this post was submitted on 22 Feb 2025
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I fled Reddit due to the authoritarian mod craziness, but Lemmy.world seems infested with too much Communist craziness. I'm leftist, but communism is idiocy. Is there an instance that leans more democratic socialist but refrains from going off the deep end?

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 hours ago

I'm not an academically trained scholar regarding left-wing theory, but I'd assume that communists and social democrats are still part of the same group, with one naming themselves after a shorter-term goal-state, and the other naming themselves after a longer-term goal-state.

When we talk about state models such as republic, democracy, autocracy, we're either describing a current status, or a model we might want to follow or avoid. When we talk about ideologies (conservatism, liberalism, communism, feminism, etc.) they assert specific values and presumptions that might or might not be true or workable. For instance, in the communist ideal, every participant has exactly the same amount of political and material power; influence is perfectly distributed. But we have no idea how a state like that would look, or work, or if we could ever get there.

Every model and every ideology has problems and concessions we don't understand and have to correct for. The one-person = one-vote thing seems intuitive for democracy, but has terrible side effects, and we're still sorting out alternative election models that might work better.

All this is to say it's a really bad idea to treat any one of them as a racehorse or football team or a banner under which to rally and consolidate political power. None of the models or ideals we have are perfect or absolute, and we have to be prepared to adjust them on the fly, especially as we content with corruption and bad actors who exploit vulnerabilities.

I suspect everyone on the left ultimately seeks a society in which everyone is materially provided for, in which liberties are as extensive as possible while providing for protections and considering human biases towards certain abberant behavior (e.g. drunk driving) in which there are as few social strata as possible and power is as well distributed as possible. The models that accommodate all these, even to partial degrees, are still very fuzzy. (Western civilization has been working on them for only three hundred years or so.)

So we're at least in the same book, if not on the same page.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 hours ago (3 children)

Lemmy.world is actively opposed to Marxism and Communism (from moderator and admin POV).

As a side-note, all Communists support democracy, "democratic socialism" is usually ill-defined and meaningless, to one person it means the Nordics and to others it means Marxism without revolution, it only really hurts description.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (1 children)

They're not opposed to communism. Just tankies like yourself.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

“Tankie” is a caricature. The idea of a tankie is the ideal vision of a McCarthyian Communist. In reality, the overwhelming majority of people labeled as such don’t actually fit that label, it’s more of a way to cast an image of someone’s positions based on, say, support for AES countries, and twist that into the evil Commie Pinko that haunts the dreams of 1960s children in the US.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 7 hours ago

Lol Cowbee is a well known Tankie, .world is anti-tankie, which are authoritarian "communists"

[–] [email protected] 18 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)

.world is the most liberal place on the lemmy lmao. If they are too left for you idk what to tell you

[–] [email protected] 4 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (2 children)

i'd like to hear your take on "communism is idiocy".

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

OP didn't respond so I will take a shot. My understanding is that under communism, the economy has to be planned by the government. Under capitalism, the price of shoes (for example) is usually determined by the demand for shoes and the amount of shoes that can be manufactured. If demand falls, the price falls. If manufacturing capacity increases, the price falls more, etc. This mechanism has feedback loops that make it efficient. In theory, companies never make more shoes than they can sell, because if they do make too many, they can sell the excess by cutting prices. Under communism there is no free market, so the mechanics of supply and demand don't work. Some communist bureaucrat conducts a study and estimates that the country will need 100k pairs of shoes next quarter. The government then makes those shoes in a state-owned factory. Suppose, though, that it turns out that the country needed more. With no free market, there is no competitor to step in and meet the demand for shoes - now you have a shortage. Similarly, you can have considerable waste if you grow too many apples or whatever. In true communism, there is no price to adjust - you either have an apple voucher or you don't. Thus there is generally more problems meeting demand efficiently. This is, in fact, exactly what we saw under the Soviet Union - the stores were often stuffed with unwanted items while long lines developed for items that were in high demand. Without any consideration of authoritarianism etc., this is an often-cited reason for the failure of communism.

