Socialism

Definition

Jamie Ranger:

"Socialism is here defined as commitment to the following principles: equality, insofar as all should have broadly equal access to the necessary material and social means to live flourishing lives of autonomy and self-directed meaning; a commitment to democracy as the political basis for ensuring all have the capacity to make meaningful contributions to the decision-making processes that will shape the social conditions of their lives (and recourse to correct instances of individual or collective injustices); a positive account of freedom shaped by a belief in self-determination and self-actualisation (which is linked to the notion of equality as means of ensuring autonomy); and solidarity, as G.A. Cohen put it, that people should “care about, and, where necessary and possible, care for, one another, and, too, care that they care about one another” (Cohen 2009, 34–35)." (https://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/1127/1334)

Discussion

Socialism does not mean the absense of a market system!

Ian Wright:

"Contrary to conventional wisdom the defining characteristic of socialism is not the abolition of market relations and its replacement by centrally planned, top-down production. Economic planning has no bearing whatsoever on whether a set of social relations are exploitative or not.

The essence of socialism is a hoped-for system of property relations, which we’ll call the “communal system”. In this system, the renting of people has been abolished (just as liberal democracy abolished the selling of people, i.e. slavery). People no longer are workers available to rent by the owners of firms. Instead, people are workers available to join as equal members of a democratic firm, who together lay claim on the residual income.

A socialist firm is owned by its working members who hire-in capital at pre-agreed rental prices (compared to capitalism, the contracts are reversed). Capital, not labour, is now the ex ante cost of production. In consequence, the working members democratically distribute the firm’s residual income to themselves.

What’s right with this?

The communal system is an inherently egalitarian system because all income from production is earned in essentially the same manner: by the contribution of labour. Absentee owners no longer lay claim to the fruit of others’ labour in virtue of a piece of paper (e.g. “equity”). The systematic economic theft, characteristic of capitalism, has been abolished.

Socialism is not merely just, however. It also eradicates extreme income and wealth inequality for the simple reason that the entire working population earns the same kind of economic income, which is a kind of profit share. The split of the population into two main economic classes, that is workers (wage-earners) and capitalists (profits via ownership of firms), disappears along with the major social ills caused by extreme inequality." (https://ianwrightsite.wordpress.com/2016/12/14/first-blog-post/)

Alternatives to Socialism

Matthew McNatt:

Under Erik Olin Wright's definition of social-ism:

"1. Social goals are (yes) understood as frequently and necessarily contradictory to profit goals;

2. The largest potential strength of under-resourced peoples is believed to be their existent society and potential social activism (i.e., "social…")—rather than their associated, distributed capacity to co-produce what they need; and

3. Critical analyses are typically directed more toward the motivations of groups that wield (or that may wield) power and less toward ways that tools inevitably constrain how (and, even, whether) a particular group's motivations are manifest.

By contrast, associationalism, Distributism, and producerism—three takes on what is largely a common approach—are not socialist. In each of these:

1. Social goals are understood as frequently and necessarily contradictory to *inadequately constrained* and *ineptly coordinated* profit goals (but not with profit goals themselves);

2. The largest potential strength of under-resourced peoples is believed to be their capacity to form associations, distribute capacity, and co-produce what they need; and

3. Critical analyses are directed more toward the ways that tools inevitably constrain how (and, even, whether) a group's motivations can be manifest.

(In part, the direction of critical analysis under associationalism / Distributism / producerism serves to focus attention productively, as groups' choosing to center some tools while rejecting others helps to unite their efforts to *make things*. De facto, it is less uniting for small groups to focus on social structures that they can only influence when they are a part of a body that is large and organized enough—or when they are part of a nascent alternative to a body that is large and organized enough—to constitute a threat to current elites.)"