this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2024
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It doesn’t need to be an alternative. It’s a really effective way to regulate capitalism by standardizing and socializing private industries like education, police, fire, roads, internet access, healthcare, etc.
Socialism is the workers collectively owning the means of production, everything else is just details. (Well, the anti-heirarchy bit is important too, especially to keep the means from falling into something that isn't just capitalism with extra steps, but complicated)
It is innately opposed to capitalism as a result. What it isn't innately opposed to is a market economy.
Is a service economy inherently socialist? The person is the means of production and is self owned.?
🤔
The problem would start when you start organizing the service provision into company heirarchies. Especially if the main thing someone provides is owning the company. In that case, the "means of production" include the organization itself.
I could see a really idealized gig economy model working, though. Or just everything being organized as worker co-ops.
And, of course, then you have to start asking questions about how the service economy is actually procuring resources to function. Sure, you're trade based, in theory, but who are you trading with? One of the reasons socialism tends to be globalist in nature is that it doesn't do a whole lot of good for the idea if that "socialist economy" is actually supported by imperialism or someone else doing the ruthless exploitation of labor and then selling you those resources for cheap.
How socialist is your worker owned co-op, really, if you're buying your food from a slave plantation?
The means of production would not just be yourself but also other work tools. A basic desk job wouldn't really fall under this condition, since you usually don't have control over your computer or the software running in it, for example. I couldn't think of any example of a service job where all the work tools are worker controlled right now.
Socialized industries, like the ones stated above, are collectively paid for by all citizens and provided to all citizens equally. You don’t pay every time you need the police because their salaries are socialized by taxes. It’s an effective way to ensure quality of life for all citizens, with payments proportional to their income. Adding industries to tax socialization is an effective way to bring balance to capitalism, and improve the quality of life for vulnerable members of society, without the need of a full system overhaul.
If power remains with the capitalist class, and industry continues to be organized around their whim, you will not achieve meaningful reform, except in response to a threat, which will be taken away when that threat diminishes. FDR didn't do the New Deal because he was secretly had socialist beliefs despite his family, but because he was old money buying guillotine insurance.
I was clarifying the difference between checking capitalism with socialism, and a socialist economy. You seemed to think socialism cannot be integrated into capitalism. Did my explanation help you understand the difference now?
What you are describing is social democracy, a subset of capitalism. That is not socialism integrated into capitalism, because once again, power remains with the capitalist class.
So you agree that socialization, that is currently in place in capitalist nations, can mitigate the imbalance that capitalism creates? For example: people with more land pay more school taxes, regardless of how many children of theirs attend school.
My point is socializing more industries, like healthcare, would improve the lives of many poor people at the expense of those with more income. Do you see how that redistributes wealth?
My point that you seem to miss is that under capitalism, capitalists only allow such reforms when their power is threatened, and under capitalism, such reforms are removed when the threat is removed.
Do you not see that leaving the capitalists in power tends towards a system that benefits the capitalists at the expense of everyone else?
That every capitalist country has cut away at benefits over the last 30 years?
Why would you fight to leave the capitalists in power?
I want to understand your point. What do you mean by "capitalists allow" and "leaving the capitalist in power" in the assumption of socializing an industry?
Do you refer to the fact that in a direct or indirect way, capitalists influence the governement, so even if something socialized it's still under capitalist control?
Or something more like the case of Uber and taxis? Where capitalism can provide unfair competition.
Those points are what it comes to my mind with what you say, but I feel like I'm missing something about what you mean, and I'm intrigued.
You conflate capitalism and democracy too much to have an intelligent conversation.
Good luck storming the castle!
Don't condescend when you don't know basic terms like capitalism or social democracy and its history.
Capitalism and democracy are diametrically opposed, hence why you cannot have meaningful democracy under capitalism.
Do you not see how socializing more industries would aid in the redistribution of wealth?
Redistribution of wealth does not solve the innate problem of a certain class of people having power over another. What it does is temporarilly solve that problem while still leaving room for the owner class to gain more power over the working class.
The only way to prevent massive wealth inequality from occuring is to give the working class the power to control the means of production.
For example, let's pretend that the taxi industry was completely socialized. A new paradigm that performs a similar function in a more convenient way will come along (Uber, Lyft, etc.) and take back control and then proceed to exploit their workers (ie: classifying them as independent contractors instead of employees, taking massive fee percentages, not being transparent about said fees). Since this new paradigm is more convenient for the consumers, the older, taxi industry is left to essentially rot and become obscelete, while the new, unregulated (or less regulated) one that is not owned by the workers takes over almost completely.
There is also the fight for privitization of already public utilities, or to create new, private utilities. Good examples (in the US) are toll roads and schooling. Toll roads are built by private corporations in order to charge a fee for those who drive on them (obviously). People then come to rely on them, and a public alternative isn't built due to the existence of the toll road making a public freeway redundant. College has remained private, regardless of the fact that a college degree is equivillent to what a high school degree used to be when it comes to job prospects. There is also a push to privitize public schooling by extremist conservative politicians, like Betsy DeVos.
I understand the benefits and opportunities of pure socialism. I asked your opinion about the current system because I’m aware of the international implications of dismantling our economy in favor of a new one. We are heavily reliant on imports and exports, and I don’t think you’ve really considered what life would be like after the US Dollar deflates from said upset. Unless you want to start eating dent corn, you may want to rethink your ideas as transitional steps toward a common goal.
I'm not advocating for a complete dismantling of the economy, nor am I suggesting that we do not trade with other countries, but instead, I'm advocating for forcing any company who has more than x number of employees to be a worker-owned co-op, Richard Wolff-style.
I am not against social democracy, and I do think that it is a step in the right direction, but I do think that we, as a society, should go that one step further to prevent the regression back to pure capitalism, since social democracy leaves that door open.
Honey socialism is an economic system. A socialist economy is socialism.
Like, a honeydew melon is a honeydew.
Socialism is when the government does stuff, huh
Socialism does not need to be regulated by a government. It’s a form of economy. However, we currently socialize many industries in a capitalist nation, and by socializing more industries, we can improve the lives of poor people at the expense of the wealthy, effectively keeping capitalism more equitable.
It's okay to be a social democrat, buddy, welfare states are perfectly acceptable forms of ideological liberalism.
One might even call it a step on the path to actual socialism. Someone should write a book about these transitionary states, perhaps leading to the eventual withering of the state entirely.
What do you propose as an alternative way to address the wealth inequality without completely redesigning capitalism?
Have you considered.... Abolishing capitalism?
Weird idea, I wonder if there's literally millions of pages of thought on how to do that, or if some state somewhere just, like, didn't let individuals own factories and such
Sure. I was 20 once. I’m asking realistically. How would you propose addressing the wealth inequality within the means of our current system?
Our current system isn't even that old. Burn it down. Stop internalizing the idea that capitlaism is necessary or inevitable.
Then I hope you like eating dent corn. The US produces a fraction of its resources, addressing the economy with a full upheaval would inevitably deflate the US Dollar enough to destroy our import/export trade for quite a while.
Lol
"Ending neocolonialism will be hard, guys, why won't you children agree with me ?!?!!"
I would argue that the alternative is important even if you don't do it. The USSR increased standards of living in capitalist powers by leaps and bounds, just by standing, even only on paper, for an alternative.