Is market socialism compatible with communism?

In communism, are the means of production owned by the workers working respectively in each of them? Or are all means of production owned by everyone? As an example, could a person own a bike repair shop in communism if he doesn't employ anybody or would the shop belong to everybody?

Communists can consider themselves market socialist, but full communist society will most likely be rid of all markets. However as a transitional state I feel it makes good sense and should be respected more by those who call themselves Communists.

Basically this. I think it's our best shot for transitioning to an actually socialist system.

Market socialism is the only path to full communism. idealists and utopians can leave now.

Socialism isn't defined by the relation of the producers to the means of productions. Otherwise subsistence farming would be socialism as the farmers own their farms, their crop etc. . Socialism is defined by the abolition of (exchange) value production and thus capital accumulation (ie dead labor). The necessary preconditions for such a mode of production are globally branched production, abolition of money, abolition of private ownership and rational planning of production (distribution of ressources and products according to need).
If we identify socialism and communism and apply the basic categories of Marx's critique of the political economy it's pretty easy to see how market socialism isn't socialism but in fact capitalism.

It's important to understand Yugoslavia and its 'market socialism' a s a product of specific historical conditions.
Up to 48' Yugoslavia was a command economy just like the USSR, pushing its modernization process. Once the SFRY got thrown out of the cominform the Tito nomenclature had to come up with something so their economy wouldn't collapse due to the Eastern Bloc's economic blockade. They came up with 'market socialism' and 'workers' self management' presented as "what Marx really meant (R)". The Soviet form of command economy was denounced as a revisionist deviation.
However, it's pretty easy to see that the deregulation of investment opportunities and the transfer of the ownership of capital to the firms was a capitulation of the state before the logic of capital. The individual firms were now responsible for the rational use of their capital (both constant AND variable capital) and for their profits. In the next 30 years this trend would continue and then result in the collapse of the sphere of political economy in Yugoslavia and thus lead to the war.

t. yugobro

I don't understand how this transition would work. You don't see capitalism transitioning to communism 'just like that'.

Leftcoms being the best posters as usual.

The worker's control as a sufficient criterion for socialism meme has to stop. Market "socialism" does nothing to free humanity from the yoke of capital. It's also no more a viable "transition" to socialism than capitalism is.

…how is there exchange value and capital accumulation when you have subsistence farming? Your own example doesn't make sense.

And regardless Marx's critique of political economy was highly idealist so long as we are operating in a situation of scarcity, which we are. We need political economy in order to survive unless we are in a situation of abundance.

Yugoslavia failed because in part it tried to have worker management without worker ownership. I.E. when workers left the firm they couldn't sell what value their ownership was. There was no surplus value because what would have been surplus value was put to wages thanks to the political pressure of the workers who had no incentive to reinvest. Yugoslavia in fact did not embrace enough of the logic of capital. There also was the fact that central planning or at least intervention did exist, but was used irrationally and inconsistently. A true market socialist economy would allow workers to sell the shares of the firm they've acquired in an auction between the relevant governments and the firm itself.

I don't know if you're aware, but our historical conditions are even worse than Yugoslavia's. Frankly, I don't know why you think that subsistence farming isn't in line with socialism - if you weren't aware, one of the big things that happened during the rise of capitalism was that common farming land was enclosed and free peasants were booted off their land and into factories and private farms. Given that the defining characteristic of capitalism is the existence of private property, tell me how abolishing private property under market socialism would not be socialism? I'm not saying it wouldn't have problems, or that it would be perfect, or that we should stick with it forever, but it is undeniably a form of realistically-achievable socialism that can in turn lead to higher forms. Given the state of the world, we have no way of segregating ourselves into a separate socialist global economy without inviting considerably difficulty that might reasonably turn the rank-and-file proletariat quite off the prospect.


By allowing worker-owned cooperatives to proliferate and eventually overtake capitalist firms, allowing the proletariat the necessary level of economic power necessary to seize political power and implement socialist reforms. Essentially by eliminating the bourgeoisie as a class.

Are you just being facetious and calling market socialism capitalism?

Does worker ownership of the means of production mean nothing, then?

