So are we pinning this post or what?
this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2025
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Right-wingers have has convinced their flock that anything the government does that isn't pay-as-you-go is "socialism".
Come on now! China is totally communist! After all when Marx envisioned his ideal state is was an authoritarian police state with billionaires, massive wealth disparities, stock markets and an investor class, right?
I think that in order to have a socialist nation you first need a nation.
And you're not going to get that without being a power hungry lunatic.
We're still a serfdom ruled by kings, and no amount of window dressing has changed that. At best we decide what colour hat the king will wear every four years.
Was the Darma Initiative socialist?
Define "collectively own".
Ownership generally means two things:
- The owner gets to make decisions about the thing being owned.
- The fruits of the thing are directed to the benefit of the owner.
(I'm intentionally omitting the third implication of getting a share when the thing is being sold, because that requires the concept of selling a means of production which brings us deep into the realms of capitalism)
These things are pretty much clear-cut when it comes to individual ownership, but what do they mean in the context of collective ownership?
- Decision Making
- Does every decision have to unanimously supported by all the workers?
- Or is it enough for all the workers to get a vote in every single decision regarding the thing? Note that in this case there has to be a process where decisions are brought to vote, and whoever controls that process has the real power, but let's not get into that.
- Or is it enough for all the workers to elect someone to make these decisions every X years?
- Or maybe it is enough for that someone makes all the decisions as long as they insist really hard that they are representing the workers?
- Fruit Enjoyment
- Does the product of said means of production have to be distributed directly among all the workers who own it?
- Or is it enough to sell the product (a process which require some concepts from capitalism, but let's not go there) for some commodity and split that commodity among all the workers?
- Or maybe it's enough for the product can be put toward projects that are supposed to benefit all the workers?
I think we're mixing up socialism and communism here.
Socialism is an economic system in which major industries are owned by workers rather than by private businesses. It is different from capitalism, where private actors, like business owners and shareholders, can own the means of production.
ok, then what's communism?
Communism seeks to completely abolish private property by distributing goods based on needs. Socialism is just the workers owning the means of production.
Communism (from Latin communis, 'common, universal')[1][2] is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement,[1] whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered around common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange that allocates products to everyone in society based on need.
-- Socialism, the workers aren't exploited, they get all the money they make because they own the business they work for, they collectively hire and fire. Workers keep the money they make.
-- Communism a social order in which the entire populace communually 'owns' all business and all resources are divided up as needed.
Communism is in the Socialism wheelhouse, but it's not a necessary part of Socialism. Socialism can maintain a consumerism corporate society in theory. Also democracy and republics can be socialist as Socialism doesn't need an authoritarian police state to make it work, just people owning their own labor.
Yeah I was under the impression that socialism was a collective redistribution of wealth, "from those that are most able to those that are most in need." While Communism is where capital is publicly owned, like a commune, "Seize the means of production".
Socialism is seizing the means of production alone. Communism is a 'Socialist' socio economic system were the means of production are owned by the state and all product and labor is divided according to needs. Socialism redistributes nothing on its own. It is simply the means of production owned by the laborers, so a trade union type of system that can exist without authoritarian police state, there are worker owned businesses in the US right now, it's not illegal to create or operate a business this way, so it exists where people create it and favor it with or without effort from anyone else.
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Ya that's what I thought too.
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