Isn’t market socialism literally just a form of capitalism?
Like if you still have markets and a profit incentive then you’re not really socialist
Not saying that’s bad, just thinking really it has always seemed to me like capitalism with a strong social safety net. Which to me seems ideal, just want to know if I’m missing something?
I think you’re confusing social democracy with market socialism.
In market socialism the working class owns the businesses they work for, possibly in conjunction with the government or their customers. There are no people who became shareholders by buying shares, and starting a business doesn’t mean you get to own all of it. It’s essentially a society where all businesses are worker co-ops.
It has nothing to do with a social safety net. In practice one would probably exist anyway, but it’s not a strict requirement of this sort of system like it is in social democracy. Technically you wouldn’t have to have free universal healthcare either.
It helps to know that the definition of socialism I am using is based on the marxist one: a society where the workers own the means of production.
Edit: Profit still exists in this system but it’s shared more or less equally between the workers of that business. This means workers actually have a concrete incentive to work well, not just the vague possibility of a promotion. It also means you will probably see less short term profit making and less overwork hopefully.
Market postcapitalism with worker coops doesn’t mean the workers own the means of production. That idea of what postcapitalism looks like is Marxist baggage that needs to move into the dustbin of intellectual history. A worker coop can, for example, lease means of production from another worker coop or individual without violating the workers’ inalienable rights to workplace democracy or to get the fruits of their labor @lemmyshitpost
There is no reason why only workers should own the means of production nor why the means of production a firm uses must be owned by the workers of the same firm. Leasing out means of production to other firms is a perfectly valid way for worker coops to exchange products of labor. What is illegitimate is the employment contract as it violates inalienable rights. There are distributive justice and efficiency arguments for common ownership of capital, but that includes non-workers
Aren’t workers not owning means of production the reason surplus value can be extracted from them? Workers owning means of production is the definition of socialism for a reason. How can you guarantee the workers won’t be exploited without this?
The workers aren’t exploited in a worker coop. The workers jointly appropriate the positive and negative fruits of their labor. The workers don’t create the product ex nihilo they use up inputs (e.g. the services of capital). Paying lease is satisfaction of liabilities for using up capital services. Leasing out labor’s product allows workers to sell a part of the product’s services rather than sell the entire product. The employment contract gives the employer the product @lemmyshitpost
Capitalism is exploitative due to the employment contract not non-worker capital ownership. The employment contract is bad because it gives the employer 100% of the property right to the produced output (i.e. ownership of new cars in a car firm) and 100% of the liabilities for the used-up inputs (i.e. factory machine services) while employees get 0%. The workers don’t create the output out of nothing they use input materials @lemmyshitpost
There can be investors in market-based postcapitalist society. They just can’t hold voting shares, so they hold non-voting preferred stock.
Freedom to structure one’s own company as a worker coop doesn’t undo the systematic violations of workers’ inalienable rights in all the other capitalist firms. The only way to fix that would be turn those firms into worker coops as well
See that isn’t very consistent is it?
If you hold non voting stock you can’t vote on company decisions. But the company does now need to pay you a dividend, which according to you would be immoral as it would mean a third party is profiting from their labour correct?
The problem isn’t the fact that the investors get some value. It is that the employer gets sole property right to the produced outputs and holds all the liabilities for the used-up inputs despite the workers’ joint de facto responsibility for using up the inputs to produce the outputs. This mismatch violates the tenet that legal and de facto responsibility should match. Worker don’t create output ex nihilo. They use up inputs. Dividends help satisfy those input liabilities @lemmyshitpost
By the way you are entirely free to structure companies this way under a social democracy
You can set that up in any capitalist society, not just social democracy. It even happens in the US. That’s one of the major advantages of worker co-ops. It’s not true socialism though unless every business is run that way. I don’t really want social democracy. I want real socialism.
As for funding I am not sure. Real worker co-ops must get funding from somewhere I would look into that. In a full market socialist economy the government could have a role in that. After all the current scheme of needing Capital to start a business isn’t fair at all.
Right, but why do you require every person in the country to work under a co-op? Is it not enough to let them choose?
In your socialist society if a group of people agreed that they would like to set up businesses under a different model what would you do?
And further, if you’re calling for an enormous change to the way we structure our economy then shouldn’t you be able to articulate how that system will work?
