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mykpart

(3,879 posts)
Sun Jun 2, 2013, 10:59 PM Jun 2013

I could Google Socialism from now until Doomsday and not learn what I need to know.

I need to know if I am correct in believing that corporations are a form of socialism, as well as group health insurance, farmers' cooperatives and possibly even churches. And I would like more examples. My point is that most Americans, even conservatives, are supportive of corporations and health insurance groups, etc., and therefore are just blowing smoke when they criticize someone else for "advocating socialism." Co-op apartment complexes and condominiums are by name and nature socialistic, are they not? How many other ways do we already support socialism in this country? Doesn't seem to be such a terrible idea when you see it in this light.

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jmowreader

(50,451 posts)
1. The constructs of "socialism" and "communism" are brickbats in the US
Sun Jun 2, 2013, 11:06 PM
Jun 2013

You don't like the things someone says or does? Call 'em a socialist or a communist and they'll stop doing or saying them.

A corporation is not a form of socialism for a couple of reasons. First is their form of ownership. A socialist enterprise would be owned by all the people (or, more specifically, by the government); a corporation is only owned by people who buy stock in it. The other is corporations are generally operated for profit, a concept that runs against the tenets of socialism.

Newest Reality

(12,712 posts)
2. How could a
Sun Jun 2, 2013, 11:26 PM
Jun 2013

corporation be socialist when Fascism is, essentially the merger of corporate entities and interests with the state itself?

Jackpine Radical

(45,274 posts)
3. Producers' and consumers' co-ops, credit unions and the like,
Sun Jun 2, 2013, 11:45 PM
Jun 2013

are as compatible with a decentralized anarcho-syndicalist structure as they are with the classic centralized model of socialism.

defacto7

(13,485 posts)
4. The Mormon Church is definitely a type of socialism.
Sun Jun 2, 2013, 11:46 PM
Jun 2013

But only from the inside. They are one of the biggest advocates of corporate America and plutocracy on the outside. It seems strange to me and totally ironic but it doesn't seem logically in error if what you wish to create is your own huge and forceful system to the exclusion of all other systems, and religions seem to have that bent.

Starry Messenger

(32,342 posts)
5. Corporations are not a form of socialism. They only like socialism when they need our taxes to bail
Mon Jun 3, 2013, 02:40 AM
Jun 2013

them out. Conservatives, if they really wanted to reject socialism, would donate their SS checks and never take a government dime in any other form.

Fantastic Anarchist

(7,309 posts)
6. This is going to be a simple explanation:
Fri Jun 7, 2013, 12:52 PM
Jun 2013

Socialism as political/economic theory, put simply, exists and is manifest at the point of production. Socialist economic and political relations exist when the producers collectively own the machinery/land that produces things, and in turn, the producers collectively own and control the product of their labor and distribute these products/services for the benefit of the collective. No state machinery or bureaucracy is required.

Corporate power (especially in the United States) is the inverse of socialism. When I define corporate power, I mean this to include the relations with governmental institution in order to set policy. Corporate power distributes the products stolen from the producers, and in turn, siphons the surplus value for itself which it terms as profit. The existence of the collusion between state and corporations, the inverse of socialism, is what is most commonly referred to as fascism. Corporations wish you to believe that these relations are to be defined as a "free-market" and is confused synonymously with democracy. This is just an illusion designed to make Labor, who are also consumers, feel like they have a choice, even as they are not really free in determining how best to allocate resources. They are only free to buy from the select choices that the owners of capital wish to provide. How this very much distorted market is called "free" is beyond me, but they have been very successful at this propaganda for over a century now. It's no wonder why we think freedom is correlated with what corporations and the state deem fit.

Socialism, for all intents and purposes, free from state bureaucracy (including corporate bureaucracy), is synonymous with democracy as it extends power to the people in both the political and economic spheres.

"Socialism will be free or it will not be at all!" ~ anarcho-syndicalist, Rudolph Rocker

mykpart

(3,879 posts)
7. What I think you are saying is that socialism can exist and be effective within a democracy
Sun Jun 9, 2013, 12:24 AM
Jun 2013

so long as it is not associated with government. Am I right so far? For instance, when my grandmother got sick she went to a rural hospital that was owned and operated by its employees. (she received excellent care, BTW). When I used the term cooperative, this is the kind of entity I had in mind, and I believe this is also what you refer to in your first paragraph.