The transition occurs thanks to the contradiction in the logic of capital marx described, of increasing automation and reinvestment of capital to create a falling rate of profit, and eventually full automation, which leads to a break down in the law of value and thus capitalism (when workers are in control, if workers are not in control it will lead to something far more dystopic most likely)

No, in communism you have collective ownership by society and money is abolished, thus so is trading.

Any form of socialism is a steppingstone for communism.

I don't see any, there's no capital accumulation in subsistence farming. Still not socialism.

I don't think that scarcity hinders us from rational planning. "…to each according to their needs" is a rather useful principle. Other than that capitalism is producing basic goods such as food, housing and clothing already in abundance.
I see where you're coming from but I don't agree. Embracing the logic of capital is what Markovic tried in the late 80s. His economic shock therapy led to an enormous inflation and unemployment, fucking Yugoslavia's shit even more up.


Just because subsistence farming was common before the industrialization it doesn't follow that it's socialist. Subsistence farming is directly private labor. Wage labor is indirectly social labor and work under socialism is directly social work.
What I was trying to say is that the status quo wouldn't allow for such a transition to happen. It would mean the end to capital accumulation, the purpose of production in market socialist Yugoslavia. And you're overestimating the actual influence workers had in those cooperatives. They were merely in an advisory position.


I wasn't being facetious. In my first post I openly said that market socialism is capitalism.
And worker ownership over the means of production is a platitude. It doesn't mean anything and it can and does exist under capitalism. It neither negates nor attacks value production, the basis of capitalism, even remotely.

I don't think that Marx intended such a deterministic reading of the falling rate of profit. For all we know the falling rate of profit could rather lead to what some communists call barbarism (the decay of bourgeois society into misery) than to socialism.

Oh my fucking God.

come on cuhh
cut us some slack

it's not just definitions, it's actual investigation into how capitalism works. We aren't just making this shit up, you know.

Fam im not talking to you

Ok, but then why isn't it socialism. You've yet to explain it.

Perhaps you can plan the bare necessities, but there is more than that in a modern economy. And if you wish to eliminate all but the necessities in capitalism, you will be met with an insurmountable amount of opposition from the workers you claim to work for.

No Markovic embraced the ideology of capital, there is a big difference.

Being this butt mad.

You're stuck in the past. I'm not talking about recreating Yugoslavia, I'm talking about creating a system in which ownership and participation in the production process are one and the same.

Frankly, I don't see you coming up with any argument that this system wouldn't create the necessary conditions for a transition to socialism, or that it wouldn't end the coercion of alienated labour. You're just creating arbitrary definitions for capitalism and socialism based on some 19th century writings and crying that a certain approach to ending a certain tangible problem doesn't perfectly conform to so and so's definition of capitalism or socialism or value. This is empty dogmatism of no value to anyone trying to actually something done.

Let me ask you: how is market socialism bad for the proletarians? How would it hinder a transition to full socialism?

Also you are falsely presupposing that subsistence farmers produce only for themselves and that their production serves no social function.

Markets existed under feudalism to, that didn't mean it wasn't feudalism. The point is to make that the dominant mode of production.

The basis of capitalism is private ownership, or is that and class totally irrelevant in your dogma?

Yes it could, and it is precisely to prevent that that we need market socialism.

wrong post gomrade

meant for

The common peasant didn't used markets(There was no wage labor, you eated what you had planted), most of the time the peasants created their own tools or used the lords one, it was mostly commerciant republics, and lords that used markets for exotic commodities.

THE FIRST FUCKING PAGES OF CAPITAL CITE THAT THE CORE OF CAPITALISM IS COMMODITIE PRODUCTION.
NO MARKETS DON'T ABOLISH THE CORE OF CAPILST PRODUCTION(COMMODITIE PRODUCTION), EVEN WORST IT PERPETUATES IT.
It's like Marx didn't already raped market """"socialism"""""" in poverty of philospy.

Now OP pls stop making this shit thread every day commarade

In a functioning democracy, would state capitalism be considered (market) socialism? Socialism is social control of the means of production (not necessarily workers control).

Define State capitalism
And workers are not part of society?

Socialism is the dictatorship of the proletariat, first and foremost. It is absolutely linked to social relations of production. Socialism is also a mode of production, so no, subsistence farming would not be socialism no matter what you argue.

For once I have to agree with the Stalinist, however much it pains me to say it.