The requirement that all firms be worker coops is to protect workers’ inalienable rights to democracy and to get the positive and negative fruits of your labor. An inalienable right is a right that cannot be given up or transferred even with consent. These workers’ inalienable rights flow from the tenet that legal and de facto responsibility should match. A group of people agreeing to it is not sufficient for validity because responsibility can’t be transferred even with consent
Right, but why do you require every person in the country to work under a co-op? Is it not enough to let them choose?
Look around you my guy. Capitalism doesn’t work. Most people who have the money needed to start or invest in a business are only in it to make themselves richer and to exploit others. My system prevents all of that.
In your socialist society if a group of people agreed that they would like to set up businesses under a different model what would you do?
I imagine the same thing we do now with people who have illegal businesses or businesses that go against regulations.
And further, if you’re calling for an enormous change to the way we structure our economy then shouldn’t you be able to articulate how that system will work?
You have never talked to marxists before have you? They don’t even know what economic system they want to use most of the time, because they don’t consider that detail to be important and think we can figure it out after or during the revolution. If I started asking them these questions they probably wouldn’t give me a straight answer and it would probably turn into an argument.
Meanwhile I am missing a couple of small details. Ones you can find yourself if you are willing to do more research than I have.
Firstly capitalism does work, it is extremely efficient at what it does which is allocating capital, which I’ve never heard of a good alternative. Central planning seems pretty trash as an alternative example
But where “capitalism” falls over isn’t to do with it at all. Capitalism is an economic system, it doesn’t dictate anything about how we setup things like welfare or even ubi if you want. Look at Europe, seems pretty chill to me in a lot of countries that are capitalist
Right so you would make any other structure of company illegal. I don’t like that particularly, but from your moral system I get it. But then we probably have a fundamental disagreement there that can’t be resolved easily
What really annoys me about socialists/communists is you always want to handwave your bullshit system. You don’t even know how to start a business under your system but want to advocate for it!
Being better than a moronic Marxist in this respect doesn’t excuse you of understanding what your system entails
Also please don’t tell me to do my own research on your proposed system, you should be able to explain if you want entire countries to switch economic models
I don’t owe you a “satisfactory” response. I have been trying to explain what system I favour and why given you hadn’t heard of it before. This isn’t a debate and I can’t debate someone who didn’t even know the thing I am talking about even existed before we had this conversation, so stop treating it like one. I am not an expert in any economic system, nor are most people and I doubt you are either. What I do know is that the current one definitely isn’t good for many reasons. I also know that economics is largely pseudoscience and should be treated as such.
Firstly capitalism does work, it is extremely efficient at what it does which is allocating capital, which I’ve never heard of a good alternative. Central planning seems pretty trash as an alternative example
But where “capitalism” falls over isn’t to do with it at all. Capitalism is an economic system, it doesn’t dictate anything about how we setup things like welfare or even ubi if you want. Look at Europe, seems pretty chill to me in a lot of countries that are capitalist
I actually live in Europe. That argument won’t work on me. It’s actually so absurd that Americans think Europe is this perfect place just because we aren’t a third world country. There is a cost of living crisis ongoing where I live. I can’t even find a job in my field despite having a masters degree (computer science), and had to move back in with my parents. There are homeless people on the streets. People regularly can’t afford to heat their homes. There are loads more issues if you care to look for them too. Many of these are caused by capitalism.
I can’t say anything about allocating capital because I am not an economist. I can say though the damage that has been caused to people and the environment. There is also no reason why something like market socialism would be less efficient to my knowledge as it uses many of the same ideas that capitalism does including the profit motive. I don’t think it’s a perfect solution by any means, and I am not confident a perfect solution is even possible. I do think it’s something that’s worth a shot.
Right so you would make any other structure of company illegal. I don’t like that particularly, but from your moral system I get it. But then we probably have a fundamental disagreement there that can’t be resolved easily
What moral system do you think I follow exactly? All I want is a world where we don’t have to exploit each other to survive, where everyone is looked after and the planet isn’t dying. To be given the opportunity to improve yourself. Being rewarded for working hard or gaining skills would be good too, but not as important as the rest. Currently I am not getting any of these things and I am rightfully angry about that.
