I tell people that Bernie is a centrist and his policies are the bare minimum of acceptable compromises that should accept, but what we really should do is abolish billionaires and turn every company into a worker’s co-op
least socialist post on lemmy
I’m not just a centrist, I’m a conservative! I agree with Adam Smith, the father of Capitalism.
For instance, I agree with him that monopolies must be regulated or they will corrupt the government:
It is to sell the one as dear, and to buy the other as cheap as possible, and consequently to exclude, as much as possible, all rivals from the particular market where they keep their shop. The genius of the administration, therefore, so far as concerns the trade of the company, is the same as that of the direc- tion. It tends to make government subservient to the interest of monopoly, and consequently to stunt the natural growth of some parts, at least, of the surplus produce of the country, to what is barely sufficient for answering the demand of the company
…
They will employ the whole authority of government, and pervert the administration of Justice, in order to harass and ruin those who interfere with them in any branch of commerce, which by means of agents, either concealed, or at least not pub- licly avowed, they may choose to carry on.
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I also agree with him that landlords are parasites and need to be heavily taxed:
As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed and demand a rent even for its natural produce.
A tax upon ground-rents would not raise the rents of houses. It would fall altogether upon the owner of the ground-rent, who acts always as a monopolist, and exacts the greatest rent which can be got for the use of his ground.
If you call yourself a captalist but don’t even believe in what Adam Smith said, are you really even a capitalist?
Nooooo, you’re supposed to quote something about “the invisible hand of the market” without context!
That didn’t stop the Christians
Sure, but people are a lot more fervent in their support of capitalism than christianity.
If you call yourself a captalist but don’t even believe in what Adam Smith said, are you really even a capitalist?
i’m a capitalist, but only to the extent that capitalism is the most effective mechanism of meeting the needs of a market. I think it’s fundamentally impossible to run an economic system in any way that is more optimized to the needs of it’s consumers than you can under capitalism, and that’s what i like about it.
It’s also true that there are some self regulating effects on the market. But that’s more complicated.
Though, just because i believe the market handles itself in most cases, doesn’t mean i believe it requires no regulation. That would be preposterous. I don’t want pure unregulated capitalism, but i don’t want socialism/communism either, i want both. Both is good.
So a mixed economy?
yeah, that would be the implication.
LMAO.
Sorry to bring the news but…the rest of the world have been calling US Democrats right-wing and Republicans far-right for decades.
My dad used to joke that the US is the country of freedom, where you can choose between the right and the right.
I’m a centrist. I think we should have a maximum wealth cap set at 1000x the median household income. I am willing to do this via tax policy instead of the guillotine.
I was curious what the number would be. That’s $80,000,000 (fixed) in wealth. Seems pretty reasonable tbh.
The median household income is about $80k in the US. 1000x is $80 million.
I like this ratio because it both indexes things to inflation but also ties the allowable wealth of the wealthiest to the well being of the average family. Also, it’s still a very high amount. $80 million is still a ton of money.
Consider the highest paid salary workers, not CEOs, but actual workers. Think the most well paid doctors, lawyers, and other professional classes. Even if the best paid doctor in the country kept living like a college student their whole career. They make $1 million a year but live like a monk, saving and investing everything they can. And they do this from the time they graduate until they die of old age.
They would still struggle to hit a $80 million net worth by the time they die.
It is impossible to make that level of wealth by your own work alone. The only way you accrue a fortune greater than this is if you’re in the business of labor arbitrage - you are hiring people and siphoning off a large portion of the wealth they generate for yourself. A “doctor” who works a practice with 30 doctors underneath them isn’t really a doctor, they’re a business owner just like any other.
In my defense, I went to an American public school
So did I!
A major problem, if not THE major problem, with vast accumulations of wealth in the hands of a few is the vast political power such wealth gives.
