Fascists: You have no rights, your sole purpose is to enrich the oligarchy with your very life.
Democrats: We disagree with the Fascists, but we aren’t gonna do fuckall about it. Sorry.
bOtH siDeS
Where is the lie? What did democrats actually do to prevent fascism?
Wrong question.
Democrats have voted and even implemented plenty of good into the country (ACA, Inflation Reduction Act, CFPB), despite heavy opposition.
Ask the fascists why they’re being fascists.
Ask why conservatism maps so cleanly to fascism.
Ask why 75+ million fascists voted for a fucking fascist and his Nazi friends.Not a wrong question. Democrats have done so many good things that Americans keep worsening their living conditions every fucking year, just look at house pricing, the state of education and infrastructure and healthcare, or any fucking thing else. I don’t care about a list of policy names if it didn’t translate into meaningful material gains for people.
Republicans may be worse sure, but I’d rather not get slapped at all instead of having to choose whether the following 4 years it will be 10 or 11 times
Historically speaking the elites weren’t that fucked up. In the Middle Ages and the Ancient era in many places the nobility were seen as also being stewards of the underlings and HAD to make sure they didn’t completely fall into shit.
Even the original robber barons funded medical research, and built theaters and libraries and other cultural stuff for the society they lived in. Going farther back, a lot of the beautiful artwork we see made in the Renaissance period was commissioned entirely by some of the most ruthless, murderous bastards in human history.
What we are seeing now is not the greediest of bastards, but simply the most unlettered, the most uncultured, and the most barbaric of them. They live and work and think exactly like gang leaders and brigands who reached a point where they can destroy the restrains against them. They would be content to live in vulgar shit and not enjoy life despite their unimaginable wealth, as long as the rest of the world around them burns. I don’t think even Hitler held the land and the earth and humanity in general with that level of contempt.
The difference is that, before, decisions were made by individuals, and generally no matter how greedy, most people have at least a sense of compassion for other humans. Nowadays decisions aren’t made by people, there’s algorithms pushing for the infinite increase of stock value, and whoever doesn’t do that is eaten alive. That’s the problem: in capitalism, companies need to be vile and have absolutely no sense of morality, or they will be outcompeted.
a right to a meal? a succulent, Chinese meal?!
This is Democracy Manifest!
Get your hand off my penis!
And you, sir, are you ready to receive my limp penis?
Hmm this meme makes me think. I am a socdem and was thinking of what the difference between communism and social democracy is and the answer i got to is that communism shares resources equally while socdem shares enough resources that everyone can lead a life but more resources are locked behind more work. In communism you get the best phone that everyone can get while in socdem you get a feature phone and you have to work to get a better one. I am not very qualified for deeper discussions about things like this but id like to see other peoples opinions. To me and most working class people i think this sounds like a more appealing system. I THINK(emphasis on I and think) that this leads to more innovation and a faster economy which, at the end of the day, does trickle down in a proper socdem system. Also i think european countries should have right to healtcare in the constitution and the right to food and housing is also healthcare because you need it to be healthy. Other things i think should be rights is transportation and communication for example. I guess those are similar to right to job but not the same and not mutual. Last time i tried to have a discussion it was on hexbear and everyone called me a a stupid capitalist pig but this is world so i hope someone whos even more to the left than me can add to this discussion. In the end we are more so allies than enemies.
Hey, fellow communist here and Hexbear enjoyer.
Communism isn’t really when all workers get the same regardless of the work done, the difference with social democracy is in who owns the factories and buildings and machines and computers that we work with, who decides how and what work is done, and who decides the prices and the salaries.
In social democracy, people maintain the right to own capital (i.e. to privately invest their money in a business expecting a return, and to hire others through this ownership of capital). In communism, workers collectively (whether directly through coops or indirectly through the state) collectively own the factories and buildings and computers that are used to actually produce goods and services).
This doesn’t just translate to formal ownership, but to actual decision making in the workplace and to salaries. In capitalism (social democracy is a type of capitalism), a company owner will only hire someone if they can profit from it, which means they’re getting a part of the worker’s production and appropriating it for themselves, which communists call by the word “exploitation”. In communism, since the capital is owned collectively, so are the fruits of labor. This doesn’t mean everyone earns the same, it’s not the case in theory nor in practice. If workers elect a manager to direct some things at the company, the manager may make more in the form of for example increased production bonuses, or if a worker exceeds the quota, they can also very bonuses, as well as salary increases with different positions and level of training, studies and experience. As an example, a university professor in the soviet union made maybe 3 times as much as an entry level job at a supermarket. If you care about salaries per profession, Albert Szymanski’s “human rights in the soviet union” does interesting analysis of the evolution of salaries by sector in th USSR over the 50s and 60s.
Regarding innovation I have to disagree. In my opinion, innovation is mainly led by the investment in innovation that you make and how you manage the investment. Most innovation in the world for example already comes from the public sector: universities, research institutes, military, space agencies… It’s just that when some publicly researched concept gets profitable after all the research, a company will pick it up, make some improvements through investment, patent it, and live the good life of the monopoly. Then again I’m a communist and that’s my view, but looking at things like the transistor, the internet, the space sector, medicine, biology, astrophysics, material science… Most of those are advancements and disciplines either completely or overwhelmingly public funded in their inception and still today. It’s just that we experience a bias in consuming technology ultimately researched by companies because we live in a system where almost all we consume is by definition made by companies. Research and innovation can happen, in my opinion arguably better, under communism than capitalism.
Regarding the basic material needs as you mentioned: healthcare, housing, nutrition, even energy for heating and cooking, mobility with public transit, fuck, the right to work! All of those should in my humble opinion be guaranteed for everyone. Again, I could point to historical examples like the Soviet Union: housing costed 3% of the average household income on average and homelessness was entirely abolished, healthcare and education were completely free to the highest level and of excellent quality, especially for the level of development; public transit never changed prices from the 40s to the 70s, basic foods were heavily subsidised and very affordable, entertainment and sports were widely available through unions, everyone had paid vacation, the retirement age was 60 for men and 55 for women… My point with this isn’t “all hail Stalin”. My point is, if a socialist system born from the violence of tsarism and World War 2 such as the soviet union achieved all of that by 1970, what the fuck are we doing?
I could go on to talk about the problems with social democracy and imperialism in the third world, but I think this is a long enough comment. Please let me know it you find it interesting or wanna discuss anything inside
