Democratic control over the means of production by workers
Yeah, it’s just lacking the more global “democracy”, so it’ll attract all those power hungry grifters. Social democracy is not that bad.
It provides a safety net by pooling the resources of the community to support the less fortunate. This prevents people from having to sacrifice their long term goals because their short term needs may not be otherwise met.
Also in contrast to capitalism that treats society as a zero sum game (“I can’t get ahead unless I take something from someone else”) socialism is a benefit multiplier (“I’m part of the community. By making the life of everyone in the community better I’m also improving my own life”).
Few movements self-identify as “Socialist”, at best it’s a taxonomical label. Attempting to talk about the finer points of socialism is akin to debating the pros/cons of “Animals” – it’s an overly broad topic and doomed to spiral into bike-shedding over semantics as soon as the conversation starts to look interesting.
With that being said, let’s talk about some more concrete terms – apologies in advance for wielding only slightly less clumsy terminology in my bullets:
- Socialized Medicine: Healthcare is a human right. I am pro human rights.
- Unions: Mostly positive. Nothing’s perfect, but come on… you’d have to be blind not to see and feel for how exploited lower-class workers are without them
- Democratic Socialists of America: I’m a member – that means I like them. I think their platform represents the ideal incrementalist approach to improving the current status quo
- European Welfare States (e.g.: Denmark): Too fuzzy to have a solid opinion on, but certainly a battle-tested template. I like most of their ideas most of the time
- Marxism: A genius body of economic philosophy, but increasingly out of place as time marches onward. I’d be for a by-the-book implementation (insofar as that’s possible) in 1923, but not 2023
- Maoism/Leninism: Not exactly success stories. It’s easier to appreciate their noble ideas & intentions with the distance lent by history, but that’s altogether different from “liking”
- Communism: As a whole? I think the template holds promise and can be made to work in a modern context, but viability =/= realizability. The world would have to get turned upside-down first and it’s questionable exactly how many of us would live through that… but never say never.
Well, the biggest political party in Denmark for my entire life is called Socialdemokratiet, which is social democracy coming from socialism.
I think it’s a pretty big movement.
Marxism: A genius body of economic philosophy, but increasingly out of place as time marches onward. I’d be for a by-the-book implementation (insofar as that’s possible) in 1923, but not 2023
One of the most insightful critiques of Marxism I’ve ever seen is that there is literally no solidly prescribed actual economic policy. Marx spoke at length about social policy and issues. Freeing the workers from the bourgeoisie and the bourgeoisie from themselves. But almost never and nowhere. Did he ever go into in-depth detail about economics. Or the economies that we would specifically have to go through to achieve his social vision. Which is what allowed bastardizations like those of Lenin, Mao, and the Ill families neptocracy.
Specifically ignoring the stateless part of his stateless, classes communism. Conflating the state that shouldn’t exist with the workers who were supposed to own the means and tools they used for production themselves. Etc.
FWIW: Marxists weren’t blind to this obvious omission. The International was what we’d call a “big tent” coalition, so contentious questions were frequently hand-waved away in this fashion. Individual Marxists – including those as foundational as Engels – absolutely had opinions on the subject and they were not afraid to do the 19th century equivalent of Twitter dunking on those who would fantasize over establishing stateless utopias. Quoting Engels circa 1872 (bolded emphasis is my own, italicised emphasis preserved from original translation):
While the great mass of the Social-Democratic workers hold our view that state power is nothing more than the organisation with which the ruling classes, landlords and capitalists have provided themselves in order to protect their social prerogatives, Bakunin maintains that it is the state which has created capital, that the capitalist has his capital only by favour of the state. As, therefore, the state is the chief evil, it is above all the state which must be done away with and then capitalism will go to hell of itself. We, on the contrary say: do away with capital, the appropriation of the whole means of production in the hands of the few, and the state will fall away of itself. The difference is an essential one. Without a previous social revolution the abolition of the state is nonsense; the abolition of capital is in itself the social revolution and involves a change in the whole method of production. Further, however, as for Bakunin the state is the main evil, nothing must be done which can maintain the existence of any state, whether it be a republic, a monarchy or whatever it may be. Hence therefore complete abstention from all politics. To perpetrate a political action, and especially to take part in an election, would be a betrayal of principle. The thing to do is to conduct propaganda, abuse the state, organise, and when all the workers are won over, i.e., the majority, depose the authorities, abolish the state and replace it by the organisation of the International. This great act, with which the millennium begins, is called social liquidation.