I would like to forget for a moment any association with ruling government and address only the issue of socialism as a way of providing good and services. Because in my mind, when it becomes a form of government it is no longer socialism, but something else (communism, perhaps; don't know.)

Now I saw corporations as socialist in that they are collectively owned by a group of shareholders for the purpose of providing goods and services. What I think you are saying is that they are a form of pseudo-socialism in much the same way that a high school "student council" is part of the school's government. I agree with your point here, although I still maintain that if you support the notion of a group of people collectively owning something, you may be halfway there. At least for the sake of pissing off conservatives who yell socialist at every opportunity.

I still haven't solved the area of churches, and I specifically am thinking of Protestant denominations like Baptists, where individual congregations own the church building and pay the pastor out of local collections. Obviously the Catholic Church (of which I am a faithful member) is a a monarchy, more correctly, an empire.

Your response has been more helpful than anything else I have read. Can you recommend some other reading material that I can learn more from?

socialist_n_TN

(11,481 posts)
8. One way to think of the difference between socialism and shareholder owned corps.........
Sun Jun 9, 2013, 11:05 AM
Jun 2013

In a shareholder owned corporation (the current capitalist model), you have voting based on shares. So if one person owns 1000 shares, they have 1000 votes compared to the person that owns 1 share. In a ideal socialist co-op it's much more democratic, maybe a 2/1 ratio and even this disparity is based solely on value to the co-op, NOT on how many shares you "inherited" or bought with money you "inherited".

In a socialist, planned economy in the ideal, it's even more (small "d&quot democratic. As a worker in the economy, you own one "share" in the overall economy and, no matter how much money you have, that's not going to change. Your "share" in the overall economy gives you the right to have a say in the planning of said economy and the carrying out of that planning. IF you can convince enough of your fellow "shareholders" to vote for your proposals, your proposals will win. If not, your proposals lose. In the corporate system all you have to do is convince ONE majority shareholder that your hare-brained proposals are correct and they are enacted. MUCH more room for error. It's actually a much more centralized system than an ideal socialized system.

Fantastic Anarchist

(7,309 posts)
10. Thank you for the compliment. :)
Mon Jun 10, 2013, 12:36 PM
Jun 2013

I should preface my response to include that my views on socialism come from a Libertarian Socialist (anarchist, Council Communist, Autonomist Marxist, Left Communist-Luxembourgian) perspective. With that said, I think all schools agree with regard to socialism as it exists within manifestation at the point of production, and somewhat with the product of labor (even Marx, after witnessing the glory of the Paris Commune modified his views somewhat). The various schools (even within anarchism) tend to have their disagreements on the character of revolution; that is, what role the state will play in the revolution, the need for vanguard parties, a need for an intermediary stage*, etc.

*Intermediary stage in Marxist thought would be socialism, and after the state withers away, it would evolve into communism (a classless, stateless society). Anarchists (and some schools of Marxist thought) believe, since the state and capitalism would be eradicated at the same time during the revolution (it would be spontaneous and organic), then there's no need for an intermediary stage; socialism would be the end result (classless, stateless society), and as a matter of semantics, communism - though there are certain anarchists who don't equate communism with the above definition - instead, the various schools quibble about the social relations between members of the society. For anarchists, communism is socialism without remuneration. Some anarchists still believe in remuneration within the federated collectives (Mutualists and collectivists, namely) - that is you would be paid for your work, though everyone would still be taken care of according to his needs.

<So> long as it is not associated with government. Am I right so far? For instance, when my grandmother got sick she went to a rural hospital that was owned and operated by its employees. (she received excellent care, BTW). When I used the term cooperative, this is the kind of entity I had in mind, and I believe this is also what you refer to in your first paragraph.


I'm glad your grandmother received the care she needed.

Yes, that is what I mean - cooperatives on a local level, regional level, industrial level, national level, and even international level, though of course with economies of scale, federations would, in my view, exist.

