@goodgrammaritan / goodgrammaritan.tumblr.com
You can be a socialist while not supporting the USSR. You can be a socialist while acknowledging the fucked up, imperialist things the USSR did, and noting just how far the USSR strayed from the ideals of socialism. Like, this is a thing you not only can do, but should do, because failure to learn from the USSR's mistakes is a great way to repeat them. Progress is an iterative process. Don't bring back the USSR, do it better.
"If stuff was just handed to me I'd have no motivation to do anything! That's human nature!" No, babe, that's depression. Psychologically healthy people are still motivated to do things even when their survival isn't being actively threatened.
[Image description: tweet by Roxi Horror @roxiqt on March 30, 2022 at 11:13 AM: “’Oh, so you think everyone should just be handed enough money to live?’ lol. lmao. yeah.”]
okay so like, we all know that housekeeping in a hotel is a Shit Job, right?
I worked with a woman who was independently wealthy. But she liked working housekeeping. So she did. And if the manager got bitchy with her, she’d just shrug and be like “Okay, I can quit.”
Like the manager treated her like a human being because she knew she had to because otherwise she’d lose one of her best workers.
Yes, everyone should be just handed the money to live.
I worked with a lady who’s husband made more than enough to support them both. She just did the retail to have something to do with herself part-time.
There’s a lot of people who’d happily do the same sort of thing. Honestly? A lot of the jobs we consider “shitty” jobs? Are shitty because the employees are treated like garbage.
If employees weren’t being screwed over by people higher up the chain constantly or being forced to kiss the asses of customers currently shitting all over them, those jobs would by and large be a whole lot more bearable, and appealing to more people!!
Plus rich people are just handed a lot of money, whether they earn it or not, and no one questions that. Only poor people getting money gets interrogated over and over and over again.
I’d like to add a footnote to this thread that the US gives more money (by way of the income tax reduction) to homeowners than it does to poor people who need subsidized housing.
My best teacher in high school was the guy who had previously made a ton of money that he could’ve retired at like 30. Man just wanted to teach teenagers.
If people as a whole were handed enough money to live on, maybe more people like him wouldn’t be put off by the poor salary teachers make. (also teachers should be paid a lot more)
There's also this assumption that if people were just handed enough money to live that they'd do absolutely nothing, as if they'd be satisfied being completely bored all the time. They'd still buy food. They'd still buy video games. They'd still go out and get coffee and put money into the economy even if they didn't want to work because they still want to LIVE. They'd buy movies. They'd go DO stuff. I review comic books on the internet and I love doing it, but I often have to compromise on some things because I just can't afford to do otherwise and I stress out about stuff because I need to earn money.
"Psychologically healthy people are still motivated to do things even when their survival isn't being actively threatened."
Speaking for myself, I would be even MORE motivated to do things if my basic needs were guaranteed met. IJS
What I think some people miss about stuff like UBI (universal basic income, the idea that everyone gets a staple amount of money that could cover basic housing and food needs) is that... It doesn't really need to be a lot of money. The idea isn't "give everyone so much money they're now rich and can do whatever they want forever." The idea is to provide enough for their most basic needs (food water shelter). It's enough that if your job mistreats you, you are safe enough to leave it without the threat of becoming unhoused or starving. This, in turn, forces employers to treat their workers better because if they don't, then they don't get workers.
But the other side of this coin is that ONLY a person's basic needs are covered. As someone above said, people still want to do fun stuff! Fancy coffee and vacations and doing leisure activities like movies or bowling or whatever. Keeping pets. Having get togethers. If someone wants the extras in life, THAT'S the stuff they "should" be working for. That's the "well if they don't want to work then they don't get [whatever]!" that is the consequence of not working. Are some people gonna be fine not doing any extra stuff and just living basically? Sure! And that's okay. But most people DO want extra stuff and will work for it if they can (and if they can't they should still get extra basic income! Humans deserve enrichment!)