[…]
Now as, according to Bakunin, the International is not to be formed for political struggle but in order that it may at once replace the old state organisation as soon as social liquidation takes place, it follows that it must come as near as possible to the Bakunist ideal of the society of the future. In this society there will above all be no authority, for authority = state = an absolute evil. (How these people propose to run a factory, work a railway or steer a ship without having in the last resort one deciding will, without a unified direction, they do not indeed tell us.) The authority of the majority over the minority also ceases. Every individual and every community is autonomous, but as to how a society, even of only two people, is possible unless each gives up some of his autonomy, Bakunin again remains silent.
Yes though those would definitely be the Lenin Mao etc camp. Not the overarching ideology as a whole. So it’s confusing that they’re applied twice. But yes those of us even on the libertarian anarchist side do have our own concepts as well. They just aren’t baked in to the ideology as a whole.
I’ve lived in a country with socialism for my entire life, and have studied the laws in my own and other countries without socialism.
I will talk about socialism as it is in Scandinavia, more specifically Denmark. Here’s a few things other than paid education and free healthcare:
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Getting paid to study: You get paid to study as soon as you turn 18. In that way you don’t need a job while you studying. Basic salary when living away from parents: 1.000 USD/month.
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UBI: In Denmark we have UBI for people being poor, basically. If you don’t have a job, is sick and can’t work, or any other reason you might be screwed, you get paid by the government to… well yeah, exist basically. You have to meet some requirements and actively trying to get better or find a job though, which seems fair I think. If the government thinks it’s not possible to get better, you can get the money permanently for the rest of your life without doing anything. (this is used for people with disabilities, both mental and physical, both born with it or obtained later in life)
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Shared heating system: This is maybe the biggest “socialism” thing I can mention. In Denmark your house or apartment can be hooked up to a country wide heating system, which means we all share the same heat. This is a way to make heat distribution centralised, which has major advantages such as; price, availability, maintenance. (Fun fact: every data center build in Denmark needs to be hooked up to this system, as they will “donate” all their excess heat from their servers to the central heating system)
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Flex jobbing: If you are no longer able to work 37 hours a week, you can be a flex worker. This basically means that you can work 15 hours a week and still get paid a full salary. The government will cover the rest of the pay and also cover some expenses for the company having the flex worker. This system is great for peoples mental health, as they still can feel a part of society even though they can’t work full time. While they still can live a worthy life because their pay is fine. It’s a win-win for the country, the companies and the people needing this.
I could go on, but I don’t want to be that guy praising my own country all the time. We Scandinavians tend to do that.
Sounds like the Danish welfare system is more robust than the one we have here in Sweden - however, I would like to point out that what we have is not socialism. The central ethos of socialism is the collective ownership of the means of production (usually through the government), and our economies are first and foremost rather successful capitalist mixed market economies with strong regulations and a certain degree of government ownership in limited (usually critical) areas of society. With the help of our capitalist economies, we create and tax the wealth and productivity needed to fund a rather robust welfare system.
In general Sweden and Denmark is mostly run the same way. Non of the countries are pure socialism, but they are sure very successful on physical and mental well-being for their citizens, and giving them a high living standard because of this welfare driven from ideologies of socialism.
Yeah but it’s scary seeing the radical stuff starting to creep in the cracks. I moved to Denmark from the US and reading the news sometimes on politics raises an eyebrow or two.
Denmark is not socialist, nor is it capitalist. It like essentially every other “capitalist” country is a mixed economy. In some aspects countries like the US are more “socialist” like in agricultural policy.
