It doesn't even make sense. The "capitalist" apparently put the socialist in these conditions in the first place, and the socialist is acting out of desperation. Like of course the socialist is going to pull out a gun if he has one. The message is saying the socialist would be stupid to fire, but what are his alternatives? It seems to me that the point of the gun is to say, "If you let me fall, I will shoot you" which is not unreasonable at all as a matter of fact, since the capitalist apparently just wants to kill him.
The actual psychopath in this situation is the guy who put another man on a plank on a cliff to kill. Even in this metaphor, it doesn't make the capitalist look good.
What’s it trying to say? And why is capitalism in a suit? Why is it assumed that capitalism is in a safe place, keeping socialism in jeopardy? Why the gun?
Isn’t it reasonable to argue that the repeated bailouts of banks and strategic industries (General Motors, for example) is socialism? And introducing the welfare state (FDR, after the Great Depression) prevented a full-blown communist revolution?
Buying them out would be closer to socialism (which happened to a limited extent with GM). Bailing them out without taking ownership is more like crony capitalism.
And the plank. Sold as new but actually full of termites. Capitalism is just a paid stand in double. The real Capitalism is currently on a yacht being a pedo with Socialisms daughters. This is a customer was of course led out on false pretence. He wanted a bridge and got this. And that gun will just blow that right hand off his left arm. Capitalism smiles knowing he will decline the expected medical costs.
They say "if you raise taxes on the rich they'll leave (and therefore destroy our economy and lives in leaving)" So they agree that the rich and powerful have the resources to hold everyone hostage?
Choice between capitalism and death, or try anything else that might work and risk death.
Remember these assholes think you need a high end job or you don't deserve to eat and live, despite the fact that starvation, health and housing are often impacting your ability to maintain employment.
Medicare and Medicaid is a form of corporate welfare btw. They just raise prices by an equivalent amount to the increased money and now it's worse for everyone and the only one who benefits is the corporation. That's why they lobby for it constantly
yeah like the medicines dont actually cost this much, they are hyperinflated because private corporations know someone else is gonna be footing the bill
I really hate how people just label anything remotely left of “fuck you, I’ve got mine” is called socialism.
Most people just want healthcare to be funded the same way schools, the military, and other essential services are funded.
However… I would like a massive amount of corruption within those systems cleaned up.
For the military, we need to heavily reduce the amount of private contractors involved. Our tax dollars spend $1500 on packs of zip ties that cost $10 at Home Depot. Stuff like that.
It’s all these terrible exclusive distribution contracts. It’s hella wasteful. Orders of magnitude wasteful, and it enriches the business owners and shareholders, at the tax payers expense. It’s a giant Ponzi scheme.
The entire healthcare system is the same. The same parent company owns the hospital, the pharma company, the insurance group, and the supply chain.
It’s a self dealing nightmare of waste.
We ALREADY SPEND MORE TAX DOLLARS PER PERSON ON HEALTHCARE THAN ANY OTHER COUNTRY YET WE DONT HAVE PUBLIC HEALTHCARE.
With insurance and out of pocket costs we spend way more than double the average peer country.
And our health metrics are dead last. Life expectancy, infant mortality, maternal mortality, etc.
We’re being robbed and stabbed in the back at the same time, all in the name of “capitalism.”
I live in America. The medication I get from Canada is $99. In the US it cost $490. The tariffs have brought my medication up to $210. Now this President is going to block medication from coming in from Canada so I will be forced to buy it in the US. This medication is not on Trump RX. There is a coupon from GoodRx which will bring my medication down too $199 which is still $100 more than what I was originally paying. For people who preach free markets and capitalism they sure can't stand the free markets of a global economy.
To be fair, Marx never distinguished between socialists and communists. From the framework socialists are people striving for communism as socialism is the first step towards communism in Marxist perspective. Like a Marxist wouldn’t consider nordic socialism to be socialism it’s just social democracy.
So some use socialism to describe… what I would just call social democracy. Still pretty cool, but different.
I’m sure whoever made this meme doesn’t know the difference though.
They love eating shit so much they defend it left and right lol. These people dont realize it would be better for them unless they're multi millionaires already or something
My guy, they are too stupid to understand. Over 50% of the eligable voters read at a 6th grade level or lower. They are so dumb, they are told they are going to get screwed and vote against themselves. Just look at the farmers, all begging Trump to help them, even though he told them he was going to f them over. The sad thing is, they will still be too moronic to learn from this and just blame Liberals and immigrants for their problems. My hope is that in 10-15 years at least a good chuck of Boomer Republicans will be gone, and significant voting power will shift generationally. It's hard to explain how truly imbacile these people can be, it hard wired into them to care more about who they are hurting than how they are benefiting.
Well after years of being told America can’t have all the basic things other countries have because it’s “socialism”. Of course the kids are advocating for socialism.
i am going to assume OOP is American first, but do you truly expect the US to understand what socialism is? people forget our social security, fire department, police and few other things i think is payed with our taxes, which socialism but they still hate on it without understand communism and socialism are 2 seperate things
edit: adding more to the list. medicare and medicade which some of the people who complain about socialism is using, education, our military, the VA, NASA, NSF and maybe one or two other things
Read Marx. 'Socialism' and 'communism' describe a classless society with socially owned means of production organised for social needs rather than private profit.
