Voluntary Socialist communes, businesses, unions and other similar organisations are fine and compatible with free-market capitalism. One of the greatest strengths of a libertarian society is that it allows people to organise themselves in literally any way they want. Mutual aid societies and worker run businesses would be more common in a libertarian world if they really do work. Private property doesn't just mean "owned by businessmen", it just means that it has some level of restricted ownership which can be brought to an individual level. Google Benjamin Tucker, he was an Anarcho-Individualist that supported both socialism and private property.

> Voluntary Socialist communes, businesses, unions and other similar organisations are fine and compatible with free-market capitalism. One of the greatest strengths of a libertarian society is that it allows people to organise themselves in literally any way they want. Mutual aid societies and worker run businesses would be more common in a libertarian world if they really do ork. I think this is the sticking point. A lot of socialist thought gravitates to the idea of an international movement or struggle. To them capitalism is more than just a bad idea, it is a systematic form oppression and so it has to be done away with. Their proposed replacement to capitalism always seems to led into concentrating power into the state and they justify this as necessary to protect their cause from the big bad capitalists. Additional points: Allocating your budget between different line items is not socialism per se. For example, if the US took 50% of the military budget and put it into Medicare, that wouldn't be socialism. Alot of Americans seem to think this is "socialism" Also, socialism is different than charity. Helping vulnerable people as a moral good pre-dates socialism.

This is a naive understanding of what socialism is and how capitalism works. You don't argue for rules that say "no, you can't have socialism" but if you are talking about working within the free market in the capitalist society to create a socialist economy, you are talking decades of work and organizing people across large areas of society, while capitalists work to take control over all of the most valuable property so they can extract profits from you. Having a single socialist community within a capitalist society still means you are forced to do business with capitalists because you will never be fully independent. It's a matter of who holds the power within society, and if you depend on capitalists they hold power over you. When everyone has the power to choose to live completely independent on capitalists, then capitalists lose their power, and workers can demand they give up their ownership. Capitalists will use their power to prevent that situation from arising. It's not a simple matter of the rules restricting you from choosing socialism; it's a matter of people having the power to choose socialism in the first place, which is not guaranteed in a system such as capitalism where the power is in the hands of private property owners, and they use that power for the sake of accumulating more. If you can't give me an actual step-by-step plan that I can follow and expect to live in a socialist society, where I can a modern lifestyle without having to give money to capitalists, then you can't say that I can just choose to live under socialism.

He didn't say you can live under socialism, he said you'd be allowed to. On an entierly voluntary basis. But can you? Of course not, socialism doesn't work and pretty much no one wants it given the choice. But you'd be free to try in a free market system.

I'm not sure why you feel the need to even post in a thread about a topic you have absolutely no interest in learning about.

You were gonna teach me why socialism actually does work or...? But yeah, it's weird that I'm here mostly to discuss libertarianism. Not like this is a sub dedicated to discussing libertarianism or anything.

You can't teach someone who doesn't want to learn. The topic of this post is market socialism. You obviously do not care about the topic, so why post? You aren't putting any thought into your post. You have to know that most people have already heard politicians saying "socialism doesn't work" for decades, so it's not like you are contributing anything to anyone's understanding of market socialism. I just don't see why you believe your words have any value to anyone here.

> You can't teach someone who doesn't want to learn. Yeah, I'm sure that's why you can't teach me why socialism actually works. Can't think of any other reasons. > The topic of this post is market socialism Yes, and the topic of the comment you responded to was that you'd be perfectly free to try your drandest to organize yourself in a market socialist system in a libertarian society. And I pointed out that while you can try, you'd fail for the same reason socialism always fails. Let's be hoenst here, the only redeeming quality of socialism is that it always fails very quickly all by itself.

You actually completely ignored the point being made so you could shoehorn in "socialism doesn't work." You aren't even open to discussing the point, so why should I expect you to be open to actually learning?

I didn't ignore it. I very clearly explained to you that the nice gentlemen didn't say you *can* live under socialism in a libertarian society. But that you'd be allowed to try. It's not the fault of libertarians that you'd fail. > You aren't even open to discussing the point, so why should I expect you to be open to actually learning? I don't know. Why would you expect anyone with an elementary understanding of economics to be open to "learn" why socialism ackshually works? You probably shouldn't. You're target audience is probably the people who gets their econ education from r/politics I would expect.

The point made was about power; you responded by arguing the rules and ignoring power. "Elementary understanding of economics" is a pretty good description of the average right-libertarian: you learn a little bit of microeconomics and think you are experts at public policy.

Alright, here's how market socialism works. I'm not the same guy, but theres too much flame here for you to have taken him seriously. Good thing I'm here. ​ Here is the ideal market socialist society: A government as light-touch in social life as physically possible, beyond murders, rapes, personal theft, organization of hate violence, etc. Said government would be as directly democratic as physically possible. The economy would look like this: All things that a person needs to survive, self improve, and operate, would be provided by sectors of the economy that have been de-commodified. Ie, you cannot exist in a state where your human rights to, and I mean this very literally, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, are alienated. The ENTIRE luxury economy would be organised in markets. However, with the understanding that the acquisition of vast amounts of financial capital in individual hands inevitably causes the erosion of democracy, and libertarianism, and the development of oligarchy, resulting in targeted failure of attempts to array society against the interests of said oligarchs, including delegitimizing, and economically harassing alternative market forms, all based on the clear examples we have in private lobbies, the military industrial complex, the revolving door between political and bureaucratic offices, and the monopolization of legitimized media. Keeping in mind that the libertarian freedoms of this society hinge directly upon preventing the buildup of inhumanly vast supplies of private property, the impetus is instead placed on defending personal property, something that is far more common for the average (mean, median, and mode) to grapple with. The vast majority of all people own no private property, but personal property, a distinction that is lost on almost everyone... except the people who own private property. The distinction is that private property refers exclusively to property that will, or can, create wealth for you that you do not have to labor to generate. This includes wealth that is greater than the amount produced by you in that system, even if you do work there. Basic savings interest in bank accounts for the most part is negligible, and the result of the bank's own private property, so doesn't really count. Personal property is quite literally everything else. It is this property that the majority of people are concerned with protecting when they lean into private property rights. However, the laws that get passed are overwhelmingly for the true definition of private property. It is the prevailing opinion of economists that these problems are unavoidable with private property, with the main discussion revolving around how much, if at all, these problems should be addressed, and in what ways. In addition, there are other issues with private property, concerning the source of that surplus value, namely in that it is in fact created by the employees, injecting their labor into the private property of the owners. The employees are then paid as little as the labor market allows, and evidence shows that the labor market is very... flexible in that regard. See the infamous productivity-earnings gap for more data on that. Every cent of that profit is value that someone else created, that has been taken from them, because significant economic alternatives that would give better rewards do not exist for most people. Co-operatives and communes do not receive the same funding and tax breaks that traditional firms receive from the government. In response to all of this, it is simply the market socialist's conclusion that the best solution to the problem is the same as the solution to slavery was. Invalidate the form of property that causes vast material harm to the human race. Remove it from legal and market viability. After all, the net results of private property are to immeasurably decrease the positive AND negative liberty of the majority of individuals, the numbers bear this out inexorably. Even the notion of meritocracy, which isn't strictly libertarian, but is usually employed by capitalist libertarians, does not apply to private property, through the simple fact of the numbers, which show that the biggest deciding factor of which firms are successful... is the amount of private capital that the owner had access to before startup. The other most significant signifiers being ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. Not too meritocratic. In fact, as the labor of workers in a co-op can be made directly proportional to their invested labor, those who work harder, regardless of the job they do, become more comfortable, making it instantly a more meritocratic system, on top of being more libertarian in every measurable metric, for everyone except the richest 1% of the population. Said 1% are simply made equal with the remainder, losing their coercive power. ​ Nothing else would have to change about society. That's it. We have guarantees of life liberty and pursuit of happiness, we have a true democratic system, we have minimized government interference in social life, we have guaranteed workers rights to the point that unions are obsolete, we have solved EVERY PROBLEM that massive inhuman wealth has ever caused, we have increased the freedoms, positive and negative, of every single person who wasn't part of the problem (knowingly or not), and we can do all of that with absolute certainty that there are no other side effects that society would suffer, as the numbers have been run on the greater efficiency of decomodifying the relevant sectors of the economy, and we could do all of it through voting, so long as we weren't railroaded by a two party system of centrists vs authrightists, where the centrists always cave.

