PyramidHead
Contributor
I think this video could be instructive for the people (including myself, admittedly) who vacillate among multiple flavors of socialism when talking about it. Dr. Wolff is good at breaking down these ideas, even if he omits some important characteristics from the analysis.
To sum up...
1. Socialism in the first sense: the government regulates, intervenes, directs, constrains, shapes the economy toward social ends without changing the institutions of private ownership and market exchange. Examples include the majority of first-world European democracies like Germany, Denmark, France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, etc. This is what Bernie Sanders means when he talks about socialism 90% of the time. This school of thought is also called social democracy by some.
2. Socialism in the second sense says: reforming and regulating private enterprise doesn't go far enough, because it will always be vulnerable to pushback from the profiteers who do not want to be constrained. Therefore, the state must take over private ownership entirely, to channel all investment and production toward social ends. Also, the market is a bad way of distributing scarce resources, because those who most need them are always the ones least likely to afford them, so for the basics of human existence we should rationally plan the production and allocation of goods and services. To differentiate themselves from the first group, socialists of this stripe used the word communist to describe themselves. Examples: the Soviet Union, Cuba, communist China, Vietnam for part of its existence, Venezuela in the early 90's, and many European countries in the era leading up to World War I. No politician or major political party advocates communism in the United States.
3. The third sense of socialism is Wolff's pet project, and says: neither regulating private enterprise nor taking it over with the government will lead to favorable outcomes if the workplace itself is still controlled in a capitalist way, with employers (state or private) owning everything that is produced by employees, and deciding what to do with the value they create. Wherever production or service provision happens, therefore, the details of what gets done, who does it, how much is done, how fast, where the surplus goes, and where the company is located should be democratically decided by the people who engage in whatever it is the company does. This is often referred to as a worker co-op, but it is important to note that this is a description of an individual enterprise, not a society-wide economic system. Maybe 10% of the time, this is what Bernie seems to advocate.
All of these approaches have their merits and shortcomings, but there is still no clear vision for how to get from the current system to one that incorporates the right combination of elements. There have been no examples of a socialist society, at least in the second sense ("communist") that have been allowed to operate without impediment, whether due to invasion, sanctions, or sabotage, and the topic of how to balance egalitarian aspirations with the need to resist inevitable capitalist pushback is an ongoing debate on the left.
To sum up...
1. Socialism in the first sense: the government regulates, intervenes, directs, constrains, shapes the economy toward social ends without changing the institutions of private ownership and market exchange. Examples include the majority of first-world European democracies like Germany, Denmark, France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, etc. This is what Bernie Sanders means when he talks about socialism 90% of the time. This school of thought is also called social democracy by some.
2. Socialism in the second sense says: reforming and regulating private enterprise doesn't go far enough, because it will always be vulnerable to pushback from the profiteers who do not want to be constrained. Therefore, the state must take over private ownership entirely, to channel all investment and production toward social ends. Also, the market is a bad way of distributing scarce resources, because those who most need them are always the ones least likely to afford them, so for the basics of human existence we should rationally plan the production and allocation of goods and services. To differentiate themselves from the first group, socialists of this stripe used the word communist to describe themselves. Examples: the Soviet Union, Cuba, communist China, Vietnam for part of its existence, Venezuela in the early 90's, and many European countries in the era leading up to World War I. No politician or major political party advocates communism in the United States.
3. The third sense of socialism is Wolff's pet project, and says: neither regulating private enterprise nor taking it over with the government will lead to favorable outcomes if the workplace itself is still controlled in a capitalist way, with employers (state or private) owning everything that is produced by employees, and deciding what to do with the value they create. Wherever production or service provision happens, therefore, the details of what gets done, who does it, how much is done, how fast, where the surplus goes, and where the company is located should be democratically decided by the people who engage in whatever it is the company does. This is often referred to as a worker co-op, but it is important to note that this is a description of an individual enterprise, not a society-wide economic system. Maybe 10% of the time, this is what Bernie seems to advocate.
All of these approaches have their merits and shortcomings, but there is still no clear vision for how to get from the current system to one that incorporates the right combination of elements. There have been no examples of a socialist society, at least in the second sense ("communist") that have been allowed to operate without impediment, whether due to invasion, sanctions, or sabotage, and the topic of how to balance egalitarian aspirations with the need to resist inevitable capitalist pushback is an ongoing debate on the left.
