Your focus on government ownership as a false indication of socialism is not shared by Marx and Engels; so I'd say that you are not espousing a Marxist position below. Again in the Manifesto, Marx and Engels note some of the initial steps toward socialism :
5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly. 6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State. 7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil
You can see by their reference to State ownership that they do consider what you call "government ownership" as part of socialism.
As far as working class interests being served by a state still dominated by the bourgeois, I think we should look at whether the means of production in question do in fact or objectively serve the interests of the 99%. In the case of many government functions, such as water and sewerage systems, roads and highways, firefighters, public lighting, public transportation, Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare and others, the _goods and services_ provided certainly do serve the working class, the 99%. That will not change when the working class dominates and controls the whole government and private property is totally abolished in all basic means of production. In other words, some institutions existing under a capitalist dominated state are the same as they will be come the revolution.
In other words, the working class, the "public" , does have substantial and effective of control in its interest of major parts of the means of production , which is the Marxist definition of public or non-private property. Regardless of the fact that a Mayor or City Council get most of their campaign funds from bourgeoisie, they conduct the business of a city's water and sewerage system, for example, in the material interests of the working masses of a city.
Some of socialism is just dull ole bourgeois civic infra-structure. The other point is that there is a contest within capitalism between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat over control of the State. The proletariat wins sometimes, and some of its wins are institutionalized still under capitalism.
It is important for Marxists to make this point to the American working class. We already have a significant amount of socialism. Socialism is as American as the clean water you drink and wash in everyday; as American as the roads and highways you use all the time.
On Sat, Sep 21, 2013 at 7:45 PM, Gar Lipow <gar.lipow at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Sep 21, 2013 at 7:41 AM, c b <cb31450 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> As the late, great economist Paul Samuelson indicated, capitalist
>> economies are mixed socialist/capitalist economies and have been for a
>> long time. Even the US is a very mixed economy.
>
>
> No. Absolutely No. Let Samuelson equate government ownership with
> socialism if he wishes. A Marxist should understand that unless the state
> is owned and controlled by the working class, state ownership is no
> socialism. (Ok some socialists believe that an undemocratic state not
> controlled by the working class can be acting in their interests and that
> public ownership by this kind of state is a type of socialism. While this
> looks like nonsense to me, I don't think anyone can claim that US
> government acts primarily in the interests of the working class.) That is
> not to say that public ownership within a capitalist state cannot be
> *strongly* in the interests of working people. Just that it should not be
> confused with socialism. If the various branches of government in a nation
> control 20% of the GDP or even own 20% of the means of production, that
> does not make that nation 20% socialist, if the government itself is a
> capitalist government. Again that does not mean that large scale public
> ownership and provision of services by a capitalist state can't be very
> much in the interests of the working class, especially compared to a
> capitalist state with minimal regulation, minimal taxation, little public
> provision of public goods, and virtually no public ownership.
>
>
>
>> The main local
>> government functions are major socialist enterprises at the base of
>> the US economy. Water and sewerage, roads and highways, public
>> schools, etc. Really since Wall Street and GM and Chrysler are insured
>> by the federal government, the banking system and big industry are
>> socialized. The fig leaf of paying back the bailouts doesn't hide the
>> fact that the People remain sureties of the too-big-to-fails in any
>> failings in the future. Objectively, the US banks have been socialized
>> whatever name they put on it.
>> There is a long history of government bailout of large corporations.
>> Chrysler has been bailed out twice in the last 35 years (History of
>> U.S. Gov't Bailouts
>> http://www.propublica.org/special/government-bailouts
>> :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Too_big_to_fail)
>>
>>
>> Theoretically, the is part of the General Crisis of Capitalism,
>> wherein capitalism objectively tends to turn into socialism, even
>> without a socialist conscious Bolshevik party and working class
>> vanguard seizing state power. Much of the process of socialization of
>> society is just dull evolutionary rationalization of capitalist
>> economic functions and institutions, rather than exciting
>> revolutionary insurrection.
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>
>
>
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