Can you explain how the US has a more socialist agricultural policy? I don’t think I’m familiar with it.
US agriculture policy isn’t Socialist in that workers control the production, but “socialist” in the since that the government controls the markets through subsidies.
For example, in the 70s their was a crash in dairy prices. To the point where farmers were dumping milk down the drain. (yay capitalism) The Carter admin, seeing the dairy industry as essential to national security (dairy was a way bigger part of the diet back then), bought massive amounts of milk at above market price to keep the farmers afloat.
You may have heard of “government cheese” as a pejorative toward welfare. Well, that’s where the cheese came from, all that milk that the government owned. People remember the children that got free cheese, but not the farmers who got government cash.
Aah, I get it then.
That’s what you call Government Intervention in a Capitalist Economy. The EU also does this every year, where they distribute help to farmers all around the EU to maintain the essential products. But it’s still hard core capitalism.
Yep correct, even still they encourage limiting production.
I love how people think that benefits are now called UBI.
I guess the billionaires successfully stamped that idea out.
I think it’s right to call it UBI when you get a basic income. The universal part is maybe not true though.
And I don’t get what you mean about billionaires.
The universal part is basically the point of UBI. It’s income for everyone, no strings attached. So calling it UBI is definitely misleading I’m afraid
Aah, okay mb. Sounds like a worse way of doing it, if it’s universal for everyone tbh.
It would inflate prices, making it useless for people who need it. And giving money to people who don’t need it doesn’t make sense. It’s kinda greedy when some people actually need the money.
The idea is that the average person earning will pay the UBI amount back in tax. The taxation systems will all have to be adjusted. It’s not free money on top of what we have now.
Most people will not be significantly better off under UBI, just a base level that we can’t go below, that will be there for any reason from “can no longer work” to just “want a break from it all”.
Smart way of doing it if the tax system can be adjusted for it.
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I like working and feeling like I’m helping others or working towards a larger goal without the constant ever present exploitation of myself and others.
The concept of helping people.
It’s one of the better -isms currently available.
Workers owning the means of production is the way it should be. Until we can mature further.
Personal greed cannot grow to unlimited dimensions.
Well, under a free market system it can’t because of competition. Under a centrally-controlled system, greed can run unchecked in the environment of total control.
The part where the workers own the means of production.
that it holds that social practices are created from social practice and not inherited from immutable law, enabling criticism of the underlying machinations of society without being hindered by the argument that such machinations are an inherited and instinctual product of nature and thus unalterable.
The idea behind it, making life that little bit more fair. It wouldn’t work, but as miguided as it might be, it’s born of empathy and that’s worth something.
Why wouldn’t it work?
I don’t think that socialism offers people enough incentive to innovate and improve, because it greatly limits the possible reward. I’m all in favour of regulating capitalism to protect the lower classes though, I don’t want to be enslaved by the likes of amazon either.
Capitalism is barely a few hundred years old. Invention is as old as human history. The Soviet’s despite the brutal social oppression and mass murder. Beat us at every step of the space race save for the last. Researched and discovered a number of the elements of the periodic table. And many many more things.
That you think people invent things only looking for a reward or payout. Really screams that you don’t understand inventors or invention. Nikola Tesla one of the greatest inventors of the 20th century. Died destitute chasing his inventions, with little focus on getting paid.
I could go on. But I hope reality and history generally disagreeing with you is enough to make you reevaluate the propaganda. You’ve been inundated with all your life. Capitalism does little to actually help invention. And people would do it even if they never got paid.
Capitalism was the first economic system ever devised, outside of trading without currency. We know that ancient rome was economically fundamentally capitalist, so that’s a few thousand years at least. And inventing is one thing, but inventions need to be turned into products, which then need to be manufactured and distributed and all of that. And don’t forget about the materials needed for that, which need to be mined and processed. And I can speak from my own experience when I say that if being better at work wouldn’t lead to me making more money, then I’d be slacking off as much as possible instead of being invested in getting things done.
