this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2025
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Owning the means of production is a means, not an end in itself. I'd argue the social democratic welfare state comes impressively close to achieving the ends.
Not really.
Which is the better embodiment of socialism:
Not saying a welfare state is #2, but I'm interested to hear if #1 is a better socialist state.
I would say that at the core of it, option 2 is contradictory. Power is not in the hands of the workers for so-long as as the means of production are not in the hands of the workers; without economic power, which is what ownership of the means of production is, all other forms of power are vulnerable to whoever the owners of the means of production are.
That being said, of the two, I would say #1 is the more socialist state, but #2 is the more desirable state if the inherent contradiction was able to be resolved in some permanent and stable way.
I generally regard myself as an anti-capitalist first and foremost, and a socialist only by default; I'm not married to the idea that workers owning the means of production is the only way forward, or the only moral formulation of society.
At the same time, I also can't think of any immediately applicable alternatives, so I'm all-in on backing socialism in practical terms.
only if you are strictly comparing it with full-force no-brakes capitalism
If we're working in the purely abstract, the welfare state is not necessarily ideal, but is there another currently implemented state ideology which serves its workers better? I.e. what would you compare it with which defeats it?