Lefty Memes
An international (English speaking) socialist Lemmy community free of "ML" (read: Dengist) influence. This is a place for undogmatic shitposting and memes from a progressive, anti-capitalist and truly anti-imperialist perspective, regardless of specific ideology.
Serious posts, news, discussion and agitprop/stuff that's better fit for a poster than a meme go in c/Socialism.
If you are new to socialism, you can ask questions and find resources over on c/Socialism101.
Please don't forget to help keep this community clean by reporting rule violations, updooting good contributions and downdooting those of low quality!
Rules
0. Only post socialist memes
That refers to funny image macros and means that generally videos and screenshots are not allowed. Exceptions include explicitly humorous and short videos, as well as (social media) screenshots depicting a funny situation, joke, or joke picture relating to socialist movements, theory, societal issues, or political opponents. Examples would be the classic case of humorous Tumblr or Twitter posts/threads. (and no, agitprop text does not count as a meme. Please post agitprop here)
0.5 [Provisional Rule] Use alt text or image descriptions to allow greater accessibility
(Please take a look at our wiki page for the guidelines on how to actually write alternative text!)
We require alternative text (from now referred to as "alt text") to be added to all posts/comments containing media, such as images, animated GIFs, videos, audio files, and custom emojis.
EDIT: For files you share in the comments, a simple summary should be enough if they’re too complex.
We are committed to social equity and to reducing barriers of entry, including (digital) communication and culture. It takes each of us only a few moments to make a whole world of content (more) accessible to a bunch of folks.
When alt text is absent, a reminder will be issued. If you don't add the missing alt text within 48 hours, the post will be removed. No hard feelings.
0.5.1 Style tip about abbreviations and short forms
When writing stuff like "lol" and "iirc", it's a good idea to try and replace those with their all caps counterpart
- ofc => OFC
- af = AF
- ok => OK
- lol => LOL
- bc => BC
- bs => BS
- iirc => IIRC
- cia => CIA
- nato => Nato (you don't spell it when talking, right?)
- usa => USA
- prc => PRC
- etc.
Why? Because otherwise (AFAIK), screen readers will try to read them out as actually words instead of spelling them
1. Socialist Unity in the form of mutual respect and good faith interactions 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
That means condemning (their) imperialism, even if it is of the "anti-USA" flavor.
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" (read: Dengists) (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 "Mantic Minotaur" when answering question 2)
6. Don't irrationally 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.
- Absolutely no posts or comments meant to relativize(/apologize for), advocate, promote or defend:
- Racism
- Sexism
- Queerphobia
- Ableism
- Classism
- Sexual assault
- Genocide/ethnic cleansing or (mass) deportations
- Fascism
- (National) chauvinism
- Orientalism
- Colonialism or Imperialism (and their neo- counterparts)
- Zionism
- Religious fundamentalism of any kind
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Well I can just say I started a business while being a broke student and without a penny to my name. Just find the first customer and start working. The money is shit but it fed my baby and wife and a small apartment. Kept working my ass off several years and started employing some of my fellow students. You argue you have to have money to make money, but according to you all those people earn so much more money. Nobody talks about all these years invested into getting up that point. I'm nearly forty and can now slowly start saving some money while most of my peers are paying off their first home while living in it. My employees are payed well and like working for me. I don't think calling that exploitation would be in any way correct. I feel the hate, and I understand not everybody has marketable skills but I was basically a Linux and coding nerd without a degree with a baby and wife and no family to help. Its hard and I had the opportunity and I feel most business owner got their start like that. There are obviously people with rich parents yada yada and obviously not every business works with zero capital startup money but that's just how it is.
I'll translate: "I got lucky doing the exact same thing everyone does that is working hard and making money in the ways that were available to me but I assume I have what I have because I worked hard and the rest did not, not even the people I work with. I managed to find financial stability that in time allowed me to collaborate with others to grow something that we ended up building together but I own, and although they work "with" me I tell myself they work "for" me because I did it, I, it is mine and thanks to myself, and everything capitalism has allowed me to achieve is thanks to my own. I understand there are people that do not need to struggle like I did but since there is no reason for any of this to be then I tell myself "that's just how it is" I found food, why aren't others happy?"
You say people are willing to give a large portion of their produced value for "heavily reduced risk of income fluctuation"? Like that's what the exchange is. Like if the company does bad and bankrupts they'll still have their job and earnings. Tell them everyone at the business will earn a fluctuating amount of the wealth the company makes equally distributed and if the company does bad it will lower, but you're all in it together. xd
I understand survivorship bias and i understand there is luck involved. But that doesn't change that somebody has to do business and that everybody can try and that being an employer is not as simply evil as people here want to believe.