This is off-topic, but as a comrade who seems pretty knowledgable, I was wondering if you (or anyone else who knows), could answer some questions I have about socialism, or any resources that would explain it to me.

Who decides who is employed at a business? Does every employee get a say, or is there still someone who makes a final decision?

How do you have a job? Will the government provide you one, or will you have to find one yourself? If no one hires you, do you go hungry until you find one?

Is every position in a business paid the same, or do, say, janitors get paid less than managers? Can any employee choose to take their money and leave every payday, or do they have to invest some in the business. take stock options, etc

I know those are a lot of questions, but answering even just of them would be a big help. Thanks in advance, comrades.

Certainly in the cities there were shops that required wage labor. Who baked the bread? Who sold the meat? This was all done using wage labor. It was still feudalism, because feudalism is the dominant mode of production.

Marx was right to use commodity production to understand capitalism. But he was wrong to suggest a modern economy could exist without it. Even the USSR needed commodity production and markets, but they were too fucking stubborn and stupid to use prices that obeyed the law of value.

The logic of capital continues yes, as does its contradictions. It will be these contradictions that undo it. In the mean time, it is necessary to remove class from the equation and indeed put the workers in charge.

Not op.

Co-ops are compatible with evolutionary socialism

It wont transition, but the attack of capitalists on the system will provide the spark for true revolution.

why wouldn't it transition?

Literally nobody is suggesting that market socialism is an acceptable end point, but it IS a method of transitioning from capitalism in a way that doesn't lead to mass chaos and instability, but still reduces capital accumulation and strips the capitalists of their influence and relevance by denying them any kind of economic power. From here it can easily be transformed into syndicalism or another form of socialism that abolishes markets and implements production for use.

A wage labour system where the employer is the state

Agree.
Agree but those relations will be sublated and not just shifted around.
It was an analogy, analogies only work up to a certain point.

why not extend ownership and participation to the whole society?
the necessary conditions were already created. The difference between communism and market socialism is that communism is the conscious sublation of value production. Market socialism is glorified social democracy. As I've said in my post before, coops and participatory economics are already possible within capitalism and aren't challenging its pillars. And if a scientific inquiry into the functioning of capitalism is 'just creating arbitrary definitions of capitalism and socialism based on some 19th century writings' then you're clearly unfamiliar with marxist theory of capitalism. The categories used in Marx's Capital (value, price, capital, profit rate etc.) still apply.
Easy. Due to the continuing extraction of surplus value and accumulation of capital workers are still subjected to their individual capital. Instead of the managers making unpleasant decisions for the workers the workers have now to make these decisions themselves. It's an absurd form of self-exploitation really.


Socialism is directly social labor. Subsistence farming is directly private labor. You might want to check out the difference between directly and indirectly social labor and directly private labor, it was pretty eye-opening to me tbh.

With so much commodities being thrown away each and every day because they can't be sold I honestly wouldn't dare to say that we could only satisfy the population's basic needs.
So did Tito. The logic of capital is behind the ideology of capital. In fact, most of the time they are the same thing.


totally irrelevant in 800 AD

not really. Private property existed in various modes of production. What makes capitalism so different is the accumulation of value in the form of capital. See Capital Vol. 1

Market socialism isn't attacking the destructive forces of the market. How could you say that, being obviously a Titoite? I don't know how much you know about Yugoslavia's history, but the war was caused by the demise of the Yugoslavian sphere of political economy, barbarism really.. Different topic though.


So you're basically arguing that attacks on Social democracy would spark a revolution? So where's the revolution sparked by neoliberalism?

There isn't really a universal consensus on any of this stuff, since socialism for the most part is just various ideas on how to make society better based on Marx's analysis of capitalist society.

For my part though, here's what I think.

The workers would have the final decision on whether to get someone new into the workplace, however there's no reason that the workers couldn't elect someone to the position of hiring and grant him or her sweeping powers to hire new people without having a vote every time. Of course, it would be a problem if certain cooperatives under-employed and under-produced when there was still demand for goods, so this would be a situation where state interference might be justified if they weren't making full use of the MoP.

Same way you do today. There's no reason there couldn't be public agencies that help people to hook up with suitable employment, but likewise there's no reason you couldn't do it on your own, either. Likewise, (though there eventually shouldn't be a need for it as socialist systems should lead to full employment) there is no reason we couldn't have some form of welfare such as UBI to help those who need to eat in the meanwhile.