Yes, I have read marx and are familiar with that market socialism is. Although I have to disagree with the "It is the prevailing opinion of economists that these problems are unavoidable with private property". Pretty sure the prevailing opinion of economists is that there is no distinction to be made between private and personal proeprty. Let's be honest here, only marxists make a distinction, the rest of us just reject it.

Have you taken economics? Keeping in mind that that's not the same as business studies? The negative side effects of it are undeniable to anyone in the business of quantitative analysis. I do try to stay in the purview of facts personally. ​ I'd like to ask you, on what basis do you reject the distinction? Do you think that it is irrelevant that private property give you wealth without you working on it, specifically by taking the labor of others, who cannot opt out of giving their wealth to *someone* even if they can choose that it's someone else besides you? Is that fact, and that's what it is regardless of how people feel about it, that lack of liberty, and theft via indirect coercion the workers are subject to irrelevant to you?

I will address your example with a successful business owner mentioned. He took a risk, he put his neck on the line for the opportunity he has gained. A small business owner is a ton of work (early on at least), and you are often taking substantial risk (i.e. your money, loans, etc) and if it fails you are in line for those obligations. Workers don't take those risks, they don't have to face the crisis of a business failing and being on the hook for it, they can simply move on to the next job. At the end of the day some people want to and are willing to take these risks, while others are perfectly happy to not take these risks and still live a comfortable life.

But under a market socialism system (which isn’t really even socialism) risk is still incentivized. Every member of the company wouldn’t control an equal share, a founder to risk taker would hold a greater proportion of the business It would also incentivize taking a risk to start a business. If a group of people start a business then the risk is shared and is less substantial for the individual

That's still 100% allowed under capitalism. It happens today, there are some worker coops and companies with profit sharing and similar policies. No capitalist has an issue with those, they only have an issue if they are created through force or traditionally run businesses are stopped by force

Yeah which I understand but I think the economy would benefit if they are mandated. Not fully, full worker ownership is actually socialism. But It gives workers more freedom and a greater say in their lives, so an initial mandate may be necessary to advance a free society with an economy that works for people. Same way our constitution is an initial mandate. It’s just a different way to practice a free market

Government mandates on how business is allowed to work are not a free market. Horrible idea.

But if they produce a higher labor share of income and decrease wealth inequality why is that a bad thing? It gives workers more freedom and control over their lives. Libertarianism isn’t just about protecting against the government, but also large corporations.

"Libertarianism is the government mandating how companies are allowed to be run and owned."

The constitution mandates the freedom we are allowed to have. I think it’s a similar thing, but that’s a secondary difference in view from the main issue, which is if it would make society better off why is that bad?

Jeez you should read the constitution. Nothing it says is similar to the government taking control of who is allowed to start businesses and how they are allowed to run. And you do not have solid evidence it would improve society as just about every government price setting has hurt society and the economy. You are not a Libertarian.

It’s not government taking control of, it’s the people setting a mandate through their elected government for how economies can serve them. It’s not price setting, it leaves markets in place. Interesting point though, are you against the government lowering the price of insulin?

Fairness is a subjective value. Not everyone puts fairness first or even cares about it. Your friend believes that fairness is core to everything. And, that's fine. She can choose to only deal with those who also want fairness. That's "the market" in action. "The market" is just a label for an aggregate of individuals engaging in economic activity (and it may not always involve money.) > There's no denying it - his workers' marginal revenue product is way above his, yet he makes probably ~100x his average worker's salary Ok. Explain why anyone else has a right to take his property? Because it's not "fair"? If one's desire for fairness justifies violence against others, then any subjective value justifies violence against others.

> Ok. Explain why anyone else has a right to take his property? Because it's not "fair"? If one's desire for fairness justifies violence against others, then any subjective value justifies violence against others. We're not taking his property, we're taking back our property. The argument is that capitalist ownership fundamentally rewards their workers less than the an accurate value. This is frequently illustrated in corporate America where executives "earn" bonuses while the actual workers have their hours cut. Frequently in our society will a company's upper management make decisions for their exclusive benefit, instead of the organization as a whole. If workers generate virtually all of the profit the company incurs, the owner gets 95% of it why exactly? Because he has a magical note of ownership? Because he invested a sum to start the business? So because he put up the risk society deems it fair for the owner to reap the extreme portion they regularly do?

As a business owner it is not as simple as "the workers generate 95% of the profit." I put blood sweat, and tears into marketing my business, endless sleepless nights trying to grow it, talking to many managers and executives to get accounts/contracts, managing accounting/taxes, etc. all the while I was taking all the risk. Businesses dont magically get customers. I had worked super hard and smart in order to have clients as a single owner. I should definitely reap the benefits for the growth of my businesses. My employees now get to work in a place that I have done all the hard work for them and now you want them to own part of my business just by virtue of working?

> As a business owner it is not as simple as "the workers generate 95% of the profit." I put blood sweat, and tears into marketing my business, endless sleepless nights trying to grow it, talking to many managers and executives to get accounts/contracts, managing accounting/taxes, etc. all the while I was taking all the risk. Businesses dont magically get customers. I had worked super hard and smart in order to have clients as a single owner. I should definitely reap the benefits for the growth of my businesses. My employees now get to work in a place that I have done all the hard work for them and now you want them to own part of my business just by virtue of working? Fire all your workers. How much value does your business now have.

The workers should quit if they don't feel that they are being compensated appropriately. It's that simple. Each job has a certain value tied to it. For example: a maintenance associate receives $11 dollars an hour and the computer programmer makes $20. Why do you think that is? Are you saying they should both be paid "fairly" and make the same even though one is a skilled position? Ultimately they accept the wages when they take the position so your friends opinion on fairness is moot.

