this post was submitted on 13 Feb 2024
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[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

Liberalism in action ladies, gentlemen, and folks of all genders, liberalism in action.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 9 months ago

"The Richest Democracy in the World"

No, it's China.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 9 months ago (1 children)

any functioning democracy

Neither functioning, nor a democracy. The usa has ALWAYS been an oligarchy, rule by rich white males is written in the Constitution. But I guess if you realize it's real function is to transfer wealth from the working class to the oligarchs, then yeah, it is functioning as designed.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago

An oligarchy is just democracy for the ruling class

[–] [email protected] 30 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Bold of you to assume that the burguerstates are functioning or a democracy

[–] [email protected] 32 points 9 months ago (2 children)

That's where class analysis becomes important. Every state is a democracy for the class that holds power in society, and capitalist states are democracies for the capital owning class. As Lenin famously put it:

In capitalist society, providing it develops under the most favorable conditions, we have a more or less complete democracy in the democratic republic. But this democracy is always hemmed in by the narrow limits set by capitalist exploitation and consequently always remains, in effect, a democracy for the minority, only for the propertied classes, only for the rich. Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in the ancient Greek republics: freedom for the slave owners.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

I don’t think Hartmann is ever going to get there: he’ll never stop believing in liberal democracy. It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it — Upton Sinclair

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago
[–] [email protected] 20 points 9 months ago

This is aka dictatorship of the burguergeois. Tbh nowdays i dont think its a democracy even between them. Things are rapidly degenerating into pure barbarism

[–] [email protected] 18 points 9 months ago

It was a shock to me how I actually had a better quality of life and standard of living in Saudi Arabia, which is why after 10 years in the US I decided to leave. The US does have more freedoms, specially the individualist kind, but in the day-to-day life I found myself more concerned catching up to bills than exercising any freedoms. In Saudi Arabia it was the opposite, I could think about what freedoms I was lacking because materially I had no worries.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 9 months ago (2 children)

If anyone's interested, the 2nd most unequal society in the developed world is Israel.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

And we all know who's at the bottom of society there as well...

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago

Not surprised.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

"functioning" (I need some comically large quotes.)

[–] [email protected] 18 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I mean, as far as bourgeois "democracy" goes, it functions perfectly fine - as evidenced by this very article. The funneling of wealth and power to the capitalist class is a well-oiled machine

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I need some comically large quotes for our "democracy", too.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago

I chuckled at that bit as well