Do you believe rich people who have a unique skill e.g. musicians or artists or sports people should be able to be extortionately rich since they technically use their own labour mostly or do you think the y shouldn't be rich because other people are required to set everything up for them?

I've been looking into the SRs for a while but yet to find much on their ideological work.

I'm curious to see what paths people took, what age you developed your views, etc.

I am not a socialist and haven't gotten to interact with any outside of the internet. I used to not think much of the argument that the USSR wasn't really a socialist country but in another question I saw more concrete statements about how its economy was not socialist.

However, something that gnaws at me was this one claim it was a socialist economy and someone with a limited understanding of the topic being the USSR's failings I wasn't in a position to debate.

So I present this question, looking back at the USSR's economy, was its really socialist or a highly centralized capitalist economy?

Hello, pardon the confusing title, it'll make more sense in a minute.

A lot of people who identify themselves as being on the left as democrats, progressives, liberals, socialists, or communists, are (from my experience) typically against the idea of the death penalty for criminals. The goal seems to usually be life in prison as opposed to the death penalty. A common take that I also hear is, "life in prison is worse than the death penalty, because the criminal has to suffer for longer." There are, of course, more radical approaches to leftist philosophy where the solution to a problem involves death, but we shall put that aside, as it is not the subject of this post.

The vast majority of my leftist friends/people that I know or follow on social media are typically against the death penalty. Even in egregious cases, where the person has committed a terrible series of crimes, they seem to have a moral and ethical problem with dishing out the death penalty, and radically oppose it. However, in the case of Luigi Mangione and his assassination of the UnitedHealthcare CEO, Brian Thompson, I have noticed that many of these leftists suddenly find themselves supporting Luigi, celebrating him as a hero, and glorifying his actions.

It's as if they no longer take issue with execution as a form of administering justice, and quite frankly, it seems hypocritical. All of a sudden it's acceptable (more like endorsed really) to shoot and kill an objectively bad man, but it's so wrong, and has been considered so inhumane, to execute a serial rapist, mass murderer, or person who has been found guilty of committing other terrible crimes.

My issue is not with Luigi Mangione, or the death penalty; my issue is with what I see as inconsistency. If you think that someone is bad, and therefore, should die, you do you. If you think that taking a life, even an evil one, is wrong, you do you. But I have a problem when I see an anti-death penalty hardliner suddenly be raging out on social media about how we should go around killing people who we hate, disagree with, or have done terrible things.

To me, it shows how easy it is to be swept up by the angry mob mentality. You want justice, you want action now! But you forsake the entire thesis--every anti-death penalty debate stance you've ever taken--all thrown right out the window now.

This is how it looks to me when I see people I know suddenly behave an act this way.

I want to hear your thoughts. Do you think you've fallen into this trap? Do you disagree with my take, and think that there is a difference?

What if the CEO, Brian Thompson, had been brought to justice to for his actions (or inactions)? What if he had been convicted, and was sentenced to the death penalty? Would you stand against it then? It's celebrated when someone takes matters into their own hands, but a terrible, morally incomprehensible atrocity when someone is given a trial in the court of law, and then sentenced for the same crime.

Finally, I'll reflect on what I wrote above by saying that I realize it sounds very opinionated and angry, but that was mostly for me to walk you through a thought process. I'm not mad, and I'm not looking to start a fight; I want to preserve the integrity of people's respective philosophies, and I see flip-flopping whenever you become emotionally roused enough to be a violation of that, and a betrayal of what your stand and fight for everyday. I am truly just interested what is going on in your mind, and I'm not here to berede you or anyone else. I'm just curious what people are really thinking. I've brought this up with a friend, and she got mad, but couldn't explain anything, eventually just sidestepping and saying that Luigi was hot, but that's an excuse and shallow way of presenting an argument, especially because there are plenty of people who don't care at all about how attractive Luigi is.

So where I'm from in the United States, you'll occasionally find people passing out (or leaving in places like gas stations) there "Bible Tracts". Basically a little pamphlet telling you you're going to burn in hell for eternity without God or whatever.

My question is: Why don't socialists do the same thing? It seems like a great way of spreading class consciousness.

Or maybe they do, and I just don't have enough socialists in my area.

Either way, anyone have some resources on how one might make such "socialist tracts"?

A democratic-socialist here. I feel that struggle is a main part of most societies. When I ask people, I hear that struggle is a big part

But yet when I hear that there will be a final struggle; revolutionary period; most people go into a weird state. The end of struggle is our goal, but why do I feel like it going away is not as good as I want?

I get that the mainstream left has made a compromise many don't agree with, but the same underlying goals are still there. Secondly, do you distance yourselves in the same way from democratic socialists, a group i identify with and view as somewhat further left than the mainstream centre-left social democrats.
Additionally, wouldn't a democratic revolution show actual legitimacy instead of one happening outside the systems. Violent / non-democratic coups and revolutions don't really need to have the people on their side, only the army and/or a decent % of the population angry and armed.

