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I'm south african. My government has the means of production for electricity seized (they own Eskom which has a monopoly.) It is well known that while the regular person has to deal with load shedding, the government officials do not
Add the issues with South African Airways and I would not like all the means of production to be owned by the government
Owned by the government is specifically NOT "owned by the workers". That is definitionally not socialism, and it's not communism either.
I seriously hate how no one even knows what socialism or real communism is... Only in stupid authoritarian "communism" like China do you have the government own much of anything directly. Hell, in proper Communism, there's not supposed to be much of a government at all. Nothing like the giant armies of beurocrats and politicians most places have today, anyways.
That's kind of the point of most people who don't think communism can function in current society, the government represents the people, right? So "the people" owning the means of production just becomes "the government" owning the means of production.
Which is why all "communist" states that have ever existed function identically to their fascist counterparts, because regardless of what you call it, the state owns everything.
That is because most people literally lack the imagination. Literally incapable of understanding. Extreme communism doesn't even have personal property or a main government, so to fail to see anything other than government ownership is a big tell on ignorance. Yes, most people are ignorant, and those in charge LOVE that fact.
I think most people (correctly imo) don’t see how a large enough company can operate without some hierarchy, which seems to run up against the idea of being entirely equally employee owned.
There’s always going to be leaders (manager or just someone who others listen to) That person necessarily has more responsibility and control than his peers and is justly compensated more (otherwise nobody would put in extra work, say, to train as an engineer or doctor)
That person has their own interests that don’t always line up with the company and may use their influence to guide the company in a way that benefits them.
Suddenly you have a worker class and a bourgeois-esque class.
Most people (incorrectly imo) think that the “unbiased” checks and balances in government counteract that.
If there’s another option that accounts for hierarchies in large employee owned and operated companies let me know…. please
EDIT: large as in number of employees
Again, people are implicitly strawmanning things. No one except extreme anarchists believe in zero hierarchy. Why does everyone always try these insane notions? I didn't say "abolish hierarchy", yet here you are using it as an argument.
If you think executives that make literally hundreds of times more than the lower workers are actually working hundreds of times harder, you are fucking stupid.
If you think they're taking all the risk, then you are fucking stupid. If the company goes under, EVERYONE has to find a new job. If it's a dangerous job, it's the laborers who are taking basically all of the risk.
Just because you can point at specific companies doing good things DOES NOT adequately defend the status quo.
You didn’t present any ideas or solutions to argue against. There’s no argument happening here.
Nor are there strawmen because there’s no argument being made.
You said that there’s generally a lack of imagination with regards to this stuff and I was just sharing my opinions as to why.
You are strawmanning the concept. I'm saying you are likely misunderstanding what the terms being discussed even mean.
How workers would own the means of production in socialism/communism without the government?
Only full blown anarchists and extreme libertarians don't want a government at all. It is utterly foolish to think all leftists wouldn't support 'an' enforcement agency, regulations, and laws...
People expressing opposition to the military industrial complex get called tankies these days.
Well that's just a complete and utter misuse of the term, then. Possibly an effort by tankies to remove meaning from the label.
A tankie is a fake "leftist" who idolizes leftist policies and ideals, but does it via worship of the past efforts, like the USSR, or even specific "socialists" or "communists" like Lenin and so many other horrible dictators... in so doing, they completely and utterly fail to live a single leftist ideal and in reality end up idolizing fascists and authoritarians like Mao. This makes them functionally identical to fascists whilst they claim leftist motives.
Tankies realize leftist ideas are good, but utterly and completely fail to connect wishes with meaningful action, thus want some power figure to do it for them. They're too stupid, ball-less, and self-centered to realize the actions they want to take are at best representative democracies, and at worst fascist dictatorships.
Tankies are wonderful to learn to properly identify, because it makes it sooo much easier to discard them and look for real leftists instead of idiots who use the same words.
should be owned by the people
I trust those people even less
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You mean by completely disregarding the power net and other social securities?
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Trust me, you don't want those amenities in the hands of unelected greedy business men either.
Load shedding is still better than not having any electricity at all because it isn't profitable enough to manage the power net in your region.
At least the greedy business men have a business to run. The politicians just get bailed out and spend it on luxury cars
I think perhaps decentralizing the means of production would be a better path.
You live in a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, i.e. a liberal democracy where the bourgeoisie (owners of the means of production) dictate the laws.
State owned companies work for the interests of the ruling class, in this case the bourgeoisie, so you can bet it is subsidized by the people and the ruling class (and their businesses) benefit off it. (Socializing losses and privatizing profits)
If it was owned by say Elon Musk, it wouldn't be any different for the regular working class people. Only the relations between the bourgeoisie may change.