An international (English speaking) socialist Lemmy community free of the "ML" influence of instances like lemmy.ml and lemmygrad. This is a place for undogmatic shitposting and memes from a progressive, anti-capitalist and truly anti-imperialist perspective, regardless of specific ideology.
Serious posts, news, and discussion go in c/Socialism.
If you are new to socialism, you can ask questions and find resources over on c/Socialism101.
Please don't forget to help keep this community clean by reporting rule violations, updooting good contributions and downdooting those of low-quality!
0. Only post socialist memes
That refers to funny image macros and means that generally videos and screenshots are not allowed. Exceptions include explicitly humorous and short videos, as well as (social media) screenshots depicting a funny situation, joke, or joke picture relating to socialist movements, theory, societal issues, or political opponents. Examples would be the classic case of humorous Tumblr or Twitter posts/threads. (and no, agitprop text does not count as a meme)
1. Socialist Unity in the form of mutual respect and good faith interactions is enforced here
Try to keep an open mind, other schools of thought may offer points of view and analyses you haven't considered yet. Also: This is not a place for the Idealism vs. Materialism or rather Anarchism vs. Marxism debate(s), for that please visit c/AnarchismVsMarxism.
2. Anti-Imperialism means recognizing capitalist states like Russia and China as such
That means condemning (their) imperialism, even if it is of the "anti-USA" flavor.
3. No liberalism, (right-wing) revisionism or reactionaries.
That includes so called: Social Democracy, Democratic Socialism, Dengism, Market Socialism, Patriotic Socialism, National Bolshevism, Anarcho-Capitalism etc. . Anti-Socialist people and content have no place here, as well as the variety of "Marxist"-"Leninists" seen on lemmygrad and more specifically GenZedong (actual ML's are welcome as long as they agree to the rules and don't just copy paste/larp about stuff from a hundred years ago).
4. No Bigotry.
The only dangerous minority is the rich.
5. Don't demonize previous and current socialist experiments or (leading) individuals.
We must constructively learn from their mistakes, while acknowledging their achievements and recognizing when they have strayed away from socialist principles.
(if you are reading the rules to apply for modding this community, mention "Mantic Minotaur" when answering question 2)
6. Don't idolize/glorify previous and current socialist experiments or (leading) individuals.
Notable achievements in all spheres of society were made by various socialist/people's/democratic republics around the world. Mistakes, however, were made as well: bureaucratic castes of parasitic elites - as well as reactionary cults of personality - were established, many things were mismanaged and prejudice and bigotry sometimes replaced internationalism and progressiveness.
Ever seen someone doing their "unskilled job" all their life? It's just fucking magic!
The truth is that capitalists hate skilled workers, because those workers have bargaining power. This is why they love the sort of automation which completely removes workers or thought from the equation, even if the ultimate solution is multiple times more expensive or less competent than before.
Nothing is more infuriating to a boss, than a worker that can talk back with experience.
If you can learn your job well enough after a week or so to do it satisfactorily, it's an unskilled job.
There are definitely unskilled jobs. When I was a cart attendant at Target, I was in an unskilled job. If someone with less than two weeks training were left to do one of the jobs I have now, people would literally die.
So like a CEO?
Implying CEOs learn anything
The urgency or criticality of the job is not what makes it unskilled.
One can argue that an unskilled supermarket employee can cause economic hardship, or even death (think food poisoning).
There's no such thing as an unskilled job.They all require training and in all of them you become better as you learn more about that skill. How you learn that skill, in practice or in theory is irrelevant.
Likewise, the fact that some businesses are OK to eat economic losses in bad workers and turnover in order to keep the worker dis-empowered does not make the job "unskilled"
I agree that all jobs need some training, but I think the termology is the real enemy. Like yes a cashier needs training but is it comparable to what is considered "skilled labor/trades" like qualified electriction, plumbers, welders, engineers, etc?
I think everyone should make a living wage and think the terminology is definitely used to oppress and divide but whenever I see these arguments it really feels like people don't see a distinction between the amout of work/time it takes to be competent in these jobs.
Yes, it's absolutely comparable at the same years of experience in that role. Like every other job.
Thoughts on “[significantly] less skilled“?:
It's bullshit. How many people can replace the CEOs who routinely drive companies to the ground? Millions. Why were programmers badly paid when they were women-dominated but well paid when it was men?
Not a lot can easily "replace" the fast food worker who's been flipping burgers for 20 years.
This is is just apologia.
It doesn't matter if you think CEO's can be replaced easily. It matters what company boards think and it isn't many people. Also who they are willing to replace. Most of the board members probably have a close relationship with the ceo. Not so the burger flipper.
Bad CEOs sure suck. It’s so important to have a good leader at the top, nonprofits will pay millions given competing private sector demand.
We wouldn’t assume driving companies into the ground isn’t always accidental, would we? Feature, not a bug, if it’s someone’s job to strip mine a company until it’s a shell. :) Of course you also have e.g. Lehman Brothers CEO denying his firm was even in trouble, or Enron’s mismanagement and the subsequent 99% loss in value.
I had to look into the early days of programming. Sounds like it was viewed as an extension of clerical work and therefore tedious. Computational demands increased, salaries increased, increased salaries brought more men into the field.
I do imagine the best 20yr burger flipper is at least X% more efficient than the best 1yr burger flipper… but X is probably not above like what, 20%? In the executive world, I’d guess the ratio is far different.
Mannn, would this all be moot if we just had Universal Basic Income? Or nearly moot. Inequality would still abound, but it’s much more acceptable if the least amongst us are comfortable and can be happy.
Feel like I might take the job on the right
And I made a career in IT from googling shit and remember the steps. Dont see the difference....
Skilled labor is just compressed unskilled labor, at the end of the day labor is labor.