85 points
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i don’t know if i’m a socialist or whatever all i know is that i just want trans and gay people to be able to live their lives, women to not have men make decisions about their bodies, borders to be abolished, people to not want the earth to burn up, and to ducking just care about conserving endangered species.

bonus points for elected officials to behave like fucking grown ass adults for once.

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54 points

I dont think anything you said would qualify you as a “socialist”

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21 points
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Counterpoint: If you ask most elected officials edit: in the US (of either party), any two of those as policy goals would make you a socialist.

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17 points

fuck the US, why is it relevant what they think?

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14 points

I think the abolition of borders falls under the umbrella of socialism

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14 points

Socialism means one thing: democratic control over the economy. It’s radically left-wing in most of the world, and because of that socialists also advocate for other radically leftist ideas. I’m one of the radical leftists that don’t believe governments should exist at all in their current form, but that’s not what makes me a socialist.

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4 points

Depends on whether you think socialism is inherently globalist, which I wouldn’t say is necessarily true.

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2 points
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Socialism by definition will take care of most if not all of these

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39 points

That’s a progressive outlook, but not a Socialist one, primarily because nothing you said has anything directly to do with Modes of Production.

A Socialist is someone who wants the Means of Production to be collectively shared, rather than privately owned. There are many forms of it, like Syndicalism, Anarchism, Marxism, Market Socialism, etc.

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7 points

So by your example, a socialist is someone who’s not a dick? I can get behind that 😁.

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4 points

basically :D

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6 points
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Not necessarily. Those things can be fixed without instituting socialism (if they’re fixable. That’s not a given) and may even be done better without it based on socialism’s real record!

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3 points

Same. I believe in the abolition of hierarchy in all forms and a society based on community and co-operation and don’t believe that any human should have any lever on power or control over any other person.

So…I guess I do know. Never mind.

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2 points

I would settle for everybody banning TikTok and Facebook usage. That’s all I wanted for christmas.

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55 points

It is worse when you’re an anarchist. Best case, they say you’re a socialist. Worst case, they say you’re an extremist rioter.

Both are not true, but the later couldn’t be further from it.

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34 points

Anarchism would be closer to an extreme libertarianism than socialism. Socialism is usually seen as an overreach of government by those who oppose it, unless they are even further left than that and want more government involvement in the economy. If people can’t even wrap their head around your political beliefs, how are you supposed have an intelligent conversation with them?

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10 points

If socialism is understood as collective/worker ownership of the means of production, which I would argue is a fitting and accurate definition, then anarchism requires socialism in order to end coercive relationships of domination in the workplace. Socialism doesn’t necessitate a state and many anarchists/libertarian socialists would argue socialism is impossible with a state

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3 points

From a Marxist perspective socialism needs a state. Marx defines socialism as a transitional step to move from capitalism to communism. Marx left it open how communism would be achieved but he did believe that state is necessary for that transition. In his mind the state will be abolished once communism has been effectively achieved. This means the existence of a state is important to socialism, according to Marxism.

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12 points

I’m an anarcho-syndicalist. I told my cool family members. I just call myself a socialist now around them, it’s easier.

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41 points
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Honestly at a certain point labels only help when you share a common definition with your audience.

If I call myself a socialist I need to preface it by defining socialism because everyone above 25 still thinks it means autocratic dictatorial regime where the government owns your underpants.

I just tell people that democracy is better than monarchy so we should expand that to workplaces and give workers a vote on the direction of their workplace. Most people are more amenable to this than dropping the S word or god forbid C word.

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14 points

I just tell people that democracy is better than monarchy so we should expand that to workplaces and give workers a vote on the direction of their workplace. Most people are more amenable to this than dropping the S word or god forbid C word.

I used to live out in the boonies, surrounded by rednecks, and this approach worked almost every time unless one of them was well-read enough to know I was talking about socialism.

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12 points

“I’m into super democracy. Would you like to argue against democracy as a concept, or just dance around insisting it’s somehow different?”

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3 points

Im also an anarchist and get around that by pulling the ol switcheroo on them. I say a bunch of anarchist shit I know they’ll agree with and when the times right go “yeah and thats why I’m an anarchist”. Gets them to open up a bit and leaves them with a better impression of what anarchism actually is

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5 points

Are the shouting matches better or worse than the endless Monty Python quotes?

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6 points
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Silly movies made in the 70s by British comedy troupes are no basis for a political ideology! Realistic political strategies are born from reading theory, not some farcical medieval movie!

Why, if I went around calling myself a Christian nationalist because I watched The Life of Brian they’d put me away!

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8 points

Anarchism is Socialist. It may not be Marxist, but Anarchism cannot exist when property rights create hierarchy.

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4 points

It does resemble socialism, but there are differences depending on the school of thought of Anarchism that you prefer It is not completely incompatible with individual property.

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3 points

How do you have property rights without hierarchy and without a state?

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1 point

We used to call anarchy “socialism puberty”

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17 points

Damn I feel that

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9 points

That’s right, Mattpad

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9 points

At least the horse is not loose in the hospital anymore.

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8 points

And yet there are entire teams of billionaires attempting to get the horse back into the hospital.

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