I am not a political theorist or an economist, so please correct me if I am wrong.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

You've got the general critique from Mises right, but that's an extremely outdated critique that has long been debunked. The article Prices in a Planned Economy helps show how prices in a fully publicly owned economy could be planned, including what you are describing as "price signals." The fact is, the USSR's economy did work, and worked rather well, but issues like having to spend a huge portion of GDP on the defense industry just to keep up with the US starved the rest of the economy for growth, and the Soviets planned by hand rather than by computer. Neither of these issues need to be taken by any Socialist state going forward.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (1 children)

if all humans could plan for the future and wished inherently to make world into better place for others too instead of just themselves communism might work. But as it is, the idea needs some heavy reworking to adjust for human defiencies to be worth even considering. I dont understand how they even came up with something like this and thought its good idea as it is. And naively thought no one would abuse their power or even could manage it all efficiently. Maybe it wasnt idea born out of wanting to make better world but instead just counter reaction to capitalism.

its so annoying, i have this vague idea of something like world without exploitative private property. Like, money would be replaced with actual value of work you have done, you could reasonably use tools and resources without being gatekept by private ownership while still being allowed to have your own things as long as it doesnt cause harm to others. When someone wants more than they can have, its solved instead by working towards improving things for everyone instead of just yourself.

but its just that, a vague idea; mostly fit to taunt me like dangling bottle of water out of reach of someone dying of thirst. And its seeming more and more like wishing one could do magic. It doesnt seem like humans could ever be capable of having a world like that or even want to .

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

I don't really know what your problem with Communism is, nor why you think it requires humans to want to make the world a better place. I recommend reading Marx's actual words on the subject.

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

only thing that inherently has worth to me is making world better place. Communism is just a tool, if it doesnt work correctly then it ought to be fixed or abandoned for something else that works better. And evidently it doesnt work correctly considering how china or soviet union turned out to be for those not in power.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 hours ago

Marxism is just a tool, sure, though I think doubling life expectancy, over trippling literacy rates to 99.9%, lowering wealth disparity while increasing GDP dramatically, and democratization of society and the economy prove that Socialism does work. I think you have a very narrow view of the history of AES states and need to do more research, as it seems like you just have the default western viewpoint.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

They're almost certainly conflating communism with the authoritarian flavor so enjoyed by the tankies of .ml/hex/grad

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 hours ago

it's either that, or attributing anything related to social welfare to communism or at least a slippery slope to communism.

[–] [email protected] 48 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I'm surprised you see a ton of that on lemmy.world, always found that instance rather tame and moderate, at least by lemmy standards. Certainly compared to Hexbear, ml and Lemmygrad. Are you sure those weren't federated posts from those instances? Anyway, lemm.ee is pretty neutral, lemmy.dbzer0.com leans more anarchist. But you could also just stay on .world and subscribe to communities that align with your views on whatever instance. Unless you have an issue with the moderation on .world specifically, it doesn't really matter.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (4 children)

“Authoritarian mod craziness”? What communities were you hanging in where this was such a widespread problem?

Also .world is definitely not overwhelmingly communist. You need to start subscribing/blocking just like you probably did on Reddit. There’s no underlying algorithm making decisions for you here. You have full control of what you see. If you don’t like what you see, you can fix it!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

I mean let's not pretend that there aren't a lot of psychotic mods on world. It's gets pretty bad. Hell I got banned from a community for criticizing a New York Post article once. Which I mean shit, how do you not?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

I never pretended otherwise. But I gotta tell you the same thing I said in another comment where someone was allegedly banned for basically nothing: I highly doubt that’s the entire story

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

You can go look it up if you want it was like I don't know 8 months ago. Literally all it was. That's why it's stuck in my craw. Didn't give two shits about the community, I wasn't a member of it. Just so weird that that Jeff guy banned me for criticizing the New York Post.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

I don’t give two shits about the community. I wasn’t a part of it

That’s another red flag right there 🤷‍♂️

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (1 children)

All right I'll bite, why is that a red flag? This is Lemmy. Not so big that you don't end up in communities you're not a part of all the time. Hell I'm not a part of this community.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 40 minutes ago

You’re so certain you did absolutely nothing wrong, but that requires you to understand the community rules and be certain you didn’t violate them. But you admit you not only aren’t a member but don’t give a shit about the community.

Do you really not see how this comes across?

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 day ago (2 children)

As someone similar to you, blocking and stuff seems the right approach vs. trying to find a specific instance.

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