It’s a meme

  • blunderworld@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    29
    arrow-down
    14
    ·
    1 year ago

    How exactly? Other than excessive bloodshed, which - other than edgelord tankies - most people would neither want, nor have the stomach to pursue.

    • Someonelol@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      26
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      Take the route California is taking and educate the kids about worker’s rights. Teach them it’s not okay to be exploited at the work place and encourage them to tell their parents about it. Civics classes should also be taught to learn how the government works and what people’s rights are under the Constitution. Encourage people to unionize now that they know how the system works.

      Once the basics have been taught, elect people who care about government reform for social policies by paying for them with higher corporate and personal wealth taxes. Reform the tax system the wealthy have been using to hide their money. All their money is tied up in stocks and they’re living off of multimillion dollar loans? Fuck them, tax a big percentage of the loan. All these things can be done to indirectly seize the fruits of their production at least.

    • ByteJunk@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      12
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      General strike (like the writers guild, except everyone) until the distribution of (a part of the) dividends to the workers is enshrined into law.

      Sounds pretty doable to me.

    • PunnyName@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      11
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Start by talking about your wages. Most people won’t even do that, for fear of reprisals. Even though it’s protected federally.

      Casually bringing up support for unions, and those on strike.

      This is base level, and in many places, will take a long time to see movement.

    • oo1@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      1 year ago

      i’d do some intellectual property reform.
      some banking reform - more local / peer group/long term lending requirements, less fickle international finance. (and less fucking mortgage bubbles!)
      some small business support / starter initiatives - link that in with how banks work.

      i’d consider lobbying for some government sposored work to generate open source plans and enable production processes for useful tools - Okay that isn’t going to happen , , ,

      but it’s not all or nothing, but you can do things to help some more workers control and access more of their tooling even if its not outright ownership of the end to end production process.

      (By the way i’m basically arguing for a more “free” market in the ecnomic sense (easy access for a large number of small scale producers). . . which is exactly not what large-scale capitalists want.
      They want a market “free” from any thing that might regulate their attempts to secure economic power and their abiity to use it to generate supernormal prices/profits.)

      Progress doesnt happen in 4-5 year political cycles thats a hard one to improve without an electorate capable (any maybe secure enough) to thing about the longer term. Odd that it was extreme econmic and political uncertainty that brought out the likes of FDR and other post-war that people were most willing to think long term when it came to their governemnts - I guess it brought out all sorts of “crazies”.

      The big one in terms of bloodshed is land reform - and it has been done in a few places - sort of post-colonial type situations - but granted it does ususally have blooodshed. It’s a personal judgment what degree is “excessive bloodshed”.

      • spookedbyroaches@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        What does bank reform mean? Banks already give loans to small bussinesses.

        You can start a company that does what you want them to do. You can create all the innovative processes you want and open source them in the existing system.

    • LavaPlanet@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      The women of Iceland went on strike in 1975, they stopped doing literally everything, walked out of the home, left the kids, to demonstrate how much the system would crumble without them, how important they are to everything being able to function, and ask for equal pay. They flipped everything overnight.

      The current system is all the workers do all the work, and the profits from that work go almost entirely to some douvhe who won birth lotto. The system is already rigged. Unrigging the system would look like walking off the job, but globally. It’s going to happen. Society is squeezed too tightly, there’s going to be havoc.

    • AllonzeeLV@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      12
      arrow-down
      11
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Agreed, lets just keep doing whatever the capitalists demand until their insatiable greed destroys them and us.

      https://www.vice.com/en/article/7kxdxa/1500-scientists-warn-society-could-collapse-this-century-in-dire-climate-report

      It’s not like it’s gonna take that long. And if not climate change, the AI they don’t fully understand but are trying to monetize. And if not AI, CRISPR derived vectors they don’t fully understand but are trying to monetize, etc.

      Lets just stay the course. It will all work out in the end, at least for the planet, and that’s ultimately what matters.