If you actually have a solution that would work better than I am all ears. I don’t think social democracy and welfare can fix all that though, because I have lived in countries with those things and seen them fail. Even the ones that appear to do it well are normally exploiting the planet or other countries to do so.
If we humans can’t work out how to make a system that works for everyone and for the planet then we don’t deserve to be alive frankly. We deserve to go extinct and be replaced by something else.
What really annoys me about socialists/communists is you always want to handwave your bullshit system.
That’s actually one of the main issues I had with marxists funnily enough. That and some authoritarian tendencies. Though there are definitely some who have ideas on how to run an economy, and you might find some of these of interest.
Man I just find it frustrating that not a single socialist I’ve met or talked to can accurately explain their system given any amount of pushback
I can understand wanting to restructure your entire economy because you’re currently facing issues with your current system. But in my opinion the failing isn’t of the economic system but the system built around it. I truly believe with a well implemented tax system and regulations we could keep everyone’s needs met
Meaning potentially negative taxation for those of low income and higher taxation as you move upwards
I don’t feel we can blame our economy for the way we’re currently fucking over the plant it terms of climate. Many socialist projects were massively damaging to the environment as well, in both systems the only real fix is regulation. Which I wish we could pass but unfortunately the reality is that in a lot of places voters simply don’t want it (which is dumb)
If you truly want to critique capitalism I think it would be beneficial to understand how it works and some level of the economics
Which by the way if you can come up with a cohesive plan for socialism I’d love to see it. As I think fundamentally we want the same things, and I don’t mind which way we go, it’s just thus far socialism doesn’t seem to be very practical
You would find David Ellerman’s work interesting. He provides strong arguments against capitalism and in favor of a worker coop market economy, and he also addresses the problem of capital allocation. I would recommend to you his book, The Democratic Firm. Here is a link to the book from the author’s website: https://www.ellerman.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/DEMOFIRM.pdf@lemmyshitpost
Out of curiosity what is this system you are describing called? I am guessing it’s not truly socialism if it allows for entrepreneurship. I have to say I’ve not run into this exact system before. Would I be correct in thinking that unlike in market socialism it’s possible to directly own parts of a business you don’t work for or are a customer for?
The system is usually called economic democracy because it democratizes the economic sphere. All firms in economic democracy are required to be worker coops. As a result, voting shares are exclusively held by those that are actually working the firm. Non-voting preferred stock can be free floating property rights that can be held by outside investors. it is democratic because only the people actually governed in the firm (i.e. workers) have voting rights over management
Isn’t market socialism literally just a form of capitalism? Like if you still have markets and a profit incentive then you’re not really socialist
Not saying that’s bad, just thinking really it has always seemed to me like capitalism with a strong social safety net. Which to me seems ideal, just want to know if I’m missing something?
I think you’re confusing social democracy with market socialism.
In market socialism the working class owns the businesses they work for, possibly in conjunction with the government or their customers. There are no people who became shareholders by buying shares, and starting a business doesn’t mean you get to own all of it. It’s essentially a society where all businesses are worker co-ops.
It has nothing to do with a social safety net. In practice one would probably exist anyway, but it’s not a strict requirement of this sort of system like it is in social democracy. Technically you wouldn’t have to have free universal healthcare either.
It helps to know that the definition of socialism I am using is based on the marxist one: a society where the workers own the means of production.
Edit: Profit still exists in this system but it’s shared more or less equally between the workers of that business. This means workers actually have a concrete incentive to work well, not just the vague possibility of a promotion. It also means you will probably see less short term profit making and less overwork hopefully.
Market postcapitalism with worker coops doesn’t mean the workers own the means of production. That idea of what postcapitalism looks like is Marxist baggage that needs to move into the dustbin of intellectual history. A worker coop can, for example, lease means of production from another worker coop or individual without violating the workers’ inalienable rights to workplace democracy or to get the fruits of their labor @lemmyshitpost
What idea needs throwing in the dustbin? The “workers own the means of production” part? What exactly is wrong with that idea?
There is no reason why only workers should own the means of production nor why the means of production a firm uses must be owned by the workers of the same firm. Leasing out means of production to other firms is a perfectly valid way for worker coops to exchange products of labor. What is illegitimate is the employment contract as it violates inalienable rights. There are distributive justice and efficiency arguments for common ownership of capital, but that includes non-workers
Aren’t workers not owning means of production the reason surplus value can be extracted from them? Workers owning means of production is the definition of socialism for a reason. How can you guarantee the workers won’t be exploited without this?
