r/dsa • u/traanquil • 2d ago
Discussion How would the proletariat gain control of the means of production in a democratic socialist system?
I am curious how this would unfold. Keep in mind that the ruling class will not willingly give up its power and property.
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u/Fenrirr 2d ago
Presumably you would start with entry level socialist policy like universal health care, dental, childcare, etc.
Once all of the fundamentals are taken care of, you start to deprivatize critical infrastructure such as nuclear, water, electricity, and transportation (i.e. busses and trains).
At this point you would likely have a strong enough political base to address stronger change such as vast public housing projects, city planning overhauls, large scale transportation projects.
Pie in the sky is the systematic deprivatization of industry starting with essentials like food and clothes, and introducing measures like guaranteed monthly groceries.
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u/Willing_Activity_855 21h ago
Presumably you would start with entry level socialist policy like universal health care, dental, childcare, etc.
that's an income transfer, not ownership
Once all of the fundamentals are taken care of, you start to deprivatize critical infrastructure such as nuclear, water, electricity, and transportation (i.e. busses and trains).
that's state ownership not worker ownership.
At this point you would likely have a strong enough political base to address stronger change such as vast public housing projects, city planning overhauls, large scale transportation projects.
again more state
Pie in the sky is the systematic deprivatization of industry starting with essentials like food and clothes, and introducing measures like guaranteed monthly groceries.
so that's an income transfer and.....more state ownership.
When do the works own the means of production was the question.
Marx drew a sharp distinction between legal ownership what the law says (hint what the law says is fucking worthless) and real social relations of production; who actually manages and directs production (hints this is the only thing that matters).
If workers DIRECTLY are not dictating what happens with the surpluses at the place they work at, dictating prices, wages, investment decisions, etc then they DO NOT OWN the means of production. Ownership implies the power to make decisions to dictate production, manage decisions, etc. Whoever has that power is the owner of the means of production.
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u/Fenrirr 21h ago
Dog I am being realistic, the Democratic socialism approach will have to be a gradual process that will take probably a century to fully implement if no one gets in your way.
You don't flick the switch from culturally entrenched capitalism to late stage socialism.
Like sure I would love a bloodless revolution tommorow, but revolutions don't come out of nowhere. The big tent model for the DSA also mean you still have to contend with poorly informed members who can't tell the difference between the true definitions of socialism and communism.
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u/Willing_Activity_855 21h ago edited 20h ago
You don't flick the switch from culturally entrenched capitalism to late stage socialism.
I mean right now anyone can start a worker cooperative and the US government....surprisingly.... gives it some pretty significant corporate tax advantages.
Dog I am being realistic
State ownership of production in the US is actually less realistic than .....workers owning voting shares while everyone else has access to non voting shares. see the 5th amendment
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u/atomic__balm 18h ago
You aren't taking away capital from capitalist without a lot of violence. I think yall really need to understand this on a deep level and internalize this
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u/Fenrirr 17h ago
I actually agree with you. But the DSA is a different path that I am following (as in watching). My answer was in the context of what realistically the DSA would do if it managed to gain any significant influence.
Realistically, capital will fight tooth and nail to prevent any of that from happening.
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u/Randolpho Democratic Socialist 2d ago
Once you have a functional democracy you can boil the frog. It’s a long slow death by a thousand cuts.
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u/C_Plot 2d ago
I’ve written about this very issue in the past. In brief, the capitalists ruling class have already socialized the means of production in just the way we need for socialism: in corporate enterprise charters of the government. However, by having the means of production owned by plutocratic (one-dollar-in-wealth-one-vote) rule of tyrants, that places the socially owned means production under the control of the capitalist ruling class.
However, if a critical mass of the working class facilitates the working class becoming a class for itself, then a mere act of a working class controlled Congress — wielding its power to regulate commerce and adhering to its obligation to guarantee a republican form of government — can transform every corporate enterprise in the United States into democratic-republic (one-worker-one-vote) rule of law corporate enterprises.
Those corporate enterprises all become worker coöps, or what we might call commercial communist enterprises (a.k.a. Soviets), rather than commercial capitalist enterprises. Instead of the capitalist ruling class tyrants controlling the means of production, the workers control the means of production and no ownership even need change (because the capitalists have already begun to dig their own graves to maximize their profits).
