What do they think socialism is? Even the most radical Marxists define it as “democratic worker ownership of the means of production.”
And fwiw the USSR did not even consider itself a socialist state. That’s why it decided on using the term communism instead, and Marxists tend to agree it was not deserving of that name either, deeming it state capitalist.
What is the S in USSR then?
And not the “Soviet” one, the other one.
> That’s why it decided on using the term communism instead,
No, they used “Communism” as well as, not instead of, “Socialism” for the same reasons as Marx did the same thing: “Communism” described the ideology and the goal state, “Socialism” the immediate mechanism.
(Now, Leninist Communism radically departed from Marxist Communism.on other points, to be sure...)
False advertising. By the same logic, East Germany was more democratic than West Germany because it had "Democratic" in the name.
Sure, that’s how non-Leninist socialists (including Marxists) see it. But the upthread claim was that the USSR did not use the term “socialist” but instead invented the term “communist” because it did not view its own system as socialist. In fact, the USSR used the pair of terms “socialist” and “communist” together in much the same pattern (if, arguably, a somewhat different understanding of the precise meaning of the two terms) as non-Leninist Marxists did (its worth noting that one of Marx’s well-known works, with Engels, was The Communist Manifesto.)
That said, Marx was also less consistent on the definitions than some suggest.
Regardless, “communism” was the term decided on shortly after the civil war ended. It was confusing and a poor choice but there was certainly no confusion as to how well it correlated with the idea that communism was a final stage. Nobody believed the USSR had reached a final stage of anything.
Yeah, my comment history has plenty of rants about the difference between Marxism and Leninism and how the phrase Marxist-Leninist is oxymoronic. But the claim I took issue with was not the (true) claim that the Soviet system was very much not Marxist, but the (false) claim that the Soviet union didn’t view its own system as socialist and, in fact, adopted “communist” in place of “socialist” for that reason. Leninists did (and they and their ideological descendants do) see their system as socialist and use the terms socialism and communism together in a similar way to the way that Marx and non-Leninist Marxist do, or at least did (non-Leninist Marxists now avoid “Communism” a lot because of association with Leninism, and use “Marxism” in its place.)
How does that manifest itself if not by the collective management of these means of production? I don't see how you can have "democratic worker ownership" of anything without institutionalized decision-making.
However it's a disingenuous to claim that Marxist political philosophy doesn't imply extreme centralization in practice. You're substituting the Marxist political projects of today (and yesteryear) with a hypothetical as-of-yet-unobtainable Marxism of the future.
I'd be a Marxist if all its problems suddenly disappeared and we were left only with the upsides. Who wouldn't?
Marxists are for organizing society to serve the needs of the working class which reproduces society.
Marxists are progressive as they don’t deny the progress of history, which moves in one direction and cannot be turned back. Marxists understand capitalism as a necessary stage in the development of society but one that can only be temporary.
I'm attempting to say this in the least confrontational way I can. So please know that my questions come from genuine ignorance.
Is there a practical way to administer democratic worker ownership, without centralized control?
Is it also possible to do this on smaller scales than entire countries?
I fear socialism as I understand it. Only because I want people to be as free as is practically possible. I equally fear monopolistic control from large corporations. The only way I know to offset this control is competition. If people could freely move between small socialist societies I'd see no loss in freedoms. I've only really hear people advocate for socialism on look large scales.
There may be significant holes in my thinking but this is where I am today.
Yes, worker cooperatives.
Example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation
2. Is it also possible to do this on smaller scales than entire countries?
Yes, worker cooperatives.
Example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_worker_cooperatives
Thank you for pointing this out.
Commonly called anarcho-communism or relatedly anarcho-syndicalism (this being actually more of a mechanism to get to anarcho-communism)...
Anarcho-syndicalism looks like you form a union, that union then builds companies that are their own "entity" but pool resources/revenues. Workers, and consumers of the companies are linked to the overall union, and can petition for things like medical bills, etc to be paid. The union could grow and grow maybe it builds a total Amazon competitor, maybe walmart too, and convenience/gas stations.
All proceeds belong collectively to all in the union, all Top level staff might have a max salary of 500k or better yet, 10x the average worker salary, so keeping worker salaries high increases wages.
The unions could as it grows seek to buy up hospitals, and other parts of healthcare systems, and run them like a normal company just with different organization. It'd basically be like Kaiser Health where it's the insurer and hospital and pharmacy and maybe even manufacturer of drugs.
The insurer part could even build out programs to basically make states Medicare/Medicaid easier to manage...
So all these related/syndicated/union companies are non-profit, extra proceeds would go towards: expansion of syndicates, mutual aid, and left over would be paid out to workers/consumers. Each worker would get a share, each consumer spending over 1000k per year would get a share. Workers could get 2 shares by being a worker and consumer... Shares would grow, so longer-loyalty === more shares.
The share is your % of revenue from the pot, so say 33% goes to expansion, 33% goes to mutual aid and 33% goes to UBI type payout, you'd get a percent based on shares you own. Philanthropic people who don't need the money could opt-out as well if they did acquire shares so their portion could be re-distributed to those who have more need.
This creates a situation where healthcare is ran by a central/quasi-power structure aka the syndicate, but it's separate from the government and it's worker-owned with shares also being used like shareholder votes on things...
It's basically a non-statist form of socialism. Another term is libertarian socialism, or left-libertarianism, but it's totally different from anarcho-capitalism or right-libertarianism.
You'll find a lot of people who might lean left or be DSA would really support this... I think a weaker central govt is good, maybe even making states have their own militaries that the fed "conscripts" when there's mutual agreed threats, and the governors would be the senate.. the fed would just govern international stuff, and interstate commerce. States would be more in control, and even cities would have more power than states and majority of taxes would go to county, state, then federal... maybe like 50%, 30%, 20%.
That's how my ideal society would look. Eventually the healthcare union syndicate program could roll out nationally for everybody, and maybe be subsidized some by the government for those who aren't officially "customers" but as we grow we'd have so many competing businesses it'd hard not to be a customer for one of them...