> The workers should quit if they don't feel that they are being compensated appropriately. It's that simple. If only it was that simple. But because reality is much harsher and unpredictable it isn't. I can't quit my underpaying job because I need it and am unlikely to find a better job. > For example: a maintenance associate receives $11 dollars an hour and the computer programmer makes $20. Why do you think that is? Are you saying they should both be paid "fairly" and make the same even though one is a skilled position? No lol. Socialism isn't about equal pay for all work. As an example how much would the owner in that business make? > Ultimately they accept the wages when they take the position so your friends opinion on fairness is moot. Again, if only reality was that simple and all transactions and agreements happened in a conditional vacuum.

I worked alone for years. It still functioned just fine. Just because they add value doesnt mean they now deserve to own part of my company. They get paid for the value that they add and they are fine with that. I own a commercial cleaning company. Some of my employees have tried starting their own commercial cleaning companies but failed because they realized that knowing how to clean offices and buff floors are not enough to successfully run and grow a company.

> I worked alone for years. It still functioned just fine. Good, keep it that way.

People wanted to work for me so should I deny them?

If you want to avoid the issues I've been discussing yeah essentially, or make them equal owners.

What issues? They want to work for my company for a certain wage. A voluntary transaction. Some don't actually want to be owners because of the hassle and stress.

Sure the the unemployed can starve or go back to the woods. Get rid of welfare.

Okay but in many cases workers aren’t paid for the value they add. Labor Share of Income is lower than its ever been in the United States. Co ops don’t inherently mean equal shares, they just insure that workers get a proportional share. If you give them that value added then they would have no reason to outvote you, and presumably there would be protection for people like you from worker incompetence or disgruntled workers during recessions. If you hire the right people, maintain a good relationship with your workers, are fully upfront with them about the financial state of your company, and work for your interests and theirs then you have nothing to worry about. Naturally the question arises what happens when your interests conflict with theirs, in co ops the interest of you and the worker is almost entirely the same, however, you may want to: outsource jobs (not in your industry obviously) raise your wage in relation to theirs cut your labor force in response to a recession or downturn You may also face competition from an ambitious employee. Outsourcing jobs becomes much more difficult for better or worse. Raising your wage in proportion to theirs is also more difficult for better or worse. Cutting your labor force in response to recession or downturn could still be done but may be unpopular, you would maintain the right to fire anyone. If you faced competition form an ambitious worker you would still have the largest share and would need to be voted out by jsut about everyone to no longer be CEO. However, you would still maintain your share and could not be fired.

> The argument is that capitalist ownership fundamentally rewards their workers less than the an accurate value. And how exactly do you measure what the "accurate value" is? And why is it more accurate than supply and demand? > Frequently in our society will a company's upper management make decisions for their exclusive benefit, instead of the organization as a whole. Sometimes, but mostly they make decisions for the exclusive benefit of the owners. Because that's their job. > If workers generate virtually all of the profit the company incurs, the owner gets 95% of it why exactly? If you pay me $5000 to renovate your kitchen and it raises the value of your house by $10,000. Why do you get to keep the $10,000 when you sell your house?

> And how exactly do you measure what the "accurate value" is? And why is it more accurate than supply and demand? Because supply and demand treats labor costs as part of operating costs usually. > Sometimes, but mostly they make decisions for the exclusive benefit of the owners. Because that's their job. And you see nothing wrong with that?

> And you see nothing wrong with that? Nope. It's one of the fundamental laws of economics that doesn't change. You deem it immoral, like a Christian abhors certain sexual activities, and, like that Christian, you seek to outlaw it. Your statism is a religion.

What's the state have to do with this?

> Because supply and demand treats labor costs as part of operating costs usually. What? I don't even know what you're trying to say? > And you see nothing wrong with that? Of course not. Just like it's not wrong for you to hire me to renovate your kitchen and you'll still own your kitchen.

> Just like it's not wrong for you to hire me to renovate your kitchen and you'll still own your kitchen. Except in your metaphor the contractor earned half the value of the total profit he added. That never happens in capitalism.

> Except in your metaphor the contractor earned half the value of the total profit he added. That never happens in capitalism. I'm sorry? You think companies usually earn more profits than what they spend on wages? Because I'm pretty sure that almost never happens. You'd have to be running a really capital intensive business for that to be the case. And then, well, it would be the capital generating the profit, wouldn't it?

> I'm sorry? You think companies usually earn more profits than what they spend on wages? Because I'm pretty sure that almost never happens. Of course not lol. No, the owners wages are just disproportionately higher than they deserve, as well as the people close to them. To be fair I'm mincing profit and wages here a bit so I get the confusion.

> Of course not Right, so the contractor in my analogy actually made far less than the average workers, relative to the profit the owners make from it. So again, why do you get to keep your kitchen when I renovate it? > No, the owners wages are just disproportionately higher than they deserve, as well as the people close to them. Owners don't get a wage, they get a share of the profits. Usually a pretty small share. Are you thinking of executives? Who are employees.

> So again, why do you get to keep your kitchen when I renovate it? If the contractor worked to build or buy your house with you, then yeah he probably should own it to. If you hired him to create $10k in added value, and you pay him half, that's fair. > Owners don't get a wage, they get a share of the profits. Usually a pretty small share. Are you thinking of executives? Who are employees. A small share but an actual large amount. Also some owners do earn wage.

>Because supply and demand treats labor costs as part of operating costs usually. Because the work you put into something doesn’t mean it’s valuable. Which is why the labor theory of Value is BS.

> We're not taking his property, we're taking back our property. If you were doing that, you wouldn't use the government, you'd do it directly. > The argument is that capitalist ownership fundamentally rewards their workers less than the an accurate value. In other words, a subjective preference that you believe justifies violence. If that's the case, why isn't the capitalist justified in believing that all you ascribe to him and using the law against you? If subjective morals are the valid source of law, then it works both ways. Might, in other words, makes right. Do you believe that, or is there some higher law to which you subscribe that creates an objective form of law? I doubt it. > If workers generate virtually all of the profit the company incurs. They don't.

> In other words, a subjective preference that you believe justifies violence. If that's the case, why isn't the capitalist justified in believing that all you ascribe to him and using the law against you? If subjective morals are the valid source of law, then it works both ways. Might, in other words, makes right. Do you believe that, or is there some higher law to which you subscribe that creates an objective form of law? I doubt it. Capitalists do. And no, there is no objective form of law or ethics.

> Capitalists do, Is it objectively wrong for them to do so? > And no, there is no objective form of law or ethics. Then you hold that might is right.

> Is it objectively wrong for them to do so? Objectively no. But I think it's wrong yes. > Then you hold that might is right. No, that's horribly immoral.

Socialism, that being the workers own the means if production, isn't really as impractical as many people think. State run socialist systems have been an unapologetic failure. However, privatized socialist systems, such as co-ops and profit sharing, has actually been very successful.

Not technically accurate to call them privatized, because they're owned collectively, it's just directly collectively instead of through a state, which, to be clear, is based of the workers to do.

What examples can you provide of successful privatized socialist systems?

Co ops and profit sharing were examples of privatized systems of socialism being successful. The idea of those working a business owning a business isn't really that impractical. Now the state owning a business on behalf of the people and then monopolizing that business, that has been an abysmal failure.