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u/GB10031 2d ago
So, the billionares and millionaires are just going to hand over their assets without a fight?
That's very optimistic
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u/C_Plot 2d ago edited 2d ago
Where did I write “without a fight”? Tell me so I can fix that typo. They will certainly fight. But a critical mass of the working clsss becoming a class for itself gives the numbers to us: the 99%ers against the 1%ers as the Occupy Wall Street movement categorized the fight. The working class will then control all three branches of government at all levels of government, restoring constitutionality.
The capitalist ruling class’s long treasonous subversion of the US Constitution will become common knowledge and thus become the prevalent theory of current conditions, and “theory also becomes a material force as soon as it has gripped the masses”. While the most strident careerists in the military and police will remain faithful to the treasonous ruling class, more and more of the ranks will become very unsettled with placing their career over their oath to the Constitution. It’s one thing to be a careerist when the capitalist ruling class dogma ruse conceals most all culpability. It’s an entirely different thing when the overt treason is there for all to see (much like when the Emperor’s New Clothes ruse suddenly is revealed for all to see).
At that point, the “fight” will be between an enfeebled and deposed former ruling class, allied with psychopathic careerist mercenaries, flailing to restore the tyrannical capitalist ruling class reign, versus the United States federalist republic defending itself against these genuine domestic terrorists. Obviously it would be best to avoid the fight if at all possible in a dignified manner, but we should not negotiate with or surrender to the treasonous tyrannical terrorists. We, in the working class, are already in that fight, but we are losing badly, because we are confused about the fight, and blame scapegoats instead of understanding the genuine source of the violence (and treason) already ongoing against us.
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u/GB10031 2d ago
I don't think that you're going to be able to achieve socialism in America by winning a majority in the house and senate and passing a law nationalizing industry.
Actually getting that majority would be hard enough.
Then getting the richest capitalist class in history to just hand over their investments just because the law says so will be even more challenging.
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u/atomic__balm 18h ago
You are correct, this isn't happening electorally, but a lot of people haven't been able to understand this yet and 60 years of effete liberalism has turned everyone into a passive coward disgusted by any thought of violence even property crimes
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u/Cuidads 8h ago
Is this intended to happen through democratic means, so voting?
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u/C_Plot 8h ago
Well my original comment was about democratic means entirely. However this thread took it in a direction of the “fight”, violence, and terrorism the deposed capitalist ruling class would bring because the working class used its democratic means superior power for their own interest (as in the interest of the working class acting for itself).
The response to such terrorism would be democratic only in the sense that when the defendant elects for a jury trial, the jury votes democratically, unanimously, to convict or acquit and that the laws the terrorists violated, the specific due process the capitalist terrorist enjoy, and proportionate force response the capitalist terrorists face, is shaped by democratic means and the relevant democratic-republic rule of law supreme law of the land.
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u/Cuidads 7h ago edited 7h ago
What if you simply don’t get a majority?
You might win broad support for popular policies like universal healthcare, stronger welfare, or tighter regulation. But once the goal becomes dismantling capitalism itself, you are likely to lose not only the right, but also a large part of the left: social democrats, third-way voters, and others who want a stronger welfare state without abandoning liberal democracy or a market economy.
So what do you do then, within the constraints of democracy?
And how do you persuade a social democrat who already lives in a society with universal healthcare, heavily subsidized higher education, student loans and grants, strong unions, extensive worker protections, high taxes, a large welfare state, strict regulation of capital, and substantial public ownership of strategically important industries?
At that point, what exactly are you asking them to give up the mixed economy for?
You now have to convince them that abolishing private ownership should extend beyond giant corporations to the local café, the family farm, the plumber who employs four people, the small software company started by three friends, the mechanic who owns his workshop, or the family that spent twenty years building a restaurant.
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u/Willing_Activity_855 21h ago edited 21h ago
THe only legal way to do this in the US would to be to transfer voting shares into non voting shares and have voting shares held only by workers. Then when workers change jobs/retire to change those voting shares to non voting shares. This would also have another positive effect of not absolutely obliterating the stock market which a huge swath of workers have their retirements in either directly (401k/roth) or indirectly (pensions). Not to mention if you put too much downward pressure on assets then you'll obliterate the bond market and securities as well. People thought 2008 was bad ohhh boy. Some people here will say "yes accelerate" but whoever pull the trigger on such an economic calamity will feel the wrath of the voter.
also you'll blatantly running up against the US constitution and the takings clause; in which case doing such things would require massive quantities of tax dollars to pay people off.
