I am on the fence about this one if your for profit that sujests capitalists, but than again its state owned and anything state owned cant possibly be good can it ?
Usually when the government takes control of anything it turns to shit I dont see state owned infrastructure doing any differnt
“What would happen if the Soviet Union occupied the Sahara Desert? Two things: First, nothing. Then, a shortage of sand.”
State owned enterprise is the literal definition of socialism.
No wonder it was so unpopular with my test in game to see what happened if I started buying up enterprise it was nearly a disaster but for some strange reason profitable
It can be popular if you implement socialist policy as the population will adjust as a result. Nationalising everything in your first term is obviously not gonna be successful haha
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I’m, not well-read enough to pretend to understand or explain how the concept of profit and socialism are inherently contradictory.
But, I can say say that socialism is not “when the government does things”
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The government doing things, no. The government owning and operating major industries, yes.
I’m, not sure exactly if this conversation is something for a video game message board. So I’m sorry if I’m overstepping I guess.
That’s, an interesting take on socialism for sure. What exactly convinced you that socialism was state involvement in industry?
And would sourcing a few statist, and a few anti-state intellectuals on their definitions of socialism. Notably that they all don’t consider the essence of the state, but instead people’s relationship with their labor power in some way change your mind?
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Oh no, you’re one of the “real socialism has never been tried!” people.
Yeah, don’t have this argument here.
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Well next alpha I am gonna try ultra capital liberal again and see of that’s still broken and easy away fuck
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This is simply not true
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Well it would be state capitalism if its state owned companies that have the purpose of profit, kind of like what they have in the PRC.
To the point where the majority percentage of national GDP is in the public sector as opposed to the private sector.
I agree, but what about in the case where a nationalised business’s purpose is not to make profit but it does anyway (perhaps not immediately, but eventually). For instance, Royal Mail in the UK before it was privatised.
If it’s not a goal it’s not capitalism as such I think.
Although you could always subsidize it further to make it cheaper for users and effectively make it precisely 0 net profit/loss
One reason not to do so is that it’s in exchange for having lower taxes, targeting only the people who actually use the service rather than everybody, which may well make sense for some services such as the ones you listed
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One wonders how exactly the entire economy is supposed to be “democratically controlled” if state owned industries are always a net loss.
Indeed, socialism seems to mostly be about having workers who do the work that produces stuff decide how to make use of the means of production, which can include making others pay for it. Making profits isn’t against socialism. It’s a matter of who makes the profit. Socialists would have it that the workers do, rather than random CEOs or shareholders.
And technically the state doesn’t have to own anything for that. Companies don’t even have to be state-owned. CEO payment caps and Workers On Boards should do a lot to that effect. Another might be to encourage conflating workers and shareholders: Hand out shares directly to workers. - Some companies, especially in the tech sector, do indeed do that in order to avoid poaching. But perhaps there could be a policy to either encourage it (tax break/grant) or demand it. (Quota on how much of any company’s shares must be in workers’ hands)
Indeed some of the most extreme takes on Socialism are strongly anti-government. They’d prefer various forms of Anarchy and I’m pretty sure those people would rather not have utilities be state-owned. Or, for that matter, company-owned. Instead they should be community-owned. The government, in so far as it ought to exist at all, should only encourage these things to happen. I think. I’m not at all an expert on these matters.
But anyway, yes, getting profit at all isn’t anti-socialist. The issue comes in when that becomes the major goal. Like, if you effectively declare the government a Corporation in its own right, and if your goal is to maximize profit for that Corporation (and if that doesn’t include maximizing profits of each individual worker under said corporation), then that would be solidly state capitalist, right?
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Private ownership (even by workers) for private profit is the dictionary definition of capitalism.
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