Hi! In thinking about how to help the fediverse grow, I wonder if there are more mainstream Lemmy instances?
I’ve pointed a couple folks to Lemmy.world and it’s uhhh, pretty hard Left for them (as one girl, who volunteered for the Democrats said “I just got yelled at because I can’t be Left wing unless I want to destroy capitalism? Which feels weird.”) We’re much farther Left than reddit which itself was definitely Left of centre…
I don’t know if decentralized open source social media actually attracts many mainstreamers but assuming we want to grow the fediverse, I’d like to have somewhere I can point people to without feeling very nervous for them.
Thanks!
I dobtwrhinj it’s any serious political talk (otherwise most countries are having unserious talks about their Left and Right wings) but maybe in serious political theory talks?
Like, Germany’s Left parties mostly don’t want to dismantle capitalism but I wouldn’t dismiss all conversation about them and putting people on that Left Right spectrum to be unserious.
Even the SDP is pro-forma still for the abolition of capitalism.
I always thought they were more traditional socialist democracy?
But I doubt many of their voters believe a vote for them will bring about the end of capitalism…
That’s because for many of them it is easier to imagine the end of the world, than the end of capitalism.
… what do you think socialism is, exactly?
Generally, classically I’ve understood Socialism to still involve central planning of industry/production.
Whereas most modern socialist democracies tend to heavily regulate industry and enact social welfare programs to minimize the effects of different classes etc.
Socialism is worker control of the means of production, which can take many forms. What it is, most distinctively, is incompatible with capitalism, which is investor control of the means of production.
The most successful socialist parties in the West take the view that the harm of capitalism should be reduced while it still exists; they still believe in the eventual abolition of capitalism.
And the harm reduction comes in the form of removing parts of the economy from capitalist control, which is … anti-capitalist.
I don’t disagree but there is a distinct difference between social democracy and a socialist democracy, or democratic socialism.
The former is a capitalist system with some welfare systems in place, the latter is socialism without the one party state.
There is a lot of “Capitalist Realism” but the people in these parties that still consider themselves leftists usually do agree that capitalism should be abolished if pressed on the topic.