this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2023
82 points (98.8% liked)

Lefty Memes

4407 readers
472 users here now

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

Version without spoilers

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


That means 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.



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

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] CrabAndBroom@lemmy.ml 21 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.

[–] refurbishedrefurbisher@lemmy.sdf.org 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] Chriskmee@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago (1 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.

[–] TurnItOff_OnAgain@lemmy.world 3 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

[–] Chriskmee@lemm.ee -1 points 1 year ago (1 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.

[–] EnmaAi22@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] Chriskmee@lemm.ee 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes to taking away wealth or the way to leverage it?

[–] EnmaAi22@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Taking away (extreme) wealth. There's no reason one person should have that much. There's countless better ways to use that money/wealth than for one persons extravagant lifestyle. And even if they don't have an extravagant lifestyle, what are they gonna do with it? Doubt they will build infrastructure out of good will with it.

[–] Chriskmee@lemm.ee 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So take away ownership of a company just because it's too successful? That wealth is mostly in company ownership, so are you really suggesting we steal away legitimate ownership in successful companies?

[–] EnmaAi22@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Yes. Fuck Capitalism.

It's not stealing their legitimate ownership. They don't have legitimate ownership.

[–] painfulasterisk@lemmy.world 2 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.

[–] xenspidey@lemmy.zip -1 points 1 year ago (6 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...

[–] lukecooperatus@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago

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

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

[–] alvvayson@lemmy.world 2 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.

No, they'd just need to liquidate their share in those companies. Those shares would then get bought up by other people or by pension funds.

I highly recommend you to read the paper billionare argument. The market can stand the liquidation of most of those companies without making them go bankrupt, we don't want them to stop existing, just to make them smaller and not a threat to democracy.

For the whole scale of wealth I also recommend going through wealth shown to scale

[–] Slotos@feddit.nl 1 points 1 year ago

All they’d need to liquidate is part of their ownership in said companies. Companies themselves will be ok, don’t you worry your bleeding heart.

[–] wintermute_oregon@lemm.ee -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That’s the thing people don’t get. The ultra wealthy are wealthy on paper.

On an average years. All of us make more than Elon in wages.

[–] MNByChoice@midwest.social 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What did Elon get paid, excluding stock options at companies he works for?

I bet he still makes more than me.

[–] wintermute_oregon@lemm.ee 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] MNByChoice@midwest.social 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

That actually almost seems worse. He is not paying into Social Security or his local community. He is being generously compensated on stock, which is taxed differently.

Edit: I do want to thank you for providing that link. I was only finding a Forbes article about him being the highest compensated CEO of that year.

[–] wintermute_oregon@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

He’s paying in the local community through property taxes.

He’s highly compensated through stock and when he bought twitter. We got some huge amount of money in Taxes.

You’re correct. He rarely pays into social but that’s a problem for Congress to solve.

There are many ways to solve this bullshit and one is not allow them to borrow against their stock. That’s how they live for so cheap. I’m not opposed to stopping that at all.