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Imo co-ops aren’t socialist because it’s not directly controlled by a government. They also already exist and thrive in modern mixed capitalist economies
by chaostheory 4y ago
Imo co-ops aren’t socialist because it’s not directly controlled by a government. They also already exist and thrive in modern mixed capitalist economies
- jerojero 4y agoThe government controlling production is not all there is to socialism, at all. Markets are not an exclusive feature of capitalism. In very simple terms, the economy from a leftist perspective can be separated into two areas: distribution and ownership. If you have private ownership and markets then you have the current system; capitalism, if you have state ownership and markets then you have the system that China has. If you have worker ownership (co-ops) and markets then you have a system that actually has a name: market socialism. Of course every economic system has lots of pockets of different things inside it, the economies of walmart and amazon for example work, internally, through planning. So even in our market system we still have pockets of central-planning. But to me at least, the fundamental characteristic of the capitalist system is precisely ownership and the power relationships that come with ownership. So although co-ops exist in capitalism, imo, they're the seeds of new forms to come.
- chaostheory 4y agoChina does not currently have a socialist system. Socialist systems do not feature either markets or private ownership. Both markets and private ownership of property are features of capitalism. At best China has a mixed system which primarily features capitalism despite some centralized planning