I'm mostly asking this question for my own paradoxical views.
I'd say i'm an ideological democratic socialist, but having grown up in Norway (well functioning social democratic monarchy) i support my monarchy. I have multiple other such views where i see my personal opinion on some specific problems as contrasting with my general ideological and more objective views.
Generally speaking i agree with Marxism ideologically as well, but again growing up in the country with the highest democracy index in the world i believe in the checks and balances of democratic systems.
Any others here have similar paradoxes?

This is an argument I heard recently, and I wanted some advice on how to navigate it. I’d love some thoughts and ideas!

If socialists do not support the police and ostracize people from socialist spaces who become cops, wouldn’t that in the short term make sure that everyone becoming a cop would possess the worst possible, most anti-socialist qualities? This isn’t saying socialists should become cops. But the question is: could socialists refusal to occupy those spaces be indirectly keeping the police full of capitalist-loving anti-socialists?

One rebuttal could be that cops would be that way no matter what in this current system. But they possess a great amount of lethal force and power. Ensuring that those possessing that power are staunchly aligned against socialists strikes me as a difficult logistical obstacle.

I know socialists believe that the police in their current form shouldn’t exist. And I understand that the police in the US serve to uphold capitalist ideals. However US citizens aren’t voting to reform police. In fact the budgets seem to be vastly increasing in cities where many had hoped to see reform. I often struggle to think of a way forward.

Hi there, I'm curious to know what method of trade socialists support. I thought they'd support some form of free trade but I suppose shey don't. I couldn't really find a definitive answer

Patriotic socialism is about wanting better for your country, loving your people and to help your people by freeing them from corporatists that run the country. It is also about abolishing the military industrial complex. People often associate it with Jackson Hinkle, along with his supporters who support bigotry towards lgbt and sex workers, but it doesn’t have to be associated with him. I can be patriotic and a socialist, Jackson Hinkle doesn’t speak for me. I hear a lot of talk about what patriotism means for the US, what it is, what it isn’t, etc. Some people’s patriotism doesn’t support imperialism, isn’t it unfair to force them to associate with those that do as if the malignant “patriots” speak for them?  Really, I see patriotic socialism as a pro people anti western imperialist movement unlike regular US patriotism. Why oppose it?

this is a long one, its more of a rant but the rant i think lends context to my questions.

this is not a shitpost, and im asking it as a genuine, good faith question....

im also canadian just to clarify

what do you do when you where told your whole life that democratic socialism = socialism and that socialism is bad and actually harms people and makes their quality of life worse...yet when you become an adult, you realize that a lot of the ideas behind democratic socialism makes more sense than whatever dystopian semi-capitalist oligarcal helllhole we currently have?

i look at my own experience, i have ADHD but i was unaware of that until i was diagnosed as an adult, so i had basically no support as a child and teen, which lead me to struggle in and hate school and ultimately drop out of highschool and only getting a GED....

ive spent my adult life (damn near 10 years) working in construction, labourer, machinist, forklift operator, and welding..... but ive never made a lot of money and ive always been making a few dollars over min wage, but living on my own and paying all of my bills.

ive experienced long bouts of unemployment due to ADHD but also mental health and substance use, which would have certainly led to eviction and homelessness had i not had EI there to back me up....

my partner's elderly parents have been on welfare due to old age and workplace injuries, that prevented them from being homeless.

recently a family member has passed away, and i saw how much the funeral bills would have cost us..... and due to circumstances, me and my partner would have been on the hook to pay for it, it would have bankrupted us and put us into debt, completely wiping out all the money we have saved for a down payment and emergency fund. yet there where programs and assistance available to help that knocked the costs down to something i could afford....

and recently family members have gotten sick and where hospitalized, yet they technically paid $0 for their hospital stays.

the kicker here is that i have almost always identified as a libertarian, because i have always despised the government in its current form, and wished for a smaller, limited government that didnt fritter away tax dollars to bomb poor people in 3rd world countries over oil, and ive always believed in personal freedoms, things like freedom of speech and gun rights, freedom of association, gay marriage, etc

i always see libertarians screeching about taxes and shit....and how we ought to privatize absolutely everything..... and ive never really identified with that very much because if there was anything i was more wary of than the government, it was mega corps and big business.

i look at the healthcare system in the US, and as shitty as aspects of our "marxist" healthcare system is, i would not want to be in the US and have health issues...

im coming to the conclusion that many concepts that are considered part of the "libertarian agenda" if you will, are just ideals that will only work for rich people....and that it doesnt account for the little people, or people who are elderly or disabled.....

ive been lurking here in this subreddit for a while now and i see a lot of points and arguements that make sense to me, more sense that a lot of libertarian arguments and points?

so where do i go from here? what do i do next?

