drool inducer the RW and the for-profit-press have caused it to become.

Capitalism is as far from the teachings of any religious figure that I know of.

Prosperity gospel, etc. is just hucksterism - and has nothing to do with the teachings of Jesus, for instance.

A lot of people who don't believe in magical powers think that the story of the loaves and fishes is about people contributing for a common need and all having more than enough.

Love Mr. Alperovitz and other thought leaders about this topic, and I definitely embrace many of the tenets espoused in what has been referred to as socialism.

However, I do believe all the "ism" talk itself is corrupted at this point.

We need a fresh start, a new way of doing things, and we need a new label for it. Take the best of models -- past and present -- and forge a new "ism" altogether.

That's what I believe very strongly.

K&R

Something along the lines of "whether it's called socialism or not".

Personally, I'm PROUD to be a socialist (it's in my user name after all) and most people I work with politically know that I'm a Classic Red socialist too, but I'm open to instituting the POLICIES of socialism, even if it's not called that. Just like with all these threads about Team D, it's NOT the team that I'm concerned with, it's the POLICIES that the team espouses.

without pretending that one model fits all cases, while still giving enough detail of possibilities for thought.

that it side-steps the problem of the capitalists and how to take the power away FROM the capitalists. It talks about discussion of alternative system of economic organization WITHOUT saying just how those alternative systems will be accomplished.

As long as these alternatives remain a small percentage of the world's economic organization, they will be ignored. HOWEVER, I don't doubt AT ALL, if they start to become popular enough to threaten the ownership of the ruling class, THEY WILL BE OUTLAWED. The capitalists will NOT share economic power with the people. They never have and they never will. It would destroy capitalism if these alternatives were allowed to proliferate widely and they know it. That's the EXACT reason we didn't even get a Public Option in the ACA. The big insurance companies knew they couldn't compete with even a PO.

and pick up the pieces in a nationalized banking system.

Not to mention re-education centers where millions of people will have to go in order to get their mind right. After all, strong regulations require strong regulators and strong penalties, otherwise they are ineffective.

During the transitional phase to socialism, a lot of people are not going to be happy about having their power, property, and material possessions confiscated, divided, and re-distributed. Black markets, bribery, and corruption will be widespread. There will be pain and bloodshed like this nation has never seen.

It will be a long, hard, and violent process. But in 50 to 100 years, as the capitalists and capitalism-influenced generations die off, socialism will finally start to pay off in a more egalitarian society, where people are happy to live in material modesty for the greater good.

I really don't, sorry.

I always fall back to the definition of "State, public, or worker owned means of production".

There are some people who define anything and everything that some unit of government does, like police and fire services, public education, etc. as socialism. But when I think of socialism, I think of government ownership of entities such as factories, warehouses, mines, energy production and delivery systems, airlines and other transportation companies (like trucking and shipping), and so forth. In other words, entities that traditionally are profit-seeking.

Is this anything like your vision of it?

There is nothing wrong with something being worker owned. State owned is another thing, unless it's central to the commons like a utility then it should be regulated to barely prosper or be nationalized to reduce costs for the good of the whole.

I see communism as almost an anarchistic type of system, where government is rarely needed. But you won't get to true communism except by going through some form of socialism.

Personally, I think you're BOTH describing a form of socialism. It depends of what you consider "central to the commons". I would add in food production and distribution, housing, health care, energy and more as being "central to the commons" and needing to be centrally owned and planned. The "extras" that are not necessary to actual living, but are related to living "well" (whatever that means to each individual) MIGHT could be made a part of a well regulated "market".

It will basically be a civil war for a while. The concept of ownership of "private" property, i.e., the means of production, is so ingrained in the psyche of this country that, no matter how many people want, fight for, and will benefit from a socialist economic/political system, there will be a group that will be violently opposed. I always look to the Russian Revolution and the immediate few years afterwards as a template. The Red/White civil war was pretty vicious and, along with Lenin's early demise, was what deformed the nascent worker's state into Stalinism.

There are a LOT of thing's to watch out for, including the rise of a socialist bureaucracy. We want to try and avoid the mistakes of the past while still preserving the revolution itself. I'm not so sure there are a (relatively) LOT of people who aren't going to be happy though. The more and more wealth gets concentrated, the fewer actual people there are that "own" all of that wealth. Those few people though, WILL still have a lot of influence and power, even if they're stripped of most of their assets.

But this actually ties into my original reply. We've got to try and analyze the entire situation with an eye towards doing what we need to do in the LEAST disruptive way possible. I see it as nationalizing the "commanding heights" of the big industrial sectors and ESPECIALLY the ones involving the well being of people. Also PLANNING the economy until no one (or at least very few) are hungry, homeless, or in need of BASIC material possessions needed to live and live comfortably. I could see a VERY controlled "market" for non-primary goods and services, which SHOULD allow some flexibility for those "extras".

I've read a few places that we could have ALL we need for the basics to live on about 15/20 hours per week of work for all of the workers. The rest of that 40 hour week goes to pay for those "extras" AND of course, for profit for the owners.

Not to mention the fact that, if they're not TRULY worker owned, then we'll be facing the same problem again in another few decades. Capitalism has PROVEN that it can't be regulated for more than a few decades at most. IF they are "worker owned" in name only, how many decades until we're back to where we are now?

Great article. K & R.