I know you were being rhetorical. Your rhetoric is pathetic. Please stop assuming people have misunderstood just because they don’t like what you say.

You are discussing strategy to avoid the most harm. Harm avoidance. That’s fear. You are literally describing fear without using the word fear and acting like I was the one misunderstanding. You need to understand that you are acting on fear. It’s ridiculous, and I was right to point it out.

You mentioned my other comment in passing like it meant nothing to you, then say that no one hear has given any real arguments? Maybe you just need to read in better faith. You clearly don’t have any respect for my concerns with Biden if your comment demonstrates a complete unwillingness to even entertain the thought.

Canadian btw, you don’t need to convince of anything to do with voting strategy anyway. Wasted energy. I just think you guys are being really silly and can’t see the forest from the trees. You could probably use third party observers to get your heads on straight.

The death of democracy also helps fascism, and it’s widely agreed upon that there is no democracy without freedom of expression.

It should follow then, that if someone were to suppress freedom of expression, then they are contributing to the end of democracy, no matter what ends they’re trying to meet. That is to say, the ends don’t justify the means. If someone contributes to the end of democracy while trying to fight someone that they see as the villain of democracy, then it’s still fair to say they contributed to the end of democracy, no matter how noble you think the goal.

So, at the moment, I would say the biggest threat to democracy would be if a federal administration began working with corporations and social media to enact censorship - to destroy freedom of expression.

• Two federal courts ruled that the Biden Administration unduly influenced social media moderation during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• The Department of Justice identified at least 45 federal officials who communicated with social media companies about misinformation.
• The Post’s exposé on Hunter Biden’s laptop was suppressed by Facebook and Twitter after the FBI warned Facebook to watch out for a “dump” of Russian disinformation, which bore an uncanny resemblance to the stories.

Regardless of who Biden’s enemy is, whether you think what these people were saying was unpalatable, or even if it’s your opinion that they’re dangerous, they didn’t break the law with their speech and therefor the government had no right to censor.

If you claim to be for democracy and freedom of expression, then any claim of defence that these should be exceptions would simply be hypocritical, and a violation of your democratic principles. This is getting more and more common, and we can’t have democracy if it’s common for people to violate their democratic principles.

I repeat: we can’t have democracy if it’s common for people to violate their democratic principles.

Please stop being so dramatic, you shouldn’t be afraid to talk to other people about their political opinions.

You’re just not calling it a state.

I love how that was the one moment you weren’t willing to expand your explanation and just left a link. Did you notice yourself accidentally describing a state and decided to not leave the opening?

Whatever diplomatic routine you pull that results in the organization that communists are striving for: that’s the state. An external force with a plan about how people organize. You can call it whatever form of state you want, you can call it a commune, a collective, but whatever method the people use to organize themselves that way is that state.

Think it through: how are decisions made, do we cast a vote? Well contracts, you have a democratic state. Do we use diplomacy? Congrats, you have a diplomatic state. Okay so what if we just want some rules for who does what and we don’t make people make those decisions, congrats you have a constitutional state. Uh oh people aren’t following rules, looks like we need to hire people to enforce those rules… Ever wonder why every communist system ever had an overabundance of police?

The link you posted is completely untrustworthy by the way. I mean, look at this:

If anything, getting paid to do something makes it less enjoyable

Any health brain in the world would throw up alarm bells at this. A classic sophist technique, to prime the conclusions by peppering little lies that make it more palatable. Every study ever performed on paid/unpaid labor has this solved, don’t start pretending it’s true now.

Here’s a hint: unpaid labor is called what exactly? Using unpaid labor to get things done, what’s that called?

Plus, look at how this comment chain started. The original replier made the point that communism fascism and socialism all need a state to exist. Your source, when arguing that you don’t need bosses or state control mentioned a case where 500,000 workers over through a factory and controlled it democratically. He suspiciously doesn’t mention how long it lasted, only that it happened post WW1. He also doesn’t mention that that’s immediately before the fascist takeover of Italy, in which Mussolini cooperated with many of these violent revolutionaries called syndicates, and they were unproductive without right control.

