Why is socialism becoming increasingly popular in the United States?

No, I can't think up a just system that works. But I imagine that with all the boundry pushing going on these last several years, like covid lockdowns and stimulus checks (not to mention too big to fail), someone who is so inclined could take up the lessons learned about boundries and how far is too far when people will decide that they won't take it anymore.

As far as socialism gaining popularity, I think it is mainly happening because economic conservatives, who don't want to spend money or expand government control, have been shooting down every fix to the economy as socialism, a false claim, of course, and then they wonder why socialism has been becoming popular recently.

 

"Forever" is a long time, but I don't think our basic nature as biological beings will ever allow us to live in a stateless society where altruism fully replaces greed.

I wouldn't be so sure on that one. I taught history, I'm a peer reviewed historian for the economic history of New France (yeah, I know, who cares about New France ), and I've been an unelected pol--read "activist").

In this hemisphere, for example, we have Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela where "socialist" governments decided to subvert the election process.

I suspect here a socialist government would be elected. Would it then be a government that rigs elections?

I think they would probably improve. The very liberal government if British Columbia is implementing UNDRIP (United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples) and protecting the environment.

My fear is that socialists will destroy the market economy thinking it's evil. Markets actually exist and socialists think they can make them go away. Political decisions that work against markets, often employing threats of punishment, create social unrest. They also create extensive black markets.

No, I was making observations about difficulties associated with worker-owned business. My list was by no means exhaustive.

I'm not asking for your help. You're not addressing the problem of scaling up your model. Tell me how you would extend worker-owned enterprises to oil refineries where the capital per worker is millions of dollars.

I think you have to be careful about who you promote for what. If you start picking winners and losers, you have to force your choices on the system. There's a market for talent and you're ignoring it.

I take it you have no answer to my specific concerns about worker-owners being added and leaving.

Sure, there's plenty more about profits and who gets them. The efficiency of capital--also a problem in our capitalist society and it's ability to use capital effectively--is another issue.

 

Why is socialism becoming increasingly popular in the United States?

Vulture Capitalism.

 

People who know how economies work are ignored and denounced as "anti-socialist?"

You strike me as favoring a system without having an idea of how it would work.

How do we know you're not a false prophet?

 

Vultures feed off the dead. This system eats people alive.

 

You are the one who dreams up these destructive ideas. We simply reject it. Anyone can dream. Dreams are not important. Actions are important.

 

Business profits are the source of all wealth. Every nickel of it.

 

It is neither. It has nothing to do with economic systems.

 

Socially beneficial is socialism.

 

The statement was ‘government helping people’. That costs money so it has a lot to do with economic systems. For example gathering taxes is part of an economic system.

 

It has nothing to do with economic systems. It has to do with government spending in whatever economic system.

 

Since we are referring to types of economic systems, economic results would be a logical place to start. GDP per capita perhaps.

 

Dude there are dozens of them not just one. You want to buy it, it is up to you. That's called freedom of choice. Yet you still pay for city water whether you want it or not even if you have to have your own filtering system to drink it.

 

Note the phrase you will own nothing and you will be happy. Is antithetical to human nature. Note things held in common tend to disintegrate more quickly over time than things that are held by individuals.

 

Stupid yes, but more importantly, wholly owned by special interests. We live in a fascist plutocracy.

 

Due to the self-protective, self-perpetuating nature of economy, there is no other policy anything like what I suggested. So your expectation or hope for "another policy we can discuss" is not realistic. YOU have chosen to describe such a society as the Declaration of Independence asserts our society to be as "opposed to all of human history and human nature". That doesn't mean such a society is, in fact, opposed to all of human history and human nature. So the bottom line in your case is that you are inventing a negative answer that will conform to your particular biases and justify them.

 

No, dude, it depends entirely on what it is private ownership of. One of the things government policies do is create private ownership of artificial monopolies like patents and copyrights, which guarantee shortages of things that would otherwise be plentiful. When government issues a title of private ownership to land, minerals, etc., that inherently deprives everyone but the owner of their natural liberty to use that resource -- i.e., there's then a shortage of it for everyone but the owner. Do you think that if government issued a title of ownership to the earth's atmosphere, that the owner would not be charging you rent for air to breathe? Do you think if government issued a title of private ownership to the letter K there would not be a shortage of it? Wake tf up.

 

No, it is fact that you cannot refute. And neither can anyone else.

That is exactly what a government-issued title of private ownership to land, IP, etc. does.

Maybe in theory. But in practice, governments issue titles of private ownership to things -- especially land -- that legally entitle the owners to steal from the rest of us.

 

Right. But one way to make sure people don't have any wealth is to take it from them. Another way is to deprive them of their natural individual liberty rights to create wealth for themselves using what nature provided. And it is much easier and more comfortable to do those things when you are legally entitled to do them, as the owners of privileges like land titles and IP monopolies are.

It is most definitely limited in many ways. Google "supply curve" and start reading. Some kinds of wealth, like land, are not only limited in supply but FIXED.