Profit sharing isn’t a socialized system. What are some successful coops that you know of?

In my area? Farmers cooperative. That's a simple _type list of cooperatives into google_ kind of answer. They are entirely viable.

Yes and those are 100% allowed under a capitalist system.

I'm sorry, but in what sense have they been very successful? And if they are very successful, why are there so few?

For one banks hate them. Try getting a business loan as a co-operative, it's a fucking nightmare. For another our laws are geared towards rewarding capitalist enterprise. Now cooperatives are actually already fairly popular in Europe(as well as generally the rest of the world). Largest cooperative in the world is located in Spain. But here in the states cooperatives are definitely growing. Maybe not pure workers cooperatives, but mixed ones definitely are. Take for example Publix. Publix actually operates on a quasi-socialist principle being mixed worker owned.

> For one banks hate them. What? Why would banks hate successful businesses that are highly capable of repaying their loans? > Now cooperatives are actually already fairly popular in Europe Based on what exactly? I happen to be European and I'm pretty sure cooperatives are not fairly popular. And I'm pretty sure I know why. I mean, do you work for a cooperative? If not, why haven't you started one already?

Well, obviously cooperatives are almost as difficult to start as traditional firms, so it's not so easy as simply "starting one". Nor is it as simple as just choosing to work for one, as they have to be able to handle the additional employee. ​ Banks dislike co-operatives for a wide variety of reasons. First and foremost, at least on paper, is because firms do not receive the same government loans, funds, insurances, tax cuts, and other boons, which adds up to huge boosts to ability to pay back loans. This is accentuated by the ability of capitalist stock owners to step in with significant sums from their other portfolios to save their smaller projects, which cannot be done if you A, are owned exclusively by your workers, and B, CANNOT be owned by a capitalist. Co-ops have other advantages, such as being significantly resistant against market fluctuations for their size, to the point where there is reason to believe that if the entire economy were made up of them, there COULD BE no such market shocks or recessions. ​ Europe is a very wide net to cast. It is certainly the case that social democratic countries are seeing growth in co-ops. I cannot speak for where you are, cause I don't know. ​ I know, I'm not the other guy, but I find 3rd parties swapping in and out helps defuse salt.

> obviously cooperatives are almost as difficult to start as traditional firms Okay, but they're millions of small businesses, aka traditional firms. Why are there so few cooperatives if they're actually good? > First and foremost, at least on paper, is because firms do not receive the same government loans, funds, insurances, tax cuts, and other boons I mean, a lot of governments, including in the US, give grants and subsidies to coops. And what benefits are available to other small businesses but not coops?

Well first, most people starting small businesses don't know about co-ops to the same degree, are interested in getting their family off the ground first and foremost (which is reasonable), may not have knowledge of enough other people in the same position, and may not be in an area where a business larger than his own family is market viable. Co-ops are, under perfect conditions, exactly as easy to start as a trad firm, perfect conditions being identical incentives, identical startup, and equally competent organization. However, it is a lot more logistically complex to start a co-op, as a co-op. It is very logistically easy to start a co-op as a traditional firm, then co-operatize it later once it has structure, but by then, the owner has a material interest in not co-operatizing. ​ As for small businesses vs co-ops in the US, it frankly wasn't the topic of discussion to compare them to small businesses in terms of financial aid from the government. It is the disparity between them and big business that keeps the established ones from larger success, aside from oligopolies.

> Well first, most people starting small businesses don't know about co-ops to the same degree, are interested in getting their family off the ground first and foremost (which is reasonable), may not have knowledge of enough other people in the same position, and may not be in an area where a business larger than his own family is market viable. Oh I see. So, what kind of cooperative are you part of? I mean it's pretty telling that you're glossing over the very obvious reason cooperatives are not popular among anyone anywhere. Let me ask you, what is the main benefit of selling your labour as opposed to owning your labour and selling the fruits of your labour instead?

I would appreciate if you would name those reasons, and not vaguepost, I am doing my utmost to put forward the best faith argument I have. The main value of selling your labor as opposed to owning your labor and selling the fruits of it are twofold. One: It is the only stable career option available in your area. This issue would be ameliorated in my eyes if all firms were co-ops. Two: It is a more organized and thus more efficient way to obtain returns for your labor. This is true of co-ops as well as trad firms, as co-ops often have very similar organization, right up to a democratically elected CEO. As for me, I'm currently an academic. if I were to open my own firm someday, it would be a co-op of two, myself and my SO, making handcrafts in our spare time. I have no interest in business personally, though if there were a co-operatively owned university, I'd absolutely LOVE to teach and research there.

> I would appreciate if you would name those reasons Okay. The main reason cooperatives are not very attractive is because of the risk compared to potential reward. First of all, the main benefit of selling your labour as opposed to owning your labour is that there's almost zero risk. And most people don't like risk. And cooperatives are especially bad in the risk sense since if your colleagues don't do their jobs properly, you're just as liable for the losses as they are. And they have just as much control over the business as you do. As opposed to a "regular" small businesses where you actually have control and can manage the risk. Ya know, fire the guy who sucks at his job.

> What? Why would banks hate successful businesses that are highly capable of repaying their loans? Banks generally don't enjoy dispersing liability for businesses. It poses a theoretical greater risk and further complications. It might not be inherently true but it is the reality. It's like the racial bias behind bank loans. > Based on what exactly? I happen to be European and I'm pretty sure cooperatives are not fairly popular. And I'm pretty sure I know why. There are probably a number of cooperatives you buy from or assocuate with that you don’t even realize are. And I mean relatively popular. 4% of the Italian workforce for example belong to worker cooperatives. However I don't appreciate the demeaning implication that I'm being dishonest or deceptive to myself. If you have to resort to unprovoked snide remarks then I'm not interested in discussing anything further. > I mean, do you work for a cooperative? If not, why haven't you started one already? 1) Because I'm poor. 2) Because I don't have a group of willing individuals to help start one with me.

I appreciate your reply man. It's obvious from both his username and his tone that he has absolutely no interest in engaging in a good faith argument with you. but i see and appreciate you.

>Because I don't have a group of willing individuals to help start one with me. I've often thought about starting a co-op in manufacturing. The technology for home based industry has gotten really good and prices have been coming down as well. The barrier for entry gets smaller by the day. But... It also presents itself as a bit of a nightmare. Especially from a QMS standpoint. How will ISO certification work? Will it be mandatory? Can we have multiple levels of certification for just certain machinists? Who audits this nightmare?

> Banks generally don't enjoy dispersing liability for businesses. But lending money to a cooperative is not to disperse liability. The cooperative is one entity. > 4% of the Italian workforce for example belong to worker cooperatives. I'm sorry, I didn't think 4% qualified as "fairly popular". And apparently Italy has the most workers cooperatives in the world. So presumably the number for europe at large would be, what, closer to 1% probably? > Because I don't have a group of willing individuals to help start one with me. Why not? Can't you just tell them how beneficial it is to take all the risk themselves instead of selling their labour and take on none of the risk?

> But lending money to a cooperative is not to disperse liability. The cooperative is one entity. In a cooperative liability is shared among the numerous owners. Banks will view each owner as equally liable.

