Socialism

Some countries are considered “socialist,” but what does that term really mean...as it is so reviled on the Right and gently embraced on the Left?

Socialism implies common ownership of the means of production. Take a factory, for instance. Instead of the hard-working, motivated gal who went to business school, got a loan from the bank, and built her awesome glassware-etching-company owning the factory, the machines inside the factory, and all the tools the workers use...the public owns it. Doesn't matter who took risk or worked hard or was lucky or whatever factors came into play, all the business is owned by "everyone."

It’s a political economy term, since it has to do with both politics (the government) and the economy (sharing the wealth).

In today's reality, that implies that the government owns the means of production. Switch out Hard-Working Penny with Uncle Sam. This is where socialism stops short of communism: communism is where the means of production are publicly owned, but there is also no government, since communism is a classless, stateless (no Uncle Sam), and moneyless society (and we mean no stores of wealth, unlike a Bitcoin Society).

In a strictly socialist system, production and distribution of all goods and services are planned. People would work according to their abilities, and they would get what they get according to their needs. But most “socialist” countries in Europe fall short of this, since global capitalism is what makes the world go around these days. Instead, the government owns the means of production of some industries or companies, but market forces are still determining production levels.

Governments don't pre-plan production volumes and then just build to them as if the government bureaucrats are, in fact, "smarter" than the markets. Common ownership of the means of production under socialism can be done different ways: a technocratic system, a democratic one, oligarchic...we could go on.

What’s the point of public ownership of the means of production? In a word, equity. If everyone’s working their butts off, then everyone should get an equitable share of the pie. This notion, often supported by the Left, ignores the fact that people are...different. They are born with different levels of talent and brains; they are born with different levels of entitlement; they are born with different levels of drive and willingness to sacrifice for future success.

Promoters of socialism see capitalism as the exploitation of the working class for the wealthy. They point out that, with today’s resources and output, world poverty could be solved...if only we were more share-y and less exploitative. And they presume that governments will act in a non-corrupt manner. Hi there, Old Soviet Union! We're winkin' at ya.

Critics of socialism see it as antithetical to market forces. They ask, "What’s the incentive to create new stuff and work hard if there’s no chance of moving up the corporate ladder?" We would never have gotten to the dominant technocracy under which the U.S. lives today without the incentives capitalism provides.