But "You don't get the vacation" is not the same consequence as "you don't get to live in a home or eat food today." The consequence of not working should NEVER be no longer having your basic needs met. And it's absolutely ridiculous that so many people have normalized that you work or you perish. We live in a society! We invented civilization to make it easier to care for one another and ensure everyone's basic needs get met! Human civilization began when we decided it's not "survival of the fittest" on our watch, but "survival of everyone we care about." We have lost our way if we cannot protect each other.
There's another issue at hand here, which is that we've structured society so that something random can happen to you & suddenly you owe more money than you've ever made in your life.
That's not inevitable. It's because you can make more money out of somebody if you've got them by the short hairs. In an emergency, you can't shop around.
But the effect is that everybody is incentivized to accumulate as much as they can, because the more money you have the more rare it is to encounter an accident that wipes you out in such a way that you can't recover.
UBI is great, and it'll get rid of a lot of misery and free up a lot of people to do jobs they want, but it won't go far enough on its own; the people who have been fucked by circumstance the most also are going to be the most dependent upon these 'optional' jobs, because (for example) what would be 'extra income' for a healthy person would be necessary for the chronically ill. It also wouldn't prevent other kinds of accidents from putting somebody into a poverty trap (ex., car crashes, house fires).
If we want a world worth living in, UBI is a good start, but other, more dramatic changes are also going to be necessary, because we're a long long way from a tolerable world.
this is socialism (positive) (i am all in)
Not socialist in a “I won’t have to work” type of way but socialist in a “I’ll still be working but I won’t be worried I won’t make the rent” type of way. In a “billions won’t be hoarded by one person” type of way. In a “janitors, fast-food workers, child care workers, preschool teachers, hotel clerks, personal care and home health aides, and grocery store cashiers, will live comfortably” type of way. In a “the sick and elderly will be cared for” type of way. In a “no child should work” type of way.
In a "I deserve help from the state because that's what my taxes pay for, let alone because it should be a human right".
in a "disabled people shouldn't have to kill themselves and destroy their bodies and risk their health working to pay bills" way.
in a "people should be able to stop working due to emergencies/life altering events without risking losing their homes" way.
in a "parents should be able to take off as much time as they need to care for their children both during and after pregnancy/adoption/etc" way.
in a "if everyone's needs are met first without employment, then work becomes more fulfilling and more beneficial as it is a choice rather than something people are killing themselves to maintain without ever seeing the benefits" way
In a "humanity could do so much more, including just being much happier and having better quality of life, if our very survival wasn't predicated on being profitable for someone else."
In a "there's no such thing as a disposable person" way.
Not socialist in a “I won’t have to work” type of way but socialist in a “I’ll still be working but I won’t be worried I won’t make the rent” type of way. In a “billions won’t be hoarded by one person” type of way. In a “janitors, fast-food workers, child care workers, preschool teachers, hotel clerks, personal care and home health aides, and grocery store cashiers, will live comfortably” type of way. In a “the sick and elderly will be cared for” type of way. In a “no child should work” type of way.
[ ID: a screenshot from Jeopardy with Alex Trebek saying, "Something you can describe in detail that almost everyone agrees with, until you say its name," and a contestant answering, "What is socialism?" /ID ]
“…Animals often share food, but these birds understand that metal rings can be exchanged for treats, and they share the rings with no promise of reward…This sophisticated behavior, which requires an understanding of both currency and the needs of others, has only been described in primates before…”
Holy ahit
Cursed: you taught the birds about money
Blessed: they became communists
Step 2: Reblog with
Step 3:???
Step 4: Profit!
Apparently I’m an anarch-socialist. Huh.
Me too! Though maybe even a little farther left. Huh. ANARCHY NOW!
Libertarian socialism, apparently. But only like 2 squares up from anarcho-socialist.