I hold the same sentiment as you in regards to the state, I have a natural distrust towards it I suppose. However, I do not agree that this is at all compatible with an ideology that necessitates maximal cooperation. It’s not any wonder to me at all that the regimes who felt most passionately about how people should cooperate and live together end up the most oppressive

I think you missed the point.

I’m sure that’s part of it. Antifa is definitely not well structured, and anarchists could probably be opposed to any official organization.

Let me put it this way, the post talks about a journalist who investigates antifa, which the op of this comment chain mocked because they’re not an organization. But, this is an argument of semantics, and the post didn’t use that word to begin with. Regardless of what you call antifa, he’s trying to investigate and see what they’re about.

It’s a very dishonest way to deride people. If you don’t mind me asking, if you don’t think the word organization is appropriate, what’s better? I mean I just say group, can’t really be wrong going that general but it also doesn’t say much. Like, when you said “people who participate in Antifa…”, what type of thing are those people participating in?

I find this comment thread horribly ironic, and I hope I can show you why without starting an argument because this is genuinely kind of funny.

Fascism is when a state achieves (or attempts to achieve) totalitarianism through corporatization. All corporations are chartered and controlled through the state, and private industry becomes corporatized.

One of the ways they did this was through legitimizing specific channels of distribution, and labeling all who take a more independent route as illegitimate. Farmers, for example, were coerced into selling their products to state distributors, and pressured out of independent channels. Likewise, farmers who weren’t part of the state organization were often treated with suspicion and derision.

Basically, if you were a _____ and did _____ things, but were not part of the _____ organization, then you weren’t a real ______ no matter how good you are at _____.

Anyway, antifa is a real thing that exists, and that’s the thing people here are talking about. They’re a group that has identifiable goals, and they work together under the label. It’s really funny to me that so many here are appealing to “they’re not even a real org” in the face of dissent, because that’s one of the most fascist mind sets that exist commonplace today.

Why is the only possibility for you to either get on the roads or do nothing? The criticism is that road blocking is an ineffective form of protest, not that protest as a whole is stupid.

I work in IoT by the way, and I’m directly involved in programming small computers that increase fuel efficiency in heaters. In other words, if climate change is your primary concern, you shouldn’t be inconveniencing people indiscriminately, because there’s risk of stopping someone like me who’s actually doing something that addresses the problem in a productive way.

I’m hardly close to the most important job that you’d be inconveniencing, just the most ironic one. These protests are certainly inconveniencing nurses on their way to their patients, lawyers on their way to their clients, families coming home to meet up for the first time since Christmas. Not to mention emergency workers being held up during active emergencies. This has all happened, and it’s happened way more than any goals achieved by the protests.

So no, we’re not all talk. I think most of us here giving pushback are all trying to better the world in our own way, and these protests are a consistent impediment to that, across the board. In fact, I would say anybody who bothers to take the time to say how stupid they think these protests are are doing infinitely more good than road blocking protestors, simply by virtue of maybe getting someone to stop that stupid shit.

The post doesn’t argue the point adequately though, it basically just implies people who think these protests are useless are ignorant. It’s completely pseudo intellectual, there is no argument made here. Stop pretending there’s some great wisdom lost on us when we point out how obvious it is that this is pissing people off and hurting your cause.

We’re not ignorant, we just disagree. On the contrary, it takes quite a bit of ignorance to brush off criticism of how harmful these protests are when it’s happening right in front of you.

I’ve learned to treat comments that start with “what those people don’t understand…” With a little bit more skepticism than others. I find that if your opening move is to imply that not believing your ideas shows ignorance, then chances are really high that you don’t have much confidence in arguing your case by its own merit.

Economic pressure can be a strategic move, sure. But, the road block has been largely indiscriminate, and the goal seems to be to create as much disruption as possible. Where’s the strategy in indiscriminate disruption? In fact, the corporations you advocate against are probably least hurt by shit like this, because it would be such a comparatively small hit than everyone else.

You are far more likely to inconvenience someone just trying to get by, or someone with something person and time sensitive going on than any corporation you’d like to “pressure”. They don’t feel this, they don’t think about this. You’re not disrupting corporate supply chains, you’re inconveniencing regular people.

That doesn’t even get to the fact that road blockages are extremely dangerous in emergency situations, and you’re putting far more lives at risk than your own by going out there.

