GrammarPolice

@GrammarPolice@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Mama mia⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  Following

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨DNA⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  Call the Marxists

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Simple spelling rule.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  🧐

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Well, I guess that settles it⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  Everything is hurtful now. Even nationality… jeez

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Pretty interesting when you really think about it.⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Ok?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Fa la la la la!⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Sorry, but Santa Claus only serves to perpetuate the contradiction that is bourgeois philosophy. Santa Claus is a tool of ideological control, reinforcing the capitalist superstructure through a cheerful facade. The “elves” in Santa’s workshop metaphorically represent the exploited working class in capitalist production. This myth obscures the reality of labor exploitation in supply chains, where real workers, often in precarious conditions, manufacture the goods that fuel holiday consumption. True holiday spirit would involve dismantling systems of exploitation and creating a world where generosity and community are not commodified but practiced universally through collective ownership and mutual aid.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨We dumb⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  shut up

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The burden of being different⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Sydney😍

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Hey is Sharing Luigi’s Manifesto on Social Media Actually "Glorifying Violence"? Because Reddit Said So 😭⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Stop using Reddit

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨No one showed up to his party⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  This guy parties

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  It should be implemented the way Marx thought it should. If it still cannot be properly carried out, then Marxism is flawed.

  You speak in vague, non-Marxist idealism like “soft totalitarianism,” when you should already know better having read Politzer.

  Very funny. Soft totalitarianism is a term i came up with, am proud of, and will continue to use for the foreseeable future.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I shall dig in the absence of Marxist propaganda and bias thank you

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Only because how it should be implemented differs from how it has been implemented. I’m just saying. There’s nothing wrong with Marxism. There’s something wrong with the people who practice it.

  State socialism is soft totalitarianism. There is a non-zero chance that any government that utilizes such a path will succumb to totalitarianism. Thereby making it a flawed system

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  You just keep recommending more books I can’t help but laugh. I used to have respect for you, but it has somewhat waned as of the last hour or so. I even finished that Politzer book.

  Also, my comparison is based on how ready both sides are to trivialize the atrocities committed by them.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Yet the roadmap of every communist country so far has involved a state and a leader that may or may not represent the interest of the people. Yeah, it seems like your idols need to go back to the basics

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I think I’ll pass. This is like a Nazi coming up to me and suggesting i consider Nazism because it focuses on national and racial pride. Sounds like a good idea on paper right?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  That i agree with

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  We believe that Stalin and Mao were committed socialists who, despite their mistakes, did much more for humanity than most of the bourgeois politicians

  And i stopped reading there. I don’t consider causing the deaths of 6 million people to be “doing more for humanity”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  What do you define as state socialism? What sort of Marxism do you practice?

  The definitions I’m used to are state socialism - A type of socialism wherein some or many of the means of production are controlled by the state, the state in turn being operated by (or on behalf of) the workers.

  Marxism - Based on the ideas of Karl Marx, envisions a classless, stateless society where the means of production are collectively owned and controlled by the people.

  Also, why do you keep defending Stalin? I don’t think Marx would have condoned any of Stalin’s actions. I listed a bunch of atrocities committed by Stalin exercising his totalitarian whims. I guess if the nature of Marxism is to be genocidal, then we can say he didn’t go rogue. But if I’m not mistaken, that isn’t the case. By all standards, he went rogue.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  My friend, you’re grossly downplaying the severity of your arguments here, and linking to a CIA document and a hexbear thread 💀 isn’t assisting the argument. That document (and subsequently YOU) severely underestimates the extent of Stalin’s authoritarian control.

  Who wrote that document? No really? Talking about how Stalin faced limited external opposition. WELL NO FUCKING SHIT!! BECAUSE HE PURGED ANY OPPOSITION THE SECOND HE HAD THE CHANCE TO!! YOU’D BE OUT OF YOUR MIND TO OPPOSE HIM!!

  Also, the document is talking about how he was merely the leader among many. Are you aware that Stalin had absolute control over the NKVD, the military, and the political system? The purges and repression of opposition eliminated any real collective decision-making. His control over the apparatus of power meant that, in practice, his word was final. Khrushchev’s rise to power came after Stalin’s death, in part because of Stalin’s purging of potential rivals—further solidifying that Stalin was more than just “the captain of a team.”