Americans really struggle to understand that some people actually are communists and it's not just a mean thing that conservatives call liberals or just an edgy internet aesthetic that liberals adopt out of contrarianism.
No we don't. They asked why people are defending it. We know you retards are out there trying to orchestrate another mass genocide.
Be willing to bet the only people who actually want to be under communism are the ones at the top... the least likely to end up against the wall or used as fertilizer for having too many chickens.
Seems like this post isn't very popular among slur-spewing edgelords with warhammer meme avatars and right-wing horny jail blogs who learned all their politics talking points from reddit.
Okay, so, can I come at this from a completely different direction? I actually grew up in a country of the former Soviet Bloc, and I had this history teacher who spent his whole life under the communist regime, and he had stories. Like, yeah, he did his time in the food queues that went around the block just for a bottle of cooking oil, he'd been interviewed by the secret police, he'd seen some shit. He was kind of a colorful character, he was really old, almost past the age of retirement, he was kind of politically incorrect in a way that was wildly inappropriate but appealed to us because we were all edgy teens at the time, but he was the best history teacher in the school, by everyone's admission.
And he had mixed feelings whenever we reached the 'recent history' portion of the curriculum, because to him that was lived experience and he believed history needed at least 50 years to decant before any measure of objectivity could be reached, but he said, you know what, okay. I'm going to teach you about that period. I'm going to teach you everything you need to know.
And one of the first things he drilled into our head was that what made that period bad wasn't 'communism', it was that it was a totalitarian dictatorship. He made us repeat that phrase until it flowed off the tongue without a stutter. The second thing he drilled into us was to never refer to that period as 'under communism', but always say 'under the communist regime'. Because yes, the communist party was ostensibly in charge (it was, in fact, the *only* party), so it was absolutely correct to call it the communist regime as a result, but it wasn't literal 'communism'. They had just cribbed the name because when the party was first getting formed, the concept of communism was incredibly popular and aspirational. The thing he wanted us to understand was that the party could have called itself anything.
It could have been called the Happy Puppy Rainbow Party, and the regime would still have been awful, because it was (repeat this phrase) a totalitarian dictatorship. That was the heart of it. It was a totalitarian dictatorship. He warned us before tests, if we talked about that period and used the phrase 'under communism' instead of 'under the communist regime', he would dock us 10% of our total score each time we did it. Atrocities happened under the communist regime. Under the regime. The totalitarian regime. Totalitarian dictatorship. Totalitarian dictatorship.
And to this day, I still have that phrase drilled in my head. The communist regime.
Because you can call your country the Democratic Land of the Free or whatever pompous, pleasant idealistic title you want, but pretty names don't actually make any difference if you pull back the pretty curtain and the man you find behind that curtain is
totalitarian dictatorship.
What a group does will always be more relevant than what a group calls itself.
just as the Nazi party in 1930s Germany and the Communist party of the USSR used "socialist" in their name, so too did George Orwell use it in the totalitarian IngSoc government of his brilliant novel, 1984
though claimed by both right-wingers and leftists as critical of the other side, Orwell's novel shines a spotlight on the evils of authoritarianism and totalitarianism regardless of whether they dress up in the garb of capitalism, socialism, libertarianism, or whatever, in order to expose the lie behind every dictatorship
Orwell's IngSoc uses Newspeak to control the language people use in order to control what they can think. at its most extreme and fundamental: WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
the party also uses ubiquitous surveillance and brutal punishment to control people's behavior through fear
whatever the political party, if they're driven by desire for power, control, greed, or so forth, it doesn't matter what they promise freedom from, because the tools of propaganda make the worst evils seem necessary or natural
nothing about IngSoc is socialist except the "Soc" part of their name, and the book offers endless evidence about how the party uses words to manipulate reality
any party built on greed or control, which gives power over others to a privileged few at the expense of the people, is the problem. not political or economic theory based on workers controlling the fruits of their own labor and ideas
which is what both socialists and libertarians want, right? the only real difference is how much each orientation wants to benefit the individual at the expense of society in general or help those most in need
I think like, the death of Vine and Rabbit, Wikipedia constantly needing to beg for money, Discord depending so heavily on venture capital, Facebook turning towards spying on users to generate a return on all the venture capital that got them started, Adobe creative suite turning into a subscription rather than a single product you buy, the strangulation of streaming entertainment as every company pulls their content and makes it exclusive to their service, are all great examples of how like, it really doesn't matter if something is legitimately useful, efficient, or beloved, it is next to impossible for a service to exist if it doesn't make shareholders increasing amounts of money year after year. Which may seem like a "no duh" type of statement, but it's a very simple window into how the profit motive makes products and services worse, not better. And how that's not just a matter of certain companies or ceos being bad and greedy on an individual level, but is an inescapable factor of an economy where existence is dependent on generating capital.