Better work leads to better reward in capitalism, which is by far the most effective method of incetivising people to actually do any work at all. But we sure can agree that the system has been perverted out of proportion and that change needs to happen, I have no illusions about that. We just need to go back to functioning capitalism.
False. Capitalism itself grew out of mercantilism. Which itself rose out of feudalism. Markets and currency predate capitalism. 18th century philosopher Adam Smith is basically seen as the father of capitalism. And no, Rome was never capitalist. Please do some basic reading.
No, better work leads to nothing specific in capitalism. It sometimes “can”. But the fact that nearly everyone knows someone who’s failed upwards. Well everyone knows one. Donald Trump alone disproves your claim.
I’m reasonably certain you’re mixing up capitalism with a free market. Free markets are a feature of capitalism but it’s not the only system that has free markets. Socialism also has free markets.
A friendly reminder that socialism is not communism. The latter is closer to capitalism as it’s just state-owned instead of privately owned. However, socialism and capitalism can coexist, which cannot be said the same about communism.
Socialism is a political philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic and social systems[1] characterised by social ownership of the means of production,[2] as opposed to private ownership.[3][4][5]
Hard disagree. Capitalism with a handful of social systems implemented is not socialism.
I did not say it was?
No, you said they could coexist, on which I disagree.
Friendly reminder that Communism isn’t communism. Communism is “nominally” socialist, 100% authoritarian ideology that completely disregards most of what was supposed to actually define communism. You are accurate in calling it, especially in China’s case, state capitalism.
Where as communism is 100% a type of socialism. And ultimate end goal of most socialist ideologies. Basically Communists are communists in the same way capitalists are libertarians.
So communism is closer to capitalism because it’s state-owned?
Why are we trusting the output of your brain again?
You have no idea. For a society to be communist it has to have no state. Marxist states like the USSR or Cuba aspire to be communist one day in the future but believe you need a stage of state socialism first to get there without capitalism taking over again. How close they actually get to socialism is debatable. This is different to anarchists who want the state abolished after the revolution.
Socialism is not compatible with capitalism. Any communist society is socialist by definition, but not every socialist society is communist by necessity. Socialism is compatible with market economy where communism is not.
Under the definition of socialism the working class must own and control the means of production. Outside of that requirement you can have a range of different economic systems which may or may not involve a state, money, or markets. Socialist market economy has markets and possibly a state but where each worker owns a share of the company and votes in company leaders and/or decisions.
Pros: It’s nice in theory.
Cons: It will never work in practice because human nature is a thing.
“it will never work in practice” says the person using the internet who can drive down the paved road to the community credit union, or indeed one of the banks that was bailed out by the government before going to the library, posting a letter, and then goes to work the next day in which they are required to be efficient in their job in order to make sure other people’s work isn’t affected, and must not break the law while at work, laws created to preserve the health and wellbeing of society, themselves and their colleagues, meanwhile while at work their trash is collected and sent to a public refuse center, spends the weekend at the local state park, which is subject to pollution laws, and indeed even has the temerity to vote in a democracy and is allowed to participate in the stock market without owning a business or a warehouse of goods, experiences freedom of movement across a union of states (one might even call them United States, and one formed as a socialist revolt against Monarchism and the capitalist imposed taxes without representation, and later held a civil war around the socialist ideal of abolitionism).
They may even express sentiments such as “food waste is bad”, “pollution is bad”, “I enjoy watching TV, reading books, listening to music, and/or participating in sports” and “I can change careers and do something different to what the family business is”.
All of which are socialist ideas that clearly don’t work in real life.
In these cases it’s capitalism with some social systems in place. A far cry from full on socialism.
why can we only critique “full on” socialism? (what does that even mean) and yet capitalism with democratic-socialistic elements is treated as if it’s “full on” capitalism?
Socialist ideas is to move away from the idea of private ownership. Everything is owned by the “people” in collective (which in practice often means the state). You don’t own your cellphone, your computer or your shoes. They’re all provided to you by the “people” (the state).