      • TheBeege@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        15
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        I understand the bitterness, but whoever said the commenter wanted to do what capitalists demand? They just wanted to avoid bloodshed.

        There are always options like general strikes, massive voting movements, etc. It’s just a matter of figuring out what will work and how to do it.

        If you’re arguing that capitalists will respond with violence, that’s fair, but then the blame is on them, not the workers

        • Socsa@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          4
          arrow-down
          4
          ·
          1 year ago

          These people don’t actually care about statecraft or political science. It’s all about fan service for them.

          • AllonzeeLV@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            edit-2
            1 year ago

            The severe, civilization scale consequences of the damage we have done, are presently doing, and will continue to do for private profit to our only habitat we all depemd on for survival from one moment to the next also doesn’t care about statecraft or political science attempts to minimize/ignore/discredit it through self-serving rhetoric of those in political power attempting to maintain that power.

            Sorry. No bullshitting our way out of this one like it’s just another human on human genocide we can rebrand and massage the messaging of. The physics are determinate, and no amount our patented human extracted snake oil will change that.

            Try to spin the greed vice, failing, and personality deficit as a positive like “rational self-interest” all day. Humanity sanctioning and even encouraging that darkest of impulses did this.

      • blunderworld@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        That isn’t what I said and I think you know it. Next time just say you don’t know the answer either and save yourself the effort.

        • AllonzeeLV@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          I know what humans are going to do by our track record. Kick the can until there is a physical obstruction preventing it.

          We will talk the biggest of games claiming otherwise the whole time, though. Surely rhetoric will save the day this time!

          • blunderworld@lemmy.ca
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            5
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            1 year ago

            You seem to know a lot for a guy who hasn’t been able to suggest any kind of realistic solution.

            • AllonzeeLV@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              2
              arrow-down
              3
              ·
              edit-2
              1 year ago

              I believe humanity has passed the point where we can. We lack the will. We’re monkeys just barely smart enough with concerted effort to create technologies we lack the impulse control to wield responsibly. We figured out gun powder, and proceeded to use it to commit genocides, for example.

              This wasn’t a problem for the planet, only one another, until industrialization. Now we’re addicted to technologies that make wealthy people wealthier while poisoning our only shared habitat. Now we’re monkeys with multiple, competing self-destructive but potentially profitable technologies all vying to blow up in our face in the quest to enrich those that hold their patents, and they answer to no one. World governments instead seem to answer to them.

              So yeah, I don’t see a non-violent solution where you put a big red nuclear button in an orangutan sanctuary that looks like their food dispenser button, and taking thr big red nuclear button away from them, even by force, is off the table.

              I can only control myself, I can’t force my fellow peasants to stop digging their own graves to further enrich a few thousand sociopath families who’ve convinced them this is the only way. There’s peace in acceptance I suppose.

    • masquenox@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      8
      arrow-down
      9
      ·
      1 year ago

      other than edgelord tankies

      Maybe you shouldn’t use terms if you don’t understand them, liberal.

        • masquenox@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          5
          arrow-down
          4
          ·
          1 year ago

          There’s nothing cringier than right-wingers who pretend they aren’t right-wingers… ie, liberals. For people who can be called leftist with a straight face, “liberal” is quite the insult.

          Wanna see what MLK had to say about liberals?

          • IntrepidIceIgloo@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            4
            arrow-down
            3
            ·
            1 year ago

            You lump us with fascists. “Scratch a liberal a fascist bleeds” has to be one of the most ridiculous things ever said. We’re not your enemies! Democratic socialists are in the Democrat party in America. Social Liberals and Social Democrats have much more in common than Social Liberals and Conservatives. In Europe Liberals and moderate socialists form parliamentary coalitions

            • masquenox@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              3
              arrow-down
              2
              ·
              1 year ago

              Scratch a liberal a fascist bleeds” has to be one of the most ridiculous things

              Really? Liberals are invested in the maintenance of the status quo, but aren’t willing to do the dirty and bloody work that the maintanance of the status quo requires… fascists are. It’s a match made in the deepest pits of hell. There’s nothing new about this - the liberal Weimar regime climbed into bed with fascism right from the get-go to crush working class revolt. It’s the same reason the liberals USians vote into the Waffle House are more interested in “reaching across the aisle” than actually doing anything to prevent white supremacist terrorism.

