Lefty Memes
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!
Rules
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.
- Absolutely no posts or comments meant to relativize(/apologize for), advocate, promote or defend:
- Racism
- Sexism
- Queerphobia
- Ableism
- Classism
- Rape or assault
- Genocide/ethnic cleansing or (mass) deportations
- Fascism
- (National) chauvinism
- Orientalism
- Colonialism or Imperialism (and their neo- counterparts)
- Zionism
- Religious fundamentalism of any kind
view the rest of the comments
“Children should be free to earn their own money if they want to”
Liberals
Weird since it was liberals who pushed child labor laws in the first place. No one thinks this is new to capitalism.
Seriously in 3000 BCE millennia before capitalism there were kids laboring.
Edit: capitalism is not responsible for child labor. Child labor has existed for almost all of history until extremely recently and is not inherent to any system
My point is kids were doing labor way before any economic system was in place and regardless of which system was in place.
Capitalism has a ton of flaws but it is not behind child labor as OP suggests
This is fallacious. There doesn't have to be only 1 cause. Capitalism could be the reason child labor exists in the modern world, while there being other systems that can also support child labor.
The point is there are systems that don't support child labor.
What systems do you think haven't supported or used child labor? Every single society has utilized child labor or still does as again farming is a thing and most farms will have kids doing some work.
The idea that child labor is due to an economic philosophy rather than specific conditions is fallacious. Kids labor because we need them to and they do not do labor when we are fortunate enough to not need the labor they can provide.
We don't have an accurate history of every society that has ever existed, so your claim is unverifiable. Don't make impossible to verify claims.
I wouldn't say a system supports child labor if it's outlawed and heavily punished. In the same way that I'd say a system doesn't support murder if it's outlawed and heavily punished. Sure, every society we know of has had murderers, and child laborers might exist in the same capacity in most societies, even if they're outlawed, but it's not supported by said system.
Also, my claim was that a system exists where child labor isn't allowed. Even if that system has never been put into practice (it definitely has, but just for the sake of argument), it's obviously true. Maybe you're unconcerned with hypothetical systems, and you're absolutely convinced that the only practical systems that can exist are ones where we rely on the labor of children to succeed. You'd be a fool if you believe that, but I understand some people are foolish.
We don't need an accurate history of every society to make my claim. We only need to know that farms exist and how farming works in the time before widespread industrialization and electrification.
The fact is at harvest everyone is working sunup to sunset as pre-outdoor lighting you need as many hands harvesting to get produce while it is ripe so you limit loss to rot and pests. That means throughout history kids were working on the farm for AT LEAST harvest (realistically it is safe to presume they worked much of the year).
As every society needs food you should not be surprised to discover every single one has some degree of child labor.
So what system doesn't involve child labor? And why us child labor a product of economic ideology when every single system has involved some degree of child labor?
Let's not start calling people fools as right now you are making a very bold claim that is easily dismissed by anyone who worked a farm
Your claim was that every single society had used child labor, that's unverifiable. You claim that you know this because every society requires food, picked by kids instead of adults.
What's actually really cool is that adults can also pick food in a farm, it's not a job exclusive to kids. You might be surprised to learn that the vast majoriry of farmers in the world are actually adults.
Society doesn't need child labor to survive. More labor helps during times of hardship, but we can just send the capitalists to work instead of having them force the children to do it.
What systems are those?
I mean even from the most obnoxious campist perspective, both the USSR and communist China have plenty of documented examples of Child labor which are arguably worse than anything in the US.
Read the comment you're replying to again?
This is the dumbest take I've seen in a while.
You seriously think liberals and capitalism are the only things that used child labor? Lol
If you actually think liberals in capitalist countries are the people that have used child laborers you're pretty fucking stupid.
Shut up lib
All im saying is that it sounds like baby need a nap.
Took you a whole day to come up with that huh?
✌️
😭