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Sticks and carrots, socialism and capitalism.

So you're going to use violence against the owners and against any other employees who wish to work for the company. Nice to see your true colors showing.

You saw my colors when I said nation-states get the guillotine too. Violence is inherent to virtually every great movement in human history, including the birth of America as a nation. It is an inescapable and inevitable aspect of change.

If the workers own a firm and they are competing for profits in a market economy in order to enrich themselves, then they are capitalists. That is how your 400 coops operate, with the usual hierarchy you find in any corporation. Such firms are completely devoid of socialist ideals.

No, they aren't. Socialist ideals revolve entirely around the democratic ownership of production by workers. Capitalism does not refer to all trade, any more than a command economy refers to all regulatory agencies.
 
Unions are a product of the state. Without state violence forcing companies to "negotiate" with unions, the firm would simply fire the union and replace them with non-union employees.

An unusual political position for an "anarchist", don't you think?

Unions are a product of the workers banding together so they have more power as a group than they do individually. The state didn't create the unions, so drop the libertarian apologetics.
 
No, socialism means public ownership/control of the means of production. "Public" typically means state. That's how economists define it, that's how politicians define it, that's how all of the dictionaries define it. For example, England's NHS is socialism and was created by Clement Attlee, who was a socialist.


Merriam-Webster:
any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods

Oxford English A political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.

American Heritage: Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.

Collins: an economic theory or system in which the means of production, distribution, and exchange are owned by the community collectively, usually through the state.

Macmillan: a political system that aims to create a society in which everyone has equal opportunities and in which the most important industries are owned or controlled by the whole community

Cambridge: any economic or political system based on government ownership and control of important businesses and methods of production

Wiktionary: Any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods.

Infoplease: general term for the political and economic theory that advocates a system of collective or government ownership and management of the means of production and distribution of goods.

Dictionary.com: a theory or system of social organization that advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole.

Allwords: Any of various political philosophies that support social and economic equality, collective decision-making and public control of productive capital and natural resources, as advocated by socialists.

MnemonicDictionary: a political theory advocating state ownership of industry

FreeDictionary: Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.


Socialism means public ownership/control of the means of production. It is not welfare statism, which is a different, disastrous idea from the left.



If a group of people own a company and are working for profits in a market economy, then they are capitalists.
The individual people are capitalist in a market economy but the business itself is socialist. Details matter.

Oxford and American heritage were some of the very few got the definition correct.

You missed this definition because I doubt that you knew that the Stabndofrd dictionary exists, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/socialism/
 
The individual people are capitalist in a market economy but the business itself is socialist.

lol, you have got to be kidding. Greedy capitalists running a socialist business? Good grief.
 
This argument is such a lie that the person making it has brown eyes because he is so full of " bleep"

Socialism means that the workers own and control the means of production. Socialism doesn't mean handouts.

Before you reply to me educate yourself about market socialism. Do you also understand the social democracy is different from the cow dung heap that you are shoveling to the unlearned masses?

Maybe you need a little education; put down the textbook, step out of the ivory tower and look at the real world manifestations of socialism and other collectivist forms of government.
 
lol, you have got to be kidding. Greedy capitalists running a socialist business? Good grief.

It isn't my problem that you don't understand facts. I have tried to educate you but you want binary answers that are easy to understand. Market socialism is a hybrid economic system.
 
How is the workers owning and controlling the means of production in a market economy the same as your claims of handouts and bread lines? You're spreading typical fear mongering nonsense to people who could not pass a 100 level course on economics or poli-sci. I doubt that you could take part in a rational discussion of the subject so I am wasting my effort trying to reply to you.
A market economy and socialism are incompatible.
 
Socialism is about providing equal outcome for the masses. Therefore those at the top, who don't follow the same rules, determine what each needs and what each gets. In a capitalist system opportunity is limitless for those who refuse to give up or give in. Each person gets to decide how far up the ladder they want to go and at which point the are satisfied with their level of success and wealth. In the socialist system someone else decides that for you.

Well said. I'd add only that a person is free to move as far up the ladder as his abilities, motivations, and ambition takes him.
 
lol, you have got to be kidding. Greedy capitalists running a socialist business? Good grief.

What's so hard to understand? A business can be collectively owned by its workers and yet still turn a profit.
 
