Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, the 2024 Democratic vice presidential nominee, recently urged his supporters to not “shy away from our progressive values.
"Contemporary socialists have therefore taken to advocating for workplace democracy: roughly, workers collectively own firms and make decisions democratically."
I don't think supporters of free-enterprise should cede the terminological ground here. To the extent that modern "socialists" use this definition, then they are unequivocally *not* socialists.
This is important because while they're tacitly conceding the unworkability of socialism-proper, they're simultaneously redefining "capitalism" to mean something it does not. They're basically trying to say "capitalism" means "business models I don't like." They've converted from socialists to activist capitalists. We shouldn't grant them such a comfortable retreat.
I'm also not convinced that many contemporary socialists actually believe in their hearts that a world of co-ops is good enough. Chavez encouraged co-ops in Venezuela at first until it became apparent that the co-ops were only interested in their own bottom line; that they weren't "thinking socially" or something to that effect. So he stopped supporting these and switched to more familiar central planning.
This is, I think, what would happen in any country that contemporary socialists began to control. The failure of co-ops to get the outcomes *the planners want* would quickly end self-control for co-op firms. These debates over co-ops are really a bad faith attempt to save face, but in their hearts, they're central planners.
"Contemporary socialists have therefore taken to advocating for workplace democracy: roughly, workers collectively own firms and make decisions democratically."
I don't think supporters of free-enterprise should cede the terminological ground here. To the extent that modern "socialists" use this definition, then they are unequivocally *not* socialists.
This is important because while they're tacitly conceding the unworkability of socialism-proper, they're simultaneously redefining "capitalism" to mean something it does not. They're basically trying to say "capitalism" means "business models I don't like." They've converted from socialists to activist capitalists. We shouldn't grant them such a comfortable retreat.
I'm also not convinced that many contemporary socialists actually believe in their hearts that a world of co-ops is good enough. Chavez encouraged co-ops in Venezuela at first until it became apparent that the co-ops were only interested in their own bottom line; that they weren't "thinking socially" or something to that effect. So he stopped supporting these and switched to more familiar central planning.
This is, I think, what would happen in any country that contemporary socialists began to control. The failure of co-ops to get the outcomes *the planners want* would quickly end self-control for co-op firms. These debates over co-ops are really a bad faith attempt to save face, but in their hearts, they're central planners.