The endgame of communism is for one hour of any given person's work to be worth just as much as any other's. That's a long way off, though, and in the meantime, though, I advocate that the workers in each cooperative have the right to collectively decide on their own pay, including on whether they want to attract people with certain difficult-to-find skills for to work for their own common benefit.

That's up to the workers. However, if the capitalist mode of production is still around in other businesses, I wouldn't see anything wrong with mandating that a certain share go back into supporting co-ops. However, if the socialist mode of production is dominant, there's no reason why workers couldn't keep their money and spend it wherever they like, as that would be going back into fuelling the socialist economy. Private shares in stock are private property and thus not OK, as they would probably lead to a minority of people seizing the entire means of production for their own private benefit.

Now is not the time for that. That comes later. This is the first step. You seem to be under the mistaken assumption that true socialism can just spring out of our present state of capitalism like Athena sprang from Zeus's forehead.

Co-ops directly challenge the idea that one can sit on his ass and get rich exploiting others through a state-enforced right to private property. Eliminating wage labour in commodity production directly challenges capitalism. A system where workers share in profit according to the value they produce is superiour to one where they are paid for their ability to labour.

Precisely, which is why under these circumstances they would be able to stop their own exploitation once it becomes in their collective interest to do so. Once the bourgeoisie are eliminated as a class and there exists no more coercion of alienated labour, there will be no impediments to this whatsoever, unlike in the present circumstances where we would need to organize a mass world-wide violent revolution and fight back not only against the enforcer class of the bourgeois state but also reactionary elements within the proletariat and also win without the revolution being co-opted by a self-serving military dictatorship. Not only do we need to do that, but unless the entire capitalist world is taken over at once, we would also need to kickstart an entire socialist economy completely separate from the capitalist economy essentially from scratch, where there are neither markets nor commodity production and yet things are produced for use and distributed exactly as they are needed at the direction of, uh, the party? Not to mention that all the while you will be under constant attack and subversion by the parts of the world where the revolution did not take over as the bourgeois states still in existence do everything in their power to eliminate the threat you pose to their existence.

If the economy is run by workers and the state is run by workers, on the other hand, you don't need to bother with all that shit and you just do a few tweaks and bam you've got socialism with no interference because there isn't a minority of powerful people with a vested interest in upholding the system and massive military power at their beck and call. Do it slowly enough, and the frog will not notice that it's boiling.

That you would compare this plan to neoliberalism gives me the impression that you have no idea why neoliberalism promotes the interests of the bourgeoisie and why this works against them in an extremely direct way. Leftcom purism at its finest.

*attract people … for their own common benefit by offering higher wages for certain positions.

So does the elimination of markets in general. Markets are inherently exploitative. Wasting money on advertising, pitting workers against each other. Everything Marx talks about still applies? I want to know if you read capital. The worker must exploit himself in order to compete with other firms. I don't agree that it's an absurd form of "self exploitation", more like collective exploitation. Absurd, none the less.

All the nonsense you wrote about how a socialist economy is unrealistic without markets is amusing. Even if someone were to use market socialism, it would be a means to an end and not an end of itself.

That's exactly what I'm fucking arguing. Did you even read my post?

Admittedly just the last post. Lenin did the same thing with the NEP. I however see no reason we would need to use market socialism in the first place.

You're making a jump from self-management to the elimination of the bourgeoisie.

If it were that easy, wouldn't it have been done by now? The obvious answer is it's not that easy.

I doubt you read it with any thoroughness given that I plainly state it is a means to an end in the first four sentences.

Anyway, market socialism would be desirable because in order to implement a true socialist economy immediately we would need to expropriate the means of production suddenly and forcefully (which would serve to invite retribution both at home and from abroad), in addition to either cutting ourselves off from the global economy entirely (which would require our hypothetical state to shape itself into an autarky in an incredibly short timeframe) or interacting with them only through certain agencies that are allowed to engage with markets, who run the risk of being corrupt and inefficient (since apparently we should just ban worker's firms from interacting with markets entirely, or even have worker's firms at all).