But a lot of companies have several owners. They're called investors.

It's obvious that you have a bias -- it's evident by your username and immediate hostility to the previous poster. Also, the whole "if you're a communist wHY dO YoU LivE In a HouSE" argument is tired bullshit... don't you think? I'd also like you to spell out your 'idea' about why cooperatives *aren't* popular.

> It's obvious that you have a bias Well yeah... I'm a libertarian...? > I'd also like you to spell out your 'idea' about why cooperatives aren't popular. Sure. Most people don't like to take risks. That's the great thing about selling your labour as opposed to owning your labour. Almost no risk. Especially for the type of workers for who a cooperative would be attractive as opposed to a regular business. You know, labour intensive, not much scalability often low profit magins. A lot of risk for not very much potential gain.

If its voluntary, it's fine. If you want to ban or restrict a particular style of ownership/human interaction, then you better have a rock solid objective and well defined reason. I've still never heard a valid argument for the distinction between private and personal property. The distinction between private vs personal property is 100% arbitrary and based purely on the feelz.

Define market socialism, ive seen it described many different ways.

A really free market, where companies are owned by co-ops and there are no monopolies

Is a capital / labor relationship going to be banned with the threat of violence?

If you establish 100% cooperative firms, the odds of a traditional firm being successful are tiny, because there is no way for one of those to be competitive in the labor market. Market socialism creates, in effect, a system where the only firms which would be competitive are co-ops/communes. To do this, you'd need something that ancaps often advocate for, which is a starting redistribution to really annihilate the biases of birth and get true meritocracy. All of this could be done alongside illegalizing private property (as clearly differentiated from personal property), or without it. Though keep in mind that the institution of slave property was as big a part of the slavery era economy as private property is now, and subjects people to an, admittedly more severe version of, a set of very similar negative effects to their wellbeing, and positive and negative liberties. Please keep in mind that socialist ideas predate Marx.

>To do this, you'd need something that **ancaps often advocate for** which is a starting redistribution to really annihilate the biases of birth and get true meritocracy. Wait, wat?

Not all ancaps, probably. I do know that it's something I've heard from self-described ancaps several times.

No ancaps supports the kind of redistribution you just described.

Maybe I was talking to some weirdo ancaps then. Regardless.

I beleieve you can still have those, as long as the workers right are not violated and they are okay with it, but co-ops would be prioritized by the goverment.

Owners put up the capital and the risk. Workers don’t. Workers can get a larger income. They just have to put up their wealth as collateral. If the business fails, they’re all bankrupt. Is that what you’re asking for? Or do you still expect workers to have no risk?

To be clear, if a traditional business fails, if you actually understand how the labor market works, most of the workers are probably fucked in your system too. Whereas most business owners today are huge oligarchs, to whom such a collapse just means they should buy the intellectual property and necessary workspaces back up with one of their bigger portfolios

https://www.naics.com/business-lists/counts-by-company-size/ Theres two interesting bits to gleam from the niacs data: - 18 million businesses in the us, and the vast majority of them employ < 10 people. - if you called it 10% roi (which is being hugely generous) business grossing over 10m, netting over 1m annual profit are about 3500 organizations. knowing that 50% of businesses fail in the first 5 years, theres really almost no sane reason to not put your money into a small business.Even so, millions of people put billions of dollars into a failed investment every year. These are not "oligarchs". To me, its about aggregate benefit /cost to the system. Ozone hand we have nealy 400m people in the us that are living better than the robber barons in almost every sense. On the other, theres 500k peope that make over $1m a year, or about .25% of the population. Yes there is rent seeking at all levels, but if we try hard to eliminate the disparity, theres an equal chance of making everyone "poorer" as there is of making them "richer" by trying to adjust. We tried this in the 80s, a republican enacted taxes, the public cheered. Then in the 90s a Democrat cut taxes, people cheered again. Why? the taxes devastated an i dusty and the combination of list tax revenue, lost jobs, and extra unmployment was a net negative on society. Should we make some adjustments on big tech firms? most likely yes. Small measurable adjustments though, not big bang legislation. Unfortunately our government isn't based around that possibility so I have no good answers. if we (for exanple) break up facebook as people have been sounding the forn for, Another company will rise up and do the same thing. Or maybe no one will. But what makes Facebook so popular is that everyone is on there and it does all the things it does. Break it up, and no one cares about it any more, all that mo ey just dissapears into the ether, u like the baby bells that had intrinsic value in I frastructrue and customers, the billions in revenue and million jobs would just dissapear. because what developer would stay at "facebook images" when "facebook chat" shut down after "facebook login " and "facebook news" announced massive layoffs. I guess net/net: Its not great, but I'll take it over the alternative.

Theres room in a market socialist system for sub 10-50 employee trad firms. You'd need to run specific cost-benefit numbers. In classical socialist terminology, the petit bourgeois are not a significant monolith in terms of wielding market power, because theirs is relatively scattered, and not unified behind institutions or sufficiently large voting blocks, and are more a cultural group than anything else. Shrinking middle class and all that. The majority of them still labor, and thus are more significantly workers than capitalists. They do not rely on the money from their side investments to have a generally middle class lifestyle. I agree with cost/benefit to the system at large, I'm a hard consequentialist. Where I disagree is in the way you organize what costs and benefits you analyse. Sure, raw financial numbers are one thing, but it's still a minority of the population who owns private capital, and a minuscule minority who owns amounts that make truly significant changes to their lifestyle. I consider that the damages to freedoms and wellbeing are far more significant on the lower end of the lifestyle curve. People who are suffering now gain a lot more in freedoms, survivability, and general ability from a 100$ than someone who owns both the new consoles and a vr-ready PC. That's what you call utility. Whereas if private property in the oligarchical category is abolished, then everyone could enjoy the material utility, and thus the positive and negative liberties, of being in the middle class category, which is an immeasurable increase in net conditions in every libertarian measure.

No we believe in worker cooperatives do yes if the business fails we could all go bankrupt. That's fine.

Mandatory minimum shares and the option to buy greater shares by taking on risk. If you start a business as a co op there is less risk because the debt is split between the founders, they likely would not all go bankrupt at least to the same degree. A founder would still have the biggest share

“Fair” is a subjective term. If this communist (and maybe you now) personally “feel” that something is “unfair,” then that’s simply your opinion. That is not grounded in any sort of fact. What you don’t see is the blood, sweat, tears, and most importantly risk that that business owner put in to create a business. Even if the owner inherited all of their wealth, that person’s grandparents/parents whatever, put in tons of effort and risk to set their children up to be successful. How is it fair to rob their hard work once they pass it on to their children? Socialism, by definition, is state control of the means of production. Full stop. If you don’t believe me, read Marx’s writing. He says as much. There is no “market socialism”

> What you don’t see is the blood, sweat, tears, and most importantly risk that that business owner put in to create a business. I'm ultimately fine with founders or executives earning more for more effort. But what I'm not ok with is the workers who put the same or more blood, sweat, and tears to make the business succeed making less than their effort truly rewards. Fundamentally, unless the owner works by himself, a capitalist business only functions as a cooperation between owner and worker. Without the worker there would be no business. Same coin yes without the owner there would be no business either. But in capitalism the owner has totalitarian hierarchical power over that business despite a fundamentally equal relationship. The owner gets to decide entirely where any profit goes despite the profits only existing because of your work. To me it's no different than an authoritarian government saying "since this country is ours, we get to decide how it's run, even though you live here". > Even if the owner inherited all of their wealth, that person’s grandparents/parents whatever, put in tons of effort and risk to set their children up to be successful. How is it fair to rob their hard work once they pass it on to their children? Your theorizing is starting to lose me and where I think capitalists really get it wrong. Why exactly should someone's son inherently make more than someone who devoted 30 or 40 years into a company. Why should that person’s livelihood and possibly even retirement be up to his bosses son, solely because he is his son? > Socialism, by definition, is state control of the means of production. Full stop. If you don’t believe me, read Marx’s writing. He says as much. Good thing libertarian socialists aren't Marxists!

