Come on Barbie lets go Party
Come on Barbie lets go Party
362 comments
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European here.
This seems to mainly only be an issue in the US. Socialism = Communism = Enemy
If at all anything, the opposite seems to be the case here. We're looking at the US as a "this is how bad it will get if we let go" example
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In addition: government programs that help everyone = helping black people = no.
I think this is the fundamental reason why the US never went to public/universal anything, be it healthcare, education, whatever.
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Yeah y'all really don't want to end up like us. We're not the land of the free. The streets are most definitely not paved with gold. We're just a giant ponzi scheme.
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It's actually insane how many of our institutions are actually based on pyramid schemes. No wonder we all use it as the symbol for conspiracy because it is a huge portion of how anything runs in the US. Cover the costs by convincing more people to join in at a less beneficial or profitable step down the pyramid and hope someone else will be coming behind you for you to take from as well.
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the opposite seems to be the case here
Cries in Lindner
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Well, French president and several of its ministers are saying that socialist left, or radical left, is extremist. So no, it's not an America problem. It's very much a Europe problem too.
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As a european it's always been fucking WERID how americans panic and reach for their guns at the mention of socialism.
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I mean
There was this whole thing called the Soviet Union then there was like a missile crisis
And there was like a group that called themselves National Socialists and they did a genocide and tried to take over a bunch of land by force
We also had to fight a bunch of talking trees that dug tunnels because military industrial complex and heroin
It's definitely many layers of propaganda but as an American I definitely understand WHERE it comes from, I understand why most people here flinch at the word.
You also gotta understand we had multiple generations in a row huffing lead gasoline so while younger millennials aren't impacted as bad, MOST Americans are legitimately lead brained.
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It wasn't just leaded gasoline. I was busy getting hot boxed with cigarettes in my grandparent's leaded gasoline car before burning some asbestos, plastic cutlery, and batteries in the living room fireplace.
Forget no seatbelts or bicycle helmets. Our chemical exposure would probably send a younger person without a built up tolerance into instant seizure.
I also remember crimping down lead shot sinkers on my fishing line with my teeth. Good times. Good times indeed.
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It's the boomers who do this primarily. I guess they were spoon fed this shit as babies.
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In all fairness, we panic and reach for our guns at the mention of just about anything. Right this very moment, I'm pooping on company time, scared out of my wits, a nine millimeter at the ready atop my presently ankle adorning boxers.
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WAS THAT THE DOORBELL!!!
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By "socialism", are we talking:
A. Worker-controlled economic system, or
B. What American liberals think is socialism, which is just a capitalist system with welfare.
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A.
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Either.
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Aka socdem vs demsoc
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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_democracy
Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism[1]
^[1] Eatwell & Wright 1999, pp. 80–103; Newman 2005, p. 5; Heywood 2007, pp. 101, 134–136, 139; Ypi 2018; Watson 2019.
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"Most powerful empire the world has ever known"
Lol Americans
The Romans conquered the known world with pointy sticks and diplomacy.
The US hasn't been on the winning side since ww2 despite having nukes and spyplanes.
Even the British Empire spanned the globe, and all they had was cannons, rum, and syphilis.
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Yeah they may not incorporate other countries like previous empires, but their sphere of influence is undeniable unfortunately.
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Did they have taco bell tho
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More importantly, did they have the ability to deploy a Taco Bell, McDonald's, and Wendy's anywhere in the world, within 72 hours, just so their troops would have variety of food?
Nope. The Japanese knew they had royally fucked up when they realized that we had ships that were dedicated to ice cream supplies. You have to have everything else needed for war covered, before you start the logistical supply train of ice cream.
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But if they fought I'd bet against the pointy stick guys and the syphilis guys.
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James Cameron's avatar be like
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You seem to completely misunderstand American diplomacy.
Just because America doesn't have the same style of conquest, doesn't mean they aren't conquerors.
America was the first empire to realize that all empires eventually fall whose agenda is toppling nations and replacing their flags with their own.
The USA invented a unique twist: never replacing the country's flag.
Instead, as evidenced by countless examples such as Iran and Panama, the American agenda has always been installing a new national leader whose interests align with American ideals of democracy and "freedom" (predominantly of the white Christian variety). But they keep their "flag", or in some sense maintain a national identity through the new leader, so it feels a lot less like they were conquered.
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Exactly. Wilson fucked up with Wilsonian Doctrine, among a ton of other things. Teddy had it right. Speak softly and carry a big stick. Get in, get out, get done.
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Lol That's just a bunch of mental gymnastics to justify why the "mighty" US can't even win a war against an impoverished SE Asian nation with 50 year old Soviet weapons
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Lol at the person who said Lemmy doesn't have many comments.
