where do you stand on the socialist spectrum? i’ll start: my socialist views are a fusion of market socialism, welfarism, georgism and left-libertarianism - i took the leftvalues quiz (as shown in the photo attached in this post), and i got “centrist marxism”. you DON’T have to take the quiz though.

EDIT: i just added the link

  • HiddenLayer555@lemmy.ml
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    14 hours ago

    A lot of those are open ended questions being forced into a 1 dimensional spectrum of agree or disagree, and/or have weakly defined terms whose meaning are not consistent between individuals.

    I wanted to provide just a few examples but got carried away, so here’s every question I personally found some problem with:

    Society is chiefly driven by individuals and ideas.

    Define “chiefly driven.” I could argue that it is by definition because society is made up of individuals so that’s the only driving force, like how ocean currents are the convergent result of molecular interactions because that’s what the ocean is made of. But I suspect they’re trying to get at the idea that convergent actions of groups of individuals can’t be accurately modeled by studying the behavior of an individual in isolation. Both are valid IMO.

    Bureaucracy and inefficiency are always inherent in centrally planned economies.

    What does it mean to be bureaucratic or inefficient?

    Marriage is a patriarchal social construct that should be phased out.

    It’s fine to have marriage if that’s what both consenting adults want, but it shouldn’t be the only option. On the other hand, things like common law partner legislation can get messy when it automatically applies to people living together that fulfill some arbitrary criteria, regardless of whether they actually intend to be partners. An alternative thought is that romance and reproduction between consenting adults should be a purely social phenomenon, not a legal one, and the government should not get involved whatsoever.

    Industrialized farming practices must be abolished even if it leads to lower outputs.

    Depends on what you’re farming and which industrial process you’re using. Something like a vertical hydroponics facility should be treated differently from spraying synthetic fertilizer and pesticides on fields should be treated differently from factory animal farming, etc. “Industrialized farming practices” is too general for a single agree/disagree answer.

    Local planners, rather than national planners, are more efficient at running a planned economy.

    I don’t know of any socialist or capitalist country that only has one and not both.

    Prisons are oppressive and antiquated institutions that need to be abolished.

    Define “prison.” You can assume it’s like a Soviet gulag, or a Western prison, or something else, and your assumption influences your answer because you likely have different opinions of them.

    It is acceptable for humanity to suffer to some notable extent in order to preserve the natural ecosystem.

    Define “suffer.” Are we culling overpopulated regions? Are we denying Indigenous groups their cultural practices such as whaling or seal hunting? Are we limiting recreation like camping and hiking for the sake of ecological protection? How you interpret suffering significantly influences your answer.

    A highly centralized planned economy is not socialism but rather state capitalism.

    Depends on how it’s implemented and what it’s inspired by, and it’s not a binary “socialism” or “state capitalism.” Just saying “centralized planned economy” with no further context is insufficient to make a decision.

    A centrally planned economy based around computers is a concept worth investigating.

    Again, computers or no computers is not the important part here. What are the actual policies and structure of the economy in question? I doubt there are any economies today, socialist or capitalist, that doesn’t use computers.

    The negative consequences of a revolution generally outweigh the advantages.

    There’s no way to generalize negative or positive societal consequences without clarifying what types you’re referring to. What specific ones are we talking about? A revolution impacts every single facet of society and vague questions like these are not helpful. It’s like asking if a mainframe is objectively “better” than a smartphone, you can’t reduce it to a single answer and it depends on your priorities.

    Socialist organizations are generally better off when organized loosely and decentrally.

    Define “better off.” There are advantages and disadvantages to both decentralization and centralization.

    Any socialist country should be dedicated to exporting their ideology abroad.

    Define “export abroad.” Are we printing pamphlets and mailing them over or are we going full America and doing regime changes on countries we disagree with? Your interpretation will determine your answer more than your actual opinions on any given form of ideological export.

    Measures to address environmental issues are unacceptable if they result in significant decreases in production and quality of life.

    What kinds of production? What aspects of quality of life? To what kinds of people? For how long? Are we reducing just the quality of life of people already with the highest quality of life down to some middle level while bringing everyone lower than that level up to it? Or are we flat rate dropping everyone’s quality of life by some amount, meaning the people already most disadvantaged will be disproportionately affected? There’s a difference between preventing a developing country from obtaining advancements that the developed world has, and banning cars meaning you have to use public transit or banning plastic meaning you have to use less convenient/durable organic polymers.

