this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2025
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I keep hearing the term in political discourse, and rather than googling it, I'm asking the people who know better than Google.

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[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 0 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

I'm telling you that you're running into extreme absurdities. I have more personal freedom in a socialist society, where my needs are more assured, than I do in capitalist society, even if said capitalist society was more of a nightwatchman state. By making "authority" purely about how the state treats anyone, and removing all economics from the equation, you create absurd contradictions. That's why class analysis is important.

The political compass makes no sense. It's sole purpose is to affirm liberalism by pretending there's a spectrum of libertarian to authoritarian, when such terms are utterly meaningless when looked at without understanding class. What matters is who is the state serving, how, and why, not if the state is mean or if the state is nice.

[–] BussyCat@lemmy.world 0 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Dude are you a bot? For the 500th time I NEVER SAID YOU HAVE LESS FREEDOM IN A SOCIALIST SOCIETY

That is a straw man you have made up and keep arguing against

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 0 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

You've said "authoritarianism" is about "restricting individual freedoms," and categorized me and existing socialist states as "authoritarian." These are contradictions, though, they both cannot be true.

I understand that you are generally categorizing socialist society as something on the left, and saying you can have a bigger or smaller state, etc. I am telling you that this isn't how society works in real life. The state and the mode of production are interconnected, and reinforce each other. They aren't sliders you select in a lab, you can't just have a bigger or smaller state like that.

I'm not a bot, no. You haven't responded to me saying class analysis is critical, you've brushed it aside entirely and continued to re-affirm the original statement.

[–] BussyCat@lemmy.world 0 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

I literally never did and I am done reading your page long responses that involve you not reading anything I wrote, making up an argument and then responding to that I have had more productive conversations with a homeless man on the bus

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 1 points 9 hours ago

It’s a spectrum and a person who supports the government having more control of their citizens is considering authoritarian. A person who wants to limit government control over their citizens is more libertarian.

These are your words. I do read what you write, as much as you insist that I'm not. I agree that this conversation isn't very productive, but I think it's more due to your refusal to actually engage with what I've been saying and instead just re-affirm the useless political compass as though it actually means anything.

Really don't like the way you casually look down on the homeless, too.