Hi! In thinking about how to help the fediverse grow, I wonder if there are more mainstream Lemmy instances?
I’ve pointed a couple folks to Lemmy.world and it’s uhhh, pretty hard Left for them (as one girl, who volunteered for the Democrats said “I just got yelled at because I can’t be Left wing unless I want to destroy capitalism? Which feels weird.”) We’re much farther Left than reddit which itself was definitely Left of centre…
I don’t know if decentralized open source social media actually attracts many mainstreamers but assuming we want to grow the fediverse, I’d like to have somewhere I can point people to without feeling very nervous for them.
Thanks!
That’s a terminology issue that you’re going to run into in any sufficiently political community. ‘Left-wing’ in casual use in the US refers to “everyone except the Republicans and some moderates”, but “left-wing” in any serious political talk refers to anti-capitalism.
I would say mixed-marked advokates fit into left wing as well, social democray and so forth.
You know left “lite”
are they really anti-capitalism?
or just calling for properly regulated capitalism?
According to capitalism, capitalism is the only regulation capitalism needs. Capitalism regulated by something other than capitalism is anti-capitalism.
The bigger issue is that so many people misconstrued capitalism and markets. They are two different things. You can have markets, well regulated markets. And not have capitalism. Even under authoritarian leninist governments they have markets. There were markets in Soviet russia, there are markets in-state capitalist China. Even in North korea. But they do not let the wealthy regulate and decide the markets as capitalism does. They have plenty of other issues however.
Respectfully, I don’t think this is true.
Even Adam Smith warned about the dangers of monopolies and the fact that businesses would try to crate them, collide againat consumers etc. That’s kind of the foundation of anti trust legislation.
Now, modern republicans have endorsed the view of capitalism that you’ve noted but to say that’s the how Capitalism works is like saying Soviet Russia is how communism works.
Adam Smith, in modern terms, would be a social liberal. Probably some kind of ordoliberal. It’s Marx where the modern definition of capitalism comes from and it’s pretty much “what capitalists do, systemically, to stay in power”: Accumulate their capital, evade regulation, generate monopolies, seek rents, etc.
Respectfully, Adam Smith did not invent capitalism. He is seen by some as the father of it. But much like marx and Lenin and many others. Put together a popular outline of the thought at the time.
Even then he needs to be understood in the context of the times he lived in. He was very Progressive and educated for his time. But even if he believed that government should have some say in capitalism. Government back then meant wealthy white land owning males. I.E the capital class. I.E Capital controlling capital. Not the workers. Not women. Capitalism has always been about oligarchy. It was literally a response by the mercantilist class against the Royals.
Neither capitalism or socialism works for anyone but the vanguard/oligarchs.
You can’t just define capitalism however you want.
Most people understand that businesses need regulation, that’s the point and basis of so many agencies and bodies that it’s almost comical.
The real argument is how heavily it should be regulated. Yes, some folks, particularly those with a lot of capital don’t want regulations. That no more means capitalism itself doesn’t want or need regulations than say, a soccer player with a strong punch who wishes you could just punch other players means soccer wants players to be able to punch each other in the head.
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Properly regulated capitalism is my Left but…
Then you are technically left. Although leninists Will loudly denounce anyone who doesn’t follow their authoritarian ideology as being no true Scotsman.
Capitalism as I stated above is regulated by capital. Anything other than capital regulating capitalism is not capitalism. The whole point of capitalism is that Capital regulates itself. If you want something other than Capital regulating capitalism, i e the people or government. Then you are against Capital regulating itself. And therefore anti-capitalist.
The tricky bit is. That wealthy oligarchs have spent centuries at this point conflating markets and capitalism. They are two different things. Markets have existed for centuries, Millennium even. It’s one of man’s oldest inventions. Coming right about the same time as agriculture. Predating capitalism by thousands of years. Capitalism as a concept is barely older than the United States itself.
That’s a very absolutist view of the meaning of Capitalism.
With that view, how could anyone be against Capitalism then?
It’s technically never been tried with that definition.
It’s not absolutist. Mildly reductive perhaps. But not remotely absolutist.
How could anyone be for it? It’s literally rule by the wealthy. It was a response created by wealthy mercantilist. Frustrated that no matter how much money they had there was an echelon of power always denied to them.
It’s always been tried with that definition. At the founding of the United States, wealthy white land owning males. The capital class with all the capital controlled it. It was oligarchy from it’s establishment. It was more beneficial on average than mercantilism. But still a failure.
Even today in China. The vanguard, their capital controlling class controls and regulates their state capitalism. Capital regulates capitalism. Not the people.
Please list the mainstream “leftist” parties in any G20 nation that are “anti-capitalist”; and by mainstream I mean they have more than two representatives at the federal level.
Socdems are leftist, even if you might disagree with their whole non-revolutionary approach. Definitely more leftist than the billionaire-creating CCP which yes is in the G20. China is part of that club. The whole EU, constitutionally, is not capitalist but a social market economy.
Mainstream leftist parties aren’t necessarily leftist, especially economically leftist. E.g. the Democratic party in the US.
I dobtwrhinj it’s any serious political talk (otherwise most countries are having unserious talks about their Left and Right wings) but maybe in serious political theory talks?
Like, Germany’s Left parties mostly don’t want to dismantle capitalism but I wouldn’t dismiss all conversation about them and putting people on that Left Right spectrum to be unserious.
Even the SDP is pro-forma still for the abolition of capitalism.
I always thought they were more traditional socialist democracy?
But I doubt many of their voters believe a vote for them will bring about the end of capitalism…
They very much expect the SPD to defend things like co-determination laws to the death, though. They also expect the SPD to implement referenda that say that landlords with over 1000 apartments should be expropriated, that they’re dragging their feet on that kind of stuff (“but the markets might get uneasy and that would have consequences”) is one of the reasons why they don’t poll well.
Can you imagine a US city the size of Berlin pushing through a referendum to expropriate landowners? That’s how far apart the overton windows are. There’s hardly even overlap.
That’s because for many of them it is easier to imagine the end of the world, than the end of capitalism.
… what do you think socialism is, exactly?
Generally, classically I’ve understood Socialism to still involve central planning of industry/production.
Whereas most modern socialist democracies tend to heavily regulate industry and enact social welfare programs to minimize the effects of different classes etc.
Socialism is worker control of the means of production, which can take many forms. What it is, most distinctively, is incompatible with capitalism, which is investor control of the means of production.
The most successful socialist parties in the West take the view that the harm of capitalism should be reduced while it still exists; they still believe in the eventual abolition of capitalism.
And the harm reduction comes in the form of removing parts of the economy from capitalist control, which is … anti-capitalist.
I don’t disagree but there is a distinct difference between social democracy and a socialist democracy, or democratic socialism.
The former is a capitalist system with some welfare systems in place, the latter is socialism without the one party state.
There is a lot of “Capitalist Realism” but the people in these parties that still consider themselves leftists usually do agree that capitalism should be abolished if pressed on the topic.