this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2025
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Come on now! China is totally communist! After all when Marx envisioned his ideal state is was an authoritarian police state with billionaires, massive wealth disparities, stock markets and an investor class, right?
The workers do not need to control the means of production when Pooh Bear Xi knows what's best for them before they do.
Socialism is when capitalism
Ah, you mean the elite, wealthy, oligarch class, Xi Jinping.
Whoa buddy you a fed? Got any sources? My xi would never.
Braindead take in all of these countries you do have the right to run a business collectively owned by the workers. Countries economics are not black or white its never 100% socialism or capitalism
Braindead take in all of these countries you do have the right to run a business collectively owned by the workers.
I mean, you can do that in the US too, but if anyone said the US was socialist I'd give them one hell of a long look.
Some aspect of US economics are socialized, in every country army is socialized as it would be dumb as hell to delegate your army to private companies. Still this meme point is dumb
I'm a little out of the loop, why is a social democratic welfare state not socialism?
Social democratic welfare states re-distribute some of the surplus value extracted from the labor of workers back to them, but the fundamental functioning of the economy remains decision-making in firms owned and run by capitalist investors rather than workers.
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Because a welfare state is irrelevant to worker controlled/owned means of production and worker ownership is the defining characteristic of socialism.
A welfare state is just a welfare state.
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Genuinely curious about the standard by which you evaluate whether the means of production are collectively owned. For example, one person might say that it looks like a government, representing all workers on a national scale and making decisions based on votes or elected representatives, owning all the means of production. Another person might say it looks like each industry being controlled by a union representing the workers in said industry. A third could say that it means anytime a person operates a machine, they own it and can decide what to do with it, until they stop using it.
Is there any concievable physical reality in which it would be impossible to reasonably argue that the workers do not collectively control the means of production, because of a disagreement on which means of production should be owned by which workers and in what form? It seems like a very vague definition when you start looking beyond slogans into what it actually looks like.
For example, one person might say that it looks like a government, representing all workers on a national scale and making decisions based on votes or elected representatives, owning all the means of production.
That might be relevant if the USSR was actually democratic.
Is there any physical reality in which it would be impossible to reasonably argue that the workers do not collectively control the means of production, because of a disagreement on which means of production should be owned by which workers? It seems like a very vague definition when you start looking beyond slogans into what it actually looks like.
"Does socialism really MEAN anything? 
"
Really showing the libs, I see.
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The DPRK is, I'd argue, more or less an absolute monarchy that just uses different words to describe itself than traditional for that kind of system.
The People's™ Absolute monarchy
Seriously it's insane how people can unironically lie to themselves. Thy literally said "socialism is not for the workers" lmfaoo
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Right-wingers have convinced their flock that anything the government does that isn't pay-as-you-go is "socialism".
If socialism were bad, law firms wouldn't be structured as partnerships.
by that logic credit unions are socialist lmao
Law firms are so so so not socialist.
Partnerships only involve a few select attorneys at a firm, associate attorneys, paralegals, legal assistants, and every other role is not part of the partnership, and has no stake other than their vested interest in getting their paycheck (the same as any employee).
"Big Law" firms have thousands of employees excluded from any partnerships including billable (associates, paralegals) and non billable (legal assistants, HR, IT) staff, the partnership is more of a private ownership club where people are accepted mostly on vibes and sometimes, rarely, on merit.
The partnership structure is pretty antithetical to socialism, since it's structured in a way to exclude people deemed not worthy of receiving profits (But still somehow needed to make the profits??).
TL;DR: a small group of owner operators within a larger company is decidedly capitalist.
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