    Some small scale destruction of nature is acceptable if it notably benefits humanity.

    Again, define “destruction of nature.” Nature isn’t the opposite to human built environment. We and everything we do are part of nature by definition so it as a label is unhelpful for determining if some action is ecologically beneficial or detrimental or whether we “should” do it. Also, this question honestly gives me the vibe that the author thinks densifying a suburb of single family houses into a vertical city is “destruction of nature” simply because there’s less green per square meter.

    Anyway, I tried my best to answer truthfully and apparently I’m an Eco-Marxist.

    You know what, pretty accurate. I seriously “got into” socialism during my time in university studying ecology.

    • DylanMc6 [any, any]@lemmy.mlOP
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      19 hours ago

      okay, i just had to do that leftvalues quiz again, i’ll talk about what i think about the questions you listed (in no fixed order):

      Q: ‘Local planners, rather than national planners, are more efficient at running a planned economy.’

      A: i prefer national planners - neutral/unsure.

      Q: ‘It is acceptable for humanity to suffer to some notable extent in order to preserve the natural ecosystem.’

      A: maybe, maybe not - for the most part, we should work together to help our environment - neutral/unsure.

      Q: ‘Society is chiefly driven by individuals and ideas.’

      A: fascism is NOT even an idea, but a very violent individualist ideology that resulted in the mass murder of millions of people in the Holocaust, one of the most tragic events that has ever happened in history. that said, society is actually driven by collective work - neutral/unsure.

      Q: ‘The negative consequences of a revolution generally outweigh the advantages.’

      A: after the october revolution, russia did recover under socialism and such - neutral/unsure.

      Q: ‘Any socialist country should be dedicated to exporting their ideology abroad.’

      A: amen to that - strongly agree.

      Q: ‘Industrialized farming practices must be abolished even if it leads to lower outputs.’

      A: farming is an important part of a socialist society, as long as it’s NOT industrialized completely - neutral/unsure.

      Q: ‘A highly centralized planned economy is not socialism but rather state capitalism.’

      A: some people considered china and vietnam among other socialist/communist countries to be ‘state capitalist’, me included. i think china’s economy is technically state capitalist because much of the economy goes to the state through state-owned enterprise - agree.

      Q: ‘Bureaucracy and inefficiency are always inherent in centrally planned economies.’

      A: maybe a participatory economic system, perhaps? agree.

      Q: ‘Socialist organizations are generally better off when organized loosely and decentrally.’

      A: some should be decentralized, some should not - agree.

      Q: ‘A centrally planned economy based around computers is a concept worth investigating.’

      A: chile’s cybersyn comes to mind - strongly agree.

      Q: Marriage is a patriarchal social construct that should be phased out.

      A: marry who you want, as long as you’re both consenting adults - neutral/unsure.

      Q: Prisons are oppressive and antiquated institutions that need to be abolished.

      A: prisons should be for rehabiliative justice - neutral/unsure.

      Q: Measures to address environmental issues are unacceptable if they result in significant decreases in production and quality of life.

      A: no comment - neutral/unsure.

      Q: Some small scale destruction of nature is acceptable if it notably benefits humanity.

      A: no comment - neutral/unsure.


      still got “centrist marxism”.

      revolution vs. reform: very conflicted - i think socialism starts at the ballot, but if NOT the ballot, then we all must reluctantly use force.

      scientific or utopian?: sort of a cross.

      central or decentral: who cares if it’s decentralized or NOT? everyone should have their own say in a socialist government.

      international or national: international revolutions are the way to go.

      party or union?: both!

      production or nature: protecting our environment should be an essential step to a socialist country.

      conservative or progressive: progressive. seriously!

  • lemonwood@lemmy.ml
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    22 hours ago

    I got Eco-Marxism and I like, that the quiz prominently features questions on the environmental crisis. But I feel like, there is not much on reproductive labor or on how imperialism and racism should be addressed. These areas of struggle are every bit as central and contested as the environment. The quiz is leaning towards a white, western, cis-male perspective, but it should be possible to add a few questions and categories to address that. Maybe inspired by Marxist Feminism, Black Marxism, Afro-Marxist traditions, decolonial struggle and anti-imperialist praxis.