Not necessarily. A collectively owned and operated business can still function in a market economy.
Sorry, I don't think so. Socialism isn't about a gathering of collectives, it's about the government controlling production and distribution. The presumes it sets prices and production - the antithesis of a free market.
 
You saw my colors when I said nation-states get the guillotine too.

Leftists have always been bloodthirsty. The good news is how often they end up murdering each other.

No, they aren't. Socialist ideals revolve entirely around the democratic ownership of production by workers. Capitalism does not refer to all trade, any more than a command economy refers to all regulatory agencies.

Those coops you mentioned exist for personal profit, not for the good of the community. If you're working for profit in a market economy in order to enrich yourself, then you're a greedy capitalist - end of story.
 
Maybe you need a little education; put down the textbook, step out of the ivory tower and look at the real-world manifestations of socialism and other collectivist forms of government.

I don't have panic attacks discussing collectivist ideas because civilization is part of a very interconnected and interdependent society in the same way that a forest is not just a group of trees but an interconnected and interdependent biological organism. This is a basic building block of human civilization. if we are not an interconnected civilization that forms a society then we would not need to create a constitution on how the society is oragnized, the rights of the people, plus their responsibilities toward others. You should have been exposed to this concept in grade school social studies class because it is the foundation of a stable society. The more advanced we as a society are and the more people that live on earth the more collectivist the society must become if it is to be stable.

Our rights cannot be unlimited because that would destroy the society that we live in. The critical aspect is where we draw the lines between the individual rights of the people and their responsibilities to others and the power of the state to enforce them and to protect the rights of minorities from being trampled by any other group.
 
What's so hard to understand? A business can be collectively owned by its workers and yet still turn a profit.
Only if it exists within a capitalist free market.
 
Unions are a product of the workers banding together so they have more power as a group than they do individually.

Sure, and the company has a right to fire all of them at once.
 
Sorry, I don't think so. Socialism isn't about a gathering of collectives, it's about the government controlling production and distribution. The presumes it sets prices and production - the antithesis of a free market.

Thete are some things the free market is horrible at
 
I don't have panic attacks discussing collectivist ideas because civilization is part of a very interconnected and interdependent society in the same way that a forest is not just a group of trees but an interconnected and interdependent biological organism. This is a basic building block of human civilization. if we are not an interconnected civilization that forms a society then we would not need to create a constitution on how the society is oragnized, the rights of the people, plus their responsibilities toward others. You should have been exposed to this concept in grade school social studies class because it is the foundation of a stable society. The more advanced we as a society are and the more people that live on earth the more collectivist the society must become if it is to be stable.

Our rights cannot be unlimited because that would destroy the society that we live in. The critical aspect is where we draw the lines between the individual rights of the people and their responsibilities to others and the power of the state to enforce them and to protect the rights of minorities from being trampled by any other group.
None of which addresses my point.
 
What's so hard to understand? A business can be collectively owned by its workers and yet still turn a profit.

It can also be cooperatively owned by the customers as well as the employees. I am a member of a small organic market that operates in this way. It's $15.00 a year and the members get a 10% discount on the total, even when it is open to the public, but they don't get the discount. There are member meetings every 90 days to discuss ideas and new products to be carried.
 
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May an ABSOLUTELY FREE MARKET, but those haven't existed for a long time.

I would never live in a country that had no socialism....or no capitalism
 
None of which addresses my point.

You have an idea that anything that is socialist must be owned by an authoritarian state and probably funded with tax dollars, which is not true. there are others who have attempted to educate you but you refuse to learn because you have an idea in your head that you refuse to both admit is wrong and learn.
 
Sorry, I don't think so. Socialism isn't about a gathering of collectives, it's about the government controlling production and distribution. The presumes it sets prices and production - the antithesis of a free market.

You're thinking of state capitalism, not socialism. Collective ownership can still exist in a market economy, obviously, because there are businesses that operate on this plan in the United States. I don't see why anyone would bother trying to deny that.
 
Sure, and the company has a right to fire all of them at once.

No, the unions have a right to organzine. The courts have ruled that is part of the free association clause in the First Amendment. They are not slaves to your business. A business that can bust unions in the name off additional greed is bad for the stability of the society.
 
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