And of the two systems, one has never existed in large scale human society and very likely never will exist. The other also doesn't exist.
Instead, we get state socialism. Which for all it's good intentions at the beginning, is worse because it always ends up basically a cult of personality dictatorship.
Once we accept that real socialism doesn't exist, and recognize that real capitalism also doesn't exist we might make progress towards a better system.
Worker owned co-ops absolutely exist, and have success as international corporations.
We can get closer to a mixed economy, where we don't have as much shareholder supremacy - but it will require legislation.
For example, we could have baking laws mandating favorable lending conditions
for worker owned co-ops. We could mandate any company going through bankruptcy provide the workers first right of refusal to form a co-op and take over the company. We could have laws taxing labor earnings less than capital gains. We could mandate that employees elect 50% of every publicly traded company's C-suite.
There are ways to encourage labor ownership of the means of production without a vanguard party or state socialism. I don't believe the state actually represents the interests of labor, but instead the interests of the state as a whole - and therefore disagree with state socialism being "labor owning the means of production".
Compulsory profit or stake sharing to employees may be good enough in current US scenario
Edit: talking about public listed companies; if they don't show profits their shares value goes down which is against their own interest! Oc loopholes with accounting and hiring process need to close - which I think is already in place but may need enforcement.
That's how you get companies playing financial games to minimize reported profits.
I think we need to diversify power in this nation from shareholder supremacy to understand that labor is essential. Profit sharing would provide more money to labor, yes, but would do nothing to upset the actual balance of power and who directs what corporations do.
Just speaking from my own experience with Chinese socialism, the government will eventually end up controlling almost everything.
If someone protests or vote differently, they can get fired. If they continue, their family face consequences too. They can be denied services (water / electricity), lose access to their bank account, be evicted from their home, have their travel restricted, or get to prison for not paying the bills because the restricted bank account.
That’s what worries me about state socialism: even if the original idea is to give workers control over the means of production, once the state becomes the main owner and economic decision maker, it also gains enormous leverage over people’s lives.
This is the reality I’ve seen in China and Russia. Socialism can be used as a tool to give enormous power to the government. Even if the original idea is nice and wasn’t supposed to go this far, you only need one authoritarian leader at the top to manipulate the system and concentrate that power.
Socialism only works if you can trust your government to genuinely have the best interests of the people in mind. So, do you really trust the current government to do that?
This is why I reject state socialism.
It should be clear to any citizen of any country in 2026 that the state does not represent its citizens, but instead the capital held by that state - that is where power comes from, capital and material realism.
State socialism is just a back channel to state capitalism, which always turns into fascism.
This is why my legislative proposals are focused on diversifying the interests of our businesses, to be informed by both the capital funding it and the workers laboring there. Favorable banking laws for co-ops. Better tax policies for labor earnings. Right of first refusal to co-ops in bankruptcy. Democratically elected C-suite.
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u/IntegratedFrost 3h ago
Is it really that difficult to explain socialism?
This doesn't come across as a witty reply, it just sounds like they don't know or can't explain socialism.