A curious dichotomy between socialism and capitalism, and misconceptions about socialism... [View All]

[Cleobulus]

I found Taverner's OP fascinating, not in the OP itself, but the responses to it. Granted some may have been sarcastic, such as saying "can I have your stuff?" and things of that nature, but it brings up a pretty obvious point about misconceptions of not only socialism but capitalism.

Both systems are, in their modern forms, relatively recent in human civilization, before that we had a mercantile system, barter systems, etc. We also had primitive commune type communities worldwide, that could be called socialistic or communistic, such as hunter/gatherer societies.

Then there's the "purity" argument, on both sides, that "pure" socialism/capitalism don't work, and honestly, they don't, because neither truly exist. This seems rather obvious, but the argument of "purity" is stupid, because no economic or even political system is purely one thing, and one thing only. Its not even an argument as to what works or not, simply because there is no agreement as to what constitutes a "pure" system. Without agreement, nothing can be pure.

Its this black and white thinking that's the problem.

Let's throw out some examples of what I'm talking about, let's say the Federal Government passed a law saying that all for-profit organizations over 15 employees have to organize themselves along co-op lines, worker controlled, worker owned. Now, is this socialism? Yes, in a way, workers controlling the means of production. But are these organizations, these co-ops owned by the Government, no. So this could also be considered capitalism, different co-ops will compete in the market, and capital will still accumulate, just to the workers.

Here's another example, let's say you have a neighborhood association, in charge of a subdivision, but organized along cooperative lines. You could let's say have the group own the property, and the tenants, who are the group, control it through democratic elections, decisions by consensus, etc. No individual in the neighborhood would own the property within the neighborhood, they would rent or pay into a fund to help maintain it. We just abolished private property, but again, not really, because people still have some control over the property they live in, in addition to everyone else's, a check on potential abuses. This also doesn't mean that the stuff in the house is collectively owned, and neither does the government, your TV is still your TV, in other words.

So is this Socialism or Capitalism? Neither and both, change it to a apartment complex, and you can see how things aren't much different than they are now, except for who actually owns the property, instead of a single corporation/developer or landlord, everyone is collectively the landlord. So again, you have collectivism that is not a total abolishing of private property.

So what would we have here, what is the social organization, or the name for this type of economic system? There is none, not really, outside of maybe economic democracy. I just used two examples, there can be many more. I think the problem is that capitalism is associated with Corporations, as if the two are intertwined in a way that makes them inseparable, but Corporations, as a structure for business, aren't necessary in a Capitalistic society. The same is said for Socialism, which is associated with things such as the former USSR, and the abuses therein. And yet, Socialism doesn't need central control by a central Government to exist or thrive. So we can have a mix of the two systems, something that is both and neither, a Democratic Economy.