2 propositions. 1, making lawmakers job a minimum wage job so they have an incentive to raise it and feel the effect their policies have on the population. 2, capping a
PDGCEO salary to ~20x the lowest salary of his company.1 makes lawmakers more susceptible to corruption.
I see where you’re coming from, but it’s not as though refusing to implement #1 has done much for us so far. Trump and Elon are running around doing whatever they please already, and nobody who is actually capable of holding them accountable is willing to do it.
Sure, but you don’t want to make things even worse.
High salary (and as lawmaker you have a fairly high degree of responsibility so I think it’s fair) + very tight rules on accepting any kind of money, services, favours, etc… seems to work best.
Well if we’re talking about shit that will never pass… Then we should ban most instances of lawmakers who have business interests, ban working as a lobbyist, ban insider trading.
Then we could make their salary a multiple of the median wage of whatever district or state they represent.
and tie their retirement to social security instead of a separate fund.
1 means only the wealthy can become politicians.
congressional appointment should be handled like jury duty. “Dammit, I pulled congressional duty again.” the certainty of having to return to your old life would encourage you to make it better for non-politicians as well.
I disagree on that. Part of our problem is that those in government don’t really understand governance and the sustem is complex. That takes time and mentorship, a jury duty like system might make bribing harder, but it would make a functional government next to impossible. Age limits, I’m all for that - give em until they’re 70 (or something close) then no more government offices - congress, senate, pres, judgeships, etc. That and have fully publicly-funded elections with limited campaigning windows. No more 2-year presidential runs or congresspeople needing to fundraise and run for their entire term.
There really should be a wealth cap. If you have more then 1000x the median income to your personal net worth then you don’t need it. Sorry not sorry.
They would likely find loops holes like they already do though…… le sigh…
None the less, we need to do something about wealth hoarding if we want to have even a semblance of a democracy.
It might be too late for that. I hope not and if it is not, I don’t think we have long to turn it around before there is no way out.
Gonna build banks and, since corpos are people, they’ll have a net worth. When they reach the cap build another.
They would likely find loops holes like they already do though…… le sigh…
there’s two big problems, either you find loopholes, or you just leave the country.
How would you go about enforcing it? What happens to the ceo whose wealth ticks about your 1000x threshold due to a good day on the stock market?
Those are policy details. A common fatal flaw among the left is obsessing over details and trying to pick apart any good idea. The wealth cap is philosophy statement. Obviously any policy needs rules to implement it. But that’s for legislators, not people discussing the idea itself. You shouldn’t attack a broad policy by getting lost in the minutia.
This happened in the 2020 Democratic Primary. All the candidates had these pointlessly elaborate policy documents and white papers that were immediately forgotten after the election.
Politics is not about obsessing over minutia. It’s unproductive to engage in such nit picking of something that is simply a broad policy vision.
I’m sure if you wanted to, you could answer your own question. How would YOU implement this wealth cap while addressing asset swings?
Hah, my question isn’t because I’m a fatally flawed leftist, it’s because I’m a programmer and weekly I get requests from executives that simply aren’t possible or at least feasible to implement.
Your entire comment sounds exactly like one of these hand wavy requests from the heavens where details don’t matter. The cherry on top was you flipping it back at me so that I’d attempt to expand on your ill thought through plan and make it work. I’m sure you do well in the corporate landscape.
Sounds reasonable to me.
I’ve been doing that for years. I’ve been claiming to be a conservative and supporting things like universal healthcare. I even give it capitalist flair by saying that ensuring everyone has more money means I can then take that money by selling them shit they don’t need. How the hell am I supposed to sell my useless crap if everyone’s spending their money on rent?!
Ditto with stuff like housing the unhoused. I don’t want filthy drug addicts strewn about the streets taking up my park benches and constantly asking me for ‘bus money’! Get them houses so I don’t have to see them anymore! Also god I hate kids, especially when they’re just hanging around on the street being annoying and intimidating. Build some youth centres so they have somewhere to go and get them away from me!