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Ruh roh, you just rattled the hive mind
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Oh time for my link
Frame Canada
Wendell Potter spent decades scaring Americans. About Canada. He worked for the health insurance industry, and he knew that if Americans understood Canadian-style health care, they might.... like it. So he helped deploy an industry playbook for protecting the health insurance agency.
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I want to kick the dude in the face
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No. My impressions are based on having lived it before the iron curtain fell.
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Unless you're over a 100 years old you lived in a totalitarian system masquerading as Communism.
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See how you didn't even have to ask which country it was? Because a 100% of communist countries became dictatorships ridden with poverty for the working class and gold plated luxury for the ruling class.
I'm happy now somewhere in the middle in this terrible, terrible capitalism. Oh, and I'm free to leave anytime I want, if I don't like it.
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Yours would be a minority position then. Most citizens of former eastern bloc nations want socialism back:
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See how most of those polls are from 2009-2011, in the middle of the worst economic crisis in Europe in a century?
And they weren't thrown in jail for saying it?
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You mean the impressions of having lived in a dictatorship which discarded the idea of progressing towards communism? How is that relevant?
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See how you didn't even have to ask which country it was? Because a 100% of communist countries became dictatorships ridden with poverty for the working class and gold plated luxury for the ruling class.
I'm happy now somewhere in the middle in this terrible, terrible capitalism. Oh, and I'm free to leave anytime I want, if I don't like it.
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I'd like to point out that the majority of people on Lemmy 100% think about this. Hence how many up votes it has :p
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Yeah, of course I have.
In particular, I've noticed how the pro-capitalist people don't seem to realize that we're not living in a pure capitalist system. Instead we're living in a mixed economy where key elements are socialist: road building, firefighting, postal services, food and drug safety testing, old age pensions, even ambulances (except for one minor exception).
A 100% socialist (a.k.a. communist) system might not be possible (at least not yet) due to human nature. The few times that it has been tried, at least in theory, it has quickly become an authoritarian system instead. But, AFAIK, it's so obvious that 100% capitalist would fail completely that no society has even bothered to try it. Hundreds of years ago there were brief experiments with things like capitalist fire services, and Pinkertons as police, but they failed so spectacularly that nobody even thinks of going back.
So, instead we quibble about "capitalist" vs "socialist" when we're really just arguing about whether the mix should be 80% capitalist, 20% socialist or 60% capitalist, 40% socialist.
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This is a fundamental misunderstanding of what socialism and capitalism are. Simplified it's who owns the means of production, that is basically the "capital" in the name "capitalism", in socialism these means of production have a shared ownership. Now you can have a discussion of what that means, if state ownership counts or whatever but as long as individuals own the means of production it's not socialism no matter how much you tax them(it would still be an improvement to tax them more it's just not socialism)
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Ummm excuse me, no, the CIA is an extremely based communist organization because taxes.
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I can't tell if your agreeing or disagreeing with op comment.
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This understanding of capitalism is a misunderstanding that both Marxists and neoclassical types share. It is not capital ownership that gives the employer the right to appropriate a firm's whole product. The employment contract is what gives them that right. Sure, capital ownership affects bargaining power, but the root cause is that contract. Abolishing the employment contract while still having individual ownership is possible (i.e. a market economy of worker coops)
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Is the US socialist because nVidia is a public company, therefore the shares are owned by the public? Is it a socialist country because most workers have 401(k) plans containing index funds, so they own a tiny portion of every major company? The ownership of the company is shared, so it must be socialism, right? I'd say no, because it's not shared evenly.
What if a single individual owns a single "mean" of production, but everything else is owned by the state, is that whole system capitalist? To me, it's clearly not. You could argue that it's mixed, but I'd say if it's 99.9% not capitalist, it's not capitalist.
Modern economies are mixes of socialism and capitalism. The people (through the government) own certain things, and individuals own other things.
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What "Human Nature" goes against the idea of sharing tools, rather than letting wealthy people hold dictatorial control over them?
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Why do chimps kill chimps from other groups that come into their territory? Why do some chimps use aggression against other chimps to manipulate them, while other chimps use grooming?
A certain degree of sharing is part of our human / animal nature, but so is a certain degree of claiming ownership over things, and certain individuals have more sway over decisions than others. Flat hierarchies with nobody in command seem to work in theory, but in practice it's different.
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Socialism is not when the government does stuff, so those institutions are not examples of socialism. Anti-capitalists are arguing for the complete abolition of exploitative capitalist property relations that violate workers' human rights.
This is a false dilemma. There are other alternatives to capitalism besides communism. It is entirely possible to have a non-capitalist non-communist system (e.g. an economy where every firm is democratically-controlled by the people that work in it)
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Socialism is not when the government does stuff
Socialism is when the "means of production" are owned by the people as a whole rather than individuals. Capitalism is when the "means of production" are owned by individuals. Every modern state contains a mix of both.
