this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2025
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[–] lugal@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 points 22 hours ago (6 children)

Wait, isn't socialism all about class solidarity? "Working together regardless of class to fight a common enemy" sounds more like nationalism where at the end the upper class profits most. Unless we are talking about a classless society but that's not "regardless of class" but "with no class distinction" which sounds very similar when I think about it.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 hours ago

Yes, you're correct here. Class collaborationism is a Social Democratic tendency, not a Socialist one.

[–] TheOubliette@lemmy.ml 7 points 18 hours ago

Socialism is about making the working class the ruling class. It is explicitly about oppressing the bourgeois class, which is itself the current ruling class oppressing the working (and other) classes. The idea is to take the means of production and run it for ourselves rather than the profit of a class defined by merely owning factories, buildings, tools, etc.

The cartoon may be confused.

[–] grrgyle@slrpnk.net 11 points 21 hours ago

Sounds more like social democracy, which can include managed capitalism and cooperation between workers and owners. To a degree.

[–] brisk@aussie.zone 4 points 19 hours ago

Every character there is working class, so I'm imagining in this case "regardless of class" is implicitly "regardless of perceived class"

[–] ArchmageAzor@lemmy.world 4 points 21 hours ago (2 children)

Socialism is about the government playing a central role in the economy to ensure wealth and resources are distributed more fairly, rather than being concentrated in the hands of corporations or individuals. Socialism can still allow for private businesses and a market economy, but key industries and services are often publicly controlled to prevent excessive inequality.

[–] TheOubliette@lemmy.ml 5 points 18 hours ago

Socialism is not about the government's size. Socialists, particularly Marxists, emphasize using the state and nationalization after proletarian revolution to reflect the working class' interests and build socialism, but the size of the state itself is not what makes something socialist, both because (1) socialists seek to eventually end the state itself once productive forces and consciousness are sufficiently advanced and (2) capitalist states can also have large governments, generally to serve the interests of the ruling class, albeit sometimes in a roundabout way.

[–] lugal@lemmy.dbzer0.com -3 points 20 hours ago (3 children)

That's state socialism, a specific kind of socialism that wants to keep the state apparatus, not realizing that it will always (re)create a ruling class. Different from Libertarian Socialism which unironically want a stateless society, not as a never to reach end goal.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 hours ago

This isn't true, unless you have a different conception of what "class" is from Marx and Marxists. The State is the only path to a stateless society, in that the state disappears once all property is publicly owned and planned, and thus the "state" whithers away, leaving government behind.

For Marx, the State is chiefly the instruments of government that reinforce class society, like Private Property Rights, not the entire government.

[–] Olgratin_Magmatoe@slrpnk.net 8 points 19 hours ago (2 children)

How would society handle critical functions such as water sanitation for millions of people without a state to enforce equitable share of the cost?

[–] lugal@lemmy.dbzer0.com -3 points 18 hours ago (5 children)

With a world wide net of councils, all connected but not centralized

[–] BrainInABox@lemmy.ml 1 points 6 minutes ago

“These gentlemen think that when they have changed the names of things they have changed the things themselves.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 hours ago

This retains class, though. If your councils only have ownership of their own jurisdictions, then the members of each council are Petite Bourgeoisie. Marx specifically advocated for full centralization because chiefly it becomes a necessity anyways with increasingly complex production, but also because it gives more democratic control over the whole of the economy, not just individual bits.

[–] stickly@lemmy.world 6 points 14 hours ago

I see this in various flavors of anarchism and I don't get how it would work in practice. Hierarchies form to simplify the logistics and social cohesion of a disorganized network of subunits.

As a basic example, how the hell do collectives even communicate with those on other continents? It took millenia for humans to develop reliable seafaring technology, only made possible through the direction of state actors. Sea cables cost millions to maintain; satellite communication is even harder to achieve.

Assuming that any of these could even be accomplished strictly via collectives ("Why the hell should I give you my Chilean copper so you can throw it in the ocean to talk to Europe?"), operating these essential services gives access to power and coercion.

Somebody has to launch the ships or run the heart of the telegraph network. Will you centralize the authority of multiple collectives to regulate and monitor it?...

And if you don't do anything to bridge the ocean, what's to prevent ideological drift for that continent; getting a little too centralized for more efficient resource use? Even if your accessible web remains strong and ideologically pure, you have to pray that completely separate webs will be just as strong.

Anarcho-primitivism is the only critique that seems to own the inherent anti-civilization logic, but even then there's nothing stopping a collective-of-collectives from making a bigger pile of sharp rocks to subjugate you.

[–] Olgratin_Magmatoe@slrpnk.net 2 points 16 hours ago

How is that different from a state, aside from the decentralization of power?

What would prevent centralization of power?

[–] yucandu@lemmy.world 1 points 14 hours ago

Would these councils be elected by the people they represent?

Would they sit in a parliament and form a legislature?

That just sounds like Canada.

[–] yucandu@lemmy.world -1 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Easy, we connect all humans together in a telepathic Borg-like mindlink.

[–] Olgratin_Magmatoe@slrpnk.net 1 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Unfortunately I quite prefer my mind being the only one I can hear.

[–] stickly@lemmy.world 4 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Don't knock schizophrenia till you try it. 9/10 voices in my head recommend it.

[–] Olgratin_Magmatoe@slrpnk.net 1 points 14 hours ago

Shit that's all you had to say

[–] TheOubliette@lemmy.ml 4 points 18 hours ago

Socialism is always about recreating a ruling class: it is to make the working class into the ruling class.

There is no practical alternative to this. Imagine trying the only way: to immediately end class relations. You've won the revolution. Your ideological brethren are in power and the Great Workers' Council is going forward with your plan. How are you going to force people to end class relations? Won't it require a state? Who is enforcing the end of relations? If someone buys up an extra-big plot of land and starts charging tenants rent, reinventing semi-feudal relations, who is going to stop them? And what are you going to do about the bourgeoisie who still exist, especially those overseas, and are working against you to reopen your country for exploitation?

All of these basic realities require a state. And you cannot simply end all class relations instantaneously, as the wider public will not all agree with you ideologically. Unless you plan extreme forms of oppression for the entire population, you will need to deal with the remnants of various class relations in various forms, engaging, ideally, in a process that will whittle them away. That entire process will be recreating a ruling class, i.e. the working class, to impose this process on the other classes.

[–] deathbird@mander.xyz 0 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

What if was socialism, but for a nation? What could go wrong? /s

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 hour ago

You joke, but this is a real thing, PatSoc movements like the American Communist Party (not to be confused with the CPUSA), also known as "MAGA Communism." Essentially Imperialism combined with Communist aesthetics.