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In my DSA chapter, I don’t think this idea would get far, but a certain sub (don’t mention it or link to it, you might get banned) has recently voted (with 59 percent of the vote, 0.2% of the sub voting) to “ban” marxism Leninism. The “red line” has been described by the mods in lots of different and confusing ways—variously describing the specific problem as ML being anti-democratic, revolutionary, or advocating for a vanguard party (their qualms, not mine).

I know some people equate ML with Stalinism, but why are they lumping Stalin and Lenin together as bad, but saying Marx is ok? Marx wasn’t any less squeemish about revolution and violence, he was just never leading a socialist party through a civil war.

I’m more interested in the theoretical basis of DemSoc vs ML than the political fighting. It just seems impossible to me that you could separate the schools of thought even if you believe socialism can be achieved through the ballot. What say you?

Should there be tint laws. I f21 have tints on my car for safety purposes as a female I have gotten harassed in my car while driving or parked some where. I personally feel uncomfortable for having to remove my tints because they are illegal in my state. But police officers are allowed to have them?! I have had people get out of there car and try to target me. It’s just weird to me how cops can have them but us people are not allowed to have them for our own safety.

Money isn't even real. If an elite needs more money, he just goes to the bank and tells them to add another zero to his account. I'm not talking about a $400k/year Wall Street stiff flying first class and being comfortable. I'm talking liquid. These are people who meet in smoke filled backrooms and plot out how they're going to make us eat bugs. Can you imagine the world's richest people getting together and that's what they talk about? That's their 5 year plan? If you think they meet and talk about switching to Sigma 7 accounting practices to increase overlays 1% per anum, then you're stuck at the level of a white collar drone.

The world must be a very confusing place for you when you see big business act in ways that inexplicably decreases profit. Why does Fox News fire their number one host? I can tell you, but it raises more questions than it answers. Tucker Carlson had the most viewers, but the fewest advertisers. So you see, advertisers didn't want anything to do with the number one show. Why did Apple and Google both ban Gab from their app stores at the same time when it was the number one app? Why are there no pro-racism movies for racist America? This is a huge untapped market segment right? Nobody even thinks to ask that when criticizing America for racism, like gee why don't i find a way to tap into that if it's so big? Why do companies like Gillette openly mock their own customers? Why does Youtube spend 70% of their budget removing content thus reducing likes and views? The left won't miss a beat, and will tell you it's because they broke the terms of service. Duh! And that's the answer. The left already knows that corporations don't care about money, and takes it for granted that corporations are acting on extra-market incentives like ESG and other cartel systems.

We don't live under capitalism. We live under socialism, where big business has been freed from the shackles of market constraints and no longer has to peruse the profit motive. They are free to peruse other, political, agendas. Government is the new customer, not you. Everything from "defense" to healthcare already was. Corporations only care about money? We could be so lucky.

When people refer to "communism" they usually confuse ideas, strategies, and policies that people call "communism" on one hand, and societies that are classless and stateless on the other.
IOW they confuse "communist" ideology and policy of people who are called "communists", with a future SOCIETY that would be a communist SOCIETY. It's the distinction of "something you can learn by studying a book" ("communist" strategies and policy) versus "a way of living in society" ("communist" classless and stateless society). Again, it's the difference between a person who is a "communist" because of a preferred ideology and method of work, versus a nation that is "communist" because it is classless and stateless. And clearly they are two very different things. And people commonly fail to distinguish them. I have not only seen posts in which the writer obviously bounces back and forth between them without realizing it, but I've also seen posts in which the writer bounces between then IN THE SAME SENTENCE.

We should all be aware of this an strive for clarity. That is why I only use the word "communist" in the form of either "communist ideology" or "communist society".

Obviously there has never been a communist society. In fact it would probably take half a dozen generations for a settled, consolidated, functioning socialist society to become a communist society. So it's a very long way off, and really not worth debating given the many changes that would be necessary before communist society could appear.

