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Socialism, American-Style

nytimes.com

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Re: Socialism, American-Style

#31

Post by pjc50 »

eru wrote: post #8
ExpiredLink wrote: post #2

> The fund collects and invests proceeds from the extraction of oil and minerals in the state. This is not at all "Socialism". BTW, state-owned factories almost always failed (numerous examples in 20th century Europe).

> BTW, state-owned factories almost always failed (numerous examples in 20th century Europe). Industrial factories, yes. Local utilities seem to do well enough in Europe. I wonder if there's a principled difference?

Quite a lot of private factories have failed in the west too. Factories are very vulnerable to globalisation.

Utilities, on the other hand, are a natural monopoly inherently tied to a geographic location. They're not producing a "product", but instead a commodity that's the same for all customers. Many utilities are mostly forms of "road" - they just happen to be wire-shaped or pipe-shaped roads.

Note the mostly. Telecoms and electricity have two parts: the central, complex, services; and the big mostly-dumb network.

Re: Socialism, American-Style

#33

Post by geon »

eru wrote: post #8
ExpiredLink wrote: post #2

> The fund collects and invests proceeds from the extraction of oil and minerals in the state. This is not at all "Socialism". BTW, state-owned factories almost always failed (numerous examples in 20th century Europe).

> BTW, state-owned factories almost always failed (numerous examples in 20th century Europe). Industrial factories, yes. Local utilities seem to do well enough in Europe. I wonder if there's a principled difference?

Like the electricity/internet provider in my city of Jönköping, Sweden. It is a for-profit company, owned by the municipality.

The Municipality obviously dictates the goals, like 100/100 fiber in the most remote parts of the area (which I just signed up for), and the company gets to execute them in the way it sees fit.

The municipality housing company is operated the same way.

Re: Socialism, American-Style

#34

Post by calibraxis »

trentmb wrote: post #24
twblalock wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, socialism is a broad enough term to encompass state ownership as well as worker ownership or control. That's true in academia as well as in non-academic discourse. State ownership of major industries, without worker control, often accomplished through nationalization of pre-existing industries, has been a characteristic policy of socialist political parties and governments throughout the 20th century. For e…

I feel like a doofus asking this- I was always under the (false?) impression that socialists and fascists were diametric opposites- how is a nation asserting rule over an industry socialist, but not fascist?

Perfectly sensible question! Meanings of words drift. And these are historic real-world movements; the definitions don't come from dictionaries.

Orwellian propaganda muddies the waters: the Nazis called themselves "socialists"; East Germany under the Soviet Union called itself the "German Democratic Republic".

These quotes seem to be helpful:

"I mean fascism pretty much in the traditional sense, [analogous to] a system in which the state integrates labor and capital under their control. The ideal is top-down control with the public essentially following orders." (http://www.ontheissues.org/Celeb/Noam_Chomsky_Corporations.h...)

"Now, as far as socialism is concerned, that term has been so evacuated of content over the last century, that it’s hard even to use. I mean, the Soviet Union was called a socialist society by the two major propaganda operations in the world: the western one and the Soviet one. They both called it socialism for opposite reasons." (https://tansafte.wordpress.com/2013/03/07/some-footnotes-for...)

Re: Socialism, American-Style

#35

Post by fit2rule »

trentmb wrote: post #24
twblalock wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, socialism is a broad enough term to encompass state ownership as well as worker ownership or control. That's true in academia as well as in non-academic discourse. State ownership of major industries, without worker control, often accomplished through nationalization of pre-existing industries, has been a characteristic policy of socialist political parties and governments throughout the 20th century. For e…

I feel like a doofus asking this- I was always under the (false?) impression that socialists and fascists were diametric opposites- how is a nation asserting rule over an industry socialist, but not fascist?

This is something that is very important to understand - all human activities can devolve into an authoritarian/totalitarian condition akin to fascism, no matter the original intent. We are all capable of becoming the very totalitarians we despise - even despising totalitarianism can, itself, become a form of authoritarian dogma which overrules individual freedom.

The key is, dogma.

Re: Socialism, American-Style

#38

Post by richmarr »

kristopolous wrote: post #29
richmarr wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It feels like 'socialism' (which is actually closer to an optimum model than free markets for some types of problem) needs to undergo the same identity shift in the US that started for black & gay people after the Second World War. It's the stigma that's a problem, not the 'socialism'

The biggest thing that needs to happen is the realization socialism can exist next to capitalism just like charities, private clubs and other types of charters. Replacing any class of duality based thinking with multiplicity based ones seems to be really hard for people. The capitalism/socialism false binary is pretty ingrained

Sounds reasonable. Perhaps the 'ism' is the problem; it sounds like an encompassing ideology rather than a tool.

Re: Socialism, American-Style

#39

Post by allendoerfer »

Commodities without an alternative (e.g. water) and natural monopolies (e.g. networks) should be owned by the public.

There is no point in having a market, when only one option makes sense or it is irrelevant which option you choose. There is no point in having competition, when it cannot improve the product or any process of its making.

In these cases private ownership just leads to cartels or innovation in marketing departments alone, both rising prices.

Having said that, the difficult part is to determine these cases and to figure out how to transition the privately owned companies into public property without stealing it or overpaying for it.

Another difficulty is to judge, when something suddenly stops to be one of these cases (e.g. postal services with electronic messaging as an alternative to it).

Re: Socialism, American-Style

#40

Post by spacecowboy_lon »

pjc50 wrote: post #31
eru wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> BTW, state-owned factories almost always failed (numerous examples in 20th century Europe). Industrial factories, yes. Local utilities seem to do well enough in Europe. I wonder if there's a principled difference?

Quite a lot of private factories have failed in the west too. Factories are very vulnerable to globalisation. Utilities, on the other hand, are a natural monopoly inherently tied to a geographic location. They're not producing a "product", but instead a commodity that's the same for all customers. Many utilities are mostly forms of "road" - they just happen to be wire-shaped or pipe-shaped roads. Note the mostly . Te…

well Telecoms networks can be quiet complex and in the USA broadly you had more complexity at the local plant level than say the UK does.

Its the last mile that makes telcos's natural monopoly's not the exchanges/switches/central offices

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