i listen to a lot of youtube while i play videogames and i listen to a wide range of polticial youtube channels, mostly libertarian leaning but in the past year ive been trying to be more objective and trying to break out of my echo chamber and expose myself to a wider palette of ideas and theories.

i keep finding myself listening to a lot of leeja miller, which a decent amount of her content and the concepts and ideas discussed resonate with me.....

the federal election season is coming up next year, ive always voted CPC federally, and UCP provincially, ive looked more at the NDP in recent months, but i have a ton of hesitation about that, as they seem to be too aligned with the liberals, who have basically run a train on this country and there are a lot of things that i disagree with the NDP on (like firearms)

thanks for reading

Hello all, I am trying to learn about the values of socialists. One aspect I am not certain of is the general position you guys have on police. I know that you all support anti-police movements e.g. (Defund the Police, "ACAB"), but what exactly do you guys want the police to do or what do you want them to be? Do you guys support removing law-enforcement agencies all together? I would love to hear your thoughts!

For the past century, Marxism-Leninism has been the most prominent ‘flavor’ of socialism, both in popularity as well as implemented by socialist governments.

With socialism increasing in popularity, especially among younger generations, is Marxism-Leninism still the answer, or is another or new ‘flavor’ better suited going forward?

I know multiple socialist/communist/arnachist brands that have good quality and ethical "merch". But what l am searching for are basically normal brands, that don't sell merch but rather normal, good looking clothes that are just not exploiting there laborers or the planet in any way. If you know what I mean I'd be thankful for every help!

When someone goes on about "helping others" at the "Allstate pod at [health insurance company]", or when someone is posting typical LinkedIn self-brand type stuff, do they experience the same sort of cringe/internalized anger feeling that I do? Are they dissociating? Or do they actually genuinely believe the stuff they're saying? I find it really hard to believe that anyone thinks that their time and labor are best spent arguing against insurance industry leeches bleeding workers dry, for example.

I get that people are more or less forced to do this kind of work by economic necessity and that subsuming ones identity within it is a form of coping. But surely there's some part of them that asks why? I know my own socialist learning journey started with a simple "why does poverty not get significantly better over time even though there's all these charities in the news with a bunch of money getting donated every year"?

How do we encourage people to reflect on their relationship with their employer and the means of production without the resulting anger turning into doomerism or into denial?

Brief story. Early I was on an Italian bookshop (Feltrinelli) online shop browsing around looking what stuff they have related to Proudhon. At one point I came across a book called DA PROUDHON A LENIN (From Proudhon to Lenin) by Georges Sorel.

I'm interested so I click on the title and see if there was some description. Since the book it's categorized as vintage item, there's nothing much: number of pages (222), year of publication (1949) and the publisher (L'Arco). It's not the first time this happens with vintage books, so usually what I do is that I just Google the book to see if someone else has a description of what's inside of the thing. I do the same with this book translating the title in English. Nothing. All results lead me to other sites selling me the same book or other editions of it. I try Wikipedia (both Italian and english) and I use the search option and write "Proudhon" first and "Lenin" later. Nothing. No signs of the book

So my question is, is there someone here that knows what this book is about? It may just probably be some sort of collection of Sorel thoughts that he wrote. Thanks for those that read till here and for those that will reply

Edit: forgot to tell that apparently this thing is only in italian...compagnə dove siete?

If anyone could, I’d appreciate a reading list on Syria and the Assad government so I can educate myself on the conflict there.

Why doesn't the PSL have stuff like parties/mixer events?

Trivial question I know. I've been going to meet with the PSL for about a month. Doing general group study, outreach, protest planning etc.

Despite what I know already and what I've learned, I do not think the general public is interested in the education it requires to understand socialism. The issue with that is nothing can be done without the support of the working class. So my question is, why don't they have lower commitment more relaxed events? I'm not saying we need to just get together and get hammered, but I think "entertaining" would be advantageous to the cause. The vibe at my branch is that of a non denominational church. I personally can't see this being attractive to anyone who isn't already interested in socialism before joining.

If your branch does things differently please share.

Would I be a hypocrite if I sympathize with the socialist and communist ideology while investing in crypto currencies or stocks like Apple, Microsoft, Amazon etc? How do socialists view this in general? Could you please give me the consensus among socialists. You can write your own opinions as well but I want to know what socialists/communists in general feel about such investments.

I know this was historically most socialist parties and organizations. What would a movement like this today be called? Note: Not one that hates LGBT people. More like one that just ignores the issue and focuses corely on socialism. I think there's a ton of demand for such a party and the lack of it explains why working class people voted for Trump en masse.

Disclaimer: I'm LGBT myself.

Looking for any groups and events building working-class power in Minnesota

I've been a socialist for awhile now and wanted to be able to have resources or stuff I can read on how I can debunk anti socialist arguments. I get pretty envious of socialists or communists I speak to that can debunk myths about communism in detail or socialism or can rattle off facts and myths about NK for example.

Any advice on books or videos or even arguments to use would be much appreciated