Markets would continue to exist, albeit in secret, especially if you just straight up ban them. Furthermore, if you were to choose a means of distributing work and value for use that is based in centralized control, you introduce opportunities for corruption and the cultivation of a nomenklatura. Without a background in self-management and self-ownership for your workers, you have a good chance of sliding back into state capitalism.

We would almost certainly be poorer than our neighbours, and people would flee from us to them and discredit our system once they're on the other side. Furthermore, absolutely fucking nobody would support a violent revolution with this plan in mind to begin with. It is fundamentally self-defeating.

The problem with socdem programs is that they redistribute wealth from the top to the proles, which the proles then redistribute by spending on products and services from capitalist firms, redistributing that money back to the top. It allows the proles to buy things in the meantime, but it does nothing to decrease the undue power and influence of the bourgeoisie as those reforms only serve to feed more money into their pockets. This system uses the same principles to increase the economic power of the proletariat by taking from the bourgeoisie until one of the two can no longer exist. It is a means of reforming capitalism such that the ideal conditions for a transition to socialism are created, instead of such that the proles can buy a little more stuff while the reforms continue to exist.


What I'm saying is that if state policies favour the proliferation of cooperatives and disincentivize the continued operation of private firms, the bourgeoisie will eventually wither away within your jurisdiction. I am not saying that this will be easy, but it'll sure as fuck be easier than this Red Army larp nonsense.

Ignoring other difficulties, you won't achieve that without first seizing the state. Do you think the bourgs will stand back and watch? We're heading right back to revolution after all.

To some degree, yes, they will. Gaining power by democratic means would help, but so would not threatening mass expropriation immediately. If you work within the logic of capital, they have less justification to attack you. Naturally, foreign-backed coups and assassinations would still be a problem that you'd need to be vigilant against, but I never necessarily spoke against revolution per se. I don't think the bourgeoisie are nearly as class conscious as people presume they are - more that they're a collection of powerful agents each pursuing what they perceive to be their individual interests. If you don't immediately expropriate the property of their fellows, their reaction shouldn't be nearly as strong. Hell, corporations have proven mighty happy to invest into nationalized industries if they think they'll get a return out of it. They're motivated by short-term profit, after all, which is something that can be used against them.

Even if we did have to engage in violent revolution, I still wouldn't condone a hasty attempt to immediately implement socialism or ban markets and firms as soon as you take power.

The flaw with that argument is they can invent a justification, or simply do without, alluding to terrorism or somesuch. It doesn't take much to keep someone incarcerated, even minor charges will do, and then you can exploit bureaucracy to keep people in endless legal limbo, and safely out of society, disrupting their entire lives. Failing that, cops shoot first and fill out the paperwork later as they're essentially immune from prosecution. The bourgs play for keeps, they don't give a shit m8, and they don't need to coordinate too much; the state does that for them.

I don't have any faith that co-operatives will become the new standard of enterprise, either. Firstly, capital is easier to grow when you already have some. It won't be dedicated socialists setting them up, which kills much of their apparent subversive potential. Secondly, co-operatives, again, have been around for over a century and gotten precisely nowhere by themselves. The bourgeois market is ruthless and monopolistic. There are few areas where rapid growth isn't saturated with capital from eager investors. A few lonely co-ops are nothing compared to the trillions of liquid assets at the disposal of the bourgeois class. As a result, the status quo remains.

Yes. So? This problem will exist regardless. However, if you are not banning markets and forcefully expropriating, it will probably be lessened. CIA is less likely to shoot you if you only raise corporate taxes and offer low-interest loans and tax breaks for worker-owned cooperatives.

That is why you use the state as a means of proliferating and defending co-ops. They're not by themselves. Even if a non-socialist starts them, they still increase the power of the proletariat in opposition to the bourgies if they're worker-owned and operated.

Workers who have it good have a vested interest in defending a system that allows them to have it good. As co-ops become widespread, attacks upon them and their ability to proliferate will be opposed by the workers themselves.

I really am trying to show you that you can't change capitalism without seizing the state, forcibly, none of this reformist nonsense that has failed time and again, and that the bourgs find any kind of limitation or stipulation against how they organize and use their private property absolutely intolerable. Especially so when you're saying that slowly replacing hierarchical management and ownership with collective, worker-owned enterprises is supposed to happen by stealth – they'll notice – and/or by law – they'll ignore it, as they ignore the law today – or failing all that you'll have capital flight and skilled labor will follow. I'll leave you to think through that, but I somehow doubt it'll make a dent in your convictions.

what's the difference between market socialism and capitalism?
there's literally none
if you continue the anarchy of production any claim of ownership over the means of it is a farce, unless you're reforming towards planned, automatized cybernetic organization by a state in hands of the working class

For small scale production it could lead to it. For large scale production, it's gonna have to be centralised IMO.