Now I saw corporations as socialist in that they are collectively owned by a group of shareholders for the purpose of providing goods and services. What I think you are saying is that they are a form of pseudo-socialism in much the same way that a high school "student council" is part of the school's government. I agree with your point here, although I still maintain that if you support the notion of a group of people collectively owning something, you may be halfway there. At least for the sake of pissing off conservatives who yell socialist at every opportunity.


Well, it is sort of a semantical argument if you are pissing off the reactionaries.

However, shareholder groups, if existed in a vacuum with no externalities that affect the population as a whole, yeah, I suppose you could call it socialism. Unfortunately, they don't exist in some isolated endeavor that doesn't affect society; they exists within a capitalist framework in which their say, and is legally bound by a government who exercises a monopoly on the use of force to enforce contracts, would affect the producers who make the widgets the corporation sells at a profit. The producers do not have a democratic vote on how to allocate resources or what compensation in terms of surplus value they would get. With this reality, in terms of examining the context in which the world we live in, shareholders would not be a form of "socialism." They are part of the capitalist class, in which every socialist, no matter the school, would agitate against.

I still haven't solved the area of churches, and I specifically am thinking of Protestant denominations like Baptists, where individual congregations own the church building and pay the pastor out of local collections. Obviously the Catholic Church (of which I am a faithful member) is a a monarchy, more correctly, an empire.


There are anarchist thinkers (Leo Tolstoy) who developed his tendency from the teachings of Jesus. His was a strictly moral concept of socialism. Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. both were inspired by Tolstoy. I personally have no qualms with faith; it is organized religion (like the Catholic church) that I have issues with - this is a form of hierarchy, and as such, is anathema to anarchism.

Your response has been more helpful than anything else I have read. Can you recommend some other reading material that I can learn more from?


Again, I appreciate your kind compliment. I'm very interested in providing information on socialism in general, and anarchism specifically, so anyone who is interested in learning, is a reward in and of itself.

I find that starting out, Daniel Guerin's Anarchism: From Theory to Practice is a wonderful source for learning about the history of socialism. There are conflicts between anarchists and Marxists in their views of a socialist society, but Guerin isn't interested in these conflicts in terms of polemics. Sure, he highlights the discrepancies between the two traditions, but it's not polemical, and is very informative with regard to Marxist thought, as well. In fact, and though it's been awhile since I've read it, he tries to form a synthesis between the two groups.

There is another online source regarding Mutualism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutualism_(economic_theory). Mutualism (which was the brainchild of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon) is based on co-ops and a Mutualist Bank. Both collectivists and syndicalists use Proudhon as the basis of their schools (collectivits through Bakunin, too). Now, I should say, that Kevin Carson's Mutualism http://mutualist.org/ is sort of an evolution of Proudhon's mutualism, but still retains its socialist character, but on the basis of a free-market (referred to generally as free-market socialism) based on the Labor Theory of Value. The Mutualist.org link contains many intersting articles and publications (free). Although, I don't agree with all of his conceptions on Mutualist theory, it helps explain how contemporary capitalism cannot be synonymous with a "free-market," and is more aligned, in the spirit of Adam Smith's Labor Theory of Value, with socialism.

The Conquest of Bread http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/kropotkin/conquest/toc.html by the anarcho-communist, "Prince" Peter Kropotkin, was a brilliant work and really fascinated me. I put this and his Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/kropotkin/mutaidcontents.html as absolute required reading. The Wiki page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_Aid:_A_Factor_of_Evolution has this excerpt regarding Mutual Aid:

Written partly in response to Social Darwinism and in particular to Thomas H. Huxley's Nineteenth Century essay, "The Struggle for Existence", Kropotkin's book drew on his experiences in scientific expeditions in Siberia to illustrate the phenomenon of cooperation. After examining the evidence of cooperation in nonhuman animals, in pre-feudal societies and medieval cities, and in modern times, he concluded that cooperation and mutual aid are the most important factors in the evolution of species and the ability to survive.

