2y ago

Can I say the majority of Lemmy users are anti-capitalist or big corp?

I mean like this: "Realized that most of these programs are not meant to help anyone, merely to control people and make them dependent. I was forced to reconsider everything I'd once believed. I developed a profound distrust of government regardless of the philosophy of the people in power. I remained a liberal on civil-rights issues, became a conservative on defense, and a semi-libertarian on all other matters." - Dean Koontz. Am I wrong?

52 comments

Can't speak for others; I'm anticorporate but not anticapitalist.
- Can you tell me where's the difference in terms system that they used? Of course the audience and the power scales are different. I cannot see the difference with the system from both side used tho. What is your opinion?
  
  I think you may have replied to the wrong comment.

I'm 100% anti capitalist

Capitalism is legalized criminal exploitation.

Late-stage capitalism is getting shaky AF

I have the feeling that this is the case for the Treadyverse yet. But seeing how many welcome our zuckerberg overlords on Mastodon I would say this is not the case there.

I think I'd rather shoot myself than ever believe in capitalism
- Looks crazy, but same opinion though..

I’d say that I’m more anti-corporate, but not completely anti-capitalist. I do agree however that capitalism needs to be better regulated tho.
- Regulation in capitalist created by people or choosen individual from mass / public right? If we want to have a better regulation, do we need change the leader or what other options do we have in capitalist system in your opinion?
  
  I think I'm largely with @asamson23@lemmy.world, I'll comment here.
  I think realistically, we need to give our anti-monopoly laws teeth, and give them automatic effect. Hard and fast rules (thought out to catch loop holes) like "there can't be one company with more than 15% of any market which directly affects more than 45% of citizens on an annual basis."
  Similarly, clearing up political funding regulations, preventing insider trading by representatives, and preventing obvious "bribe" jobs post representation.
  FWIW, I think Socialism is interesting, but I think the influence of human greed is too strong in a socialist system. In a true socialist system, rather than capital gains being a route to power, the greedy have one route, government. I think this is fundamentally the reason why no attempts at creating a socialist society have actually... worked.
  The best I think we can get is a well regulated market, but we need to actually ensure it's well regulated and not just serving some people that gobbled up the competition so they could sit by idle and cozy.
  FWIW, I would also consider moving the oversight of federal law enforcement into its own federally elected office. i.e., we elect local sheriff's, we should elect a "National Director of Law Enforcement" in charge of overseeing the FBI, IRS, TSA, US Marshall Service, etc.
  
  Honestly, I have no idea. Also, I am in Canada, so I don’t necessarily want to meddle in American more than I would like.

I'm anti-capitalist and due to being froma country formerly occupied by Soviets, I'm also anti-communist. Basically my conclusion is we're fucked.
- what terms you mean "we're fucked" in the future? Curious about that..

I think that's a pretty safe assumption. Fediverse tends to attract socially liberal types of people.
- Note that the actual definition of the word "liberal" (which everyone except the United States uses) is a supporter of capitalism

I'm anti-capitalist, and anti-corp. Megacorporations are the logical endpoint of the structures of capitalism, regardless of pro-capitalist propaganda claiming otherwise nya.

I'm not an anti-capitalist. I'm pretty middle-of-the-road in that I believe in a regulated and taxed market economy. But on a personal level there are some aspects of my life that I would rather not place in the hands of corporations whose incentives aren't necessarily aligned with mine.
Google, Twitter, Reddit - I don't really disagree with their right to exist (concerns about monopolies aside). But the less involved they are in my life the better.

I think most users on here lean left one way or another.
I'm a conservative and that's not popular here at all.
- I'd like an honest discussion. What opinions do you hold that are conservative, which me as liberal leaning would disagree with you on?
  
  I'm anti-abortion in most cases, though I do see room for exceptions. I'm for a small government, though living in Australia I have seen that there is a place for the government to provide certain services that tend towards monopolies or that are vital to national security, like utilities, defense, etc. I don't agree with how we currently approach transgenderism: I believe it's a mental illness with devastating effects on its sufferers and that surgery and drugs are a blunt way to try and deal with it. I'm anti-immigration on a mass-scale, and I think allowing manufacturing to be decimated by globalism was a big mistake that we shouldn't have allowed.
  That's just a few off the top of my head.