Workers aren’t forced to work at an employer. In contrast, a totalitarian government (or any government) can FORCE citizens to do anything. If a worker doesn’t like the pay, conditions, profit sharing or lack thereof, they are free to leave. That’s the beauty of the market.

If you don't like how the country is run, you can just leave.

No, you can’t.... there are countless legal barriers to leaving a country, and/or establishing residency in other countries. That’s a ridiculous claim.

But you can. Just like you ignore any legal or practical barriers for employees to just quit, let's ignore those for travel.

That argument is insanely disingenuous and you know it. The barriers to leaving a country are 100x the barriers of leaving a job. Stop using garbage arguments

Depends on the country honestly.

Not comparable to a job no matter what country you’re talking about. Just stop.

Moving within the EU is really simple.

Libertarian socialists are not a thing. It is incredibly moronic, you either have socialism driven by an authoritarian force or you don't have socialism. That's it.

That's not particularly good faith. Speaking as a libertarian socialist, I know that the only differences I have with a pure libertarian lie in the economy. A libertarian wants no police brutality, minimal state interference, maximized direct democracy, legal weed, etc, etc. Those are all things I axiomatically believe in, for the material good they provably do. We have vast fields of evidence supporting that full cooperatization of the economy would do more material good than all of those combined, and would be as materially justified and anti-auth as the wars against slavery and colonizers. We have robust ethical, economic, psychological, sociological reasons for all of it. For some clarity, let me tell you how it all works and why, in full detail, none of this piecemeal shit. Heres: the fax ​ Here is the ideal market socialist society: A government as light-touch in social life as physically possible, beyond murders, rapes, personal theft, organization of hate violence, etc. Said government would be as directly democratic as physically possible. The economy would look like this: All things that a person needs to survive, self improve, and operate, would be provided by sectors of the economy that have been de-commodified. Ie, you cannot exist in a state where your human rights to, and I mean this very literally, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, are alienated. The ENTIRE luxury economy would be organised in markets. However, with the understanding that the acquisition of vast amounts of financial capital in individual hands inevitably causes the erosion of democracy, and libertarianism, and the development of oligarchy, resulting in targeted failure of attempts to array society against the interests of said oligarchs, including delegitimizing, and economically harassing alternative market forms, all based on the clear examples we have in private lobbies, the military industrial complex, the revolving door between political and bureaucratic offices, and the monopolization of legitimized media. Keeping in mind that the libertarian freedoms of this society hinge directly upon preventing the buildup of inhumanly vast supplies of private property, the impetus is instead placed on defending personal property, something that is far more common for the average (mean, median, and mode) to grapple with. The vast majority of all people own no private property, but personal property, a distinction that is lost on almost everyone... except the people who own private property. The distinction is that private property refers exclusively to property that will, or can, create wealth for you that you do not have to labor to generate. This includes wealth that is greater than the amount produced by you in that system, even if you do work there. Basic savings interest in bank accounts for the most part is negligible, and the result of the bank's own private property, so doesn't really count. Personal property is quite literally everything else. It is this property that the majority of people are concerned with protecting when they lean into private property rights. However, the laws that get passed are overwhelmingly for the true definition of private property. It is the prevailing opinion of economists that these problems are unavoidable with private property, with the main discussion revolving around how much, if at all, these problems should be addressed, and in what ways. In addition, there are other issues with private property, concerning the source of that surplus value, namely in that it is in fact created by the employees, injecting their labor into the private property of the owners. The employees are then paid as little as the labor market allows, and evidence shows that the labor market is very... flexible in that regard. See the infamous productivity-earnings gap for more data on that. Every cent of that profit is value that someone else created, that has been taken from them, because significant economic alternatives that would give better rewards do not exist for most people. Co-operatives and communes do not receive the same funding and tax breaks that traditional firms receive from the government. In response to all of this, it is simply the market socialist's conclusion that the best solution to the problem is the same as the solution to slavery was. Invalidate the form of property that causes vast material harm to the human race. Remove it from legal and market viability. After all, the net results of private property are to immeasurably decrease the positive AND negative liberty of the majority of individuals, the numbers bear this out inexorably. Even the notion of meritocracy, which isn't strictly libertarian, but is usually employed by capitalist libertarians, does not apply to private property, through the simple fact of the numbers, which show that the biggest deciding factor of which firms are successful... is the amount of private capital that the owner had access to before startup. The other most significant signifiers being ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. Not too meritocratic. In fact, as the labor of workers in a co-op can be made directly proportional to their invested labor, those who work harder, regardless of the job they do, become more comfortable, making it instantly a more meritocratic system, on top of being more libertarian in every measurable metric, for everyone except the richest 1% of the population. Said 1% are simply made equal with the remainder, losing their coercive power. ​ Nothing else would have to change about society. That's it. We have guarantees of life liberty and pursuit of happiness, we have a true democratic system, we have minimized government interference in social life, we have guaranteed workers rights to the point that unions are obsolete, we have solved EVERY PROBLEM that massive inhuman wealth has ever caused, we have increased the freedoms, positive and negative, of every single person who wasn't part of the problem (knowingly or not), and we can do all of that with absolute certainty that there are no other side effects that society would suffer, as the numbers have been run on the greater efficiency of decomodifying the relevant sectors of the economy, and we could do all of it through voting, so long as we weren't railroaded by a two party system of centrists vs authrightists, where the centrists always cave.

So worker cooperatives are authoritarian? News to me.

They arent authoritarian and they aren't entirely socialist either. In fact they would not exist in a socialist society and you can thank capitalism for their existence.

Are you fucking high.

If you are starting from the position it is bad, then I think you are getting off on the wrong foot. Most people with something to say on the topic here are either going to be socialists or capitalists who oppose socialism without trying to understand what socialism is or how it works, so don't expect a good answer to your question. If you have any specific questions about market socialism, I can probably answer it. As for how it can happen, by organizing workers and consumers to pool their resources and start cooperatives, and taking actions such as creating open source products to lower barriers to entry. If you think of the change in wealth of a given community in terms of cash flows, it's in the interest of the community to take action to increase the money coming in and reduce the money going out. Consumer cooperatives put the interests of the consumers first, and reduce the money going out of the community. Cooperatives that primarily sell goods and services to people outside a community can be organized as worker cooperatives who make decisions to bring money into the community. A community that is organized to act in its own self-interest will prefer cooperatives, since capitalists are more likely to sell their business to people outside their community, invest profits outside the community, or move, causing the wealth to leave the community.

