I have always thought this process was called hospitalisation. Privately owned but essential companies get screwed up and then the govt. or workers bail them out sometimes in return for equity stakes. If the companies recover they are re-privatised, if not the govt. and workers lose out entirely. This is socialising risk but when there are profits the companies are put back in private hands. Rather than having anything to do with socialism it is simply a rescue method for the private enterprise system. Of course there are many comþlete ignoramuses in the US and elsewhere who consider any form of govt. ownership socialismm.
Some form of collective ownership is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for socialism. As well as this, production must be for need rather than profit and distribution on the basis of need as well not on the basis of income as it is in a market based system.
Blog: http://kenthink7.blogspot.com/index.html Blog: http://kencan7.blogspot.com/index.html
--- On Tue, 4/28/09, James Heartfield <Heartfield at blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
> From: James Heartfield <Heartfield at blueyonder.co.uk>
> Subject: [lbo-talk] U.S. auto sector socialized! WITBD?
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Date: Tuesday, April 28, 2009, 7:02 PM
> Well Carrol's comparison with
> nationalisation of industry in the UK is correct in one
> important respect: the only companies that were ever put
> into public ownership - or in the case of Merdien - under
> workers' management - were those companies that had already
> tanked. Nationalised industries were, by definition, failed
> industries. Of course it was a problem for those workforces,
> who could hardly refuse the prospect that nationalisation
> might be the best way to defend their jobs in the here and
> now, but it definitely did not translate into the socialist
> future, but workers left in control of all the lame ducks.
>
> By all means, lets look at the UAW-GM deal, but is it
> likely that a positive outcome will arrive by chance? Did
> the UAW fight for a workers' control? Did a revolution
> happen without us knowing? Or did the employing class fumble
> the ball? Scepticism might be a way of avoiding looking at
> what is new, but there is no need to be naive.
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