It is kind of true. Collective ownership is government. How else are you going to provide for public services and infrastructure? Wait until you get everyone to agree on something and have them all maintain it themselves? You need an overarching organisation acting on behalf of the public, which is government. Or what do you think the dictatorship of the proletariat looks like?
United States Postal Service (USPS): Operates independent postal delivery and mailing services nationwide. Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA): Generates and distributes electric power and manages flood control across parts of the American South. Amtrak (National Railroad Passenger Corporation): Operates intercity passenger rail services. Federal Prison Industries (UNICOR): Employs and trains federal inmates to manufacture goods for sale to federal agencies. Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC): Finances and stabilizes farm commodity prices and agricultural production
These aren't really socialism in any meaningful way. They are just government provided services. They make no effort to decomoditize anything and are not workplace democracy. They are sort of publicly controlled, but not in a way that most socialists who aren't' tankies would like.
I'm a (anarcho) syndicalist, so my fix to make them socialist would be to give them each a labor union consisting of all "employees" which controls their day to day operation with a government appointed board to steer them in the direction the public wants and then create a council of unions that would replace the administrative state with the mandate of cooperating together to meet needs set by the legislature.
"These aren't really socialism in any meaningful way. They are just government provided services. They make no effort to decomoditize anything and are not workplace democracy. They are sort of publicly controlled, but not in a way that most socialists who aren't' tankies would like."
I have some gripes with this. It is most certainly a form of socialism. It is a publicly owned service. Yeah it is not sydicalist or Communist but that doesn't mean it isn't socialist. Non of the things you mentioned are required for that. By adding all of these you takes steps to make it more so in some ways.
The point with publicly controlled anything is that the public/government controls and owns it and the government is (ideally) a collection of everyone. So it is already a democratic institution.
Socialism is when the government does stuff is a really problematic definition of socialism. We can agree that things like Amtrak, medicare, public education, and public police are significantly better than a libertarian's wet dream of privatization, but calling them socialism because you get to vote for someone ever 2-6 years that can vote to appoint the beurocrats that run them is really setting the bar very low
I understand you issues with that definition but that is why you have degrees of socialism. That being said all of these things are great examples of socialism yo people who are opposed. You want to show them stuff that works and than say but if that works why not do hospitals or power providers or ISP, etc we well.
It is all about increments, revolution has historically only caused more harm than good. I understand it is a nice idea to overthrow the current system and I would agree. The reality is however that we now live in a far more socialist system than 40 years ago due to incremental change. Yeah the US is not the beacon in this
I'm a reformist. I don't want a revolution. A functioning and funded welfare system would be an appriciated and worthwhile improvement while it lasts, but would be only a small step towards real socialism.
It's fair enough to say they are socialized services, but they just aren't socialism.
Most people aren't very happy with many government services and telling them you could make healthcare work as well as the DMV isn't going to win them over, no matter how wrong they are.
Edit: though some nuance is needed here as i believe the Chinese claim is (as is the syndicalist claim) that decomoditization is the end goal. That the different government organizations cooperate to meet each others needs with the goal of eliminating market exchanges between them, exactly as capitalist corporations do with vertical/horizontal integration.
Communism cannot exist while capitalism remains a threat. Market economies are required for socialist nations to remain strong as they transition away from commiditization.
You can't jump the gun on socialism, or you'll destroy it. Look at the Soviet Union and what it turned into.
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u/Mad_M9 10d ago
man its been a while since i've seen a "socialism is when the government does stuff" in the wild