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Comment by soco | Hacker News Reader

Reality check: the workers never control the means of production. Not even in communist states, not even in China. On paper? Sure, paper is forgiving. But the oligarchy, either by party or by money, does what they want. The only enclaves where the workers own it is in small cooperatives (mostly insignificant).

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I always thought that those that can deny something control it. The workers, by withdrawing their labour, have effective control. However it’s rarely exercised and I think that’s partly because of lack of belief that it’s true.

These days of course, workers’ days are numbered as automation will eventually make them extinct.

It's not just lack of belief, it's a coordination problem.

Just because we admit to ourselves that it probably won't end well if we keep allowing the powerful to use their power to get ever more power, for us personally it can be profitable to go along with it. Or too risky to go against it.

The "iron law of oligarchy" (Robert Michels) says that any large organizations will be controlled by a small organized leadership - so the organized minority will control it.

As I said, it's always uncertain how much power is in the hands of those who nominally are supposed to have it.

But it's also not an either-or. I view states as more socialist the less power is concentrated with a few.

And in non-militarized states, that's a lot about how concentrated wealth is.

Not sure we can really define China as a communist state, particularly nowadays. Their economy is essentially just state managed capitalism now, which is probably economically closer to facism than it is communism.

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