  I genuinely can’t believe these takes and it can only be retorted by someone who was in support of the actions of his regime frankly speaking. I don’t know why you can’t be Marxist and condemn the actions of Stalin or all the other authoritarian communist regimes. It’s quite frankly ridiculous that you would offer up these points to me as solid rebuttals. I may not be an expert in sociology or history or political science or whatever, and I may just be a college student who engages in political discourse merely as a hobby, but I refuse to take anyone who tries to defend Stalin and his regime, even in the face glaring contradictions, seriously. I’m sorry buddy. I tried to engage in this discussion with you unbiasedly, but i can’t take it anymore.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I never said Marxism is soft totalitarianism. I said state socialism is soft totalitarianism - a situation where all requirements for a dictatorship have been met; those are two different things. The reason is because if a situation is created where all property, institutions and means of production are government owned there is a non-zero chance of that government going rogue e.g Stalin.

  Moreover, why do you believe the LeftValues test to be worse

  I never explicitly said it was worse. I’m only saying that it could be a possible reason why your results weren’t congruent.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I will concede that I’m not well versed in socialist history enough to further buttress my points than i already have. However, you contradict yourself saying “Stalin could not simply do whatever he wanted”. This is like saying Hitler wasn’t a bad guy because he didn’t do the killings himself.

  We are both aware of the history of the Soviet Union under Stalin (probably you moreso than me, which confuses me as to why you would suggest Stalin couldn’t do whatever he wanted).

  Are you suggesting that The Great Purges, The Holodomor influenced by his forced collectivisation, The Gulag system, The Great Terror, The Soviet-Nazi pact, The Katyn Massacre, The Anti-Jewish campaigns and many more atrocities were not examples of Stalin doing whatever he wanted?

  I genuinely want to believe that you’re not one of those crazy Marxists bud.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  The difference in results does not speak to the ineffectiveness of the political compass test and can be interpreted as the ineffectiveness of the Left Values test alone.

  Let’s say you have a country that collectivized too early, and as such growth slows way down. The Means of Production are not ready for it. Is introducing market reforms as Marx and Engels would have it, with the intention of future recollectivization, right or left wing? Does it matter?

  Well, that’s sort of a trick question isn’t it? The left-right categorization is less useful because what’s happening is a pragmatic response to economic conditions. Whether this temporary shift is seen as ‘right-wing’ or ‘left-wing’ is less important than understanding the broader aim. The political compass might not capture these complexities, but the intention behind the reforms would still be left-wing.

  Also, this is just a sidenote, but state socialism is just soft totalitarianism. One of the reasons why I’m against transitional phases that explicitly rely on government action.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  To your last points, while it’s true that Stalin did attempt to resign a few times, particularly during moments of crisis or internal conflict, these resignations were never accepted, and this is likely due to his entrenched power and the loyalty he commanded from key figures within the Communist Party. His position was deeply centralized, and while he may have “tried” to step down, he was ultimately not removed from power in any meaningful way.

  While these attempts might suggest some level of internal political tension, they don’t negate the fact that Stalin’s overall control and the repressive mechanisms he put in place (like the purges) show a clear trend toward authoritarianism. The failure of democracy within the system (such as the purging of opposition) is what shaped Stalin’s power in a more authoritarian direction.

  Similarly with Mao, while it’s true that he lost influence during the Cultural Revolution, his reassertion of power afterward was not a clear example of democratic recall. Instead, it was a political struggle within the Party, where Mao used strategic alliances and his base of support to regain power. The system under Mao remained deeply centralized, and while there may have been temporary shifts in power dynamics, the overall political structure continued to be one of authoritarian control. The Cultural Revolution itself was an example of extreme centralization of power in Mao’s hands, leading to massive social disruption and political purges.

  These points CANNOT be disputed by you. You cannot deny that many examples of communism are wholly authoritarian, and that it is largely due to the centralisation of power.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I agree that working-class power is important in defining whether a system is libertarian or authoritarian. However, the way centralization plays out matters because a system can claim to empower the working class but centralize power in a way that actually diminishes their ability to act or dissent. So, while centralization alone doesn’t determine libertarianism, it does interact with how power is distributed and exercised. That’s why it matters.

  This contradicts your previous statement, where centralization doesn’t matter, only working class power does, assuming there is no “coercion,” which you leave vague and ill-defined.

  You’re also right to point out that centralization itself doesn’t automatically negate working-class power - Hell, i even support centralisation myself in certain economical frameworks - but in practice, we often see centralized control leading to the suppression of dissent and limiting democratic decision-making (coercion). The balance between centralization and freedom is a very fine line, and when centralization stops allowing for genuine worker control, that’s when it shifts toward authoritarianism.

