[nlfwhulsdhouv]

How hard is this honestly...

Socialism -- Worker ownership of the means of production.

Socialism is not "when the government is big" or "when the government does things".

A big federal government is not socialism. Norway is not socialism. Heath care is not socialism. Unions are not socialism. China is not socialism (charitably it's a state-captialist government with the goal of achieving socialism, realistically it's an authoritarian state-capitalist government).

Maybe you use a big or authoritarian federal government to try to achieve socialism, but a big federal government is not necessary or sufficient for socialism.

[bravo22]

Except you can't really have such a thing as a large group of people have an equal say in control of anything, c.f. democracy. It is the mechanics that are the issue.

If you are talking about workers being "shareholders" then that's still capitalism.

The reason government comes into play in socialism is because you still need decision makers and decision makers concentrate power. You have a democracy today that is basically turning into an oligarchy, and the belief is that by some magic if we transferred control of "means of production" to workers this would change.

Ok, divide Amazon's shares across its workers. What have you changed? Who comes up with the list of options for them to choose from? What happens to their stock aka "control" once they leave the company? There are a million tiny details which when you work through show you why it is not workable and at best you end up back here today.

The fundamental problem we are dealing with is allocation of resources, and the masses not being sufficiently informed to make decisions. Until you solve that problem every system you put in place corrupts, some worse than others and some with few mechanisms for correction and recovery.

[nlfwhulsdhouv]

> Except you can't really have such a thing as a large group of people have an equal say in control of anything, c.f. democracy. It is the mechanics that are the issue.

Sure, you might disagree that socialism is possible without big government, but that has nothing to do with the definition. My only point is that it doesn't inherently have anything to do with control. The problem with saying that socialism means big government is it associates it with decades of red-scare propaganda and makes all discussion impossible.

> If you are talking about workers being "shareholders" then that's still capitalism.

Not really, if the workers have ownership over the company and the capital, then they "own the means of production".

> The fundamental problem we are dealing with is allocation of resources, and the masses not being sufficiently informed to make decisions. Until you solve that problem every system you put in place corrupts, some worse than others and some with few mechanisms for correction and recovery.

Sure, resource allocation is hard, but "lets just let the rich/monarchs/the lizard people decide" is a cop-out.

For what it's worth, you should probably engage with some 'real' socialist literature beyond just sound bites from Twitter. Many of these questions are considered. Richard Wolff might be an interesting starting point.

[bravo22]

> Sure, you might disagree that socialism is possible without big government, but that has nothing to do with the definition. My only point is that it doesn't inherently have anything to do with control. The problem with saying that socialism means big government is it associates it with decades of red-scare propaganda and makes all discussion impossible.

I didn't say that at all. You can review my comments. But the point is that socialism doesn't distribute power, it concentrates it because "society" is never in control of anything. They'll elect representatives and they will be in charge. It is something that would work, provided human nature didn't exist.

> Not really, if the workers have ownership over the company and the capital, then they "own the means of production".

Shareholders have control over capital and have ownership.

> Sure, resource allocation is hard, but "lets just let the rich/monarchs/the lizard people decide" is a cop-out.

That's not what anyone is saying and that's not what is happening today.

There may be some who have a philosophical difference about "many" being in charge versus a "few". But just because I believe that in plurality of power it doesn't mean I believe socialism is the best way to get there.

I am not going by Twitter here. I have read a lot on the subject. Most of what I see uses socialism as a shorthand for "common good" and capitalism as shorthand for "greed". It is incorrect.

As an analogy, imagine if we're taking about ethics and morality and how to have a better and just world. If this was 100 years ago in the west, "Christianity" would be shorthand for morality and "Atheism" synonymous with evil, greed, and depravity. We've moved beyond that today and realized that neither of those will necessarily lead to a more moral or just world, and that ethics and morality are nuanced topics with a lot of details to be worked out. Simply being Christian doesn't make you one or the other, although hard to prove that to an average American in 1895. Furthermore, of the two, one is more static, dogmatic, and leads to corruption. I view the socialism and capitalism debate in the same vein.

[nlfwhulsdhouv]

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[bravo22]

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