The roads in your example are paved by private companies in a competitive market (often funded by tax money). They may have been selected by the state to do the work at an agreed price. Next time some other private company might do the work because they compete with even better prices. This process is not socialistic.
that is one very strict definition of socialism, which is not a monolith. Nor is there any agreed Purity test of what is or is not socialism
… with that in mind - following your roads example still
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if roads are paid for, described, prescribed and constructed / maintained by private companies as you say - why is the government involved at all? Isn’t it more accurate to say the government owns all roads (in the US- due to eminant domain- all land) and contracts private companies to build them
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companies only exist by the express permission of and after registration by the government, and we can argue who holds the most soft power, but the fact is if you fuck up bad enough the government will disband your company for you
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the existence of a market does not mean socialism is not happening: in reality, the “profit incentive” of capitalism is also tempered by the social contract of socialism. In my post I was careful to give examples of the social contract that outway pure profit incentives (ie you can’t build a factory in a national park)
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I would say the process of agreeing to do something in exchange for money is neither (/unknowably) capitalist or socialist (or neither or both) without further context.
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Cons: It will never work in practice because human nature is a thing.
This exact reason is why capitalism will never work. Human nature will look to exploit.
Exploitation is the point of capitalism. It’s working as designed.
Maybe if we stop teaching our children that the most important thing in life is to have more stuff than your neighbors, it will stop being part of our nature.
Explain the human nature part.
It’s absolutely disturbing how avidly people seem to want to ignore that inconvenient truth…
“The people will own the means of production”. Except it’s never once worked out that way.
“Everyone will be happy to go to work, because it’s for the good of all”. Except it’s never once worked out that way.
“Nobody will ever have to worry about basic needs”. Except it’s never once worked out that way.
Socialism has historically consolidated both power and wealth just as reliably as capitalism has, and frankly, I don’t buy that the impetus behind the growing advocacy for socialism even is actually equality… I think it’s a desire to have more shit, with less effort required to get it (and that sounds sketchy, and I think people are generally averse to stating it openly due to this)
I personally think the most likely means to achieve that is ironically the capitalist system we currently have, with a huge boost to the economy in the form of universal basic income.
Give literally everyone $50k/yr. Period. Even musk, the zuck, bezos… Everyone… The people who don’t want to do jack can sit around and enjoy the product of labor that will inevitably be increasingly provided by automation, out of necessity. The dream of the 1960’s, of having robots do everything for us while we sit around at the park, will come to fruition finally, because while we’ve had the ability to do it, we’ve not had any means of paying our bills while sitting around. UBI would provide that, and “the capitalists” will have the incentive to automate because there will be less labor available.
Of course, we’re talking about a massive spike in income tax here… But we’re also making the labor far more valuable, by way of rarity. Harder to find workers, so you pay them more, and even with the increased taxation, even a modest salary reflects economic advantage over a nonworker. The guy that used to make $50k/yr is only making $25k/yr if we slap a 50% tax on him, but he’s still putting $75k/yr in the bank, aint he?
I think “socialism” is the wrong direction. 180° exactly in the wrong direction. Unless by “socialism” people are actually advocating the “advanced welfare” Nordic approach…
Another pro is we can eat our neighbors when food becomes scarce. Or we can report them for owning a grain of wheat and have them murdered.
Historically, human nature led naturally to socialist societies. It happened for thousands of years even before anyone named it socialism
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I love the idea of socialism. It unfortunately dies at the hand of human nature, but it’s great for ants and bees.
Humans being the most social and cooperative of all big animals ever?
Ever consider that what capitalism has lied to you about what human nature is for its own benefit?
Even ants and bees falls into the trap of having one tyrannical leader all the workers are serving.
That’s… not how bees and ants work tho? They don’t “follow orders” from anyone except their own biology.
I like democracy
How are socialism and democracy incompatible concepts?
I think they were implying the opposite
Economic Democracy
