this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2023
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Lefty Memes

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An international (English speaking) socialist Lemmy community free of the "ML" influence of instances like lemmy.ml and lemmygrad. 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, and discussion 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)

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,

as well as 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" seen on lemmygrad and more specifically GenZedong (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 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.

7. Absolutely no posts or comments meant to relativize(/apologize for), advocate, promote or defend:

(This is not a definitive list, the spirit of the other rules still counts! Eventual duplicates with other rules are for emphasis.)

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Tax billionaires until there are no more billionaires

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's really insane that we legally treat the tenth billion dollars at the same level as a working persons house or car.

Everything is legally just "property".

No, fuck that.

The law should protect the first million of every citizen with ferver. (and when we tackle wealth inequality, most people will have this level of wealth at the end of their working life. The fact that most currently don't is due to inequality. )

Up until 100 million, it should be taxed at a reasonable level. Because at some level, it's fair that people prefer watching Taylor Swift instead of me sing on a stage.

Above that it should be taxed heavily.

And above a billion, it should be just confiscated. As in, oopsie, our system malfunctioned, you weren't supposed to end up with more wealth than what a thousand normal people would save up after a whole lifetime of work, so we are taking it back.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I mean you could even take the bottom number and leave them with the top number and they could still live in unimaginable luxury forever. Or just take the lot because fuck em lol.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

If they are self-made millionaires/billionaires as they claim, take everything they have/own and tell them to start the quest again, no glitches, DLC, or saved progress.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (3 children)

You all realize they don't have that money laying around to pay the IRS right? They own companies, those companies are worth that much. To pay that you would have to liquidate those companies. So no more Amazon, Tesla, Space X, etc...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Don't be a bootlicker or bot or idiot.

When they sell their shares to buy twitter or pay the tax man, those companies still exist. It just means that other people get to buy those shares and that's a good thing, because that way those companies get owned by the public.

Tesla and SpaceX still exist even after Elon overpaid by some $30B for his Twitter adventure.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

no more Amazon, Tesla, Space X, etc...

Oh no! Anyway, so how can we make this happen, like, yesterday?

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I couldn't imagine spending $1 billion in my entire life, let alone 3-4.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Most of their billions is ownership in companies they grew into what they are today. It's not like they have billions to spend, it's that their ownership is worth billions according to the market.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They could go to any bank and leverage that asset for a loan for more than everyone who posts on this platform will make in their lifetimes no problem. That is a nonsense talking point

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What's your point? So because they can leverage their ownership of their own company we need to take away that ownership?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes, if you can control more wealth than a mid size city earns in ten lifetimes, you should not be allowed to do that

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't think the stock market should be determining if we take away companies from their owners, no matter how much it's worth. Why does having more wealth than a certain size city matter? Especially if your company has more employees and customers than even a large city?

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

Especially if your company has more employees and customers than even a large city?

Why do those employees get the bare minimum? Why are the working majority excluded from ownership and decision-making in the companies they run?

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

True, but that ownership gives them access to very low interest loans that they then use as spending money and don't have to pay taxes on it

https://www.businessinsider.com/american-billionaires-tax-avoidance-income-wealth-borrow-money-propublica-2021-6

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (5 children)

So what? We should take away that ownership because they can leverage it? Also the same people suggesting we tax wealth like this want to also close those "loopholes" of low interest loans on shares.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The difference between someone with $1000 and a million dollars is the same between a millionaire and billionaire.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

A million seconds is about 12 days. A billion seconds is about 32 years.

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