>Look, you guys have already got me to decide I am not a Marxist. Do you really want me to decide that I am not a socialist?
Not at all, I think you'd make a great socialist. But first you have to realise why market socialism isn't socialism.
> My views are not "clearly" not socialist; they are widely shared by many self-identified socialists, and you have no proprietary rights to the term.
That's a problem, yeah. ;-)
> I think my ideals and prescriptions are socialist, and that as sure as hell as what capitalists would call them, since they involve taking the private property now in capitalist hands and vesting ownership and control of that property in the workers collectively. Call that what you like. I won't argue about whether it qualifiesa s socialist anymore.
OK, we agree on the definition of socialism. Told you you'd make a great socialist, didn't I?
Well, nearly. Socialism is social ownership and control of the means of production, nowt ownership and control by *the workers*.
The real problem is not with your definition of socialism as such though, it is that you fail to see that merely having formal elections, does not a democracy make. Democracy must first have free people and the system you espouse does not give people real freedom.
So your market socialism fails the test of socialism, in that the means of production would not be genuinely subject to social control.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas