this post was submitted on 20 Aug 2023
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Socialists don't hate markets, they hate workers not having any power or democratic choice in how they interact in the market.
Workers owning the means of production just means the workers are doing the same work but they are in ownership of the factory and the profits. They will still sell the products they produce in a marketplace.
Within the context of one person's career, socialism on its own can do quite a bit to transform people's relationship to their workplace. No longer would your job be at risk because you've all done too well and it's to "cut labor costs" while profits soar. No longer would you be worried about automating away your job, instead you'd gladly automate your job away and then the whole organization could lower how much work needs to be done as things get more and more automated.
Democracy would massively improve work-life balance.
Of course this comes with problems, all of which exist in capitalism (how do we care for people outside of these organizations who won't have access to work, for example). But if I had to choose between market socialism and capitalism, the choice is pretty clear, and it's something much easier for liberals to stomach.
There is no rule that states they have to sell squat in a marketplace. They could, but they also couldn't. That's the whole point of the workers owning the means of production - the workers involved makes those deicisions, not a capitalist or bureaucratic parasite class.
I, a socialist, hate markets. They are simplistic and functional artifacts of the available way to pass information.