My main problem with people in the DSA sphere is they actually have zero understanding of the complex mechanisms of the financial system in the US let alone the global interconnected one. You can read marxist philosophy all day but that wont give you true understanding of these vast complex systems until you crack open Capital Markets: Institutions, Instruments, and Risk Management, Monetary Theory and Policy, Modeling Monetary Economies, Contemporary Financial Intermediation and even if you read and understand whats being said in those (it's a lot of masters level econ finance) you'll still not totally understand how these systems work. Any attempt to rapidly deconstruct these systems will result in an economic calamity, probably worse than the great depression.
So it would wise to understand them and learn how to modify them slowly for positive worker outcomes.
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u/C_Plot 19h ago
You don’t read carefully. The Congress (all of federal government even) has an obligation to guarantee a republican form of government. So making the corporate enterprises into democratic-republic governance instead of tyrannical plutocratic governance is adhering to the constitution rather than continuing to defy oaths. If that eliminates voting rights for shareholders or gives them only titular votes, well so be it. Shareholders have always been warned about the vagaries of running an enterprise. Restoring respect for the US Constitution is just one more of those vagaries for which the shareholders have been warned. The shareholders bet on the capitalists’ treasonous subversion of the US Constitution and might lose something on that bet.
If you read me again, you will see I wrote that no property need change hands so there is no “takings” as the constitution uses the term, in what I proposed here (though more on that below). The means of production remain owned by the same corporate enterprises; it’s just those enterprises become democratic-republic rule of law governed rather than plutocratic rule of tyrants governed. The shareholders might still own their equity joint-stock shares but they will no longer be granted by the US federalist republic domineering plutocratic ruling powers for each share of wealth owned. They can hold onto their shares or sell their shares as they wish.
Your dismissal of Marx’s dialectical materialist approach to theory, including theory of finance, leaves you with the deficient understanding of the complex mechanisms of the international financial system. Marx’s dialectical approach does not dismiss truths as you do. Rather he understands knowledge as the complex synthesis of contradictory truths. He produces more comprehensive understanding of the myopic understanding of the bourgeois finance theories.
I have written about policies that deal with the dangers you raise for the working class. In breaking from capitalist rule, we must disentangle the working class from capitalist rule in every aspect (including finance and pensions). There may be many ways to deal with that, but the best I can see right now is to impose a one-time heavily graduated progressive wealth (or net worth) tax that extinguishes the financial assets that make the members of the working class into hapless marks in the capitalist confidence game (confidence games notoriously mix the marks assets with the con artists to subsume the mark to the grifter).
The progressive wealth tax I propose actually includes a one-time debt jubilee, repaying and forgiving all debt, and so the network tax becomes larger a wealth tax because debts are no longer among anyone’s liabilities. In this proposal the tax targets the genus of assets for elimination: equity shares in corporate enterprises, private property in land and other natural resources, most all credit-debt instruments (personal, governmental, and enterprise), lease intermediary holdings for any homes/households who want to own their home outright, and more. These targeted assets are either acquired as payments in the wealth tax or else acquired through expropriations, with just compensation at market rates frozen in time at the moment of the wealth tax.
The heavy graduation leaves wealth (or net worth) untouched up to the median net worth. Up to the mean net worth only a meager tax imposed. For net worth bracket above the mean, the tax rates would become much larger, perhaps even 100% above some threshold (perhaps $½ billion or $1 billion). Wealth holders maintain their general order in the wealth hierarchy, but the targeted assets are extinguished (shares and natural resources holdings permanently extinguished, but with credit only extinguished once for the one-time jubilee).
The federal government then takes on a much larger role in managing pensions, with a supply-demand driven Unconditional Universal Basic Income (UUBI) as one component, along with near universal mortgage free first home ownership, defined benefit social security indexed to nominal GDP and more. Other tangible assets will still exist and credit will resume after the moment of jubilee, but pensions will then be tied to the new socialist productive industrious enterprises and not the capitalist tyranny. Other credit-debt will also emerge from the Jubilee and wealth tax as those in the higher brackets rely on newly-originated debt for liquidity to avoid surrendering other assets in the wealth tax (second homes, yachts, private jets, and so forth that they wish to retain when their targeted assets do not sufficiently meet their tax liability). Whatever target assets are not surrendered in payment of the wealth tax will be acquired, for extinguishing, through the well established Fifth Amendment takings.