If you are genuinely interested in taking a structured approach to protests, then I strongly suggest you start thinking of some other methods.

This doesn’t really address what he said.

Instead of berating him for not leaving a robust enough comment for your taste, why don’t you ask for more information? Calling capitalists uninformed or rent seekers is way more unfair than alluding to historical or economic evidence to the contrary. The latter clearly leaves itself more open to good faith discourse, getting nothing out of it has simply been a failure on your part

Might be a regional thing, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a new church built in my lifetime. The only churches I see closing down are the ones in small towns that don’t have the population to maintain it anymore.

I’m curious, do you see a trend in the denomination of these pop-up churches?

No, disunited private actors are not a concentration of power

The very nature of capitalism facilitates concentrations of power

No. Capitalism is one thing and one thing only: the private ownership of the means of production. The very nature of private ownership, means private citizens have the freedom to own what’s theirs, and trade it with whoever. The nature of capitalism, meaning its logical end state, is a free market in the truest sense. This is the opposite of concentrating power, because the means of power are completely disunited. In less favorable terms, the logical end state of capitalism is anarchy or chaos

Socialism is the common/public/collective ownership of the means of production. Holding the means of power in a collective is another way of saying it’s being concentrated. The logical end of socialism is the concentration of everything.

Of course, I don’t think we need to take either extreme too seriously. They both have faults, clearly, and they both devolve into something that more resembles the other with time. Capitalism adopts regulations or develop a state to concentrate their power against and enemy. Socialism reduces state power when civilians want more freedoms.

Point is, your characterizing of Capitalism seems misinformed, and it’s incredibly silly to think a fundamental replacement of our current system is in order, as if there’s some perfect ideology we can obviously replace it with

I appreciate your comment and defense a lot. You seem like a very kind person and you’re very straightforward with your words, I like that. I’m telling you that not just because I believe it’s true and you deserve to hear it, but also so you don’t take it the wrong way when I tell you that, well, I’m sorry but I found your comment a bit condescending too. And I don’t blame you for it! Truly, I get it. You are referencing the fact that I’m on the hunt for the truth on Google, and it’s fair enough that it paints the picture in your head of a young, maybe naive, person on the hunt for the truth of this nebulous area of private and public ownership. I guess it’s not really far from the truth either lol. But, the context I haven’t shared is that I actually am very educated on this. I studied economics, history, philosophy and political science in post-secondary for two years before graduating (with a different major) and a minor in philosophy. Outside of school I’ve actually read heaps of books pertaining to the general theories the revolve around the distinction between public and private, from anarcho-capitalists to totalitarian-communists and everything in between.

The reason I don’t share this context and why I choose to reference google, is because after all this studying I’ve come to see that most conclusions drawn by these intellectuals can be demonstrated very easily by using commonly accepted definitions. Most misunderstandings can be contradicted by people’s own language or easily accessible sources, so that’s what I try to do. It seems a lot more favorable to do a simple “premise -> premise -> conclusion”. Besides, it just seems like a waste of time to open up a physical copy of some philosopher and manually re type something to quote them, just to come off as as grand standy, or just get told they don’t like who I quoted, or have the comment not even post to begin with because Lemmy has issues with long comments.

I’m sorry, that’s enough about my frustrations for one comment lol. I just wanted you to know I don’t come from a place of naivety or ignorance on the topic before I respond to your insights, because I think the assumption of ignorance has prevented some people in this thread from reading what I’m saying in good faith. I also do think you’re mostly spot on in what you say. The only exception might be that while I am familiar the distinction between public traded and private organization before, I don’t think that distinction applies here. After all, you’re totally right, things do change based on context :) I’ll try and show you what I mean.

My original comment’s purpose was to show the flaw in using capitalism as a catch all term, especially when it comes to medicine. The most commonly used definition of capitalism refers to private ownership. You’re absolutely right that private can refer to not being publicly traded, but private ownership refers to “being owned by a private individual or organization, rather than by the state or a public body”.

Regarding the term public, when things are open to the public, they are open to us because we are members of the public. Public places are open to members of the public. We are members of the public, public refers to the state, and we live in a democracy and are thus members of the state. People who are exiled are not free to trade in stocks because they no longer are a member of the state that holds them. Exiled folk are not free in public places because they are no longer a member of their public, and are banned from visitation so they’re sent elsewhere.

