this post was submitted on 11 Apr 2024
450 points (98.5% liked)

World News

39151 readers
2479 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Nevoic@lemm.ee 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The goal of semantics, and words in general, are to convey ideas. It was true in the past that socialism was a very concrete, straightforward thing. If you believed in worker control of the means of production, you were a socialist. Now there are people who say they're socialist, and they advocate for private tyrannies for the foreseeable future (decades or sometimes even a century+). They want entire generations of humans to be wage slaves, serve the interests of capital, pay their reduced wages to land leeches and banks, and then die without having ever seen a better system.

Those systems, systems by which entire generations of people are subjugated to the interests of capital under authoritarian rule, are now called socialist or sometimes communist. And I no longer have the word to describe a system where wage slavery is immediately abolished (much like chattel slavery was), and workers take immediate control over the means of production.

Those societies/institutions were often overthrown and overrun by either conservative Marxists (e.g Lenin) or fascists (e.g Catalonia).

[–] zephyreks@lemmy.ml 1 points 7 months ago

The entire foundation of Marxist thought was that the economies in question were industrialized, productive, and developed. Those were, Marx argued, the circumstances for which the progression towards socialism would be natural.

Look now at when socialist revolutions occurred and the state of those countries at that time. It's difficult to argue that those countries were industrialized, productive, or developed.

Lenin and Mao were running off script. According to Marx, every country must transform it's peasants into proletarians. Historically, this had been done through a period of capitalist development. How do you pursue socialist ideals in a country of peasants?