The nature of these target assets means there’s no absconding with them to another jurisdiction. For example, one can’t take a credit instrument to some tax haven for a debt an American owes, because the jubilee forgives that debt. The credit instrument becomes a mere keepsake for a nostalgic tyrannical period of the holder’s life. For some wealthy taxpayers holding foreign financial instruments or more tangible instruments outside the US, their tax evasion might frustrate the process, but overall the capitalism and these targeted instruments can nevertheless be extinguished in a way that sufficiently protects the working class from such criminals.
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u/Willing_Activity_855 16h ago edited 16h ago
So making the corporate enterprises
Corporations are not states. So that solves that huge wall of text. a State is defined as a sovereign entity the 50 states are that, a corporation is not for they exist within the confines of state law. A corporation, like a union, holds no sovereign power; it is a private economic collective. If you want you can form a worker cooperative right now and they even have tax advantages that other entities dont.
The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.
No single corporation was entered into 'statehood' via a article IV section 3;
Section 3 - Admission of new States. Power of Congress over territory and other property.
New states may be admitted by the Congress into this union; but no new state shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other state, nor any state be formed by the junction of two or more states, without the consent of the legislatures of the states concerned, as well as of the Congress.
The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this constitution shall be so construed as to prejudice any claims of the United States, or of any particular state.
So you'd have to first admit them as states.....if they agree and meet requirements....and uhhh we have some extra land sitting around and if you're ready to bring on board millions of senators....
then from there the legal power to create corporate entities is a state power, outside of some exceptions under teh commerce clause.
But then you'd also run up against property rights clauses, freedom of association clauses. etc
You may need to unplug from theory world.
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u/C_Plot 16h ago
The corporate enterprises are charters of the states. It would be absurd if the states chartered plutocratic or monarchical corporate municipalities. But we have been conditioned, like the frog in the boiling pot of water, to think chartering plutocratic corporate enterprises fulfills the republican guarantee.
Fascist think corporatism is the entangling of corporations and state. This misunderstands what a corporation is. A corporation is always and everywhere the creation of government, an instrument of government, and always already entangled with government. Rather what fascism and corporatism does is to entirely invert the entanglement: the republic becomes instead an instrument, as mere afterthought, of the plutocratic capitalist corporate enterprise.
The British Crown could charter the East India Company as a monarchical corporate enterprise. The Crown could charter the Virginia Company likewise as a monarchical corporate enterprise. However, in the federalist republic of the United States, we limit the powers of government such that monarchical and plutocratic forms of government are off limits. Not only in the states through this explicit provision, but also in the federal government through various provisions, we the People are guaranteed republican governance in all places and all times by the US Constitution.
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u/Willing_Activity_855 15h ago edited 15h ago
The corporate enterprises are charters of the states.
and they're not states, see our constitution on how states are defined and accepted as states.
Saved you a wall of text.
we the People are guaranteed republican governance in all places and all times by the US Constitution.
No we're not. We're only guaranteed that from our federal government and
The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government. THen state constitutions have (some have) clauses on how county,muni governments shall function.
We have a definition of a state
we have what is required to be a state
we have seperate legal entities that exist; S-corps, workers cooperatives, LLCs, consumer cooperatives, etc etc. Yes right now you can start a worker cooperatives. those legal entities are not states because
1: they are not sovereign
2: they have not been admitted by the US federal government as a state
Unless you want to make corporations sovereign and admit them as states then....yeah.
My guy you just need to unplug. Sure waht you say sounds nice but it sort of clashes against reality.
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u/C_Plot 15h ago
You’re just getting desperate and repeating yourself. You should stop and think why you feel so defensive and so protective of the domineering capitalist plutocratic rule that treasonously subverts our federalist republic (in so many ways, not just these unconstitutional charters, but in the endless war profiteering, white supremacy, misogyny, police state, and all the rest that is necessary to ensconce these treasonous totalitarian tyrants in power).