Money is what people use to exchange "stuff" like goods and services.

No it isn't. It's a function of the value of the stuff you have.

Try saying something relevant.

 

But those things have an end date and without those things almost certainly wouldn't exist. I have yet to see a shortage of anything that was copyrighted. Supply always expands to meet or exceed demand. Shortages always create black markets and or work arounds. Price and wage controls always create shortages and black markets.

 

Ever read the "tragedy of the commons". That which is everyone's will be maintained by no one. A time honored rule demonstrated uncountable times down through history.

 

The spending is socialism made manifest.
Socialism is not an economic system in my view.

 

In order to help one government must penalize another and in that is the crux of the problem. If you reward sloth and indolence you will get more of it. If you penalize creativity and productivity you will get less of it and everyone starves.

 

And maybe it will. There certainly are plenty of examples of personal altruism. But I don't think it would be necessary.

Knowledge of history would not help much in formulating a guess as to the probable path the creation of a new society and economy might take. One of the few questions one could speculate about on the basis of history might be how many new systems in the past have been established by completely eliminating the old and imposing a new, untested and predetermined set of laws, rules, and structures on society successfully with long-term success and persistence. Can you think of any? I think the answer would be "no". And that would have to change your response here.

But that is all "old system/old thinking" that I've already rejected many times as being a useful guide to the future of socialism. Besides, I didn't mention socialism in my question and that was so as to not restrict answers to any one idea or system.

Is that what you would want? Do you think that is something most people would want? Let's be careful to realize that anything I would propose or prefer would be something determined by meeting the needs of society as it reflects and is guided by ongoing input from the public. So one of the first things that would be necessary would be a means of obtaining public input from a society which, to a large extent today, prefers to remain uninvolved and let other "experts" handle the situation. My first thought is to provide weekly "Friday afternoon meetings" at work where workers would democratically discuss and develop proposals of all kinds for implementation.

Improvements that immediately affect the people would be an absolute necessity.

You're probably thinking of armchair "wannabee" and poorly informed part-time "socialists". Try getting inputs on this from established, serious, dedicated socialist as you would find in places like The Socialist Party USA, Socialist Alternative, The Party for Socialism and Liberation, and even "Ask Professor Wolff" at Democracy at Work. Then you could read Marx's brief critique in "Critique of the Gotha Programme" where he wrote that the new economy would begin with all the "birthmarks of the society from which it emerged". I think you would find that markets will persist. How else can goods be distributed would you think? Got any alternative to suggest even if you "fear" them?

I've made a bit of a study of WSDEs. In fact two different groups have contacted me to ask for my help in creating their co-ops. So I might be able to answer your questions about them if you have any.

I think you probably found my answer to that after you wrote that.

I have no idea what you're talking about. Maybe you could reexamine my comment and then rewrite that, because I certainly never suggested anything that could be considered "picking winners and losers" nor anything I ignored. On the contrary, I suggested "we must rely on public leadership to work it out. Cultivating that leadership right from within the working class will be one of the jobs of government as it facilitates worker control and management."

I offered my input on co-ops and above you seem to have rejected it. But now you ask for more. Ok. Currently, with worker's co-ops being mostly but not always small, they begin with workers pooling their own money in most cases since low-interest funding that Sen. Healy and Sanders and Rep. Hassan tried to create didn't get passed, although there are increasing numbers of cases of business owners wanting to retire and choosing to find ways to transition their businesses to their workers as a co-op. But in any case, workers' co-ops are based on the LLC structure and are modified to provide one share of stock to each worker-member, granting each one vote on the creation, growth, and management of the co-op. Their one share can be sold but only back to the co-op treasury. So any buying and selling of stock must involve the co-op treasury as one of the two participants in the transaction. And the value of the stock is based on the value of the business. Hence, worker-members may come and go at will.

Does this answer your question?

Ok. Typically, since the worker-members get to vote on profits and what to do with them, someone (often from the accounting office) suggests a portion be put aside for maintenance, upgrades, business ups and downs, and other future needs just like any corporation does, and then the remainder has in the past been allocated for bonuses, child care, education (Mondragon has their own university now), and anything else deemed worthy.

 

NO! And yet the big problem in the past including in my own personal experience with organizing, has been what Mao for all his faults called "capitalist-roaders". "Moles" who "bore from within" or revisionists and counter revolutionaries who work to undermine and destroy the effort in the interest of restoring capitalism have been very serious problems that must be constantly guarded against. Some such agents of capitalism will even do things like assert that such concerns are baseless and only for the purpose of creating a dictatorship. EVERY opportunity to undermine and subvert will be utilized by such agents. Yet, at the same time, dedicated professionals and experts must be and have been tapped.

LOL!!!!! Ya think?

You can only know by getting involved when the time comes, studying into it, and experiencing the process over a few intense years. But right now you are not in any position to have any idea about me and my motives. All you can do is listen, read, and acquire relevant knowledge so you can make intelligent, informed statements and ask such questions.