u/magicalmind - originally from r/GenZhou
This was a really great post! I am new to socialist thought, and had some follow-up questions on co-ops.
You mentioned that private co-ops have different class interests than the state.
Don’t the private co-ops fit the definition of socialism as being “social ownership of the means of production”? If a company is owned/operated by all its employees, that would make it a type of social ownership. So the question of public vs private seems secondary to me, and as long as we have democratic (i.e. social) ownership/control of both public and private sectors, I would say we have accomplished socialism.
We can definitely move towards a more publicly planned economy with time, I am not against that but as I mentioned before, I see it as secondary to becoming socialist. I see co-ops being an excellent transitionary stage for this until the productive forces of that part of the economy are fully developed. Isn’t it better to have the private sector companies be socially owned rather than by the bourgeoisie during the transition?
And ultimately, do we really need to get rid of markets entirely? Do all sectors of the economy need to be centrally planned? Why not have all the major sectors of the economy be publicly owned/operated, while keeping the less important portions of the consumer industry (things that are not a necessity for people, just a nice to have) operated via private markets run by co-ops?
u/aimixin - originally from r/GenZhou
1-2. Ithink I pretty much answer it here.
I think your understanding of socialism is somewhat idealist. You’re not looking at socioeconomic systems as objective stages of social development but as merely abstract concepts which are implemented top-down by governments. We can’t just “decide” what is in the market sector and what is planned, these things are determined by levels of development independent of government policy. Attempts to “decide” this usually lead to economic problems since government policy would directly conflict with material reality.
u/magicalmind - originally from r/GenZhouThis was a really great post! I am new to socialist thought, and had some follow-up questions on co-ops.
You mentioned that private co-ops have different class interests than the state.
Don’t the private co-ops fit the definition of socialism as being “social ownership of the means of production”? If a company is owned/operated by all its employees, that would make it a type of social ownership. So the question of public vs private seems secondary to me, and as long as we have democratic (i.e. social) ownership/control of both public and private sectors, I would say we have accomplished socialism.
We can definitely move towards a more publicly planned economy with time, I am not against that but as I mentioned before, I see it as secondary to becoming socialist. I see co-ops being an excellent transitionary stage for this until the productive forces of that part of the economy are fully developed. Isn’t it better to have the private sector companies be socially owned rather than by the bourgeoisie during the transition?
And ultimately, do we really need to get rid of markets entirely? Do all sectors of the economy need to be centrally planned? Why not have all the major sectors of the economy be publicly owned/operated, while keeping the less important portions of the consumer industry (things that are not a necessity for people, just a nice to have) operated via private markets run by co-ops?
u/aimixin - originally from r/GenZhou1-2. Ithink I pretty much answer it here.