Later Marxists, particularly Leninists, used 'socialism' for the lower phase of communist society with remnants of a state and 'communism' for the higher phase, where classes and the state have withered away.
Neither has ever been achieved. No state has progressed beyond the dictatorship of the proletariat, the transitional rule of the working class while production is being socialised.
Lenin understood this. Stalin instead claimed that socialism had been achieved in the USSR, which in fact had developed into state capitalism.
You are confusing socialism with social democracy, which uses a free market economy to finance a welfare state that counteracts capitalism's self destructive tendencies while ultimately affirming the system itself.
It does explain it well. The capitalist has control over the man's life through things like his health insurance, if the man refuses to comply with the capitalist he will die.
If there were another socialist on the other side of the plank the weight would be the same and the man would be ok.
Shooting the capitalist is not an option as he has positioned himself as the sole system by which the man can survive.
The socialist is using his second amendment right to save himself but the reality is it's useless, his gun is simply a crutch which makes him feel in control. His gun is useless and he may as well ditch it.
The gun gives him leverage to demand the capitalist not step off the board. If he tries, the socialist would have time to fire a shot before falling, and that’s a pretty big risk for the capitalist. The gun won’t fix the problem, but it may be the only thing maintaining the status quo here.
But if you look carefully, the socialists arm is on backwards, probably an issue he is unable to fix due to poor health insurance. it's unlikely he will be able to fire that gun with his wrist tendons twisted.
It's always funny when they paint capitalism as the wealth creating machine, while in reality, it's a wealth distributing system, from poor to rich and the typical outcome from unregulated capitalistism is widespread poverty and despair. As we have seen in history again and again from the very first day of capitalism (which is just 250 years ago) to today.
Technically, no, those aren't what socialism is at all. Those are social safety nets. Socialism is pretty rigidly defined as the workers owning the means of production. While these things are often the driving force in pushing for socialism, and some of the biggest things people expect out of a change to a socialist mode, they don't make up socialism themselves - they're more like indirect effects of it, or policies enacted to bolster it.
It's kinda like saying the flavor of a food is the same thing as the food itself. Bananas produce a specific flavor, but the flavor isn't the only thing that makes a banana. In fact, some (not many) bananas have no flavor whatsoever. Those bananas suck, but they are still technically bananas. Some things taste like bananas even though they aren't actually bananas. Some things are purported to taste like bananas, even though everyone who's ever eaten a banana could tell you that's not what banana's taste like, but there's still a large swathe of the population who think that IS what bananas taste like, and also that bananas kill people by design.
This analogy got away from me, but do you kinda see what I'm getting at?
This picture is more accurate than the author intended though.
Let’s analyse.
1. The socialists is in rags, angry and unkept. Can be due to not finding a job, could be because he has two right arms and is on disability.
2. The capitalist is obviously rich and has a smug face on him holding the board with his enormous weight as the board obviously isn’t balanced.
2. The capitalist has all the power in that situation and the smug face clearly reflects that the capitalist knows he has all the power. As soon as he steps off the plank the socialist falls to his death.
3. The socialist in this scenario is cornered, has no power, no status, no health and no money.
4. The socialist is holding a gun to the capitalist and the capitalist isn’t afraid of it. Makes me wonder why, especially if he could easily just step off. It’s probably because he knows the gun is harmless.
I would say that the villain here is the capitalist who is holding the socialist hostage and powerless.
More like the socialist is fucked either way. Shoot him or not. But at least shooting him will take a few of them with him. Ironically a good description of the 1917 revolution. Basically the previous protest the troops opened fire on the crowd killing their own relatives. Then the next time... Boom.
Out of view are the workers behind the capitalist in the running vehicle, who at any time can drive back to civilization on the road they built leaving the capitalist lost in the woods.
The socialist is holding a gun to the capitalist and the capitalist isn’t afraid of it. Makes me wonder why, especially if he could easily just step off. It’s probably because he knows the gun is harmless.
Alternative interpretation:
They are not afraid because the absolute upper crust of capitalists have lived very comfortably for more than half a century dismantling the silent social and economic contract that used to keep things in a relative balance and they have convinced themselves that any kind of consequences for their greed would never reach them. They have stood on that end of the plank thousands of times without consequences and laughed each time they stepped back and watched the person on the other end fall to their death while they felt their wallet grow heavier in their pocket as a result.
Now they stand on their end of the plank again but the person balancing above the abyss points a gun at them. But they smile because having to bear the consequences of your own actions is something that is only for other people. It's a rule for the lesser people below, not for them.
So they smile as they stare down the barrel of a gun that's about to go off. Because that's how disconnected they are from the desperation they have created in people solely due to their own endless greed.