So let's discuss socialism. That proves to be a sufficient challenge.

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Not really a debate, just want to hear some honest ideas. Recovering libertarian here. Trying to apply my lens of profit/cost, supply/demand, and my implicit appreciation for individual entrepreneurial spirit to larger issues. The critiques of large planned economies by Friedman, Hayek, and Sowell are all well and good but those people fail to apply their own critique to massive international corporations who can be just as blind to issues as large bureacracies.

That said I'm very sympathetic to several striking unions in my home country, I just would like to know what the solution to the issue is in a socialist framework. If we raise the cost of labour here how do we incentivize employers to keep jobs local rather than ship them off to 3rd world countries with no labour rights?

What is modern day feminism? What is feminism?

Feminism is the idea that men and women should be equal. Feminism was created with the aim that women were to be seen as individuals alongside men, not beneath them. The movement aimed to receive the vote, the right to work, and the right to be a human not an object.

Modern day feminism is not that.

Modern day feminism is everything that women in the 1920s would be ashamed of. Modern day feminism is selective. It is a white woman’s game and it is disgraceful. If anything society’s current idea of feminism takes us back hundreds of years.

Let me explain why?

Let’s look at this current society, a society that “empower” women by dehumanising them and sexualising them with the promotion of Only Fans. Yes it is a viable source of income but there should be shame in encouraging women, young women to give their lives to this platform, where perverted minds feed off. It is not okay, and it is not empowering. Adverts in the 1960s were aimed to sexualise women for the male gaze, to promote products for men. How is this any different?

Why is a white woman’s game?

Feminism is selective because it is used as an excuse to look past the poor decisions of white women, a prime example is Taylor Swift who uses feminism as an excuse for her behaviour. Feminism is not spoken in the language of coloured women and will never be. To be a coloured woman in today’s society you are ignored because of your race, you are under appreciated and you are forced to work twice as hard as white women. Our voices are not heard and our stories are not told because they do not follow the aesthetic of what’s expected of female empowerment. Look on any talk show, the stories of white women are being victimised and if any the stories of coloured women are been humoured at.

This is not feminism, this is a modern day watered down lie and it is a joke.

Hello, I want to elevate my debate skills in Socialism vs. other-ism. One thing I want to be able to do is use the correct language between a government that wants to own the means of production vs. a government that wants to control the means of production. What word or term can I use to distinguish between the two?

I am not very good at providing answers for topics like this because Im not very well informed on how they intertwine with history (which I why I call myself anti-capitalist but nothing more specific), so I thought I’d point him here to people I assume know more about the intricacies of this stuff than me. (Also it’d be good for my knowledge about socialism)

—————

1. Please define Socialism.

2. Please provide historic evidence of a country adopting a socialist system that improved the lives of its people.

3. Why would anyone want to grant so much power to a central government when history is replete with samples of disastrous consequences (Nazi Germany (not making the argument that the Nazis were socialist: rather, it’s an observation about power concentration), communist china, Venezuela, Cuba)

4. “You can vote your way IN to Socialism, but you usually have to shoot your way OUT”

Debate about whether or not people actually have the freedom of speech or if it just a way the government try to convince us to believe we are actually of importance?

Let's start batman vs spiderman personally batman will win Goku vs one punch man for me goku Darth vader vs yoda I think vader takes this Mario vs sonic Mario's taking this Any other debates put it in the comment

¿ Que pensáis que la gente clasifiqué el color de piel con la nacionalidad?

Como por ejemplo el personaje de la película wish Asha.

Socialism promotes the fact that wealth is generated from society together with unity and hard work of people so wealth should be distributed equally in society. But capitalism promotes the fact that the trade, manufacturing and industries are of private owners for generating capital. In my opinion socialism is better as it reduces the economic difference between people and all people can aim for full employment and full production if everyone is given equal wealth.