If the US is 100% capitalist, then explain how the fire department is a capitalist institution.
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Oh there are people who dream about going back. Mostly people who would profit and/or gain power.
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Pinkertons as police, but they failed so spectacularly
uhh you might want to brush up on your history there, the pinkertons are still around, still quite closely tied to the government, and still being used (among other things) to suppress union organizing at places like amazon and starbucks! Kinda ridiculous to hear that our government is somehow 'socialist' when it does stuff like this.
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I didn't say they weren't still around, just that they're not the police.
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Maga and libertarians seem to want to go back.
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This post is WAY more insightful than 99% of people realize. I would argue that the only people that fully understand are part of the corporate engine that drives it.
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Are you implying you’re a corporate shill?
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I'm a mole
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Comrade pinko barbie!
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I like this new meme format
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This was literally the next post in my feed, lol:
You can also take deductions for costs relating to criminal activity!
That’s it, I’m done for today. Nothing can top that.
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All the time
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Remember when Barbie didn't end with Will Farrells head in the guillotine?
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I mean, I think Mattel probably would have hard vetoed that. I'm honestly shocked they got the fascist line in.
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Ugh you just reminded me of one of the right's comic strips where women put men's balls in a guillotine with "the left wants to do this" idea.
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This question is being posed to centrists and conservatives, right?
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Liberals too, I would imagine. Maybe even SocDems.
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Yes!
Do you ever ponder the inverse for yourself?
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Ironically the same in left leaning countries just corps banging the workers and blaming someone else using insane propaganda every single fucking where
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Sorry I don't get it
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Hey, that meme looks familiar...
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I don't think about this at all. My parents are from the former Soviet Union and I actually heard from them how life there was (mostly not great).
Also I think that fearing socialism is a very American thing.
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What was not great about it?
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The USSR was a developing country, and generally lacked luxury commodities, and depending on era, had a mostly unaccountable Politburo and a lack of food in the early stages.
By metrics, the Russian Federation has relatively recently surpassed life expectancy of the USSR, and now has more open travel and access to western commodities like smartphones, but you'll find many older people in Russia who wish the USSR never collapsed (the majority, in fact), though again that's also partially due to nostalgia for being an important global power.
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LOL! "What was not great about the Soviet Union?"
That's the sort of thing I might expect to hear from a teen with broccoli head syndrome.
For me the main problem with the USSR was that they abused beautiful dogs to create cyborg creatures out of them, in a horrifying attempt to create cyborg soldiers.
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This thread is lit. I'm going to list 4 arrangements of the economy. If you are interested in participating, name what you think each one is:
1: A small group of people own the lands that are worked by another group of people. The leader of these owners is chosen via divine right. The people who work the land keep what they make, however for protection they must work other lands and do not keep what is made from them
- A small group of people hold dominion of a large group of people. The large group must work for food, lodging, etc. and are forced to do so by the threat of death and physical punishment. They do not get to keep what they make, the economic situation is determined by the generosity of those who hole dominion over them
- A small group of people own the majority of wealth in the form of businesses, factories, goods, etc. They purchase the time of a much larger group of people who sell their labour to make ends meet. The small group decides what to do with the excess goods, services, and money.
- A large group of people own the businesses, factories, goods, etc. These people work to make ends meet and decide collectively (democratically or through other means) what to do with the excess goods services, money, etc.
I hope these are both clear and vague enough. Good luck!
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In order:
Feudalism Oligarchy Capitalism Socialism
How'd I do?
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Everyone talks about what the "best" system is but none have adequately solved the human corruption problem. Every system eventually falls due to human corruption imo. The US founders were on to something by trying to break up power and have each group kept I'm check but that too is failing.
Stop trying to fix the symptoms.
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The US founders were on to something by trying to break up power and have each group kept I’m check but that too is failing.
Yeah, separation of powers is a pretty old and workable concept, 8 times older than the whole history of the US, and has worked for most democratic countries since.
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In addition to the corruption problem, there's also the problem of who gets to make the decisions. The people affected by those decisions want them to be made by smart people who have their best interests at heart. But, those aren't the kinds of people who end up in leadership positions. Whether it's capitalism, communism, even monarchies, the type of people who tend to be in charge are the ones who want power and know how to get it and use it.
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The fact you think some old white englishmen created the partition of power tells us a lot about your level of education.
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Lol talk more shit about things I never said loser
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But imperialism is really cool if you're on the benefiting end of it
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let's* go party
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leftist_meme.png
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Nice post history lol
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Maybe, but they've also been well assisted by those countries which are shining examples of SC&L but have failed to get their messages across the world. Perhaps replies to this comment could indicate which countries those are, for some independent research.