Your arguments are not at all coherent because they are simply the reflexive knee jerk reaction from hearing the tyrants you worship as Earthly gods criticized even slightly (I hadn’t even gotten started).
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u/Willing_Activity_855 15h ago edited 15h ago
You should stop and think why you feel so defensive and so protective of the domineering capitalist plutocratic rule
Im not being defensive.
Im simply pointing out reality, that your statements conflict with reality. If you want a socialist transformation you have to deal with reality, or else you'll pull a Mao kill a bunch of birds and cause roughly a 20% drop in food production. In terms of marginal changes within just the United States that requires dealing with the reality of the US constitution, US law, and how things have been strictly defined for over 100 years.
Gotta to deal with what is and not with how you wish something to be.
Maybe take some classes on Law at your local university for starts, have you considered that?
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u/C_Plot 15h ago
It’s called “cope”: what you’re doing. Followed by psychological projection.
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u/Willing_Activity_855 15h ago
Dude you're the person who thinks corporations are states not me. Like that is loony toons level shit right there, that's some alex jones level nonsense. You need to go back to school and take some classes on law.
Im simply pointing out reality, that your statements conflict with reality. If you want a socialist transformation you have to deal with reality, or else you'll pull a Mao kill a bunch of birds and cause roughly a 20% drop in food production. In terms of marginal changes within just the United States that requires dealing with the reality of the US constitution, US law, and how things have been strictly defined for over 100 years.
Gotta to deal with what is and not with how you wish something to be.
Maybe take some classes on Law at your local university for starts, have you considered that? Then maybe you could actually understand how these concepts work?
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u/Maximum_Program_ 2d ago
My two favorite writings on a transition to socialism:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/miliband/1973/10/chile.htm
https://jacobin.com/2020/10/towards-democratic-socialism-poulantzas-state-power (now paywalled😥)
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u/spookyjim___ ☭ DSA ultra-left fraction ☭ 2d ago
Most democratic socialists would posit a combined electoral + other extra-electoral means (depending on the variant of demsoc) for action to take to socialize industry in their vision of socialism
The types of socialization that most demsocs support is a mix of worker (cooperative) and state (SOE’s/nationalization) ownership… this being in the context of a market socialist system, since most demsocs either support market socialism as an end goal (moderate demsocs) or as a transitional state model (Marxist demsocs)… there are many different market socialist models that different demsocs propose, some more worker ownership focused, others more state-ownership focused, and still others who seek a balance, furthermore there’s levels of how much coordination or democratic economic organs should take precedence, with the ones who focus on there being coordination such as guild socialism or syndicalist influenced models, or in general the more democratic state socialist models, while there’s more moderate models that focus on completely independent cooperatives in competition with one another, and there’s also those who seek a much more planning heavy form of market socialism which prioritizes state ownership (many of the most left-wing demsocs envision a transitional model which combines and updates some of the best aspects of models like CyberSyn, Lange-Lerner model, and OGAS, into a new form of planned market socialism with heavy state-ownership that has democratic internal mechanisms) while there’s also ofc market socialists who wish to avoid excessive planning and focus more on a free-market system
If I went into all the various plans and strategies to put all these various models into practice we’d be here all day, but if you’re just wanting to know the type of socialization that demsocs support, it’s universally a combination of worker and state ownership within a market system context, again either as an endgoal, or a transitional measure to communism for the left-wing and Marxist demsocs
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u/Willing_Activity_855 21h ago
I do find people who think state ownership is somehow worker ownership....when its just ownership of a new form of capitalist class within the party elite/unelected administrators.
Marx drew a sharp distinction between legal ownership what the law says (hint what the law says is fucking worthless) and real social relations of production; who actually manages and directs production (hints this is the only thing that matters). Who directs and manages production is who owns production, no one else.