Altruism through selfishness etc etc etc.
Conservatives should be the biggest supporters of the LGBTQIA+ community due to their record low use of abortion services.
It was never about being “pro life” with them, it was always about control over women’s bodies. The pro life thing is just an excuse. If you need proof then look at how they treat people after they’re no longer in utero.
i’d argue “control” is not a good in itself; who would seek that?
i’ve assumed these “pro-lifers” are actually trying to increase the birth-rate in a perverse desire to feed more wage-slaves to the capitalist machine.
If only they had coherent thoughts.
Yup, some people can only think in selfish terms so making your argument from that perspective will make it more attractive
Universal healthcare is good, naturally, because it would reduce payroll expenses for businesses, letting them create more jobs, and be more competitive in the global market with lower prices. Universal healthcare is how we bring manufacturing back to the United States.
You are on to something there, my friend.
All that lowers crime, too. And a better educated population is a more proficient workforce, who can build more impressive stuff, do better science, and better cure and treat the diseases you or your family might eventually suffer from.
“I don’t care what everyone else says, there’s no need to execute the wealthy en masse. Workers just need to seize the means of production.”
Landlords don’t need to be drawn and quartered, that’s just going too far.
Drawn and thirded.
Drawn and halved.
Or maybe just dismembered without the drawing… They’ve been through enough…
I’m not into that hippie dippie bullshit, I’ve heard great arguments from both sides. But I suppose if forced to pick a flavor of Fully Automated Gay Space Communism, I’d probably pick the “Luxury” variety, like anyone.
Except, the wealthy will likely resist the recovery of what they stole from workers. SO executing at least the very worst of them should stay an option if necessary.
there is no means of production in services based economy, so unless you’re willing to go through total economic collapse, and rebuilding through all of that, to some extent globally, that’ll be quite the journey. And you’ll find it to be the answer to the question of “why hasn’t anything happened yet”
It’s because people like being able to buy things lmao. Maybe if this admin causes a depression of sorts, but i’m not confident on that being the case, it’s certainly a realistic possibility, but it doesn’t seem to be imminent right now.
The right does this and it seems to work for them.
“I’m not a Republican, I’m a centralist.” (Proceeds to list pro-republican things, bash Democrats, then talk about how weed is okay.)
Thinking gay people have human rights cancels out thinking black people don’t!
“There’s no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation”
When Pierre Trudeau said that in the 1960s, it was a thing that many conservatives believed. Who’d think it was possible that in 2025 we’d be wanting the conservatives to be like the conservatives from the 1960s.
That’s what I’m doing for a long time now, but I just learned about the Overton Window haha.
Top tier username btw
Or abandon the political labeling system entirely and make it socially outdated by learning to confront someone labeling themselves by responding to them with something along the lines of: “Why would you allow someone else to tell you what it is you believe in? You don’t get to decide what being a conservative/liberal means. Someone else decides that. You aren’t part of it. So why would you let whoever that is tell you what you should think?”
Change the meaning of what it means to even use the labels and the weapon of using the labels to divide us no longer functions.
It has been dismantled, and they will have to come up with something else.
And just because they will eventually invent a new weapon, does not make it pointless. This is just the never ending metaphorical arms race we are all living in, but it gets easier once you see it for what it is.
Because the labels are used for a shortcut to understanding. I really don’t want to spend ten minutes laying the ground work to have a discussion only to find out i am talking to a neocon.
Seems like a waste of time.
You are not that person. You are you and this would be a decision you make, not some other person. The question is, do you feel like a simple label, controlled by someone else, able to shift from under your feet without your input, is capable of succinctly summing you up to another person? Is your life, your thoughts, your experiences, so capable of being put into such a box, to your satisfaction?
Or are you more dynamic, storied, multi-faceted, vibrant, and in charge of your own thoughts, than a single word defined by a perfect stranger, could possibly describe? And I don’t mean your external self (visual appearance), I mean the person you are inside your own head.
