• marcos@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Gotta stop pretending “left” and “right” are useful labels to apply to politics too.

      • 9point6@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        They aren’t useless, but they are pretty broad strokes that will always have a use as long as we’re talking about any de facto two party states (e.g. those with FPTP voting systems).

        It’s also worth remembering that the population of one country’s idea of left wing politicians might actually end up being right wing elsewhere (for instance, people in the US saying their democratic party are lefty when in most of Europe they would be considered center-right or just plain right-wing).

        • Prunebutt@feddit.de
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          1 year ago

          That’s not what makes the terms useful.

          US Democrats aren’t left and the term is still useful in European politics.

          • 9point6@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I’m not really saying what makes them useful, that’s a long list. I was more going for saying they’re not useless, but are potentially pretty ambiguous without additional context due to how people use them.

      • Prunebutt@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        Please elaborate how “equality” and “hierarchy” based policies aren’t useful labels for politics anymore.

      • Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I’ve always liked a 2 axis spectrum. Social ownership/ private ownership on one axis. Authoritarian / libertarian on the other.

      • joyjoy@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Especially “horseshoe” politics. Leftist just means centrist.

      • Mr Fish@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Lemmy is a community hosted system, and a lot of the user base came here after leaving other platforms (mostly reddit) because of the owners making it worse and worse trying to copy other platforms like tiktok.

        And you’re wondering why everyone here has problems with capitalism.

        That’s not even mentioning the other huge problems with capitalism.

        • ITALIEN@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          What?

          FOSS is great, I like the idea of people from all over the world contributing towards software that benefits the user rather than the creator.

          I fail to see how that equates to “communism good” though. That’s a huge leap in thinking. Really weird when surely most people on here live and benefit from capitalist societies.

          • Mr Fish@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I fail to see how that equates to “communism good” though.

            The problem is that very few people make the decisions that impact everyone on the platform, which ends up meaning “capitalism bad”. Fixing that problem with a system that’s basically owned by users is sort of like making the system communist.

            surely most people on here live and benefit from capitalist societies.

            Sure, they live in capitalist societies, but do they honestly benefit from it being capitalist more than they would from it being communist or socialist? Are they really better off in a system that inherently increases inequality rather than decreasing it?

          • xor@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            1 year ago

            “you say capitalism but yet you live under capitalism, checkmate” doesn’t really work, because you don’t just get to choose the economic system you live in

            Sure, capitalism has brought significant improvements to quality of life, but given that the systems that preceded it were largely feudalism and subsistence farming, that’s not really a high bar.

            And it certainly doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t continue to develop economic and social systems that are even more equitable.

      • lugal@sopuli.xyz
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        1 year ago

        You’re not even federated with the tanky instances…

        I give you a hint: lemmy is a decentralized, non commercial platform. The cap*talists are still on r*ddit

      • TORFdot0@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I’ve put some thought into how to respond to this but I just can’t get past “capitalism bros” so I’ll just say this, you can criticize the current market economy system most of the west has without being a full on communist. And those that are content with capitalism aren’t going to go out of their way to be a “capitalism bro”. So of course dissenting voices to the current status quo are going to be amplified here. Try to learn from others perspectives instead of seeking validation

        • ITALIEN@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I meant that light heatedly but I see how that could come across as an immature comment. I guess where I’m coming from and failed to articulate in a constructive way is that I’m surprised there’s so much support for communism when likely most of the people on here live in capitalist societies that though have issues still allow them enough freedom to make those statements without fear of punishment.