So we see people from all over the world try to immigrate to capitalist nations such as the United States and in Europe often marching many miles overland or risking their lives crossing the sea. Do we see this happening to modern day or historical communist or socialist countries? Like did people risk their lives to immigrate to USSR from the U.K. or risk getting on a boat to leave the USA to live in Cuba? If yes then I am curious if there is any stories about it. If not then why not?

from affluent backgrounds with pretentions to caring about socialist ideas instead decided to shit on them for not complying.

But I digress.

I've noticed that most revolutionaries these days seem to actually want to be the ones in the post revolutionary world they want to create. Many people say they want to die for a cause, but whether they would or not is not something that can ever really be decided at an intellectual level.

Instead, let's assume there is some kind of "pact with a supreme being" type bargain you can make. You can know that it is absolutely legit, and no double dealing or misinterpretation will occur.

There is a 100% guarantee that your system will work exactly as you intend, everyone will be happy and fed, re education, policy implementation, resource distribution and so on will all have a 100% success rate, with no unforeseen complications, etc, etc. But there is, of course, a very specific cost to you:

If, in order for your particular vision of socialism to be correctly implemented, worldwide, you had to have all your limbs removed, and be kept alive in a featureless box for the rest of your natural life, with no human contact, would you do it?

Leaving the box or being contacted or helped in any way voids the agreement, and the world reverts to global capitalism overnight.

https://youtu.be/4Jgi6kC5j3M?si=yHClPjsZlx4HyvlC

Why Communism is Even Worse Than Fascism - Konstantin Kisin

If you like to debate and are look for people with the same or different ideology join this discord

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osWCEM-EKtQ

some pretty strange arguments

I have five new arguments for socialism and I want to hear your critiques.

1. Local Knowledge
2. Whistleblowers
3. Alienation
4. Job Stability
5. Incentive

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ii4qwCmkZFY

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https://youtu.be/Oe8kjNJWWyw

https://youtu.be/aKUeDDAN8mY

*And yes,I am aware of how important reading theory is, and I'm doing as much reading as I can. I know that debates are largely counterproductive and useless, but I still would like to have some links regardless

Tengo dudas en cuanto a los hombres, porque les parece malo que una mujer termine su comida antes que ustedes?

https://discord.gg/EnnYX849

Ando en un dilema. Los pongo en contexto, hace tiempo tenía a una amiga, la verdad muy guapa. "Gracias", a ella pude encontrar un trabajo porque era su papá el dueño. Lo cual le agradecí, estando en el trabajo convivía más con ella, salíamos a pedas, cotorrear o así la verdad era chido. Pero conforme la fui conociendo fui viendo lo malo, me dejaba a mi o al qué estuviera por irse con otro vato a besar qué no hay nada de mal, Lo malo es que no le importaba como estuvieras tú, si pedo o al millón, espero entenderme en ese punto. Y así fue cuando me sentí muy x, y fue como bajando la amistad, pero donde todo valió fue cuando ella se besó con una morra que le había contado que me gustaba pero todo valió, tenía como 1 mes que le había contado eso. Total se beso enfrente de mi con ella y me miró a los ojos y actuó como si nada pasó. Me lo tomé para mal y le dije que hasta ahí había terminado, no se molestó ni en pedirme una disculpa o algo solo como le deje de hablar también lo hizo. Y ahora sus papás me dicen que debo perder el orgullo para ser yo el que resuelva cuando simplemente siento que es perder mi dignidad hacer eso

I think most capitalists don't believe capitalism to be perfect but they would argue it's still better than socialism while socialists seem to be more inclined to believe that the root of all evil is capitalism and socialism is creating a new utopia that solves all the world's problems.

But what is this belief based on? In the real world such outcomes have never been achieved, they either failed and even if they survived outcomes were not superior in any way.

We can compare a few socialist countries and their regional capitalist counterparts:

West vs East Germany. This isn't difficult. East Germany had lower worker satisfaction, less freedoms, severe environmental problems. People were always escaping from East to West but never from West to East. East failed West didn't.

