Comment on The Billionaires have spent a fortune making sure you hate Socialism.
jld@lemmy.zip 9 hours agoThat is an anarchist position, anarchism is a strain of leftist thought. Well, there’s also anarcho-capitalism, or minarchism. But what’s happening right here with this discussion is exactly my point. There’s a senseless drive to put individuals into these tiny bubbles of left or right, and this solves nothing.
We need right-wing thought to fight the rich and powerful? What part? Cutting taxes on the rich? Starting wars of aggression? Kicking down doors and rounding up immigrants? Nah, couldn’t care less for those guys. It’s freakin’ insanity what’s happening right now in the world. What I’m saying is that taxes merely shift the control elsewhere. If you have to tax, those are the guys to be taxed. My problem with taxes is that it accomplishes nothing really. This general position against “the rich” is also slightly biased, but completely understandable given the current events. Dude, I am absolutely disgusted by the stuff those guys are doing! It’s mind blowing to me the level of insanity we have reached. Now, are you going to ask the government to help you out here, when they are essentially the enemy? I don’t get it. Also, are we gonna add to the chaos and make it worse, or are we actually gonna shift out of a destructive mindset and try to clearly identify problems and find solutions? It’s just that revenge taxing the rich will essentially accomplish nothing beyond satisfying the egos of a few people.
Pointless topics! So you don’t actually care about fighting the rich at all. I don’t, not directly. I care about addressing the real problems, the core issues. For example, the fact that the rich and the powerful seem to be above the law. This is why I believe the decentralization of power is a fundamental mechanism in the fight against corruption. A central body of power will always be corrupt.
Objection@lemmy.ml 8 hours ago
“Anarcho”-capitalism isn’t so much anarchism as it is a rebranding of feudalism. Anarchism is opposed to heirarchies, so it’s incompatible with capitalism. Minarchism is an unrealistic, idealist ideology. Whichever class wields power over the state is going to use the state to advance their interests.
It’s not biased, and it’s not “revenge.” The rich are a class, which is engaged in class warfare against the poor. Weakening them would be worthwhile even if we didn’t get a direct benefit from it, because the fewer resources they have the less ability they have to impose worse conditions, and vise versa.
An anarchist might oppose taxing taxing the rich for that reason.
I would argue that the government is merely a tool, that can be used by different classes for different purposes. It is not the primary enemy, which is the rich, but the tool is often used by the rich to advance their interests. Imposing taxes on the rich would be an example of the working class wielding the tool of the government against the rich.
That’s what you just called a “pointless issue,” isn’t it? When we discuss politics, aren’t we discussing strategies for addressing the power of the rich? Is it pointless to discuss those strategies?
jld@lemmy.zip 8 hours ago
It is, unfortunately, pointless, as the vast majority of people don’t even bother to lift a finger to click ‘like’ on a post that’s fighting for something they also care about. I’ve often been ‘man yelling at cloud’ trying to fight mass surveillance and privacy issues alone. There’s a niche, of course, but, mostly, people are either afraid or don’t care enough, so yeah, it feels pointless.
Also, let me take note that we have discussed the political spectrum and the worthiness of discussing politics, but we haven’t really discussed anything worth discussing. Not that I didn’t enjoy it, but this doesn’t change my point of view. If anything, it consolidates it.
Things are only as bad as the people let them become. We voted ourselves out of democracy, so the people are really to blame. The way I see it, I won’t be ‘man yelling at cloud’ anymore, and the less people stand up and shout, the bigger the penalty will be. It’s unfortunate, but also self-serving.