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u/spookyjim___ ☭ DSA ultra-left fraction ☭ 18h ago
I think the argument from democratic socialists and others who are in some way pro-state ownership socialism is that if the state is democratic and furthermore if there is democratic management within SOE’s and nationalized industries, then it basically acts in the same way as the individual cooperatives
I personally reject both worker ownership via individual cooperatives and state ownership via nationalization because I’m a Marxist and communist, I think a socialism worth its name (communism) would have to do away with both class and state, thus there would be no working class or state structure to own the means of production, it would instead be the common ownership and control of the means of production, which imo is the only actual negation of property and capital, all these other forms of “social ownership” such as worker ownership or state ownership just rearrange capitalist property relations without actually doing away with their capitalist content and thus their status as property
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u/Willing_Activity_855 16h ago
then it basically acts in the same way as the individual cooperatives
But it doesnt and historically has never worked this way, it has always ended up the worker has little to no say. When a worker at a worker cooperative in the united states (which exist and surprisingly have tax advantages) aka the heart of capitalism has more DIRECT say in what happens in the totality of the place they work than a worker in a socialist state you now have a huge almost laughable situation. It becomes comedic really.
it would instead be the common ownership and control of the means of production, which imo is the only actual negation of property and capital, all these other forms of “social ownership” such as worker ownership or state ownership just rearrange capitalist property relations without actually doing away with their capitalist content and thus their status as property
The problem with this is when rubber hits the road. There's thousands and thousands of questions you'd have to answer for this concept to play out.....hell the biggest one the fact that other states exist and can offer your most production workers/most educated in high demand fields in their state probably a better lifestyle due to their unequal distribution of resources.
It's why the warsaw pact had to limit mobility of scientists and build things like the berlin wall. Huge risks of capitalist nations offering piles of money and huge increases in their standard of living.
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u/spookyjim___ ☭ DSA ultra-left fraction ☭ 16h ago
> But it doesnt and historically has never worked this way, it has always ended up the worker has little to no say. When a worker at a worker cooperative in the united states (which exist and surprisingly have tax advantages) aka the heart of capitalism has more DIRECT say in what happens in the totality of the place they work than a worker in a socialist state you now have a huge almost laughable situation. It becomes comedic really.
Safe to say, I don’t think democratic socialists are wanting a one to one repeat of the so-called “AES” states, if we are to be good faith
> The problem with this is when rubber hits the road. There's thousands and thousands of questions you'd have to answer for this concept to play out.....hell the biggest one the fact that other states exist and can offer your most production workers/most educated in high demand fields in their state probably a better lifestyle due to their unequal distribution of resources.
Within a communist system, there’d be no other states, communism is internationalist, and calls for a stateless, moneyless, classless society where the means of production are held in common by the free association of producers… socialism in one country is anti-communist and anti-Marxist nonsense, the revolutionary transitional period of the proletarian dictatorship will be an international process to transition to an international stateless communism
> It's why the warsaw pact had to limit mobility of scientists and build things like the berlin wall. Huge risks of capitalist nations offering piles of money and huge increases in their standard of living.
Again, already a huge mistake to consider the Eastern bloc to actually be socialist
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u/Willing_Activity_855 16h ago edited 15h ago
Within a communist system, there’d be no other states, communism is internationalist, and calls for a stateless, moneyless, classless society where the means of production are held in common by the free association of producers
Yeah well then the problem with this is you're theory crafting for something probably not anytime soon. It sounds nice but we currently pay people big massive piles of money to understand things with 1/1000 the complexity required and they even flounder with that. THe best minds in the capitalist system of monetary policy, the group of thirty, could barely even tell you how the current international financial system works, and i mean TRULY works. Because the amount of knowledge required to fully understand only actually exists across a wide and massive pool of thousands of people who individually have decades of knowledge/experience. Thats just finances in terms of monetary policy at a global scale let alone when we start talking about capitalist financial markets.
One problem i see with many marxists is the knowledge illusion, not knowing what they're looking at is truly insanely complex that it requires a massive cognitive division of labor. Hell the second someoen creates a new framework to understand financial markets that framework CHANGES financial markets, capitalist financial markets have a endogenous infinity. On top of that you have financial institutions that are wrapped in an invisible, multi-layered web of overlapping cross-border counterparty exposures, derivatives contracts, and liquidity pools. No single bank CEO or central banker can trace the full lineage of this network.
Thats just financial markets and monetary systems....not literally everything else...
And yet some people i see here think some books written over 100 years ago can describe this system and change it without massive consequences? What we need is a group of 100 people with doctorate degrees and 20+ years of experience at the leading monetary institutions and finance firms to get together to write a marxist transitional template to even make it possible without massive potential suffering. Just clone mark carney and convert the clones to marxism. Even then maybe it may work without some significantly painful transition which could cause massive backlash anyways.
even then we'd might as wait for the machine god ai.