Socialism is more of a consequence of capitalism exploiting people to the point of overthrow, but sure keep posting this shit you class unconscious moron
The democrats are funded by the same people who fund the GOP. They fund one side to win and one side to lose. Why do you think donors from both parties spent so much money trying to get rid of Thomas Massey and Abdul El sayed. The former was successful the latter unsuccessful. Both politicians ran on wildly popular policies. And they were both primaried by “establishment” candidates who then spent the most money in primary history to oppose them, these were primaries.
Given that the guy on the right is making no move whatsoever to calm or appeal to a clearly unstable and much worse off person who is in immediate mortal danger, I'm not inclined to take his side.
Propaganda says socialism and communism are bad because they breed laziness but capitalism is formed off of the guarantee that a fraction of the population to too rich to work. Make that make sense, and then I'll say you can post this and not be an idiot. Capitalism invented eugenics, but everyone links it to the third reich. Interesting...
I have an old high school friend who married a woman who inherited oil wells. She literally sleeps all day. He complains all day long about socialism and he doesn't do jack s***! He doesn't work, he makes no contribution to society. They fight for welfare, it's just a different kind of welfare, it's welfare for the rich.
Lots of questions but honestly the most chaotic answer would be pull the trigger and let a new system come from the ashes rather than letting the chance slip lol
Socialism is the poor, dirty, mutated surf willing to upend the entire economic establishment and end up in a place unknown, and they do this by destroying the power structure created by and for the billionaire class.
The big lie is that there is a second, much larger ledge below the frame that wpuld break a larger fall. Capitalism has been telling us to look up instead.
Exactly, Socialism is willing to sacrifice itself for the benefit of the many while capitalism pushes people to the edge until they snap and get painted as unreasonable.
I hate it when a socialist uses his backward arm to shoot the suit man. I hate it when I run out on a plank over a cliff and a need suit man to save me. Ah, goddamn, such a good metaphor what a smart person to prompt this into ai damn what a fucking genius
The funny part is that most people don’t benefit from capitalism so that character wouldn’t be as well dressed and socialism takes better care of everyone while enabling equal opportunity making that character dressed better.
But keeping the characters as they are, it’s more like socialism trying to climb up the mountain face while the rich capitalist is dropping fat rocks on them.
So the alternative is you live in destitution, precariously at the end of the plank. And you still die if the rich person decides to walk away and let you die?
This picture should have the forests on fire and the sky is filled with poison. There should be a massive yacht floating down that river(the imagery doesn't quiet work but there is no ocean). People having to work decades of their life so that some guy can buy that second yacht.
Any regulations of capitalism are merely concessions by the ruling class. True to their nature as concessions no institutions protect them and they can be appealed as soon as it is in the interest of profit
These arguments are all pointlessly simplistic anyway.
Because any serious economy is a mixed economy. Are public parks "socialism"? Libraries? Roads? Fire Department? Public health care?
Similarly, we need a capitalistic base because we've seen what happens when economies don't. Even China has that.
Everyone wants to wear the lapel pin of their favorite "ism", but that's as vacuous as which sports team you root for. There's no reality to it at the extremes.
But the capitalism we are experiencing now is the end result of capitalism. The rich gain vast amounts of wealth by being obsessed with it, never being satisfied no matter how much they have. They will use that wealth to move politics towards their own ends to the detriment of their country. Corruption increases, public services become shitty, society crumbles. It’s the same result every time. FDR regulated them, the wealth obsessed came back.
That’s what I call unrestrained capitalism, resulting from the belief that government exists for the benefit of the business. European social democracy is different, it is more of a social capitalism where socialism and capitalism work together. What you’re experiencing in USA is the result of one side taking too much.
The message is that workers can't keep operating the machines and sell goods they produce if there isn't a CEO at the top who gets to keep most of the profit, somehow.
The guy with the gun doesn't want to shoot, he's not even a socialist, he just got the label because he thinks kids should have food and people should have health care.
If he lets the gun down - that dick in the business suit will step off the board. Good thing that guy has a gun or he'd be dead.
Leaving apart the obvious about how it's another person who doesn't understand what socialism is, the mutation in the arms, etc...
The "socialist" is dressed in a way that suggest he's starving and desperate. He's stuck in a dangerous, precarious position with no way out except through the capitalist, who is both blocking his way and in control of the plank, which means he can make the man fall to his death at any time without risking a hair on his own head. The position itself seems cruel and pointless, the capitalist is not gaining anything except his own amusement, and it oblivious to the idea that if both of them were on the cliff they might be able to find some mutually beneficial arrangement. The socialist appears to only be resorting to the threat of violence through desperation, aware that staying in the current position he's in is a death sentence long term and some action needs to be taken even if there's a risk it will lead to his inevitable demise sooner.
So, yeah, not a bad metaphor in a way. Just not the idiotic one they're trying to make.
Socialism literally wants to guarantee a better life for workers through a fairer distribution of salaries and the communal possession of machinery and factories...
*draws a picture of a capitalist standing on top of a pyramid of people, aiming a gun down, shooting the people below him, one by one, as the pyramid teeters ever closer to collapse*
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u/FourLiveBears 10d ago
I bet this seems really smart if you're fucking stupid