North Korea vs South Korea. I don't think there is much to discuss here. People generally don't escape South Korea to live in North Korea. North Korea will fail before South Korea.

China vs Taiwan. China is often viewed as a socialist success story because of the massive size of it's economy but what people overlook is that much of China's economic power comes from it's massive population size. China was always an economic superpower, only in recent history it fell behind perhaps because of it's socialist love story. If we look at per capita income and compare it to capitalist South Korea, Japan and Taiwan we find them to be economically inferior than their capitalist neighbors. So one should argue that China was successful economically despite their socialist aspirations not because of them. China also has weak environmental regulation just like East Germany which refutes the idea that socialism is more environmentally friendly. Amazingly China also has even more wealth inequality than the USA. Socially speaking China isn't any warmer, friendlier freer than capitalist nations and workers aren't better off in any way.

USSR/East European States vs West Europe

The capitalist countries survived, the socialists failed. While subjective, it's hard to see how eastern europe was vastly superior or successful, socially, technologically, economically and environmentally.

When presented with these examples socialists have the following responses:

Mentioning the Nordic countries. The problem I see with this is that the Nordic countries have very little to do with the socialist utopias socialists like to talk about. They are private enterprise driven, people are wage slaves and consumers, typical bourgeois society. Prices are determined by the free market. In fact many socialists themselves argue that social democracies are not socialism.

Mentioning Cuba. Cuba has certainly managed to survive which could be seen as remarkable but the fact that it exists does not in any way show the superiority of socialism as I wouldn't describe Cuba as an utopia that is superior to their capitalist counterparts. Quite the opposite. People sometimes select single metrics such as infant mortality and compare it to the US while failing to compare it to other capitalist countries which much better outcomes.

That being said even Cuba had to abandon soviet style central planning long time ago.

Another type of response I have seen is that socialism was not allowed to exist, the capitalists sabotaged it and the hidden hand of the CIA made sure it couldn't succeed. While I do think it's true that socialism has had powerful enemies, I don't think socialism's failure can be blamed on capitalism alone there were certainly countries that could enagage in extensive socialist experimentation for long periods of time and these systems appeared to fail due to deep structural and organisational problems that can't be blamed on outsiders alone. It's also very convenient to claim socialism not working is capitalism's fault.

Another response that I have seen is that we were communists for most our history. It's true that small tribe hunter-gatherer societies weren't capitalists but that's hardly evidence for a socialist economy working in a more advanced society.

Another response is true socialism has never been tried. That seems a very convenient excuse to me because in practice true socialism is very hard perhaps impossible to implement so we can always claim socialism hasn't been tried. Also how do we know that socialism works if it has never been tried?

Which leads us to the following question. What's the purpose of socialism if it does not improve our lives in the real world? Why not try to come up with a different set of ideas to solve our problems? Why does it have to be socialism that will save us?

Even North Korea has unofficial property rights trading which serves as proxy for home ownership.

A socialist system would be presented with the dilemma of either using force/punishment against people who violate socialist ideals or to just ignore/tolerate an underground capitalist economy.

See the war on drugs or prohibition for example.

Since the West has a long history of trade and commerce, and property rights it's unlikely that the population would completely cease these activities any time soon and give up their existing property.

We are not just talking about a few rich people but even a large part of the middle class.

A true socialist revolution would therefore happen only with the application of force and would be expected to be extremely bloody which should be incompatible with socialist ideals.

Even when it could be achieved, force would very likely to be required to keep the capitalist weeds from growing back. A totalitarian for the greater good mentality would result in a dystopic society and rebellion sooner or later which would either result in more control measures or the end of a true socialist society.

In my reddit travels it seems in the places I hang out more than 50% of people say they are pro-socialism and non-stop complain about capitalism. My question for those people: do you actually live as a socialist? If yes then what does that look like for you? If no, then why not?