Can anyone honestly say that a service they've used has gotten better in the last ten years?
If so, please tell me about it, because I'm not aware of it.
Tumblr. Slightly. At least, it hasn’t gotten worse.
Annoyingly it’s not even making shareholders money.
Facebook gives no dividend.
Adobe gives no dividend.
Disney gives no dividend.
Google gives no dividend.
All of these companies’ holders have ZERO incentive to make a company actually produce long term; it’s all about stock price, which is all about valuation, which is all about making things LOOK big and flashy and expensive. When you buy these stocks you get NOTHING from the company in return. Your only way to make money is to hold it and sell it for more to some unsuspecting rube who will also get NOTHING.
Force all stocks traded on the NYSE to give a real dividend based on earnings, watch as the market radically calms its tits.
Wikipedia is a nonprofit (like AO3), which is why they need to ask for donations to keep operating
Tumblr hasn't made anyone money for investors (rather, it's cost companies a ton), which probably corresponds to why it's gotten better
and frakkin' YES to the idea that if we can't dispose of capitalism entirely, we need to at least make publicly traded corporations pay dividends to stockholders - the way the stock market operates today is ridiculous and unsustainable. the Second Law of Thermodynamics states:
in all exchanges, "if no energy enters or leaves the system, the potential energy of the state will always be less than that of the initial state" (aka entropy)
that is, greedy investors seeking to extract profit from a system (aka a corporation) cannot take more than the profits without exceeding the entropic potential of that system - in nature or the universe itself, it's just not possible. so when Greedists extract profits from selling stocks at prices exceeding a corporation's profit value, they're literally taking money that doesn't exist
that then drains the larger system (the world's economic system) of its energy (in this case, wealth), leading to "corrections" (recessions) or worse, until the system recovers from the energy debt
if we eliminate this one issue by only allowing profit from stocks to come from dividends (it's like profit-sharing for investors), that would solve so many problems with capitalism
then cap leadership income at, say, no more than 10× the lowest-paid employee (including temp workers to avoid that loophole), and we could cure what's wrong with Greedist-based capitalism, ending up with a free-market socialism hybrid economic system that's vastly more sustainable than the current one
this is how we evolve away from greed-based economics toward an equitable distribution of wealth
“I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.”
-Stephen Jay Gould.
This quote is great because so was Einstein himself! He never saw himself as a genius, as a mind like no other. He saw himself as a guy who studied alot and he was very dedicated to give that opportunity to others. He also spoke very openly against racism and was one of the few professors that thought black people at the time. Here are some great pictures of him in 1946
Adding onto this: I really recommend Einstein’s short, entry-level essay “Why Socialism?”, found here. It’s ~10 min read and it does a great job of explaining the crux of socialism.
Here are some of his major points:
Shareholder economics does not trickle down.
#LateStageCapitalism
the only "free sh*t" in capitalism is when the 1% extract 99% of the wealth created by everyone else's labor
Oh, gee, I wonder why making people put their lives at risk for the economy might make them consider ideologies other than capitalism?