              Who else will protect the capitalist world order for you, liberal? You? Who did you think maintains the murderous exploitation in the 3rd world that makes your glorious 1st world existence possible? It’s fascists, genius… your precious world order cannot be maintained without them.

              If a fascist regime rises, it’s only because a liberal regime came before it that loosened the ground for it to grow.

            • OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              4
              arrow-down
              6
              ·
              1 year ago

              Read the economy and class structure of german fascism if you want a detailed explanation for “scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds”

    • OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      arrow-down
      5
      ·
      1 year ago

      THERE were two “Reigns of Terror,” if we would but remember it and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred millions; but our shudders are all for the “horrors” of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break? What is swift death by lightning compared with death by slow fire at the stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief Terror which we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror—that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.

    • Socsa@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      8
      arrow-down
      11
      ·
      1 year ago

      Honestly the whole “eat the rich” thing is pretty offensive if you know your Chinese history, considering ritualistic torture cannibalism actually happened during the cultural revolution and is pretty well documented from actual CCP sources. In this case “the rich” were actually teachers and scientists.

    • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      7
      arrow-down
      14
      ·
      1 year ago

      Revolutions have happened and will continue to happen regardless of how much smug liberals will bloviate about edgelord tankies.

      • blunderworld@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        Okay sure, so what examples do you have of a successful modern revolution?

        Bonus points if you can name one where the winners didn’t just immediately change the rules and continue fucking over the little guy.

        Another bonus point if you can name an example where a revolution didn’t result in disproportionate civilian deaths relative to the ‘bad guys’.

        Then again, maybe you’re one of those ‘the end justifies the means’ kind of guys, who fantasizes about saving the rest of us by way of firing squad. If that’s the case, I’ll expect you to be on the front line to fight the government funded military force that shows up.

        Or maybe, just maybe you’re another lame ass tankie who talks a big game, but would piss their pants if someone so much as gave you a dirty look IRL.

        • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          5
          arrow-down
          11
          ·
          1 year ago

          Soviet revolution in Russia, Revolution in China, in Cuba, in Vietnam, in Laos, in Nicaragua, just to name a few.

          Bonus points if you can name one where the winners didn’t just immediately change the rules and continue fucking over the little guy.

          None of the above examples did anything of the sort as anybody with even a modicum of historical literacy knows.

          Another bonus point if you can name an example where a revolution didn’t result in disproportionate civilian deaths relative to the ‘bad guys’.

          Define what’s disproportionate and how you decide on what’s proportionate.

          Then again, maybe you’re one of those ‘the end justifies the means’ kind of guys, who fantasizes about saving the rest of us by way of firing squad. If that’s the case, I’ll expect you to be on the front line to fight the government funded military force that shows up.

          Then again, maybe you’re one of those people who are benefiting from capitalism and don’t care about the suffering of other people as long as you got yours.

          Or maybe, just maybe you’re another lame ass tankie who talks a big game, but would piss their pants if someone so much as gave you a dirty look IRL.

          Or maybe, just maybe you’re an ignorant dronie who is as illiterate as you’re ignorant.

      • Socsa@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        And they will continue to become stuck in the dictatorship phase until you acknowledge that you cannot create political agency via mass murder of innocents.

