Socialism

Personal Definition

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The lens of socialist analysis and alternatives — collective ownership or democratic control of productive forces, organization around need rather than profit, critique of capitalism from socialist categories.

Reach for this lens when the analytical move engages socialist thinking, history, or proposed alternatives, including its internal variations: authoritarian state socialism (USSR, China), social democracy (European mixed economies), market socialism, democratic socialism, worker self-management.

Distinct from Capitalism (often its analytical foil) and from Anarchy (which is more skeptical of any institutional power, including socialist states). Use this lens to recover socialism as a serious tradition with internal diversity, distinct from its caricature as a single failed system.

Notes

• basic needs are met
  • you dont have to work to survive
• jobs can be distributed equitably rather than overwork some and maintaing unemployed rest that will work for the least pay
  • the incentive is maximize human potential, not shareholder profit
• your boss is accountable to you / there is no hierarchy above you
  • your boss is elected by you and your fellow workers, not by the shareholders
  • instead of the situation where your only recourse is to do what you’re told, or threaten to leave your job
• In this kind of society, where you choose what to do, you make your own work, it’s low hours, how do we get the shit jobs done as well?
  • we incentivize more innovation and automation to assist
  • we can incentivize low-desire jobs by paying more or providing more benefits
    • People like doing things that matter in conditions that fulfill their needs and desires.

Early stage communism: “From each according to their ability, to each according to their contribution”
Late stage communism: “From each according to their ability, to each according to their need”

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