• Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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    9 months ago

    We’ve had this discussion before. While technically correct, what you describe as what you want would best be described as Market Socialism, you just prefer to take on the mantle of Liberal for what I perceive as optic reasons.

    The majority of anticapitalism is Socialist in nature, though you’ll probably still find mercantilists or monarchists somewhere.

    • J Lou@mastodon.social
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      9 months ago

      When people think of socialism they think of central planning in an authoritarian government, this has nothing to do with economic democracy and is its opposite.

      I prefer the term economic democracy for the system I advocate.

      It’s not just optics. The arguments for economic democracy are based on the liberal theory of inalienable rights. These arguments demonstrate that capitalism is illiberal and violates liberal principles @memes

      • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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        9 months ago
        1. Socialism only means Worker Ownership of the Means of Production. This does not necessarily entail Authoritarianism or central planning, and central planning itself doesn’t even entail Authoritarianism by necessity.

        2. An economy can be democratically run via worker councils, which would constitute both central planning and economic democracy.

        Essentially, you’re just arguing off of vibes. You even said it yourself, “when people think,” implying optic reasoning.

        As for the mantle of liberal, you’re using it to refer to philosophy, rather than its far more common usage as ideology. Using your own methods against your claim, when people think of liberalism, they know and understand liberalism the socioeconomic ideology surrounding Capitalism and individualism!

        That’s why I perceive your verbiage as optics, rather than anything of substance. In my view, you’re a Socialist that rejects the term but accepts the model.

        • J Lou@mastodon.social
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          9 months ago

          I know how leftists define it, but when communicating with non-leftists, it doesn’t help in understanding the economic democracy position.

          1. Central planning with no markets whatsoever is extremely inefficient
          2. The existing proposals for central planning are authoritarian and don’t allocate resources properly to new projects.

          The strongest critique of a system is that the ideology used to justify it, after mapping out its logical implications, is actually opposed to it @memes

          • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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            9 months ago

            So it’s optics, then. I’m not sure why you’re trying to convince leftists like myself of this, if your goal is to convince right wingers to become leftists.

            • J Lou@mastodon.social
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              9 months ago

              I want to convince leftists that there is no benefit to pro-market anti-capitalists referring to themselves as socialist. It is an unnecessary association that only comes with downsides @memes

              • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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                9 months ago

                There absolutely is benefit, though. First of all, I’m anti-market anyways, the profit motive is terrible and needs to be done away with, so that’s my internal bias.

                With my bias out of the way, Market Socialists gain a lot by stating they are Socialists because that very idea seems foreign to Liberals. If they hear Socialism and think mega-communism 100 gorgonzillian dead, then hear markets attached to that, that very term challenges and destabilizes their preconceived notions.

                • J Lou@mastodon.social
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                  9 months ago

                  Why is the profit motive terrible in your view? What should we replace the profit motive with?

                  What is the benefit to pro-market anti-capitalists to challenging that particular preconceived notion? It creates an unnecessary roadblock when pro-market anti-capitalists can just describe themselves as radically democratic liberals, who want to extend democracy into the workplace @memes

                  • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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                    9 months ago

                    Incentivizing profit instead of outcome results in power imbalances and enshittification. What was once disruption becomes scientifically engineered to extract as much money from the users as possible.