  • RedditWanderer@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    1 year ago

    If there was hope, it must lie in the proles, because only there, in those swarming disregarded masses, eighty-five percent of the population of Oceania, could the force to destroy the Party ever be generated. The Party could not be overthrown from within. Its enemies, if it had any enemies, had no way of coming together or even of identifying one another. Even if the legendary Brotherhood existed, as just possibly it might, it was inconceivable that its members could ever assemble in larger numbers than twos and threes. Rebellion meant a look in the eyes, an inflection of the voice; at the most, an occasional whispered word. But the proles, if only they could somehow become conscious of their own strength, would have no need to conspire. They need only to rise up and shake themselves like a horse shaking off flies. If they chose they could blow the Party to pieces tomorrow morning. Surely sooner or later it must occur to them to do it.

  • HowMany@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    They are bitter and stringy and taste of used currency - not at all worth eating, but for use as fertilizer.

  • Aux@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    7
    arrow-down
    6
    ·
    1 year ago

    You already have a mean of production in your hand. But the only thing you produce is stupid memes.

    • interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      Even if they did produce something, Jeff Bezos would steal it as soon as it started making a buck.

      Seizing the means of production made sense when that was the leverage the owners used to strip the surplus value from you.

      Today, they use gatekept platform and a captive audience with AI manipulation to insert themselves between you and the customers and strip you of your surplus value.

      Now pay Bezos’ 40% tax until Amazon basic is ready to outcompete out of the platform entirely. Welcome to the second page of Google !

      • Aux@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        But they are. Because we live in a service economy and the only thing you produce are services. Phone is enough. Use it wisely.

        • OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          4
          ·
          1 year ago

          Yeah. Hold on, I’m just going to build a house, get access to fresh water, and produce food with my phone. After that I’m going to get vaccinated with my phone. And after that I’ll make some clothes with my phone.

          Go read the first few chapters of capital on means of production.

  • Seraph@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    4
    arrow-down
    5
    ·
    1 year ago

    Directly seizing I don’t think would end well. I think it’s one of the short comings of communism.

    Encouraging employee owned companies is where it’s at. But to be honest I’m not sure how you would incentivize that.

    • TheBeege@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      1 year ago

      You incentivize the same way unions are growing now. Just show people the benefits and constantly shout it from the highest mountain tops.

      So bb, tell me more about those sweet, sweet employee-owned companies for other readers’ benefit.

      Tell me more about how employee owned companies are better at long term planning. Tell me more about how they’re concerned about balancing profit for survival’s sake with societal good. Tell me more about how they participate in the benefits of the free market via competition while not becoming all-consuming, profit-driven monsters. Tell me more about how they avoid stakeholder-chosen, sociopathic leadership in favor of leaders wanting the best for the company’s mission and its employees. Tell me more about the coffee shop branch that was shut down by its company and reopened as an employee-owned cafe. Tell me more about AAA. Tell me sweet nothings, bb

      (And yes, I’m explicitly not talking about communism because it’s an emotionally charged concept, and i want to focus on things maybe people don’t know so much about)

    • masquenox@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      Encouraging employee owned companies is where it’s at.

      What did you think “seize the means of production” meant?

      But to be honest I’m not sure how you would incentivize that.

      Oh, that’s simple - you get rid of the police.

  • Stuka@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    arrow-down
    5
    ·
    1 year ago

    Time to stop blocking the people who post this stupid shit.

    • OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      6
      arrow-down
      5
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Literally sharing nazi propaganda from Hearst press lol

      Anyway, capitalism is known for never having famines or economic crises, especially not cyclical ones

      • Crass Spektakel@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        4
        ·
        1 year ago

        Well, actually I am sharing “Wikipedia Propaganda” but if you want to call Wikipedia Nazi-Propaganda…

        And yes, the only pro-Western nation ever falling into a serious Food-Crisis was… Haiti.

        See, I know we are doing something right. I am not sure what we do right and there is enough things we don’t do right but… the right things we do amazingly right. If that is because the Ghosts of Hitler are possessing us all or that we are just not a bunch of utter idiots - you call.

        • OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          arrow-down
          6
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          And yes, the only pro-Western nation ever falling into a serious Food-Crisis was… Haiti.