  Look, I agree that the political compass is far from perfect. It can oversimplify things, but it’s still useful as a way of understanding where systems might fall in terms of broader trends. The point isn’t to force every ideology into a box, but rather to use the grid as a rough guide while still allowing room for the nuance and contradictions you’re emphasizing. Can you at least agree to this point?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Look dude, I completely understand and agree with your emphasis on the importance of analyzing real-world mechanisms like democratic centralism, the mass line, or corporate dominance. However, I don’t see the political compass as a replacement for detailed analysis—it’s a supplementary tool to map the trends and tendencies of political and economic systems based on their observable outcomes. It isn’t meant to capture every nuance but rather provide a starting point for discussion.

  Marxism-Leninism proposes democratic centralism and a mass line, concepts that have no way to fit on the political compass

  I’m not disputing that democratic centralism and the mass line are important concepts, but they don’t inherently negate the usefulness of the compass. If these mechanisms genuinely empower the working class without coercion, they would trend toward a libertarian-left position. However, if in practice they require centralized enforcement or suppress dissent, they trend toward authoritarian-left. That’s it! I don’t know why you haven’t grasped my point yet.

  And even in practice, AES states like the USSR and China have had recall elections, but we can also observe instances where those systems centralized power to a degree that suppressed dissent. Over time, especially under Stalin, centralized power reduced any meaningful democratic processes. The leadership of the Communist Party became increasingly authoritarian, and the political system increasingly suppressed dissent e.g The Great Purges. Recall mechanisms were largely ineffective in curbing authoritarianism - similar things occurred in China under Zedong’s rule. I’m not using this point to take a jab at Marxism, I’m only demonstrating that concepts you claim are meant to sustain democracy have actively been dismantled in the past. The compass can simply help map these contradictions over time.

  there is no such thing as a “libertarian right,” because there cannot be a market based Capitalist economy without corporations dominating it, no matter how small the state, because there is no chance of working class power.

  Fair enough, but the compass doesn’t deny this. A libertarian-right system is theoretical, and its real-world outcomes could shift to authoritarian-right if corporate hierarchies emerge. This is why nuance matters, even when using the compass.

  I see your concern that the compass might oversimplify or distort. But tools like this are not meant to replace detailed material analysis—they’re frameworks to orient discussions and provide a rough map of tendencies. If used with care and nuance, the compass doesn’t erase complexity; it helps track trends and spark dialogue about mechanisms. It’s not perfect, but it’s a tool to orient ourselves in complex discussions. Dismissing it entirely risks losing a useful way to track trends and communicate ideas clearly.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Again my argument isn’t that the compass is a rigid framework; rather, it is a guiding tool. Ideologies themselves are not static, but how they are applied or implemented in specific contexts determines where they fall on the compass. This is why i added the nuance earlier.

  Take Marxist-Leninism as an example. In theory, it emphasizes democratic control, but in practice, it often relies on centralized enforcement. The inclusion of recall elections might move the system towards the libertarian-left quadrant. However, if those elections are tokenistic or used to maintain centralized authority, the system trends authoritarian-left again. The Political Compass isn’t saying Marxist-Leninism is always authoritarian-left—it’s showing where it falls based on how it’s applied in practice.

  Similarly, decentralized market economies might theoretically align with libertarian-right values. But if power becomes concentrated through corporate dominance or “warlordism,” it would practically shift toward authoritarianism.

  If anything, you agree with me that it is how these ideologies are applied in practice that matters most. No framework is perfect. The political compass, when used with nuance, is a very valuable analytical tool for measuring trends and shifts in governance and power dynamics.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Well it depends right, let’s not act like there isn’t nuance to this.

  a fully publicly owned and democratically controlled economy

  It falls on the libertarian-left if individuals and communities genuinely govern themselves without coercion e.g democratic socialism. However, if the system requires a strong central authority to enforce public ownership and suppress alternative systems, it moves toward the authoritarian-left e.g Marxist-Leninism

  a highly decentralized market economy with a nightwatchman state

  This is just a straight up libertarian right economy. A nightwatchman state equals laissez-faire capitalism which aligns with libertarian philosophy.

  To answer your question, it depends on the type of publicly owned and democratically controlled economy we’re talking about.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  These views aren’t complicated though, or aren’t as complicated as you think. Most of our political opinions can be boiled down to any of the 4 quadrants of the axis.

  Can you name any view that doesn’t fit into this axis?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imperialism, authoritarianism and oppression is bad all around m'kay⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  The axis spectrum has proven to be very efficient imo. A lot of the politics we talk about are mainly composed of social and economic elements which the axis spectrum portrays well.