[halsom]

> “Socialism in the strict sense, which would centralize the most fundamental economic decision-making, is intrinsically evil.”

What do they think socialism is? Even the most radical Marxists define it as “democratic worker ownership of the means of production.”

And fwiw the USSR did not even consider itself a socialist state. That’s why it decided on using the term communism instead, and Marxists tend to agree it was not deserving of that name either, deeming it state capitalist.

[dragonwriter]

> And fwiw the USSR did not even consider itself a socialist state.

What is the S in USSR then?

And not the “Soviet” one, the other one.

> That’s why it decided on using the term communism instead,

No, they used “Communism” as well as, not instead of, “Socialism” for the same reasons as Marx did the same thing: “Communism” described the ideology and the goal state, “Socialism” the immediate mechanism.

(Now, Leninist Communism radically departed from Marxist Communism.on other points, to be sure...)

[majewsky]

> What is the S in USSR then?

False advertising. By the same logic, East Germany was more democratic than West Germany because it had "Democratic" in the name.

[dragonwriter]

> False advertising.

Sure, that’s how non-Leninist socialists (including Marxists) see it. But the upthread claim was that the USSR did not use the term “socialist” but instead invented the term “communist” because it did not view its own system as socialist. In fact, the USSR used the pair of terms “socialist” and “communist” together in much the same pattern (if, arguably, a somewhat different understanding of the precise meaning of the two terms) as non-Leninist Marxists did (its worth noting that one of Marx’s well-known works, with Engels, was The Communist Manifesto.)

[halsom]

That is simply not true. You are partially correct on Marx’s use of the term, but by Marx’s standards, nothing about the USSR could conceivably be considered communism. Marx was starkly against pursuing revolution without first achieving capitalism. He was against Russian revolution because Russia was not a capitalist society.

That said, Marx was also less consistent on the definitions than some suggest.

Regardless, “communism” was the term decided on shortly after the civil war ended. It was confusing and a poor choice but there was certainly no confusion as to how well it correlated with the idea that communism was a final stage. Nobody believed the USSR had reached a final stage of anything.

[dragonwriter]

> by Marx’s standards, nothing about the USSR could conceivably be considered communism

Yeah, my comment history has plenty of rants about the difference between Marxism and Leninism and how the phrase Marxist-Leninist is oxymoronic. But the claim I took issue with was not the (true) claim that the Soviet system was very much not Marxist, but the (false) claim that the Soviet union didn’t view its own system as socialist and, in fact, adopted “communist” in place of “socialist” for that reason. Leninists did (and they and their ideological descendants do) see their system as socialist and use the terms socialism and communism together in a similar way to the way that Marx and non-Leninist Marxist do, or at least did (non-Leninist Marxists now avoid “Communism” a lot because of association with Leninism, and use “Marxism” in its place.)

[dopu]

This is why I wish Marx's thoughts were actually gone over in standard philosophy/economics/history college curricula. For having had such a deep impact on the world, the average level of comprehension about what Marxism even was among well educated people is so frightfully low. The fact that so many conflate it with central planning and state capitalism is a clear example of it. If we ever hope to understand, in a thorough and critical way, why Marxism in the 20th century was a failed project, we need to actually learn what it was.

[omginternets]

>democratic worker ownership of the means of production

How does that manifest itself if not by the collective management of these means of production? I don't see how you can have "democratic worker ownership" of anything without institutionalized decision-making.

[halsom]

That is the question! But it would be mistaken to presume Marxists believe they have all the answers. Marxists have only determined that the working class has no choice but to find the answer. This is why Engels called for a scientific socialism rather than a utopian socialism. Marxism is distinctly concerned with the scientific tradition.

[omginternets]

Sure, I'm comfortable with that.

However it's a disingenuous to claim that Marxist political philosophy doesn't imply extreme centralization in practice. You're substituting the Marxist political projects of today (and yesteryear) with a hypothetical as-of-yet-unobtainable Marxism of the future.

I'd be a Marxist if all its problems suddenly disappeared and we were left only with the upsides. Who wouldn't?

[halsom]

The core critique Marxists make have of liberal politics is that liberalism is not democratic enough. Specifically, Marxists argue for democracy in the workplace whereas liberals are comfortable centralizing power over the means of production to a select few capitalists.

Marxists are for organizing society to serve the needs of the working class which reproduces society.

Marxists are progressive as they don’t deny the progress of history, which moves in one direction and cannot be turned back. Marxists understand capitalism as a necessary stage in the development of society but one that can only be temporary.

