101 will gladly help you by answering questions, providing resources etc.
Memes go in c/Lefty Memes
Please don't forget to help keep this community clean by reporting rule violations, upvoting good contributions and downvoting those of low-quality!
Rules
1. Socialist Unity in the form of mutual respect and good faith discussion is enforced here.
Try to keep an open mind, other schools of thought may offer points of view and analyses you haven't considered yet. Also: This is not a place for the Idealism vs. Materialism or rather Anarchism vs. Marxism debate(s), for that please visit c/AnarchismVsMarxism
2. Anti-Imperialism means recognizing capitalist states like Russia and China as such,
as well as condemning (their) imperialism, even if it is of the "anti-USA" flavour.
3. No liberalism, (right-wing) revisionism or reactionaries.
That includes so called: Social Democracy, Democratic Socialism, Dengism, Market Socialism, Patriotic Socialism, National Bolshevism, Anarcho-Capitalism etc. . Anti-Socialist people and content have no place here, as well as the variety of "Marxist"-"Leninists" seen on lemmygrad and more specifically GenZedong (actual ML's are welcome as long as they agree to the rules and don't just copy paste/larp about stuff from a hundred years ago).
4. No Bigotry.
The only dangerous minority is the rich.
5. Don't demonize previous and current socialist experiments or (leading) individuals.
We must constructively learn from their mistakes, while acknowledging their achievements and recognizing when they have strayed away from socialist principles.
(if you are reading the rules to apply for modding this community, mention "Xenial Xerus" when answering question 2)
6. Don't idolize/glorify previous and current socialist experiments or (leading) individuals.
Notable achievements in all spheres of society were made by various socialist/people's/democratic republics around the world. Mistakes, however, were made as well: bureaucratic castes of parasitic elites - as well as reactionary cults of personality - were established, many things were mismanaged and prejudice and bigotry sometimes replaced internationalism and progressiveness.
7. Absolutely no posts or comments meant to relativize(/apologize for), advocate, promote or defend:
- Racism
- Sexism
- Queerphobia
- Ableism
- Classism
- Rape or assault
- Genocide/ethnic cleansing or (mass) deportations
- Fascism
- (National) chauvinism
- Orientalism
- Colonialism or Imperialism (and their neo- counterparts)
- Zionism
- Religious fundamentalism of any kind
(This is not a definitive list, the spirit of the other rules still counts! Eventual duplicates with other rules are for emphasis.)
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Billionaires rigged the government so that they get the entire country and everyone and everything in it for free with zero ethical guidelines
actually i do want free stuff by the way
It should be noted, as is partially a point of this post, that those "free" things are not actually free, and are simply paid for through taxes such that they are cheaper for all.
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!
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.
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.
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?
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.
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?
load more comments
(4 replies)
view more: next ›