From: Rafal Smigrodzki (rms2g@virginia.edu)
Date: Tue Oct 29 2002 - 09:37:40 MST
Charlie Stross wrote:
>
> No, they don't. The core of socialism is about the worker's ownership
> of the means of production, not about big government.
>
### Yes, but how do you assure that this happens and continues as a social
practice? After all, the combined capitalization of the US publicly
available stock is equal to just a few years' worth of the combined
disposable income of US workers. If workers truly *wanted* to own the means
of production, they would have bought them, just like they buy cars, or
handyman's tools.
You mentioned that UK pension funds own 80% of stock in UK, but does it
solve the problems that socialism was supposed to fix - the conflict of
interests between the owner and the worker? After all, if workers in a
company owned by other workers through a pension fund go on strike to
increase their wages, the conflict is just as real as when the company is
owned by a fund operated by greedy tycoons. Is it right to go on strike
against your fellow workers? Or maybe it's wrong to expect your pension fund
to make money off the worker's hides, by making them work efficiently for a
market price?
Every time you try to use a non-market solution to this kind of problem, it
fails. But if you use the market, you keep having the same problems, no
matter if you call it "soziale Marktwirtschaft", market-oriented socialism,
the third way, or NASDAC.
I agree that you need to use the power of the state to protect the market
from its own success, being overtaken by the biggest players, wealthy enough
to buy the political apparatus. However, the solution I see as correct in
not socialist - it isn't increasing the power (=ability to force others to
do your bidding) of the workers by controlling the means of production and
the state itself. I think we should decrease the *total* available amount of
coercive power, by politically disarming the rich, and the middle class, and
the poor. You only need as much of a state as needed to prevent a bigger one
from happening (+ a few minor functions related to certain uncommon lifeboat
situations and provision of some types of services).
Rafal
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