Hi all,
I’m seeing a lot of hate for capitalism here, and I’m wondering why that is and what the rationale behind it is. I’m pretty pro-capitalism myself, so I want to see the logic on the other side of the fence.
If this isn’t the right forum for a political/economic discussion-- I’m happy to take this somewhere else.
Cheers!
I am an anti-capitalist as well, but I do not consider what in some circles is called “market socialism” to be socialism for the following reasons
- It is better to present it as a third alternative to capitalism beyond socialism and communism, so I call it economic democracy at least the worker coop flavor.
- Economic democracy has both private property and markets, which most socialists actively oppose
It sounds like the market socialists you’ve been talking to haven’t been socialists if they’re in favor of private property, that’s strictly a capitalist position. They’re probably just welfare capitalists.
An actual market socialist is against private entities owning the means of production, they’re owned communally by some mechanism (be it some democratically run cooperative, the state, etc .) It wouldn’t be a group of stakeholders that are a separate, private entity disconnected from the workers (though the state arguably is an entity like that, and that’s where the line between state socialism and state capitalism gets blurry).
They are not welfare capitalists. They advocate an economy where all firms are democratically-run worker coops. The idea that such worker coops are based on social ownership of the means of production and that an economy consisting of worker coops does not have private ownership of the means of production is based on a misunderstanding of worker coops and capitalism. For example, it is possible for a democratically-run worker coop to rent a factory from a private third party
“from a private third party” where? A (non-foolish) socialist would advocate for rules against renting people, just like we’re not allowed to buy people right now.
That would mean there would be no private third parties that are renting out factories of rented workers.
If what you’re saying is “from a private third party outside the socialist space”, then that’s a problem for all kinds of socialist spaces. We can’t control productive forces outside of the space we have domain over.