          Read Late Victorian Holocausts if you want to be less wrong.

          Well, actually I am sharing “Wikipedia Propaganda” but if you want to call Wikipedia Nazi-Propaganda…

          The holodomor was originally fabricated by a hearst press associate at a time when Mr Hearst and the third Reich were openly collaborating on spreading nazi propaganda in the US. The famine was bad but the myth that it was a genocide needs to die as it is literally nazi propaganda and was used as a justification for collaborating with the holocaust in Eastern Europe

          This is in fact the mainstream academic position. You may look to Conquest, Davies, and Wheatcroft, who are genuinely anticommunist historians, for their analysis (they all say it wasn’t a genocide)

          • Crass Spektakel@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            4
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            1 year ago

            In what way is the Late Victorian Age “Pro-Western”? In the same way Dschengis Khan was “Pro-Western”? Besides, ONE book is quite vague for such an assumption as your claim isn’t even listed in the list of great famines.

            Oh, and you claim the Holodomor didn’t happen? Well, let me guess, Stalin also didn’t got 30 million sowiet people killed?

            Tovarishch, your lies gave away whose bread you eat.

            • OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              2
              arrow-down
              7
              ·
              edit-2
              1 year ago

              Late Victorian Age

              It is literally a book about western liberal democracies committing genocide, including through intentionally creating famines.

              Oh, and you claim the Holodomor didn’t happen? Well, let me guess, Stalin also didn’t got 30 million sowiet people killed?

              Listen if you want to believe nazi propaganda that was used to justify collaborating with the holocaust you can be my guest. You just won’t be in line with the mainstream academic concensus on the subject.

              • Crass Spektakel@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                2
                arrow-down
                2
                ·
                1 year ago

                Suuure… Stalin was an agent of the West, send to kill Russians. Just like Dschingis Khan and Mohammed. All Agents of the West.

                Thank you for making me aware of everything.

                • OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  2
                  arrow-down
                  6
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  I will repeat:

                  Listen if you want to believe nazi propaganda that was used to justify collaborating with the holocaust you can be my guest. You just won’t be in line with the mainstream academic concensus on the subject.

  • Devouring@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    2
    arrow-down
    6
    ·
    1 year ago

    Genuinely speaking, do you really think Amazon will continue to operate if the “workers” took it over from the (evil) executives and owned all the power?

    In my opinion, it’ll fall apart in no time, because not a single decision will be made to progress work and to solve problems, and every problem will be a vote to people who don’t understand the consequences and will prefer to serve their personal needs. Am I wrong?

    • OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      arrow-down
      5
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Do you think the shareholders are active in problem solving? Workers include basically everyone but the shareholders. The tech guys, the executives, the managers.

  • Zoboomafoo@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    6
    arrow-down
    11
    ·
    1 year ago

    “Seize the means of production” is a communist’s rallying cry because they know that they can’t build anything on their own

    • Maven (famous)@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      11
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      Who do you think built the means of production in the first place? I’ve never seen a rich guy in a suit laying down bricks all day to build a factory.

    • AllonzeeLV@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      7
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      The workers built the means, they just never owned them.

      Let me guess, you think Steve Jobs made the iPhone because he pulled it out of his pocket on a stage and took the credit of engineers standing on the shoulders of publically funded basic research? Steve jobs couldn’t engineer his way out of a wet paper bag, and that is well documented.

      • Daft_ish@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        Remember when bill gates bought dos and used his moms connections to sell it IBM?

        Remember when apple was given their entire gui by xerox?

        Remember when xerox exects threw what would be the modern “PC” in the trash because they are only good at collecting money and wouldn’t know revolutionary technology if their own R&D made it?

      • Zoboomafoo@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        I think Steve Jobs made the iphone by coordinating and funding a team of engineers to develop and produce the phone, then marketed it using his own name for brand recognition.

        He could not have done it without those engineers and workers, and they would not have made the phone without Jobs.