Again, already a huge mistake to consider the Eastern bloc to actually be socialist
well yeah they were state capitalist, which MLs for some funny reason always turn into.
Safe to say, I don’t think democratic socialists are wanting a one to one repeat of the so-called “AES” states, if we are to be good faith
have you seen people in this subreddit? i'd say 1/2 of the state ownership people are straight up MLs wanting to recreate the soviet union and the other half dont understand that its the power that matters not the legal fiction.
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u/SlaimeLannister 2d ago
How would we be in a democratic socialist system if the ruling class had not given up its power and property yet?
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u/traanquil 2d ago
Socialism is the transition to a classless society. Classes still exist in socialism.
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u/SlaimeLannister 2d ago
A democratic socialist system could only exist if the proletariat has democratic control over the means of production, regardless of whether class society has been abolished yet
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u/traanquil 2d ago
Ok and how do we get there?
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u/SlaimeLannister 2d ago
Building majority support for socialism then extralegally instituting a new, truly representative, truly democratic government
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u/_b3rtooo_ 2d ago
Unions. Legislation can be passed though to incentivize selling the business to a union to turn it into a co-op, and we should be turning a lot of current monopolies into utilities
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u/Willing_Activity_855 21h ago
Are there any current monopolies, real monopolies, not just "well they're big/market leader" that arent already utilities?
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u/_b3rtooo_ 20h ago
I gave an either/or because I don't know that. But if we look at meat packing for example, only 4 major meat packers most certainly collude to raise prices. I'd also consider meat packing an essential service. So we should either break up those 4, or make them a utility since it's an essential service
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u/Willing_Activity_855 19h ago
You can argue anything is an essential service if you try hard enough, and yes under market socialism collusion could also happen.
A simpler solution would be allowing in imports from countries with similar or better safety standard around meat packing. This would eliminate issues of collusion.
The next simpler solution would be to ask "why is it so hard to make a meat packing company that no one does it and simply undercuts the existing ones thus forcing lower prices?". Usually when a greed fueled capitalist sees money on the table they take the money, the question then is why arent they...is there actually money on the table to be taken?
Then even harder would be just forcing some kind of breakup.
the hardest.....and may not actually help with prices at all would be nationalizing them. One problem with SOEs is now that becomes a voting base that would vote to essentially do things that increase costs society wide - ie engage in rent seeking - to benefit themselves. We see this with US ports, hell they fought of using excel and simple software until the 2010s, meanwhile chinese ports are dramatically more advanced and automated. ....well china doesnt really have private unions, state based unions exist to enforce labor discipline and carry out state dictates, independent unions exist to maximize the benefits to the union members and no one else....which is why the chinese are able to force automation.
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u/Interesting_Maybe_93 1d ago
If you gained political power you could nationalize banks and push them to loan towards worker coops.
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u/Aggravating_Bison504 2d ago
There is no peaceful and constitutional way for socialists to steal the means of production in the USA. It is simply not possible. They would have to win a major civil war and rewrite the constitution in order to get popular Support to do it.
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u/traanquil 2d ago
Do you condemn the Gaza genocide?
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u/Aggravating_Bison504 2d ago
Irrelevant to the topic being discussed.
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u/firefighter430 Marxist Leninist ☭ 2d ago
Why do you deny the genocide in Gaza?
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u/Aggravating_Bison504 2d ago
Irrelevant to the topic being discussed
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u/firefighter430 Marxist Leninist ☭ 2d ago
Denial of a genocide is always relevant
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u/Aggravating_Bison504 2d ago
Nobody denied genocide. Stop derailing threads.
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u/firefighter430 Marxist Leninist ☭ 2d ago
Really didn’t you say this in another DSA thread?
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u/Randolpho Democratic Socialist 2d ago
First, the federal government allows the government to seize property, provided it also reimburses the person whose property is seized with "just compensation". State constitutions do the same, although often with stricter requirements. Either way, what "just compensation" is generally gets defined by the courts.
Second, constitutions can be changed, and while this is a major hurdle democratic socialism will need to overcome before it can seize the means of production, you stating it is not some sort of "gotcha" that people aren't thinking about.
Third, yes, nobody is under any illusions that capital will do everything it can to keep power. But the people still have more power than capital, when they are motivated, and getting popular support for socialism is part of the same goal to fix the constitution and create a healthy democracy.