Daniel P. Todes, in his account of Russian naturalism in the 19th century, concludes that Kropotkin’s work "cannot be dismissed as the idiosyncratic product of an anarchist dabbling in biology" and that his views "were but one expression of a broad current in Russian evolutionary thought that pre-dated, indeed encouraged, his work on the subject and was by no means confined to leftist thinkers."[1]
Kropotkin pointed out the distinction between the direct struggle among individuals for limited resources (generally called competition) and the more metaphorical struggle between organisms and the environment (tending to be cooperative). He therefore did not deny the competitive form of struggle, but argued that the cooperative counterpart has been underemphasized: "There is an immense amount of warfare and extermination going on amidst various species; there is, at the same time, as much, or perhaps even more, of mutual support, mutual aid, and mutual defense...Sociability is as much a law of nature as mutual struggle."[2] However, Kropotkin did consider cooperation as a feature of the most advanced organisms (e.g., ants among insects, mammals among vertebrates) leading to the development of the highest intelligence and bodily organization.


And last but not least is What is Property? An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/proudhon/property/ by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (Marx borrowed heavily from Proudhon including the concept of scientific socialism, which Proudhon, himself, borrowed from earlier thinkers).

Sorry about all the URLs. For some reason, this post would only link to Guerin's work.

I'm sure others in this group will be more than happy to provide some links, as well.

This should help you get started. Happy hunting, comrade!

TBF

(31,921 posts)
11. I think of it the other way around -
Wed Jun 12, 2013, 09:16 PM
Jun 2013

that we could have a socialist economic system and the political system would be democracy as opposed to other forms. The closest thing we've seen historically, I believe, is the Paris Commune. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Commune

limpyhobbler

(8,244 posts)
9. I agree with parts of what everyone else said.
Sun Jun 9, 2013, 12:43 PM
Jun 2013
I need to know if I am correct in believing that corporations are a form of socialism, as well as group health insurance, farmers' cooperatives and possibly even churches.
Probably not. Maybe we can say some corporations are compatible with some ideas of socialism. But only if the organization is operated as democracy. I agree with what socialist_n_TN said about shareholder voting in post 8. Fantastic Anarchist said something similar. The idea is to extend democracy into production. In some cases maybe workers should be the ones making all the decisions. Sometimes maybe the community, or government, or consumers organizations should have some authority in the organization too, to protect their interests. But certainly joint stock companies as we know them are not socialist at all, because there is not democracy. I think it's important to focus not on "ownership" as a concept, but instead the focus should be "who has power to make decisions and control money" in an organization.


And I would like more examples.
see below...

My point is that most Americans, even conservatives, are supportive of corporations and health insurance groups, etc., and therefore are just blowing smoke when they criticize someone else for "advocating socialism."
Private health insurance companies are not compatible with any idea socialism that I know of. I feel like they should be eliminated. Free and equal access to health care should be provided to all regardless of ability to pay. Joint stock companies as we know them are the very essence of capitalism and are not socialist in any sense AFAIK.


Co-op apartment complexes and condominiums are by name and nature socialistic, are they not?
Co-op housing - maybe. As long as there is something like one-person/one-vote democratic control of the co-op, we might be able to work with that. I feel access to housing is a human right and good quality housing should be available for everyone. How we get there, I'm open to co-op housing ideas, public housing ideas, individual ownership, and other ideas.

How many other ways do we already support socialism in this country? Doesn't seem to be such a terrible idea when you see it in this light.
There are a lots of familiar things that are socialistic, or compatible with various ideas of socialism. As long as these institutions are controlled via a functioning democracy I would say they can fit in some ideas of a more socialist future:
- public libraries
- public parks
- public schools-
- the US Postal Service
- Medicare (should be for all)
- the National Health Service (UK)
- small businesses like hair salons, donut shops, tattoo shops
- co-operatives or non-profit corporations democratically directed by the people who work there in conjunction with communities, governments, and consumers.
- credit unions
- public banks
- co-operative farms controlled via democracy by the people who actually work on the farm, with shared control by the people who eat the food
- I like the YMCA/YWCA. Similar to the idea of a public library
- New England style town meetings


I think your main idea is pretty good in that we already have lots of things that people can relate to and that seem compatible with socialism. But private joint stock companies and insurance companies tend not to be those things in my opinion.
 

HiPointDem

(20,729 posts)
12. socialism = socialized production, socialized profit. corporation = socialized production,
Sat Jun 29, 2013, 05:30 PM
Jun 2013

privatized profit.

under socialism, everyone produces & everyone gets roughly equal benefits from that production.

under corporatism, a small group reaps the majority of the benefits from a socialized production system.

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