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Language is however most people define it. When the definition changes, you make new words or fight a losing battle.
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This propaganda is coming from the most prosperous, overachieving nation in the history of mankind, so it seems like there might be something to it. Now the propaganda coming from impoverished, third world countries saying how all their problems can be solved through communism, just doesn't have the same luster for some reason.
Now if you can point me to an example of a utopic nation where everything is wonderful and workers run the show, I'm all ears.
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Not from “the west” from “the rich”. There are rich people in every type of economy that use their money to gain more power. One of the many ways that is done is with propaganda to convince those with less that the rich in power are not the problem.
Just look at the oligarchs in Russia.
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Not every economic system, economic systems that place significant barriers against ballooning of individual wealth off exploitation see less disparity, and thus less of an impact of money on politics. Beaurocracy becomes a new kind of power currency, which is why much of the Politburo in the USSR was corrupt, though its worth noting that their disparity levels were lower than currently in the Russian Federation.
The Russian Federation's "Oligarchs" are a spooky word for Capitalists that dodges the fact that they are Capitalists that took advantage of the collapse of the USSR to gain massive outsized power and wealth. The Russian Federation is Capitalist, not Socialist.
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Not every economic system, economic systems that place significant barriers against ballooning of individual wealth off exploitation see less disparity, and thus less of an impact of money on politics.
You say not every economic system, but then you say less disparity, less impact.
Less disparity means there is still disparity. Less impact means there is still impact.
Because like I said, as long as there are human beings who want more power, there will be a struggle in any economic systems to prevent disparity.
That is because it isn’t the economic system that deregulates or undermines protections.
It is those who seek more power who deregulate and undermine protections.
And those people exist in all types of economic systems.
Even capitalist America had a point in history where disparity was low and the middle class and lower class thrived.
That is no longer the case because of those who removed regulations and changed the laws to suite themselves. And again, those people exist in every type of economy.
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While I like the idea of socialism to an extent, it hardly has an appealing track record.
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How so? Do you think tools turn people evil or cease working if they are owned by the collective?
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What track record are you looking at, the one I'm seeing is a much lighter shade of gray than the capitalist track record.
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Do you guys realize the world is larger than the memeverse and there are real people who lived under "socialist" governments?
Jesus H. Christ, all you need my dear is a holiday in Cambodia.
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So.... Your answer is no?
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I may not want the USSR at all, but a large majority of Russians want it back: https://www.statista.com/chart/7322/25-years-soviet-union-collapse-ussr/
Now, a large part of this is also obviously due to wanting to be a part of a more powerful state, which the USSR was in comparison to the Russian Federation, but this point isn't great. I could make the same point and say that we should send pro-Capitalists to Somalia, it just doesn't work well logically.
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I really dont see any Romans pressuring me around here.
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Gestures half heartedly at all the Roman inspired government buildings.
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Gestures at the 1%, who are overwhelmingly descendants of the aristocracy created by Rome and managed by the holy Roman empire
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Rome didn't have aircraft carriers and tactical nukes.
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Rome lasted long enough to find its own ancient artifacts.
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No, because the majority of people do not live in the US.
So the amount of influence is the same from the US and Russia and China.
We aren't as uninformed as this meme suggests about the concept. We know it has positives, but we also know the negatives, of which there are many.
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In advocating for privately owning and operating a business without excessive state interference, you highlight a core tenet of capitalism. This economic system champions individual freedom and autonomy, allowing entrepreneurs in a free-market environment to introduce innovative products, with relative ease and without burdensome regulatory approval.
However, concerns about state intervention under socialism introduce a nuanced perspective. While socialism aims to address issues of inequality and social welfare, it often involves more centralized control over economic activities. This centralized approach could potentially impact the entrepreneurial freedom to choose what products to sell and how to manage a business.
This dichotomy underscores an ongoing debate, weighing the advantages of a free-market capitalist system that fosters entrepreneurial independence against the goals of socialism, which seeks to address social and economic inequalities through collective decision-making and regulation. It prompts consideration of the trade-offs between individual liberty and the pursuit of societal equality and welfare.
Moreover, criticisms of socialism often include the potential for increased economic inequality. Centralized control might lead to bureaucratic inefficiencies and disparities in resource allocation. Additionally, concerns about AI companies taking advantage of stringent regulations add complexity, as the regulatory landscape could inadvertently favor larger corporations, potentially exacerbating economic imbalances and hindering smaller businesses, including startups in emerging fields like AI, from thriving and innovating. The multifaceted nature of these concerns contributes to the ongoing dialogue about the merits and drawbacks of different economic systems.
362 comments