When the fuck has this even been tried once? You're spouting shit. Plus, all these violent revolution where they immediately implemented """socialism""" were so successful, right?

Did I say something about not seizing the state? What precise difference does it make if you're voted into office rather than having the state capitulate to your handful of bolshevik larpers?

It's not. You misunderstand. It's supposed to happen gradually enough that people won't care. The bourgeoisie is not a hive mind. A tax increase and loans for poor people is not going to make them revolt. And if the people are behind the state they're not going to have the balls to do it. Once it gets to the point of actually eliminating them as a class, they're going to be so neutered that they wouldn't be able to resist even if they wanted.

You can't store the means of production in your overhead luggage. Plus, that's not going to happen with mass expropriation and banned markets, right?


No exploitation of coerced labour?
No wage labour?
No bourgeoisie?
It's a form of organization that gives you a feasible shot at establishing actually existing socialism once it's in place?

capital works without capitalists as well. Our critique of capitalism isn't based on complaining about rich people, unless you want to get into moralist platitudes you might as well hear from the Pope or other conservatives.
Eliminating wage labor implies the elimination of commodity production.
Commodities are only commodities because labor is bought for their production.

Other than that I'm confused as to what you're position amounts. Frankly said you try to sell SocDem self-management fantasies through the lense of councilism. But the whole premise is flawed due to you clinging to the idea of the 'market'. The market! God on earth, regulating production and working wonders! what a load of bull, honestly.
Markets and exploitation go hand in hand. Let's imply 200 workers are 'managing themselves' in a car factory and selling cars on the market. Let's say there are various other coops and factories competing with our factory. With money from the last production cycle they buy constant capital and variable capital (their labor). Another factory however invested its capital in research and introduced a more efficient way of producing cars which allows them to make more profits. That's good, right? This would mean higher wages and even more money for investments!
Well, unfortunately our factory is now being ousted from the market, the other factory sells the cars for lower prices. Our profits go down. For the production cycle to continue we have to collectively reduce our wages. But that's alright, isn't it? At least we've decided this *democratically*.
2 years later, we finally introduced the same tech! The profit rates are evening out again, but are lower than before due to a more organic composition of capital. But oh nose! The market is now over saturated with cars, they don't sell anymore. A crisis of overproduction has come. Now the profits of both factories go down and both have to reduce their wages. But at least the next cycle of production is secured! Long live the automatic subject!

Now you might say that the market is *regulated*, that prices are fixed and decided upon *democratically* (what a nice word to describe the logic of capital at work tbh) and wages are guaranteed by introducing a wage-fund. This strategy was in fact applied by early Yugoslavia. If a factory failed to earn enough money to pay workers or to buy resources, the factory got money out of a fond. This however leads and has lead inevitably to a smaller/stagnating productivity. Why should alienated workers even work if they got money anyways? I Know I wouldn’t. (And it’s not the capitalists that are estranging the workers’ labor, it’s capital through the mediation of capitalists. In this case the capitalist is “the ideal capitalist” of the coop/factory, ie the entirety of the workers). If this trend continues then every factory is producing and selling less and the fund is eating itself up. The factories literally run out of fund money. It’s the reason why Yugoslavia got so indebted. In order to finance production they were reliant on foreign capital, coming from the IMF etc..
What I tried to do here is to paint you a picture of market reality. My point is that market socialism is not a menace to capitalism. In fact it’s perpetuating its logic in a more *horizontal* way. It’s applicability is questionable as well. History shows us that the accumulation of capital is better and far more efficiently managed by a capital owning class separated from and commanding the production process; the capitalist class. From command economies to self-management has every attempt at ousting the capitalist class from existence while simultaneously letting the logic of capital go on ended in the collapse of the system and in the reestablishment of the capitalist class.
What workers really need to do is get rid of markets, money and property once and for all.

So? Feudalism lasted until the 1600s.

