jlou
I'm not a socialist, but what I advocate for is explicitly postcapitalist.
Some postcapitalist policies include
- All firms are mandated to be worker coops similar to how local governments are mandated to be democratic
- Land and natural resources are collectivized with a 100% land value tax and various sorts of emission taxes etc
- Voluntary democratic collectives that manage collectivized means of production and provide start up funds to worker coops
- UBI
Market economies aren't exclusive to capitalism. A postcapitalist society could use markets in some places.
It is capitalism's defenders, who are unscientific. Basic facts are unmentionable to capitalism's supporters. The fact that only persons can be responsible and things no matter how causally efficacious can't be responsible for anything is unmentionable in an economic context. The employer's appropriation of 100% of the positive and negative fruits of labor is obfuscated
Who defines permitted contracts in a free market? Some right libertarians suggest that "free" markets include the "freedom" to sell labor by the lifetime or sell voting rights in the state.
"The comparable question about an individual is whether a free system will allow him to sell himself into slavery. I believe that it would." -- Robert Nozick
The theory that invalidates such contracts is the theory of inalienable rights. It has recently been shown to apply to capitalist employment
Classical laborists and their intellectual descendants' case against capitalism boils down to the idea that the positive and negative results of production are the private property of the workers in the firm. When understood properly, the unique arguments they make are that we should abolish capitalism in the name of private property. The left should lean into this framing. It's hard to call private property supporters Marxists.
Socialism doesn't clearly evoke those examples to people
All definitions are made up.
This definition captures the underlying notion.that
consensual democracy = self-government
Here is A. Chayes making a similar point:
“The shareholders were the electorate, the directors the legislature, enacting general policies and committing them to the officers for execution. Shareholder democracy, so-called, is misconceived because the shareholders are not the governed of the corporation whose consent must be sought.”
Robert Dahl had a similar understanding
Proudhon referred to himself as a socialist in the 19th century sense. Most people don't have what Proudhon advocated in mind when they use the term, socialism, today. It is clearer to use a different word, and also helps the left avoid any unnecessary negative associations and connotations
"We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor.” -- Abraham Lincoln
This quote captures the differing understandings and notions of liberty between these different political groups
Capitalism isn't democratic. Democracy is the mode of governance where control rights over an organization are assigned to those governed by or in it. In the capitalist firm, the workers are the ones governed by management, yet control rights lie with the employer
Rhetorically, it doesn't matter how I define the term. It matters how people use it.
The way I would define it is either the systems of historical Eastern Bloc countries or a hypothetical society that has somehow completely abolished commodity production
@leftymemes