I don’t know you, but I’d prefer to think you’re probably the latter…
But that’s for you to decide.
The label may be formulated by someone else with what ever agenda. But it’s up to you to accept the label as is. If you want to use the label, but explain exceptions, then you are expected to provide that context. I don’t see why that should be a problem
If someone else attaches a label to you, then you’re going to have to explain why you differ.
The use of the label is too short cut to understanding, so if after you lay out your beliefs if someone calls you a nazi, and you counter that you don’t argue for the supremacy of germany, understanding using the label is still acheived, and may still be warranted
In essence, all language is labels on understanding. You start with the simple and dig into the minutia only when needed.
Why big word when small word do?
Nothing you ever do will allow you to escape labels. Your gender is a box you’re put in by society. Your skin color is, too. It’s all made up bs. You’ll never escape it.
Sorry but this is dumb. I am the one who decides if a label applies to me or not. I won’t call myself an anarchist because my beliefs are not described by this word. I will call myself a communist because it describes what I think is true, even if I need to specify (“I’m a communist but…”).
There’s no one telling me what I believe in, and if a label changes meaning over time or my views change and it no longer applies to my thinking I will just stop using it.
It’s the same when you use any other word to describe yourself. “I’m a musician” until I stop playing. “I’m not a painter” until I pick up a brush. “I’m long haired” until I cut my hair.
It is gonna be very hard unbrainwash everyone. I was even taught that shit in school, so one dimensional
“Why would you allow someone else to tell you what it is you believe in? You don’t get to decide what being a conservative/liberal means. Someone else decides that. You aren’t part of it. So why would you let whoever that is tell you what you should think?”
the short answer is because the agree with it.
The better question is asking them whether they want to agree with something someone else said once, or whether or not they want to have their own belief foundation, their own principle system, and their own way to derive an answer to a problem.
The problem with modern day politics is that nobody, almost nobody is willing to engage critically with the problems at hand, to determine a real, functional solution to the problem, or at least, the best possible solution they can come up with. Everybody is perfectly fine and content with saying whatever the funny man on the screen tells them, and that’s the end of the story.
Oh goody. Someone who finally gets it.
I’ve noticed women on bumble do this. Put moderate as their political affiliation, and list black lives matter and LGBTQ+ and such as their causes. Before this post I would think “elected moderates aren’t doing anything for your causes at best,” but my perspective as I swipe left on them anyway is a little different now
My friend in her 30s avoids dating apps because on those apps, either the guy calls himself a centralist and then wants a trad wife and a woman to know her place, or he calls himself not politically active and only listens to Joe Rogan for the discussions nobody else talks about.
Where my single male friends who are good dudes are afraid every woman is just a OF influencer.
I feel sorry for the dating scene.
that’s a left leaning moderate position. A far left position would be some shit like straight communism/socialism
The moderate left is more liberal in essence.
I mean that is literally how it shifted so hard to the right lol
This is kind of how I try to describe cooperatives to some people. It works if you think of freedom and autonomy as conservative ideas which cooperatives bring without central planning socialism, while still being socialist. Also been pleading my leftist circles for years to try to appeal to a wider audience in a similar way. If only we recognize that we’ve all been lied to and propagandized to believe in capitalism, speaking in a way the “right” can get on board with would only help them start listening to reasonable solutions.
I’ve been taking this angle for years and it works like magic. Same with credit unions - most people hate big banks too and literally just need help getting started. “Vote with your wallet!”
The best part about direct action is that it helps the person employing it. Voting benefits the individual voter so little that they don’t think very concretely about what will actually happen, and instead side with whichever tribe gives them more useful local allies.
I’m a libertarian. Universal basic income would eliminate the need for less efficient welfare programs, cut overhead spending, and feed money back into the economy.
Cut Federal regulation - repeal the Taft-Hartley Act!