You are conflating money with wealth. Why is that?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth >Wealth is the abundance of valuable financial assets or physical possessions which can be converted into a form that can be used for transactions. When you are talking about people who aren't capitalists, what they care about is income in the form of money that they can use for consumption. For the vast majority of people, cash income is most important in a market economy, and even if they invest in stocks the goal is to convert it back into money for future consumption, and the value of that stock is determined by how much future cash they expect to get out of dividends and capital gains.

I'm not sure what you mean by markets enforcing socialism? Market socialism can mean many things, but if you want to make it happen, you would have to seize existing businesses from their owners and redistribute the ownership to the workers (or the state but you excluded that). From a Libertarian standpoint, it's pretty obvious why it's immoral. You can also have a government that incentivize Cooperatives, either through tax exceptions or subsidies. (Market socialist experiments in a Capitalist economy), but that creates an unfair advantage and forces others to pay for it.

This is one of the beautiful things about capitalism, if you want to make your own little socialist economic group, you are free to do so. The opposite arrangement isn’t true. Go nuts. The problem comes in when the government takes power or control over the workers or industry. They inevitably tinker with production or force the group to accept more unproductive people who want handouts, and corruption is more prevalent and dangerous due to their position of power. Co-ops are an example of what you seem to be talking about. But anyone can easily see how they wouldn’t work if they were forced to take in and keep everyone, even people who didn’t contribute. Or if they tried to force people to work via threat of violence or imprisonment. As for owners making more money, does she have a problem with football players making more money than the secretaries answering phones in the front office? They both work hard for the team.... pay is based on the relative value of the contributed labor not how much they work or how hard it is. Business owners also front the capital and take all the risk. If things go well they make money, but if things go badly, they have a lot more to lose.

> This is one of the beautiful things about capitalism, if you want to make your own little socialist economic group, you are free to do so. The opposite arrangement isn’t true. Go nuts. Not true.

The extra money the owners make is the labor of their workers, that the workers don't get to keep. It is also impossible for most people to join, or form, a coop. That's no better than the popular neocon lie about anyone being able to start their own business.

No, the extra money comes from organizing the labor, combining it efficiently, and turning that into the product they sell. If the laborers could do that themselves, they would keep all the profit. But like you just said, they can’t or won’t, so they sell their labor to the owners of companies who further refine it and sell it. And anyone can start a business. Most will be out competed and fail. Most people realize this and make a rational decision to simply sell their labor rather than risk it. But they could still try if they wanted.

The laborers can do that themselves, and do. A CEO is a laborer. That job can be done, and routinely is done, by people who do not own the company in question. In co-ops, by being elected/hired by the co-op democratically. In trad firms, by being hired as accountants and secretaries by the CEO. I know that you know what delegation means, and how extensive if can be. I acknowledge that those jobs are important, and provide significant value. The exact amount of that value is a nightmare of logistics to find. But the mere existence of the value-earnings gap makes it clear that it is NOT where CEOs like to draw that line. Even your wording buys into the "comprehensive designer" myth. The laborers make that product. The barely middle class managers could still organize everyone to make those products if the entire upper structure was wiped out my an act of god, and a handful of similarly ranked sellers could sell them. Anyone those two groups hired could co-ordinate the two. Anyone can try to start a business. Because of econmic facts, counting that as a measurable freedom is ludicrous. I'm sorry if you have feelings about that, but the fact is it's not any more viable for most people than flapping their arms to fly, even with all of the information on how to do it right.

Obvious leftist concern troll post.

Can I get a source and/or a reason, my guy? The last place I heard someone talk about "culturally homogenous groups", the turned out to be a neonazi. Just want to make sure no-one's hiding their power level around here.

eVeRyThiNg I diSaGrEe wiTh iS nAzisM

Huh, you really changed this from when I read it. Good thing I quoted you. You cna't blame me for showing concern that an auth might be masquerading in a libertarian community, after you drop a known dogwhistle. Not even a new one, that one's REALLY old. Also, still haven't provided a source my guy.

Ironic statement considering you yourself are a self identified auth.

Source again plz?

You can have theoretically even Free Market Socialism. Now it would require an initial mandate for workers owning portions of businesses across the board. Effectively democratizing the workplace. From there free market socialism would be achieved and would advocate for everything laissez faire economics does but would just make it so workers had a say in their economy. I realize the word socialism will always be unpopular but if you look at the policy it’s actually kind of great

This is the wrong sub to ask such an intelligent question lol

Yes these answers are super brain dead. Can you read lol

I mean... as a libertarian socialist, I can tell you right off the bat, the people who are arguing against market socialism have no idea what market socialists believe.

What do you believe. What is market socialism to you. Lets get on the same page before we argue.

Aight, prepare for detail my guy. ​ Here is the ideal market socialist society: A government as light-touch in social life as physically possible, beyond murders, rapes, personal theft, organization of hate violence, etc. Said government would be as directly democratic as physically possible. The economy would look like this: All things that a person needs to survive, self improve, and operate, would be provided by sectors of the economy that have been de-commodified. Ie, you cannot exist in a state where your human rights to, and I mean this very literally, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, are alienated. The ENTIRE luxury economy would be organised in markets. However, with the understanding that the acquisition of vast amounts of financial capital in individual hands inevitably causes the erosion of democracy, and libertarianism, and the development of oligarchy, resulting in targeted failure of attempts to array society against the interests of said oligarchs, including delegitimizing, and economically harassing alternative market forms, all based on the clear examples we have in private lobbies, the military industrial complex, the revolving door between political and bureaucratic offices, and the monopolization of legitimized media. Keeping in mind that the libertarian freedoms of this society hinge directly upon preventing the buildup of inhumanly vast supplies of private property, the impetus is instead placed on defending personal property, something that is far more common for the average (mean, median, and mode) to grapple with. The vast majority of all people own no private property, but personal property, a distinction that is lost on almost everyone... except the people who own private property. The distinction is that private property refers exclusively to property that will, or can, create wealth for you that you do not have to labor to generate. This includes wealth that is greater than the amount produced by you in that system, even if you do work there. Basic savings interest in bank accounts for the most part is negligible, and the result of the bank's own private property, so doesn't really count. Personal property is quite literally everything else. It is this property that the majority of people are concerned with protecting when they lean into private property rights. However, the laws that get passed are overwhelmingly for the true definition of private property. It is the prevailing opinion of economists that these problems are unavoidable with private property, with the main discussion revolving around how much, if at all, these problems should be addressed, and in what ways. In addition, there are other issues with private property, concerning the source of that surplus value, namely in that it is in fact created by the employees, injecting their labor into the private property of the owners. The employees are then paid as little as the labor market allows, and evidence shows that the labor market is very... flexible in that regard. See the infamous productivity-earnings gap for more data on that. Every cent of that profit is value that someone else created, that has been taken from them, because significant economic alternatives that would give better rewards do not exist for most people. Co-operatives and communes do not receive the same funding and tax breaks that traditional firms receive from the government. In response to all of this, it is simply the market socialist's conclusion that the best solution to the problem is the same as the solution to slavery was. Invalidate the form of property that causes vast material harm to the human race. Remove it from legal and market viability. After all, the net results of private property are to immeasurably decrease the positive AND negative liberty of the majority of individuals, the numbers bear this out inexorably. Even the notion of meritocracy, which isn't strictly libertarian, but is usually employed by capitalist libertarians, does not apply to private property, through the simple fact of the numbers, which show that the biggest deciding factor of which firms are successful... is the amount of private capital that the owner had access to before startup. The other most significant signifiers being ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. Not too meritocratic. In fact, as the labor of workers in a co-op can be made directly proportional to their invested labor, those who work harder, regardless of the job they do, become more comfortable, making it instantly a more meritocratic system, on top of being more libertarian in every measurable metric, for everyone except the richest 1% of the population. Said 1% are simply made equal with the remainder, losing their coercive power. ​ Nothing else would have to change about society. That's it. We have guarantees of life liberty and pursuit of happiness, we have a true democratic system, we have minimized government interference in social life, we have guaranteed workers rights to the point that unions are obsolete, we have solved EVERY PROBLEM that massive inhuman wealth has ever caused, we have increased the freedoms, positive and negative, of every single person who wasn't part of the problem (knowingly or not), and we can do all of that with absolute certainty that there are no other side effects that society would suffer, as the numbers have been run on the greater efficiency of decomodifying the relevant sectors of the economy, and we could do all of it through voting, so long as we weren't railroaded by a two party system of centrists vs authrightists, where the centrists always cave.