The workers aren’t exploited in a worker coop. The workers jointly appropriate the positive and negative fruits of their labor. The workers don’t create the product ex nihilo they use up inputs (e.g. the services of capital). Paying lease is satisfaction of liabilities for using up capital services. Leasing out labor’s product allows workers to sell a part of the product’s services rather than sell the entire product. The employment contract gives the employer the product @lemmyshitpost
Those are some very fancy words. Now I know how people feel when I talk about computers.
You’re right that wasn’t very clear.
Capitalism is exploitative due to the employment contract not non-worker capital ownership. The employment contract is bad because it gives the employer 100% of the property right to the produced output (i.e. ownership of new cars in a car firm) and 100% of the liabilities for the used-up inputs (i.e. factory machine services) while employees get 0%. The workers don’t create the output out of nothing they use input materials @lemmyshitpost
How do you get your initial capital to start the co-op? Like you can’t have investors, so is every worker required to buy in the the initial venture?
By the way you are entirely free to structure companies this way under a social democracy
There can be investors in market-based postcapitalist society. They just can’t hold voting shares, so they hold non-voting preferred stock.
Freedom to structure one’s own company as a worker coop doesn’t undo the systematic violations of workers’ inalienable rights in all the other capitalist firms. The only way to fix that would be turn those firms into worker coops as well
See that isn’t very consistent is it? If you hold non voting stock you can’t vote on company decisions. But the company does now need to pay you a dividend, which according to you would be immoral as it would mean a third party is profiting from their labour correct?
The problem isn’t the fact that the investors get some value. It is that the employer gets sole property right to the produced outputs and holds all the liabilities for the used-up inputs despite the workers’ joint de facto responsibility for using up the inputs to produce the outputs. This mismatch violates the tenet that legal and de facto responsibility should match. Worker don’t create output ex nihilo. They use up inputs. Dividends help satisfy those input liabilities @lemmyshitpost
You can set that up in any capitalist society, not just social democracy. It even happens in the US. That’s one of the major advantages of worker co-ops. It’s not true socialism though unless every business is run that way. I don’t really want social democracy. I want real socialism.
As for funding I am not sure. Real worker co-ops must get funding from somewhere I would look into that. In a full market socialist economy the government could have a role in that. After all the current scheme of needing Capital to start a business isn’t fair at all.
Right, but why do you require every person in the country to work under a co-op? Is it not enough to let them choose?
In your socialist society if a group of people agreed that they would like to set up businesses under a different model what would you do?
And further, if you’re calling for an enormous change to the way we structure our economy then shouldn’t you be able to articulate how that system will work?
The requirement that all firms be worker coops is to protect workers’ inalienable rights to democracy and to get the positive and negative fruits of your labor. An inalienable right is a right that cannot be given up or transferred even with consent. These workers’ inalienable rights flow from the tenet that legal and de facto responsibility should match. A group of people agreeing to it is not sufficient for validity because responsibility can’t be transferred even with consent
Look around you my guy. Capitalism doesn’t work. Most people who have the money needed to start or invest in a business are only in it to make themselves richer and to exploit others. My system prevents all of that.
I imagine the same thing we do now with people who have illegal businesses or businesses that go against regulations.
You have never talked to marxists before have you? They don’t even know what economic system they want to use most of the time, because they don’t consider that detail to be important and think we can figure it out after or during the revolution. If I started asking them these questions they probably wouldn’t give me a straight answer and it would probably turn into an argument.
Meanwhile I am missing a couple of small details. Ones you can find yourself if you are willing to do more research than I have.
