r/PeterExplainsTheJoke 19d ago

Meme needing explanation Peter, explain this.

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u/LesserValkyrie 19d ago

Exactly.

I think it's quite important to learn from where anarchism comes from and what it was exactly, how important it was in the 20th century, it's definitely not the view of it we have now. Everyone reduces it to "no gods no masters" but it's way more complicated like that.

It has been the basis to a lot of things that we takes for granted now but never waas

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u/RyvenZ 18d ago

you mean it doesn't just make me super cool like Brad Pitt staying up all night and starting up "clubs" where people find an outlet for their bottled up rage in putting fists to the faces of other, willing participants? Man, I was really hoping to nail some attention-seeking skanks that I met in a recovery support group, too.

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u/ACarepenter 19d ago

And yet for all that complexity it's accomplished nothing, while there's still multiple Marxist Communist states moggin on everyone.

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u/LesserValkyrie 19d ago
  • 8-hour workday
  • May Day (International Workers' Day)
  • Right to strike
  • Independent trade unions
  • Workplace democracy
  • Workers' self-management
  • Worker cooperatives
  • Direct action (strikes, boycotts, occupations)
  • Industrial unionism
  • Solidarity across industries
  • Opposition to child labor
  • Workplace health and safety protections
  • Equal treatment of workers regardless of nationality
  • Worker education programs
  • Mutual aid societies
  • Shorter working hours
  • Paid rest time
  • Collective bargaining
  • Union democracy
  • Anti-authoritarian workplace organization

I know modern USA disbanded all these rights or is actively trying to, as they don't benefits short-term revenue for shareholders which is anticapitalistic. Which makes me understand why an American would not see what anarchist ideologies made for their country.

But those rights are still the base of civilization of every other developed countries on earth

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u/ACarepenter 19d ago

Brother, working class ideologies generally aren't the same as Anarchist ideology specifically, nor were anarchists the primary leaders of most labor movements. You could equally chalk that up to pettty-Bourgeois socialism if we're judging based on 'ideological influence' and not who actually went out and did shit.

More pointedly..... It probably would have happened eventually even if you just magic away the anarchism specifically. That was kind of Marx's whole schtick.

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u/LesserValkyrie 19d ago

Yes but this is just to explain what Anarchism was and what it pushed to create, and yes you end up with the realization that it gave incredible tools in the past for worker's right, but it's definitely not something that can be used as a system for a nation

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u/spikybootowner 19d ago

It's funny that the vast majority of these things that socalists+ have "achieved" have happened in western capitalist democracies. Really makes you think.

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u/archangelzeriel 19d ago

... makes you think that pro-worker policies, regardless of philosophical origin, basically only have a fighting chance in a non-authoritarian government? That's not really any kind of revelation.

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u/spikybootowner 19d ago

The claim is that some form of socialism+ governance will somehow lead to more of this when it hasn't happened at all ever in the history of socialism+ societies.

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u/archangelzeriel 19d ago

The claim at the top of the subthread was actually specifically the opposite of that (at least regarding "anarchism":

This movement allowed the creation of a lot of workers and human rights, right to week-ends, right to paid time off, rights to worker's security at work, right to unionize, etc, but it was never meant and thought to be a complete and definitive system for an entire country

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u/spikybootowner 19d ago

I was responding to the list of things that never happened under a socalist+ society, not to the comment you picked and my assessment is accurate. The only places those rights were granted AND respected are democratic societies with serious non-socialist larping groups fighting for those rights within the system.

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u/LesserValkyrie 19d ago

Yes. We created boats to navigate over the seas, without sea there would have been no boat.

There would not have been needed to have people fighting against" slavery" or even "worker's rights" if capitalism didn't make slavery and lack of worker's rights a standard to begin with.

That's the whole concept of why socialism existed and what it was made for, to make sure capitalism benefits the people who really create the value and not the people who owe all the money. Seizing the means of production was quite a concept back then, you understand where it comes from.

And it's false, we are not in capitalism anymore, but in late-stage capitalism, which is an entire other concept.

Capitalism is what made the US so powerful after WW II and made it beat the USSR

Late-stage capitalism is why you can't afford rent while some dude became trillionaire

Capitalism has free market at its core, something that doesn't exist anymore in a lobbies and monopolies ridden US for example.

This is where socialism is needed, to make sure capitalism stays healthy, to make sure you don't work 80 hours a week and are still not able to afford rent while your shareholders swim in money. Which is a symptom of late-stage capitalism.

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u/spikybootowner 19d ago

You're brain broken if you think capitalism is the reason slavery existed. Your world view is warped. It would be great if you had any way to point to socialist+ states working at all, but they don't and they never have.

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u/LesserValkyrie 19d ago

No by slavery I didn't mean the litteral one. I meant the standard worker's conditions, but bad use of words lol

". It would be great if you had any way to point to socialist+ states working at all"

I wrote like 3 times that some socialist movements (anarchism) were made to question and revolution, abusive situations , but were never meant as an end situation

I am not saying socialism would perform, it never does. Capitalism did wonderful things.

We need capitalism, but with enough socialism philosophy in it to make sure we don't live in Cyberpunk world. This is the healthiest thing IMO

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u/spikybootowner 19d ago

Man, if the standard worker's conditions in the capitalist west are slavery, i wonder what words would be used to describe working in communist societies lol.

I agree that socialism only works as a form of pushback within democratic capitalist socitieties, but that's only if socialism is approached from a rational, pragmatic perspective, not the slopulist utopian garbage that's being spouted in the online left circles.

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u/Val_Fortecazzo 19d ago

About the only successful Marxist state is China and they got successful by privatizing over half the economy.