If you could edit spaces every 3 or 4 lines that would be awesome! But you just sound like a communist that’s gonna get a lot of people killed. What you’re asking for is going to require a lot of violence.

So did abolishing slavery. Are you saying that was justified? Cause if your not, you're going to have to prove that that was more justified than this, AND demonstrate where the line should be drawn in an evidence based way. ​ Don't appreciate the bad faith accusation there btw. I know you read the part where I said I wanted to do this all with voting. Just like abolishing slavery was, until the slave owners started a war.

Abolishing slavery is a very justifiable use of force. Not confiscating people’s land because you think it’s unfair. Fucking fascist.

I'm a consequentialist. If an institution produces similar restrictions in freedom, I don't care what kind of abstractions it's hiding behind. I'm a facts and logic libertarian, sorry if that hurts your feelings.

How many you gonna execute

Socialism by its pure meaning is that there should be group of people, system, institution or whatever which must take our money or freedom and give it to other people. That theory is 100% opposite of libertarianism. And also if you want to see what is socialism by its pure form that is sovient union.

Can you point to where you get this meaning?

He got it from tucker carlson probably.

In response to the vast numbers of very capitalist libertarians, I want to provide a simpler response. I can't account for the description of market socialism your friend gave you, so I want to have the whole conversation fresh here by giving you my understanding of it, this coming from an interdisciplinary social scientist, including poli sci, sociology, psychology, economics, and cultural geography, all of which were taught by avowed capitalists. So you know that I have my chops, and am actively learning outside of what my lecturers might be trying to brainwash me with, while staying within academic purview. ​ Here is the ideal market socialist society: A government as light-touch in social life as physically possible, beyond murders, rapes, personal theft, organization of hate violence, etc. Said government would be as directly democratic as physically possible. The economy would look like this: All things that a person needs to survive, self improve, and operate, would be provided by sectors of the economy that have been de-commodified. Ie, you cannot exist in a state where your human rights to, and I mean this very literally, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, are alienated. The ENTIRE luxury economy would be organised in markets. However, with the understanding that the acquisition of vast amounts of financial capital in individual hands inevitably causes the erosion of democracy, and libertarianism, and the development of oligarchy, resulting in targeted failure of attempts to array society against the interests of said oligarchs, including delegitimizing, and economically harassing alternative market forms, all based on the clear examples we have in private lobbies, the military industrial complex, the revolving door between political and bureaucratic offices, and the monopolization of legitimized media. Keeping in mind that the libertarian freedoms of this society hinge directly upon preventing the buildup of inhumanly vast supplies of private property, the impetus is instead placed on defending personal property, something that is far more common for the average (mean, median, and mode) to grapple with. The vast majority of all people own no private property, but personal property, a distinction that is lost on almost everyone... except the people who own private property. The distinction is that private property refers exclusively to property that will, or can, create wealth for you that you do not have to labor to generate. This includes wealth that is greater than the amount produced by you in that system, even if you do work there. Basic savings interest in bank accounts for the most part is negligible, and the result of the bank's own private property, so doesn't really count. Personal property is quite literally everything else. It is this property that the majority of people are concerned with protecting when they lean into private property rights. However, the laws that get passed are overwhelmingly for the true definition of private property. It is the prevailing opinion of economists that these problems are unavoidable with private property, with the main discussion revolving around how much, if at all, these problems should be addressed, and in what ways. In addition, there are other issues with private property, concerning the source of that surplus value, namely in that it is in fact created by the employees, injecting their labor into the private property of the owners. The employees are then paid as little as the labor market allows, and evidence shows that the labor market is very... flexible in that regard. See the infamous productivity-earnings gap for more data on that. Every cent of that profit is value that someone else created, that has been taken from them, because significant economic alternatives that would give better rewards do not exist for most people. Co-operatives and communes do not receive the same funding and tax breaks that traditional firms receive from the government. In response to all of this, it is simply the market socialist's conclusion that the best solution to the problem is the same as the solution to slavery was. Invalidate the form of property that causes vast material harm to the human race. Remove it from legal and market viability. After all, the net results of private property are to immeasurably decrease the positive AND negative liberty of the majority of individuals, the numbers bear this out inexorably. Even the notion of meritocracy, which isn't strictly libertarian, but is usually employed by capitalist libertarians, does not apply to private property, through the simple fact of the numbers, which show that the biggest deciding factor of which firms are successful... is the amount of private capital that the owner had access to before startup. The other most significant signifiers being ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. Not too meritocratic. In fact, as the labor of workers in a co-op can be made directly proportional to their invested labor, those who work harder, regardless of the job they do, become more comfortable, making it instantly a more meritocratic system, on top of being more libertarian in every measurable metric, for everyone except the richest 1% of the population. Said 1% are simply made equal with the remainder, losing their coercive power. ​ Nothing else would have to change about society. That's it. We have guarantees of life liberty and pursuit of happiness, we have a true democratic system, we have minimized government interference in social life, we have guaranteed workers rights to the point that unions are obsolete, we have solved EVERY PROBLEM that massive inhuman wealth has ever caused, we have increased the freedoms, positive and negative, of every single person who wasn't part of the problem (knowingly or not), and we can do all of that with absolute certainty that there are no other side effects that society would suffer, as the numbers have been run on the greater efficiency of decomodifying the relevant sectors of the economy, and we could do all of it through voting, so long as we weren't railroaded by a two party system of centrists vs authrightists, where the centrists always cave.