I’m anti-capitalist. I generally lean closer to syndicalism or mutualism
- yes.. thanks for the words syndicalism and mutualism. I just remembered the book about spanyol revolution in 1936 - 1939 I've read before. from your POV, what cases or histories that makes you to think like now? in embracing syndicalism and mutualism?
  
  Honestly it’s the fact that I started off just a general anarchist, then I joined a union which was immensely valuable to my understanding of the role of organized labor in revolutionary action as well as the fact that I don’t think trade is bad, certain things can have different values, but I want fairness and I want everyone to have the freedom to have their needs met before we start distributing excess value. Taking part in small communities that share as needed has helped form that.
  It’s not really theory that drove me to all of it, just life

Surprised not to see mention of intellectual property in this thread. Imo opinions on IP are more revealing about how one feels about corporations vs employees than the traditional conservative/liberal divide
- You bring something that I focused on before, but not in pov like this. How do you think the role of IP in terms of people's behaviour or their political decision?
  
  IP in terms of people's behaviour or their political decision?
  In terms of behavior - the scheme is MEANT to encourage innovation. I hesitate to answer how well the system does in fact do so since the cost of maintaining your IP outweighs the benefits for all but the largest companies. At least one element I see that could be changed is the way employees' innovations are the property of their employers in the majority of cases; an example where it would remain property of the employee is where its arms length from anything the company is involved in. So it can in effect have a chilling effect on innovation but doesn't necessarily need to, at least in my opinion.
  In terms of politics - im not sure. It's one area where policy makers seem to bridge political divides, but as far as what that means - idk? I'd love for a political studies graduate to answer what that indicates!
  For the second point: An even more interesting example (imo) is that even Russia seems to have concluded it's necessary to "protect" American IP [even after the invasion of Ukraine] to the extent it's necessary for the Russian public as a means of not being confused by brands and for Quality control. I think the rationale is that Russians might not want to support American companies and Russian owners shouldn't be "lazy" in just copying an American trademark (imagine a person not wanting to support McDonald's and instead stops supporting the Russian company DcMonalds)

I wouldn't say I have anything against capitalism in principle. I just like open and federated systems.

That may be the result, often, but what I think is the concern -- for me -- is pro choice, freedom of expression, lack of bigotry, lack of exploitation, privacy violation, lack of personal tracking, lack of net ads, no extraction of profit as primary goal.
So maybe, yeah.

Meh my economic beliefs are: if it works do it. If it doesn't admit you were wrong but you tried and do something else. I don't trust economists, banks, or any political leader that identifies with an economic school.

Well, it seems as though this thread suggests yes. But I hope that's not going to lead to ideological infighting and gatekeeping. We have a common goal in creating a more free social network, and the whole point of the Fediverse is that no one owns it.

Closed social networks benefit a lot from the network effect, which makes them natural monopolies. This breaks one of the core mechanisms of capitalism, which is the free market that is supposed to drive innovation and make businesses strive to "perfection."
From that point of view, any supporter of capitalism would probably not support any of the current commercial social networks, and instead feel more comfortable on a federated alternative.
- That is the theory (read, propaganda or at least narrative) about capitalism. I don't think it's a misunderstanding that all the biggest companies in the last 20 years (in tech) have done exactly the opposite, building walled gardens and locking-in users. I would say they feel pretty confident because nobody cares about competition as an abstract value, this is just the tool that is used to give the feeling of freedom. Even today you have the "freedom" to compete with the big dogs. You just need a few hundreds of millions of investment, which depend on other people wanting to make money out of your product and therefore force you to adopt a certain business model. Good luck.
  Incidentally this is also why I don't understand those who see the fediverse as "competition" or hope for mass migrations (millions of users). The point of the fediverse for me is to create a space (in the cyberspace) which is outside the capitalist reach. The equivalent of a park or a square when you can exist without the need to consume or pay. Parks should not, and cannot, compete with malls.
  
  About being in a space outside of capitalist reach.... I agree to a point but some instances outside of the top 5 or 20 can't seem to garner robust enough conversation without an infusion of users. The fediverse right now is my best hope for Android discussion but the numbers just aren't there yet and then there is the confusion of similar/same instances on different servers. It is a little chaotic now especially for disaffected Reddit users.
  
  Your analogy between parks and malls are very good! Thanks @sudneo@lemmy.world

Definitely not anti-capitalist, just anti mega-corp. Good, healthy, regulated capitalism is the way to go.
Communism is a joke.

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