That is a wholly unsatisfactory response
Firstly capitalism does work, it is extremely efficient at what it does which is allocating capital, which I’ve never heard of a good alternative. Central planning seems pretty trash as an alternative example But where “capitalism” falls over isn’t to do with it at all. Capitalism is an economic system, it doesn’t dictate anything about how we setup things like welfare or even ubi if you want. Look at Europe, seems pretty chill to me in a lot of countries that are capitalist
Right so you would make any other structure of company illegal. I don’t like that particularly, but from your moral system I get it. But then we probably have a fundamental disagreement there that can’t be resolved easily
What really annoys me about socialists/communists is you always want to handwave your bullshit system. You don’t even know how to start a business under your system but want to advocate for it! Being better than a moronic Marxist in this respect doesn’t excuse you of understanding what your system entails Also please don’t tell me to do my own research on your proposed system, you should be able to explain if you want entire countries to switch economic models
I don’t owe you a “satisfactory” response. I have been trying to explain what system I favour and why given you hadn’t heard of it before. This isn’t a debate and I can’t debate someone who didn’t even know the thing I am talking about even existed before we had this conversation, so stop treating it like one. I am not an expert in any economic system, nor are most people and I doubt you are either. What I do know is that the current one definitely isn’t good for many reasons. I also know that economics is largely pseudoscience and should be treated as such.
I actually live in Europe. That argument won’t work on me. It’s actually so absurd that Americans think Europe is this perfect place just because we aren’t a third world country. There is a cost of living crisis ongoing where I live. I can’t even find a job in my field despite having a masters degree (computer science), and had to move back in with my parents. There are homeless people on the streets. People regularly can’t afford to heat their homes. There are loads more issues if you care to look for them too. Many of these are caused by capitalism.
I can’t say anything about allocating capital because I am not an economist. I can say though the damage that has been caused to people and the environment. There is also no reason why something like market socialism would be less efficient to my knowledge as it uses many of the same ideas that capitalism does including the profit motive. I don’t think it’s a perfect solution by any means, and I am not confident a perfect solution is even possible. I do think it’s something that’s worth a shot.
What moral system do you think I follow exactly? All I want is a world where we don’t have to exploit each other to survive, where everyone is looked after and the planet isn’t dying. To be given the opportunity to improve yourself. Being rewarded for working hard or gaining skills would be good too, but not as important as the rest. Currently I am not getting any of these things and I am rightfully angry about that.
If you actually have a solution that would work better than I am all ears. I don’t think social democracy and welfare can fix all that though, because I have lived in countries with those things and seen them fail. Even the ones that appear to do it well are normally exploiting the planet or other countries to do so.
If we humans can’t work out how to make a system that works for everyone and for the planet then we don’t deserve to be alive frankly. We deserve to go extinct and be replaced by something else.
That’s actually one of the main issues I had with marxists funnily enough. That and some authoritarian tendencies. Though there are definitely some who have ideas on how to run an economy, and you might find some of these of interest.
Man I just find it frustrating that not a single socialist I’ve met or talked to can accurately explain their system given any amount of pushback
I can understand wanting to restructure your entire economy because you’re currently facing issues with your current system. But in my opinion the failing isn’t of the economic system but the system built around it. I truly believe with a well implemented tax system and regulations we could keep everyone’s needs met Meaning potentially negative taxation for those of low income and higher taxation as you move upwards
I don’t feel we can blame our economy for the way we’re currently fucking over the plant it terms of climate. Many socialist projects were massively damaging to the environment as well, in both systems the only real fix is regulation. Which I wish we could pass but unfortunately the reality is that in a lot of places voters simply don’t want it (which is dumb)
If you truly want to critique capitalism I think it would be beneficial to understand how it works and some level of the economics Which by the way if you can come up with a cohesive plan for socialism I’d love to see it. As I think fundamentally we want the same things, and I don’t mind which way we go, it’s just thus far socialism doesn’t seem to be very practical
You would find David Ellerman’s work interesting. He provides strong arguments against capitalism and in favor of a worker coop market economy, and he also addresses the problem of capital allocation. I would recommend to you his book, The Democratic Firm. Here is a link to the book from the author’s website: https://www.ellerman.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/DEMOFIRM.pdf @lemmyshitpost
Out of curiosity what is this system you are describing called? I am guessing it’s not truly socialism if it allows for entrepreneurship. I have to say I’ve not run into this exact system before. Would I be correct in thinking that unlike in market socialism it’s possible to directly own parts of a business you don’t work for or are a customer for?
The system is usually called economic democracy because it democratizes the economic sphere. All firms in economic democracy are required to be worker coops. As a result, voting shares are exclusively held by those that are actually working the firm. Non-voting preferred stock can be free floating property rights that can be held by outside investors. it is democratic because only the people actually governed in the firm (i.e. workers) have voting rights over management