Was the Darma Initiative socialist?
this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2025
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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.
Define "collectively own".
Ownership generally means two things:
- The owner gets to make decisions about the thing being owned.
- The fruits of the thing are directed to the benefit of the owner.
(I'm intentionally omitting the third implication of getting a share when the thing is being sold, because that requires the concept of selling a means of production which brings us deep into the realms of capitalism)
These things are pretty much clear-cut when it comes to individual ownership, but what do they mean in the context of collective ownership?
- Decision Making
- Does every decision have to unanimously supported by all the workers?
- Or is it enough for all the workers to get a vote in every single decision regarding the thing? Note that in this case there has to be a process where decisions are brought to vote, and whoever controls that process has the real power, but let's not get into that.
- Or is it enough for all the workers to elect someone to make these decisions every X years?
- Or maybe it is enough for that someone makes all the decisions as long as they insist really hard that they are representing the workers?
- Fruit Enjoyment
- Does the product of said means of production have to be distributed directly among all the workers who own it?
- Or is it enough to sell the product (a process which require some concepts from capitalism, but let's not go there) for some commodity and split that commodity among all the workers?
- Or maybe it's enough for the product can be put toward projects that are supposed to benefit all the workers?
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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If socialism were bad, law firms wouldn't be structured as partnerships.
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.
karl marx only invented socialism for rich people, read theory shitlib
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What does it even mean to own the means of production? How are decisions made? Big decisions can go to a vote, but what about small ones? I don't see how any organization can function without some kind of hierarchy. But the way you describe socialism implies that hierarchy can't coexist with socialism.
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