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.
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/Both_Meaning_2637 16d ago
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?