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I understand what you're saying. Unfortunately the amount of right-wing propaganda out there will label any real challenger as being socialist whether that's Mamdani or the "radical marxist socialist commie" that was... Kamala Harris?
So progressives must decide whether they hide from the term, enabling the fearmongering, or openly embracing it to show there is nothing wrong with it.
Second to that, I feel they should be pivoting the questions not just to policy but to definitionally explain the notion of socialism, democratic socialism, and social democracies; how in reality — as in actual, realized, tangible results, not utopian fantasies — some of the happiest and most successful countries by the data are ones who embraced a properly mixed economy; that is, social democracies or the Nordic Model.
I recently had what was maybe one of my biggest wins in a conversation with a maga by explaining it this way. They're so damn confused and believe all trade and bartering, all markets, and any scale of monetary income will vanish. That big bad guv'mint isn't necessarily so bad when it's protected from outsized corporate and billionaire power and firmly in the hands Of the People.
I've been wondering, what if they just ran in the opposite direction? Don't call it "state-owned industry" or "collective ownership", but instead "Hypercapitalism: every citizen is a shareholder!"
Work should provide ownership. Worker-owned co-ops should be the default form of business organization. We should write it into corporate charter law that any business over a certain number of employees must gradually transition to a worker-owned co-op. For example, maybe every company over 30 employees must transfer 2% of its equity to its employees each year. This would mean after about 35 years, the business would be majority owned by its employees. Business founders and investors can still make plenty of profit, but you prevent the accumulation of generational wealth. You prevent the formation of an aristocracy by slowly transferring the ownership of company's from their founders to their employees over time. (And obviously you have a lot of other policy details to make this work, such as not just having a flat threshold. Always have to point this out as the "umm aktually" brigade likes to confuse aspirational policy descriptions for actual legislation.)
I fully agree. Companies should belong to the people that allow I to turn a profit, and that is, well, every employee. The founders could still remain the CEOs if they do a good job and are elected to do so.
I like the idea of the transition happening slowly over several decades. Basically you found a company, and you'll be able to maintain majority control over it until you reach your retirement. You can have a vision and carry it through. You just can't create a multi generational empire that makes your children and grandchildren into newly minted aristocrats.