General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Capitalism is NOT a dirty word. [View all]Laelth
(32,017 posts)I won't argue with that. Marx and Engles, the people who coined the word, define socialism as state control of all property, but I'll accept your definition for the sake of discussion, here. My problem with "worker control of the means of production" is that we've never had that, and I don't know how to get there. Co-ops are cool. The few worker-owned companies we have are cool. But our system relies on capital, like it or not, and I can't really imagine how to get to a world where workers own all the means of production. I might be for it if I could see how it would work and how we could get there, but, as a liberal, I have no problem with a highly-regulated capitalism that works to insure that society's wealth is more justly distributed to all the people. That is what FDR, Truman, and LBJ gave us. They proved it could work. They created the wealthiest and most powerful nation on Earth through liberal capitalism, and I am reticent to second-guess them. Prior to the Reagan revolution, in fact, the U.S. had the highest standard of living of any nation on Earth. So, it's clear to me that liberalism works.
Worker ownership of all means of production, however, has never been tried, and there may be a good reason for that.
-Laelth