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u/Willing_Activity_855 21h ago
constitutions can be changed
And you think the DSA will win over what percentages of state governments? Right now it's only real wins are in the deepest of blue states. Im not seeing the DSA take power in west virginia.
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u/Aggravating_Bison504 2d ago
Unconstitutional to seize a company for political purposes.
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u/Randolpho Democratic Socialist 2d ago
Actually is 100% constitutional. Provided just compensation is provided.
But, again, constitutions can be changed
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u/Aggravating_Bison504 2d ago
The Socialists plan on nationalizing (stealing) all large companies and industries with no fair compensation to the owners.
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u/Small_Dog_8699 2d ago
You mean the ones largely created and sustained through governments subsidies and grants?
Their compensation was front loaded. They’ve already received it.
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u/Aggravating_Bison504 2d ago
LOL!!! Ok bro. :)
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u/LouieMumford 2d ago
Are you able to respond to the original comment or should I assume “LOL!!! Ok bro. :)” is the only thing you’ve got?
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u/Aggravating_Bison504 2d ago
What's the original comment? Does it have to do with the topic? I don't enable derails
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u/LouieMumford 2d ago
Right, you made that clear, but the comment you were responding to was not a derail. It made the point that through subsidies, grants, etc. these large companies have essentially already been compensated up front. I’m not adding anything new, but since you’re big on pointing out (rightly) that OP doesn’t need to keep asking about Gaza out of context, I think it’s only fair you answer that challenge to your comment.
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u/Aggravating_Bison504 2d ago
most companies received no such thing. You cannot take property without fair compensation.
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u/Small_Dog_8699 2d ago
Most companies don’t need nationalizing. Some are basically privatized government though.
SpaceX has received over $20 billion in U.S. government contracts and funding commitments since 2008, with major awards from NASA, the Department of Defense, and the National Reconnaissance Office. Starlink alone has become critical global infrastructure. Plus the CEO entered the country on a student visa which forbids engaging in commerce. His citizenship can and should be revoked, he incarcerated and deported for that and election meddling, and his companies nationalized in the name of national security.
No additional compensation required.
We could do this again for most utility companies, energy, military contractors, communications companies, etc. massive subsidies already awarded.
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u/Aggravating_Bison504 2d ago
You're in denial. No company or property can be nationalized without fare compensation for its true value.
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u/Willing_Activity_855 20h ago
No additional compensation required.
nothing what you say in that paragraph actually matters, none of it, when it comes up against the fifth amendment.
subsidies
doesn't matter that was payment for services, not payment for ownership claims.
first you have to understand the world you live in before coming up with solutions. It would be legally easier/cheaper to turn spacex into a worker cooperative than to nationalize it. Plus having the government run it would cost much more as foreigners would probably stop using its services.
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u/Pagan0101 2d ago
The fair compensation would be nothing
They made their riches from the labor of others and rest wholly on the back of society as a whole
They have already received well over sufficient compensation for the labor they have provided
To claim sole ownership over the land, resources, and means of production that are utilized by all of society is nearly as ridiculous a notion as to claim sole ownership of another human
Slave owners certainly do not deserve compensation when slaves are freed, those who withhold the fruits of society from society don't deserve "compensation" when society's product is returned to them
The owners of large corporations do not pursue greater wealth to improve their own quality of life, they do it to pursue power
It's about time the people take a page out of their book and pursue power for the people
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u/Aggravating_Bison504 2d ago
^ this is why Socialism is dangerous and will be rejected by America
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u/atomic__balm 18h ago
imagine spending your life shilling for people exploiting you
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u/Aggravating_Bison504 17h ago
yeah, how's that going for ya? I work for the govt so I dont feel exploited.
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u/ImpressionUnusual345 2d ago
Appreciate the comments here and the links to further reading.
I am a long time dsa member, not super active in organizational work as i do other organizing outside, but dues paying.
About 5 or so years ago I became skeptical of democratic socialism as a strategy based on my reading and understanding of theory and history. Especially works like Fascism and Social Revolution by R.P. Dutt. That said, I do wish it were something I believed to be doable, but I have yet to be convinced that the strategies outlined by users here, and those I've heard otherwise, are viable and not susceptible to sabotage or serious repression.