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ToastedPlanet @lemmy.blahaj.zone

Ruleducation

We've reached the second iteration. There isn't a lot separating us from the third iteration. And the material conditions were bad enough, at the latest, sometime between the first and the second iterations.

People know socialism exists. People are experiencing sufficiently bad material conditions that they want change.

People have picked up neoliberal ideas from living in a neoliberal society. These ideas give people a framework to process their material conditions so that they do not rise up in sufficient numbers. People need to learn that these ideas are part of an ideology designed to enrich the owner class at the expense of the worker class. Things will continue to get worse unless people understand that everyone needs to own their work.

This education is work that still needs to be done after hypothetically defeating the current fascist dictatorships and is probably part of what will be needed to defeat them.

I keep having this conversation with people and seeing the accelerationist line of reasoning, so I wanted to address it with a visual.

47 comments

  • People know socialism exists

    I'm not sure they do. I think most people have heard the term and think that it basically means high taxes and high govt intervention (basically social democracy). Or they think it means that the government controls the economy and all companies would become nationalized. I was effectively a socialist for a couple of years before I realized I was. A lot of people need to know what socialism even is before they can erase the stigma in their minds.

    • Absolutely. And even worse people often believe it is incompatible with democracy or is somehow otherwise innately authoritarian :/

      I really am rather tired of how well capitalists and tankies have ruined peoples perception of the term

      • it's great, because they really are saying the opposite of the truth often enough that people take it as common sense. Capitalism is incompatible with democracy, yet democracy creates the stability capitalists crave. They want a free lunch; constantly trying to get rid of the foundations while expecting to be properly sheltered.

    • The problem with knowing what socialism means is that it's a linguistic battleground of sorts, where the word has multiple meanings depending on who uses it. For instance:

      • A liberal and conservative would likely think that it's when "government does stuff" like you described - higher taxes, more public services etc.
      • ML's believe that the 'socialism' described above is just liberalism and actual socialism is when means of production are nationalized, private capital is abolished but the state becomes state capitalist and develops that way.
      • Marxists believe that both 'socialisms' above are just liberalism and actual socialism is when the capitalist mode of production is abolished, so commodity production is replaced with production for use and people pay for goods using something like their labor time with vouchers. This is Marx's definition in Critique of Gotha Programme.
      • Some anarchist/marxist sects believe that the 'socialisms' above are just liberalism, that this kind of 'wage' system is a needless concession and yap yap yap you get the idea.

      It's often genuinely difficult to know what the writer means when they use the word "socialism"

47 comments