[lbo-talk] Soros, Volcker, Depression, Nationalization

[Bill Bartlett]

An excellent question. Let's break it down into two parts. Firstly, 
what does it mean - simply that the means of production etc would be 
"owned" by society (and thus whole and operated for the benefit of 
society). As opposed to, for example, being owned privately and thus 
operated in the interests of its private owners.

That's the short version of what "ownership" means. It means the 
thing owned is able to be used exclusively in the interests of the 
owner.

By adding that socialism also requires that the means of production 
be socially controlled, the dictionary definition would preclude any 
form of state ownership where the state was not democratic, from 
being defined as socialism. Because of course if industry is owned by 
the state, but the state is not itself socially owned/controlled, 
then there is no practical difference between that and private 
ownership of the means of production. As far as the majority are 
concerned.

As for the second part, what it means in practice, that is rather a 
long story and is undoubtedly open to debate. I admit being partial 
to trying to make a long story short, but even I'm not game to try in 
this case.

Bill Bartlett
Bracknell Tas

At 5:59 PM -0800 22/2/09, Chris Doss wrote:


>What the hell does that mean, practically speaking?
>
>
>--- On Sun, 2/22/09, Bill Bartlett <billbartlett at aapt.net.au> wrote:
>>
>>  Socialism is the social ownership and control of the means
>>  of production and distribution. That's what my
>>  dictionary says. So there's no need to worry about
>>  whether "socialists" agree on a definition, the
>  > definition is settled.