Recall the definition of Corporation I provided before, specifically that it’s “chartered by the state”. This means the government and the government alone establishes corporations as legal entities, and sets the parameters by which they can do so. They exist as part of the state, but operate separately from the government, under parameters set by the government. That’s the distinction that’s made when you call Microsoft a private organization, the business isn’t controlled by the state directly, but government and corporations are both part of the state, and they certainly influence each other a lot right now.

This can also be seen in the etymology of the word itself, along with the history of how modern corporations came to be. “Corporation” comes from latin corpus, meaning corpse, or “body”. A body that’s chartered by the state, a body of the state. The reason the etymology took this path can be seen in how corporations evolved with time. The publicani of Rome is sometimes considered the first corporation to exist, which were independent contractors that performed government services. The Dutch East India Company found the first stock exchange, and was a corporation owned and controlled by the Dutch senate as well as others.

Now, considering where corporations evolved from, and the amount of easily identifiable government-corporate collusion today, I think corporations land far closer to being an independent arm of the state, and publicly owned than representing the private ownership represented by capitalism.

Now, just to nip it in the bud, you might infer that this means that corporations are socialist. Well, kinda, but also no. Characteristics of corporations can be seen all over early modern socialist philosophy, including syndicalism and trade unionism. But, if socialism is the public control of the means of production, and corporations are controlled independently, it doesn’t quite fit, right?

The context between these two areas is tricky, and your understanding makes sense without the additional context. Sadly, we’re terrible at naming things.

You and I couldn’t agree more. I guess it would really help if people incorporated (heh) the word corporatism into their vocabulary. We could freely disagree on the nature of corporations and their relationship with public and private ownership and control, while still distinguishing companies like Microsoft from ma and pop shops with clearer language.

At the very least, I wonder if you can agree that there’s enough reason to take issue with blaming all issues on capitalism alone, when there’s so much more to it. Feel free to let me know what you think :) I know it was still a really big comment but, yeah, like I said, there’s a lot to it lol I really appreciate it if you’ve even read this far

I’m well aware it’s popular to believe public corporations are capitalistic, in fact I used to believe it myself as well. Getting educated is why I no longer believe it. Actually, not getting educated is a great way to believe that public corporations, precisely because it’s a popular belief now.

I also happen to know this belief was popularized by early 1900s socialist propaganda, which characterized capitalists as greedy. They created the association between greed, wealth, markets, and capitalism right out the gate. Because this association was so heavily propagandized, people now use it to define capitalism. This is absolutely incorrect, because greed is a human flaw independent of capitalism, and markets can exist without private control of the means of production. In fact, markets and greed existed in every noteworthy socialist state that ever existed. I don’t think it’s necessarily wrong to hold the opinion that capitalists are greedy, but to use greed as an indicator for whether someone is a capitalist is absolutely wrong.

So, back to Johnson & Johnson. They are publicly owned, they appeal to their shareholders, the shareholders vote democratically on certain decisions, CEOs are appointed by shareholders, and the CEOs - the people with most control over the system - can be ousted by the shareholders. This is not private control, and you admitted public corporations are not public business. I would prefer not to appeal to popular belief to base my decisions, especially when I’m familiar with how that popular opinion was swayed.

You repeatedly take issue with my terminology, but that’s what we’re debating. Please tell me why my terminology is wrong.

If I need to get educated, please do me a favor. By what metric do you define Johnson & Johnson capitalist? That’s all I need. Just that one thing, that’s all you have to do.

Okay so public corporations are not private companies. Capitalism is the private ownership of the means of production. Public corporations are not private, so they’re not capitalist either. I dunno why you had to ask, that was my original point to begin with, it’s silly to see a non-capitalist entity like Johnson & Johnson do something bad and blame capitalism for it.

You throwing in the word “collective” is a poor game of word association. Are you trying to argue that publicly-traded companies are communist?

You’re really reading way too much into things. Just take out the word collective from my comment if it upsets you so much, it makes sense without it.

The conclusion I got to was that public corporations are not private companies. Looks like you’re longer disputing that I guess, so you agree with that now?