[omginternets]

Yes ... and?

[xupybd]

Your comment here is a red flag to me. That I don't understand socialism. My issues with socialism and libertarian capitalism are the same. Too few control too much. If that's a Soviet style government or a dystopian mega corporation, the outcome appears the same to me.

I'm attempting to say this in the least confrontational way I can. So please know that my questions come from genuine ignorance.

Is there a practical way to administer democratic worker ownership, without centralized control?

Is it also possible to do this on smaller scales than entire countries?

I fear socialism as I understand it. Only because I want people to be as free as is practically possible. I equally fear monopolistic control from large corporations. The only way I know to offset this control is competition. If people could freely move between small socialist societies I'd see no loss in freedoms. I've only really hear people advocate for socialism on look large scales.

There may be significant holes in my thinking but this is where I am today.

[azaras]

1. Is there a practical way to administer democratic worker ownership, without centralized control?

Yes, worker cooperatives.

Example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation

2. Is it also possible to do this on smaller scales than entire countries?

Yes, worker cooperatives.

Example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_worker_cooperatives

[omginternets]

Worker cooperatives are exactly centralized control. The fact that they are democratically run is orthogonal. There is still a (logically) central body with the authority to set policy.

[xupybd]

Well, I'll be. I'd love to see more of this sort of thing.

Thank you for pointing this out.

[hernantz]

And worker cooperatives are totally compatible with a capitalist society, only they shall compete with traditional companies

[gremlinsinc]

> Is there a practical way to administer democratic worker ownership, without centralized control?

Commonly called anarcho-communism or relatedly anarcho-syndicalism (this being actually more of a mechanism to get to anarcho-communism)...

Anarcho-syndicalism looks like you form a union, that union then builds companies that are their own "entity" but pool resources/revenues. Workers, and consumers of the companies are linked to the overall union, and can petition for things like medical bills, etc to be paid. The union could grow and grow maybe it builds a total Amazon competitor, maybe walmart too, and convenience/gas stations.

All proceeds belong collectively to all in the union, all Top level staff might have a max salary of 500k or better yet, 10x the average worker salary, so keeping worker salaries high increases wages.

The unions could as it grows seek to buy up hospitals, and other parts of healthcare systems, and run them like a normal company just with different organization. It'd basically be like Kaiser Health where it's the insurer and hospital and pharmacy and maybe even manufacturer of drugs.

The insurer part could even build out programs to basically make states Medicare/Medicaid easier to manage...

So all these related/syndicated/union companies are non-profit, extra proceeds would go towards: expansion of syndicates, mutual aid, and left over would be paid out to workers/consumers. Each worker would get a share, each consumer spending over 1000k per year would get a share. Workers could get 2 shares by being a worker and consumer... Shares would grow, so longer-loyalty === more shares.

The share is your % of revenue from the pot, so say 33% goes to expansion, 33% goes to mutual aid and 33% goes to UBI type payout, you'd get a percent based on shares you own. Philanthropic people who don't need the money could opt-out as well if they did acquire shares so their portion could be re-distributed to those who have more need.

This creates a situation where healthcare is ran by a central/quasi-power structure aka the syndicate, but it's separate from the government and it's worker-owned with shares also being used like shareholder votes on things...

It's basically a non-statist form of socialism. Another term is libertarian socialism, or left-libertarianism, but it's totally different from anarcho-capitalism or right-libertarianism.

You'll find a lot of people who might lean left or be DSA would really support this... I think a weaker central govt is good, maybe even making states have their own militaries that the fed "conscripts" when there's mutual agreed threats, and the governors would be the senate.. the fed would just govern international stuff, and interstate commerce. States would be more in control, and even cities would have more power than states and majority of taxes would go to county, state, then federal... maybe like 50%, 30%, 20%.

That's how my ideal society would look. Eventually the healthcare union syndicate program could roll out nationally for everybody, and maybe be subsidized some by the government for those who aren't officially "customers" but as we grow we'd have so many competing businesses it'd hard not to be a customer for one of them...

[hernantz]

There are many types of socialism, but probably the most important aspect would be the central planning of the economy by bureaucrats or the state apparatus, and consequently the use of coercive force to make it happen. The economy is also vague, you can take utter control of it, or heavily regulate it, or just some sectors of the economy, and so on. If by democratic worker ownership of means of production you mean that workers can collectively own a company, that is totally possible in any capitalist society, so it is vague to define socialism.