The data surrounding cooperatives don’t appear to indicate any danger to large firms and other Capitalist entities dominating markets.
Can I see that data?
Since I’m sure you’re arguing in good faith here and have actually looked at some data, and you’re not just making things up.
Umm, no. Elected politicians can do whatever tf they want. There’s no legal mechanism to make them fulfill the promises they made during their campaign.
The next election is the mechanism that makes them fulfill the promises they’ve made during their campaign. If your politicians aren’t afraid of losing the next election, you don’t live in a real democracy, you probably live in a FPTP country, and you should fix that.
Not to mention that elected politicians aren’t controlled by the people, most of the government positions aren’t elected.
I don’t know what country you are assuming counts as the entire world with this sentence, I’m going to assume America because it’s usually Americans that do that.
But even then, what is wrong with me hiring someone to hire more people?
Democracy is when Government is owned by people. People own government through democracy. Great argument.
What is your counterargument other than “no”?
If you ask government to persecute people who break the law, do you no longer own people who break the law?
You can’t own people, you never did, what are you trying to ask here?
What do YOU think the people owning the means of production looks like?
I didn’t write any insults. I attacked your arguments. I said they were reminiscent of Jordan Peterson’s word salad. I’m saying you aren’t saying anything of substance. You’re stringing a bunch of lofty concepts together in an attempt to sound smart, but you aren’t saying anything at all.
I think that’s what Marx was doing at many times too, but unfortunately some people are incapable of questioning it and instead just repeat it verbatim.
No, socialism is when the people own the means of production. That doesn’t require national borders, nor do I take your trolling response to be a positive indicator of arguing in good faith.
The PRC has a Socialist Market Economy
No they don’t, they have a capitalist economy. Absolutely nothing about China is socialist. You are eating up and regurgitating their propaganda without question.
Advocacy for Socialism isn’t necessarily based in mystical properties of participating in a collectivized structure, but more of a materialist question of efficiency.
This is more of that vague word salad I referred to earlier. You didn’t say anything here. “mystical properties of participating in a collectivized structure”, “materialist question of efficiency”, these phrases don’t mean anything. You’re just stringing polysyllabic words together to sound smart.
“Tankie” is a person who cares more about whether a country flies the flag of socialism, regardless of their actions, and dismisses any criticisms about them as “western propaganda”.
China is a capitalist country. They are more capitalist than the western countries you hate so much. Open your eyes. Stop believing Chinese propaganda.
Socialism is a gradual process towards Communism.
This was the lie that Lenin told the Soviet to quell their questions about “why aren’t we doing any of the things Marx said we have to do?”
Marx used socialism and communism as synonyms.
A worker cooperative does not endanger the Capitalist system nor move agaInst it,
You sure about that? A bunch of people choosing to not give money to capitalists “does not endanger the capitalist system”? Think about that.
They democratized the economy,
They had absolutely no democracy.
ended famine in a country where that was regular
They deliberately caused famine.
dramatically lowered wealth inequality while maintaining high economic growth
They were ended by the very corruption and wealth inequality you claim they lowered.
defeated the Nazis,
With the help of capitalist empires.
proved that a publicly driven and planned economy works well
It did not work well.
provided free and high quality healthcare and education
We do that in Canada, too.
The USian fear of countries that went against the US Empire’s dominance and provided an alternative to it based in Red Scare propaganda is a problem that must be confronted, not thrown under the bed and avoided.
Yet you dismiss everything bad ever said about the USSR as “Red Scare propaganda” to conveniently throw it under the bed and avoid it.
As for the PRC and Canada, this is much the opposite. The PRC has a Socialist Market Economy driven by Marxist economics.
China has banks. Stock markets. Billionaires. Absolutely nothing about their economy is socialist or is driven by marxism.
You can’t back these statements up with any evidence. You just make bold proclamations and assert them as true because you said they were, and if anyone doubts you they just have to “read theory”.
Large firms and key industries like banking and steel are overwhelmingly in public ownership and control, while the private sector is overwhelmingly populated by self-employed people, cooperatives, and small businesses.
None of what you just said here is true.
If you write without reading and learning from your predecessors, you’ll repeat their mistakes and fail to replicate their successes.
Yes, but unfortunately you have dismissed everything you have read as “Red Scare propaganda”, or likely “Yellow fever propaganda”.
Dialectical Materialism asserts that material reality drives the progression of history, and is the primary determiner of ideas, but that these ideas of humans influence them to reshape reality. This process works in endless spirals.
This reads like the word salad Jordan Peterson spews. It’s vague and doesn’t make any sense. Here’s a better image.
Yes Norway, or any other country with proportional representation, but not FPTP democracies.
How else do you think the people can own the means of production?
How are people supposed to control the government?
Through elections.
The government is controlled by govt officials.
That we elected.
How can a government be owned by people?
Through democracy.
Is government even a property that can be owned?
If I ask a friend to water my plants, do I no longer own the plants?
I think we should absolutely be learning from Lenin and the USSR.
Learning from their mistakes. Not emulating a failed brutal authoritarian dictatorship.
I don’t see what is “backfiring,”
Americans fear the word “socialism” because they associate it with brutal authoritarian dictatorships. Your love of Lenin and the USSR isn’t helping with that.
The PRC learned from what succeeded and what failed in the Soviet Union, and is currently overtaking everyone else.
The only thing the PRC learned was to abandon socialism. Canada is more socialist than the PRC.
You keep linking books to read. I think we’ve read enough. It’s time to start writing.
Instead of thinking that big ideas or beliefs drive history,
So dialectical materialism rejects the notion of ideologies like socialism?
A worker cooperative in an economy dominated by private Capital is not an instance of Socialism, as it depends on the broader Capitalist system.
I’ve already addressed how this absolutism doesn’t track with logic, I just hope people stop repeating it so we can get some actual socialism in this world.
This seems needlessly arbitrary and reductive. Socialism exists all around us, it isn’t defined by a country’s borders.
By this absolutist logic, a socialist country is not a “socialist” part of a capitalist world, because it exists in the broader capitalist machine and must use its tools.
What is the point then? If you don’t want to call anything “socialism” until the very last human on earth is socialist, fine, I will focus more on improving people’s lives than haggling over definitions.
But in another comment you referred to the USSR as “the world’s first socialist state”, yet it existed in the broader global capitalist machine. You have contradicted yourself. Which is it? Can socialism exist in a world with capitalism, or not?
I don’t think we should be emulating Lenin or the USSR. I think that’s what is backfiring.
“Read theory” is how they trick us, forcing us into dogmatic religious-like application of historical texts.
Why don’t we write theory? Marx and Lenin weren’t gods. They got things wrong.
A democracy is a state in which the government is owned and controlled by the people.
Linux isn’t hard anymore because I have ChatGPT to come up with all the command lines for me. And they work 60% of the time!