    • DylanMc6 [any, any]@lemmy.mlOP
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      21 hours ago

      do you think that socialism (like marxism-leninism and the likes) failed to address racism and environmental problems (because that’s the point of “socialism of the 21st century”)?

  • Narri N. (they/them)@lemmy.ml
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    24 hours ago

    I’ve never even heard of “council communism” tbh, but then again I’m only just learning about all this. Looking up the meaning and stuff for “democratic centralism” made me realize how little I actually know, but in a positive way if that makes sense?

  • Vupware@lemmy.zip
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    2 days ago

    For some of these questions, I felt I lacked a sufficient understanding to provide a confident answer. That led to more neutral/unsure answers than I would have preferred.

  • sephallen@lemmy.ml
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    1 day ago

    Fun quiz, thanks for sharing. I got Left-Wing Nationalism which is weird because I wouldn’t say I’m a nationalist at all 😅

  • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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    2 days ago

    I’m a Marxist-Leninist, here are my results.

    This test isn’t to tell you what you are, but instead what the test maker thinks you are. What you are is ultimately up to you. If you or anyone else wants to get started on reading Marxist-Leninist theory, I made an introductory reading list.

    • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml
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      2 days ago

      This one isn’t too bad for an internet political test, though i would said that eco-marxism is pretty misleading since all the notable ML parties are proecological nowadays and in 1910’s that question was much less pressing.

      I did get ML result so lol.

      • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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        2 days ago

        Yea, they require you to pick nationalist answers to get ML but the ML stance on nationalism depends on if you’re in the global north or global south, ie does your nationalism work against imperialism or towards perpetuating it. It also requires the person to pick production over ecology.

        • PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml
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          2 days ago

          the ML stance on nationalism depends on if you’re in the global north or global south, ie does your nationalism work against imperialism or towards perpetuating it

          Yeah

          I don’t think any actual MLs can get the ML result lol

          This contradicts the sentence above, just look at AES states. I mean nationalism will always be a crutch for socialist states but its an useful crutch at least as long as imperialists are out there.

          • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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            2 days ago

            Yes, but the questions are framed in a way that make it seem odd.

            “Nationalism and patriotism are impulses that are unacceptable in socialist society” is phrased in a manner that either means you agree with nationalism within socialism or you don’t, not if they have context. It has nothing to do with your present country, that’s entirely on the user’s interpretation. Someone in the global south and the global north both see the same question the same way, as it doesn’t tie the answer to the north or south. The correct answer is that it’s useful in resisting imperialism and horrible if used to perpetuate it.

            There’s also the fact that it requires you to take a productvist approach over an ecological one, and the way those questions are phrased are bad as well. We should work to increase production in a green manner, not become an anarcho-primitivist, yet the quiz hints like those are the counterposed ideas.

              • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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                2 days ago

                Agreed, I always got lib left and back in my non-Marxist days I assumed that meant I was more aligned with anarchists. Thankfully reading theory helped me understand more.

    • BreadstickNinja@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Yeah, some of them I would give totally different answers if imagining the question as applying to billionaires vs. workers, developed vs. developing countries, today versus a long-term objective, etc.

      In the end it labeled me an eco-anarchist which I’m not mad at.

  • PM_ME_VINTAGE_30S [he/him]@lemmy.sdf.org
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    2 days ago

    The quiz nailed the fact that I’m an anarcho-communist. I think my numbers “suffered” a bit because there are questions where I personally hold beliefs about which choices are easiest to implement, but I also believe that a collective of reasonable people could make some other choice and implement it in a liberatory way. In particular, I’m not against planning certain segments of the economy (e.g. electrical power distribution) as long as we do it with the continuous consent of the people and we don’t kill people/collectives who go their own way. Similarly, I’m pretty staunchly anti-markets, but I’m not closed to the idea that reasonable people could live happy lives under genuinely anarchistic market socialism if for some reason a community chooses to continuously consent to that mode of living.

  • CleoCommunist@lemmy.ml
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    2 days ago

    Some people were right, apparently I am indeed a council communist.

    Idc thou I am a still communist at the end