I suppose I should be more specific, what makes capitalism special is private ownership of the means of production to create class.

Yes it is a different topic, the way worker control was arranged and the communist nomenklatura were much bigger factors than the market.

K, but that had nothing to do with your argument about market socialism.

Yes competition is wasteful, but the freedom of choice and the need to check the quality of final products make markets a necessity for most goods. Things like electricity, rail and water not included.

Not true, the logic of capital is the necessity to reinvest profits in order to compete with other firms. The logic of capital is for firms to act in according to what the markets dictate. The ideology of capital is that free markets necessarily solve economic problems, it is the ideology of neo-classical economics and neo-liberalism.

for

you misunderstand one of the reasons we need a market is because we need a way for demand and use value to interact with SNALT to create value so firms know how much to produce and how to produce it.

Externalities matter, and if producers don't have to take into account how well their products are received by the consumer or how much consumers want given opportunity costs then suddenly quality and demand are externalities, just like in the soviet union and what would happen in any centralized economy.

The point is, there cannot be price controls in market socialism unless it is over socially important goods we wish to subsidize because we need the law of value to work. All attempts to develop an alternative socialist value theory have failed. And yes, in any situation of scarcity, such a law of value is absolutely necessary.

What you identify as essential elements of capitalism are in fact necessary aspects of any system, with the exception of competition. And indeed, if you want to eliminate competition entirely you're going to open a whole new pandora's box of problems.

Again, you are operating under the mistaken assumption that I want to recreate Yugoslavia and work exactly like they did. Did I ever talk about a wage fund? About preventing the extinction of firms? About enforcing intellectual property? No, I did not, and now you are putting words in my mouth.

Ending wage labour doesn't mean ending commodity production, it means that workers own the commodities they produce. They are not selling their ability to labour for a set period of time, but using their own labour to produce commodities for sale.

Market socialism is a fucking MEANS TO AN END. When the WORKER owns the LABOUR PROCESS, the PRODUCT is THEIRS. Alienation is NO MORE.

With the BOURGEOISIE GONE, there is nobody to PREVENT the establishment of SOCIALISM and all the other things you want. Bourgies are not better at running firms than workers. An economy will not collapse faster than an ordinary capitalist economy just because firms are run by workers.

You are being weighed down by an impracticable utopian fantasy. You come here with these perfect platonic ideals of communism and absolutely no praxis. Let's abolish money! you say, Let's abolish markets, let's abolish the wage! Let's abolish commodities and let's abolish their production!

And we're to do this spontaneously, out of a capitalist system, to somehow rise up and overthrow the global bourgeoisie in the span of a day across the face of the earth and simultaneously replace the entire capitalist global economy with a new socialist system with no wages and no money and no commodities and no markets, from whole cloth! God forbid we should do anything but pursue this immediate world-wide revolution and abolition of money and markets, because anything other than that is certainly not real socialism. You're utterly full of shit! And you tell me I'm selling fantasies!

Here's one for you - what workers really need to do is get rid of the bad thoughts in their minds and live in happiness. Once everyone is happy, there will be no suffering. God forbid you do something else, because the only thing that will make everyone happy is the abolition of suffering.

You are like a little baby that keeps crying that the food isn't good enough - this rice is soggy, I don't like beans of this colour, and every time you toss the bowl to the ground, spilling good food on the floor, and every time your beleaguered mother dutifully comes back with a fresh bowl of tasty food. "REVISONISM! BAAAAWH"

If you are so convinced that socialism is impossible, why don't you go become a liberal? You'd at least be honest about being a thorn in our sides, then.

Stoicism for the win!

ITT: Marcuck socialists BTFO

How? All this thread is is a bunch of leftcoms saying 'well even if the workers own the means of production it's still not socialism until I say it is.'

this fucking thread

Actually Soviet/ML-style command economies aren't socialism either.

Employment under socialism is 100% networking and nepotism. A few of the employees would recognize the applicant as "so-and-so's nephew/cousin/friend" and vouch for him that way instead of looking over his qualifications. Freemasonry was in force at most socialist countries.

lol no

The means of production are owned by the "proletariat" which is a portion of the society.

No. The state decides that such-and-such many more bikes repair shops should be built. The Communist Party then decides who would be employed to build it, then who would be employed to operate it.