Oh, sorry to hear that.

Parenti Lofi is also high-key great

This one lecture has churned out countless comrades, lmao

No problem! As for your analysis, it depends on if you agree with Marx, and Marxists, or not. If we hold to Marxian analysis, we need to tweak a few things here. As a Marxist, I am going to do my best to stick with that.

1. What is Socialism?

Socialism is a transitional stage to Communism. It is characterized by, above all, an economy where public ownership and central planning is primary. There’s really no such thing as a pure system untainted by what came before it or what will come next, which is where Dialectical and Historical Materialism come into play as philosophical aspects of Marxism. The reason this is important is because Socialism isn’t 5 steps away, it’s simply one revolution away, and such a system can’t abolish Private Property or enforce full worker cooperatives overnight as the infrastructure for that hasn’t been developed.

Put another way, if the company you work at right this instant turned into a worker cooperative, production would grind to a halt as everyone tried to figure out how to change organizational structures, responsibilities, and how to run things. This extends further when you add in the incredible complexity of logistics, supply lines, who your company trades with for machinery and raw materials, etc.

2. Why cooperative property?

If we hold Marxian analysis, it is through market competition that companies centralize and prepare themselves better for central planning. Wal-mart, Amazon, etc all develop and employ incredibly complex forms of internal market planning that can simply be adjusted after folding into the public sector. Whether this company is cooperative or private makes no difference on its ability to shift to public ownership and central planning.

In other words, Market Socialism is nice in that it removes exploitation, but is no nearer to Communism than Capitalism. The leap to public ownership is no closer, just the relations of exploitation are removed.

3. How do we get to Communism, and what role can worker cooperatives play in that?

The solution is to perform a revolution and establish a Proletarian State. This is a hard requirement to begin with, otherwise you can’t simply accomplish Market Socialism, the bourgeoisie would never allow it. This process will be entirely different in every country, but most will have certain constants.

What will this new Socialist State do? First, highly developed and critical industries will be nationalized and planned. The remaining industries will retain private property and cooperatives, but with heavy involvement in planning from the government. This becomes a sort of Socialist Market Economy, where the Public Sector is primary, and markets are heavily controlled but allowed in order to develop the Productive Forces to the point that they can be harvested and folded into the Public Sector. Where applicable, cooperatives can help reduce the levels of exploitation in the interim between private ownership and public ownership, especially in the agricultural sector where farming isn’t as industrialized. Gradually, class struggle is heightened and eventually full public ownership is achieved.

Does this all make sense?

No problem!

I think it’s more that neither can be complete without the other. Trans liberation requires worker liberation, worker liberation requires trans liberation. Each can make meaningful progress without the other, but only in an incomplete manner.

What do you mean? Social progress is a core aspect of Socialism, without trans liberation we can’t truly liberate the proletariat.

Good question!

Under Marxist analysis, kinda, essentially. Worker cooperatives change the relation from Proletarian/bourgeois to entirely Petite Bourgeoisie. The worker-owners of each firm are, by ownership, more interested in their own firm’s success than the success of the broader economy. This is the main critique of Market Socialism from a Marxian analysis.

Now, that doesn’t mean Market Socialism isn’t an improvement on Capitalism, it certainly helps reduce exploitation, but you don’t actually gain the benefits of collectivized ownership and common planning that allows Humanity to truly take mastery over Capital. The benefits of moving from competition to cooperation is massive.

Realistically, cooperatives can serve as a good basis of a transitional Socialist state, alongside traditional markets and a robust public sector, as long as strong central planning is employed and gradually the cooperatives and traditional private firms are folded into the Public Sector over time as they develop to the level that public ownership and planning becomes more efficient than market forces.

Yes, which you can appropriate by siezing control. The Proletarian State can oppress the bourgeoisie the same way the bourgeoisie oppresses the poletariat.

Bit of a non-sequitor to compare individual production to large, mass-scale corporations, no? People are suggesting changing ownership from private to public and producing along a common plan for the common good, rather than the profits of a few individuals.

The revolution. One of the necessary lessons from the Paris Commune is that you can’t simply lay hold of the Means of Production, but must replace the Bourgeois state with a Proletarian one. By taking control of the state, the Proletariat can wrest from the Bourgeoisie their Capital and begin producing along a common plan for the good of all.

You can’t just sieze production in Punxsutawney without doing so nationally, at the federal level. Otherwise, the state will come in and break up the rising worker movement with force, as it has done many times in the past.

The best things you can do to advance Socialism personally is to get organized and read theory. Join a union, party, or other working class org, and do your best to study Leftist theory and historical applications of theory so we can learn from what worked well, improve what almost worked well, and prevent making the same mistakes.

If you want to get started, I have an introductory Marxist reading list.

It starts with mass worker organization, usually a nation-wide revolutionary party allying with local worker unions and other organizations. Eventually, the working class becomes well-organized and politically aware, and the contradictions between the organized working class and the Capitalists sharpen, resulting in revolution. What follows is a replacement of the existing State with the organizations built up by the working class, and the beginning of conscious planning in production taking priority over the competition of markets in driving the economy.

That is a massive oversimplification, though.

Production by individuals does provide a chance to get ahead, but ultimately individuals cannot compete with massive corporations that fill every crack and crevice available. It makes more sense to try to work towards cooperative production along a common plan as production itself becomes more complicated and large-scale.

Oh I’m aware, but I’m genuinely curious if he’s in a financial setting where he even can buy Tik Tok if he wanted to.

Would Musk even have the Liquid Capital to do so?

One of Lenin’s best quotes.

Oh, that’s funny. Pretty sure Ada would hate me for being a Marxist, so that’s especially strange.

Legitimately what are you talking about? Who is Ada?

For sure, kinda just wanted to see what the response to a pro-Marxism-Leninism meme would be. Seems split 50/50 so far.