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.
They will still sell the products they produce in a marketplace.
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.
So every company remodeled after REI, got it.
Do they actually trust their coworkers to run the company without tanking it almost immediatly? Most of my coworkers can barely make it through their own tasks without fucking something up, let alone actually having input on how the business is run.
Some of the workers may be managerial. But the managerial workers don’t own a disproportionate amount of the company, and they’re not considered the “superior” of any other workers.
I, a socialist, hate markets. They are simplistic and functional artifacts of the available way to pass information.
You literally left Reddit because of what capitalism did to it.
Yeah but capitalism also made reddit great, before making it terrible.
There’s a balance in there somewhere. What we got ain’t it tho.
Yeah but capitalism also made reddit great
Engineers and designers made it great. Reddit could very well exist without capitalism (see Lemmy). What fucked up Reddit was explicitly capitalist incentives.
Lemmy would not have existed without Reddit. Lemmy is a clone of reddit!
Plus reddit put all the work intro attracting users and communities in the first place, before driving them to places like lemmy.
Reddit was never great lmaoo
It was a pedo networking tool reknowned worldwide for it’s jailbate and non-consensual creepshots. These moderators received awards from admins. Then it got too much attention and got a PR workover, burning a woman CEO at the stake to satiate the gamer-fascists before becoming a bland Atlanticist CIA sockpuppet front of bland corporate posts.
At no point during this entire thing did it ever approach anything comparable to greatness
I meant the platform more than the company.
It’s my favorite format for social media… that’s why I’m on lemmy.
communism made lemmy so where does that leave us
I guess ‘a lot of free spare time in a socialized copitalism’ made lemmy.
activity = (forProfit) ? “Work” : “Hobby”
I mean the stages of economic transition have been “fuedalism->capitalism-> socialism” as each one is progressively more efficient and supercedes the previous.
I may be wrong, but I don’t see socialism and capitalism as hard opposites.
I see capitalism and communism are like hard opposites with socialism somewhere in between.
Capitalism is the state controlled by the capital owners with the workers repressed.
Socialism is the state controlled by the workers with the capital owners repressed.
They are literally hard opposites. One is a bourgeoise-state and the other is a proletarian-state.
I learned that “capitalism” is an economic system, not a system of government.
So you could have a socialist state that funds essentials like healthcare and transportation through taxes with a market (capitalist) economy.
That’s not a socialist state. It’s a capitalist state with welfare. If the political structure of the state itself has not been reworked to put the workers in power what you’re describing is just a state where the bourgeoisie (who control power) have decided to do welfare, usually for their own benefit such as reducing revolutionary energy by providing the workers with concessions (the welfare state). That is social democracy.
You do not have socialism without overthrowing the hierarchy that places the bourgeoisie as the ruling class:
Capitalism = Capitalists in power. Proles repressed.
Socialism = Proletariat in power. Capitalists repressed.
Communism = No more classes, only 1 class because the bourgeoisie have been completely phased out.
This just made China’s system click in my mind. Thanks Awoo
All of this sounds at odds with representative democracy. What political system would you see working with socialism as you describe it?
There is no balance though, the shit-ification that happened to Reddit is a necessary function of capitalism. What we saw as Reddit at its best was, from a capitalist’s perspective, Reddit at its worst. I’m sure you’ve noticed a similar process taking place in lots of other areas as well.
Your point is based on an idealistic and wishful “uncorruot government”. You cannot have an uncorrupt government. What’s needed is a different form of political decision making, one where the common folk participates in the political questions, not just some answers, where accountability is protected and a priority.
I don’t know the exact blueprint for this, maybe it is as unattainable as an “uncorrupted government”. What I know is that nobody really tried it yet, while so called “liberal democracy” has proven its failings to all and the fascist have been taking advantage of those failings since the start. The only way yo avoid this is to change our questions, not to all agree on the answers
“Uncorrupt government”
This is as delusional as anyone can get.
A wise man said it all once: “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
I thought left also meant protection against unregulated markets? Without regulations it is just going to be capitalismplusplus.
capitalismplusplus
Ah yes, my favourite programming language!
C++ checks out
I agree! Let me know when you find an uncorrupt government or uncorrupt corporation.
Wtf is an uncorrupt government?
All types of governance and economic systems are susceptible to despotism.
It takes a constantly educated and involved population to fight it.
middle class between what class and what class? the rich class and the having a great time class?
Middle class between what
Lmao, this is such a good one
I’m actually very centrist; I don’t want to eat the rich.
After all, I’m a vegan and think that anyone involved in the meat industry should be put in jail.
So, dead center. That’s me.
It’s weird. It’s almost like educated people skew left. So very weird…
“uncorrupt government”
😂😂😂
middle class is an illusion
My experience has been the opposite. I’ve found that the majority of users tend to lean towards neoliberal and center-right ideologies. I guess most of them are probably American, so their warped worldview has them considering these ideologies as ‘left-wing’ instead 🙃
Most would agree with your point - right up until you suggest that having an “uncorrupt government” is remotely possible.
Pretty much the same level of unrealistic idealism as folks who think it’s remotely possible to transition a state to communism without it turning into authoritarianism.
There, now I’ve pissed off everyone lol
Edit: Except, I guess for the hardcore capitalists, but I assume those guys are all too dumb to read, so no point, really 🤷
The statement in the image is just loaded with terminology that comes with a lot of baggae. It’s no surprise people tear into it. Can’t speak to whether that makes them leftist or just poly sci students.
“Uncorrupt” misunderstands the nature of corruption. How do you envision resolving the interests of the forces that give validity to said government while still keeping a capitalist structure?
“Generate wealth” presupposes a specific kind of wealth created by the government and given validity by the capitalist structure. You win at the rules of the game you made up. “Middle class” has a similar problem. “Prosperity” to a nation starving under the global capitalist regime might look quite different. Why use one benchmark over the other? Because of the game you want to choose.
