this post was submitted on 29 Dec 2025
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You're confusing unions in socialism, independent of and opposed to the socialist system, with proletarian control. Unions are allowed, yes, as directly linked with the socialist system. What isn't allowed is petty bourgeois-style unions that oppose the socialist system. The proletariat runs the party and thus the state, and as a consequence has already built proletarian unions, and dissalows those that would work against the socialist system.
Nothing I said is false, you're just confused on the purpose of unions in systems outside capitalism, and immediately assume legally backed unions to be nefarious and bad.
If it's not independent then it's not proletarian. The state doesn't crush independent unions because they're opposed to the socialist system, but because they are a threat to the authority of the state. I believe people have a right to self-determination, and preventing workers from organizing on their own terms violates that right. The means of production should belong only to those who actually do the work of production, not private individuals and not the state claiming falsely to represent them in the abstract. I'm a syndicalist in that I believe that the purpose of unions is eventually to overthrow the hierarchy and establish a cooperative, not to settle and become a class collaborationist union or an arm of a class collaborationist state, though it is preferable to no union at all.
All this means is that you think the working class cannot have state power, and that the state is outside of class struggle and not within it. In reality, states exist to establish the supremacy of a class, in capitalism the bourgeoisie and in socialism the proletariat. Independence from socialism is a petty bourgeois notion, not proletarian.
These are one and the same in the context of a socialist state transitioning towards communism. The political economic nature of socialism is in collectivizing production and distribution, opposing the political arm of this defeats the economic.
This slogan sounds nice, but ultimately just means that people should have a right to undermine socialism against the will of the people.
Again, a working class state run by the working class is the only actual method of establishing socialism at scale.
Ignoring for now that you seek a form of petty bourgeois "socialism," the idea that a union in a socialist system is somehow "class collaborationist" for being official and supported by said socialist state requires a ton of heavy lifting on your part. You proceed from the premise that the state is outside of class struggle, impossible to be proletarian, and that somehow cooperative-focused petty bourgeois quasi-socialism is the answer.
Already we're dropping the pretense of eliminating class, which is the entire premise of communism. A system which establishes supremacy in any form could never hope to eliminate class.
And again you are uncritically equivocating socialism and the state. Socialism can and does exist independently of the state whenever workers collectively organize production and distribution anywhere and for any reason. Cooperatives are socialist, not petty bourgeois, because the workers themselves have collectivized the means of production. Small businesses that are privately owned are petty bourgeois.
Always transitioning towards but never quite getting any closer and never will without the people themselves acting collectively to dismantle the state. The idea that the state will just "dissolve," or even more ridiculously disassemble itself, is absurd.
Again, people collectivizing the means of production on their own terms does not undermine socialism, it undermines the state. It's funny you suggest people acting on their own initiative undermines their own will, and not the state cracking down on them. I thought from our previous interactions that you were more reasonable than this.
A union in any system that stops short of supplanting the boss and siezing the means of production is class collaborationist. Such a union in a capitalist republic is essentially just a bureaucratic arm of the company that serves as controlled opposition, and in a "socialist" republic is a bureaucratic arm of the state that exists to ensure the working class acts in the state's interest. You think the latter is acceptable because you believe the state truly represents the will of the people, but I believe that only the people themselves are truly representative of their will.
Nope. Communism is a post-socialist mode of production established by resolving the contradictions within socialism. States eradicate themselves by eradicating the basis of class, and this happens by collectivizing production and distribution. This can only happen under proletarian states, because the proletariat resolves the class contradiction between bourgeois and proletarian by collectivizing property. This is how the state withers into statelessness.
Cooperatives are petty bourgeois collectives of private property, not socialist property. The idea of competing small cells of worker-owners is petty bourgeois in origin and stands opposed to collectivized production and distribution.
The transition between capitalism and communism is slow, long, queer, messy, and protracted. The state does not "just dissolve" or "disassemble itself," the proletariat erases the basis of the state, class, by collectivizing production and distribution. This does not mean collapsing into fully decentralized nothingness, but collectivized production and distribution.
Moving away from collectivized production and distribution towards individualist minor collectives is undermining socialism in favor of cooperative, petty bourgeois quasi-socialism. It both undermines socialism and the socialist state, preparing conditions for capitalist states based on cooperative ownership of private property. The fact that I disagree with your framing of socialism and communism doesn't mean I'm doing so unreasonably, this critique is as old as Marx and Engels and is elaborated on thoroughly in Anti-Dühring. For something smaller, Cooperative Property is not Socialist.
When said union is trying to supplant socialism and sieze the means of production from the proletariat in favor of small, petty bourgeois cooperatives, then it is working against socialism. I trust the people to own and direct production and distribution, which is why I support socialist states, approving of them preventing small cells of worker-owners turning over public property back into private, establishing the basis of capitalism once again.
The contradictions within socialism will not be resolved without people acting on their own initiative to resolve them. The state siezing the means of production and claiming it is doing so on behalf of the people forms a new basis of class, it does not eliminate it. It is simply taking the means of production from one set of private hands to another more centralized set that is only somewhat more responsive to the people's will. The people must act of their own initiative to forcibly decentralize the power of the state until no hierarchy remains in order to eliminate class.
Who says they have to compete? Realistically they would form federations to organize production and distribution on larger scales. Cooperatives in Italy do this, though they face strong resistance from corporations and the state as they do so. If you have eaten Parmigiano Reggiano you have eaten something created by many small cooperatives banding together to collectivize production and distribution. The cheese is made with milk from many small cooperatively owned farms that pool their resources together and share in the profits.
This doesn't really say anything at all. Socialist systems are people resolving contradictions, socialist states are made up of the people and not some group outside this.
The working class siezes the state, smashes it, and replaces it with a socialist state where public ownership is the principle aspect of the economy. There is no new class here, unless you're redefining what class itself means away from Marx and into vibes, like calling plumbers a class.
Incorrect. It's moving from an economy where private ownership is principle and capitalists in control of the state to public ownership as principle and the proletariat in control of the state. Socialism itself is based on centralization and democratization.
Utter vibes. Full decentralization and horizontalism is the basis of private property and results in the resurgance of the state, this time of capitalist character, to resolve contradictions between the various cells.
By nature, cells with unequal ownership will trade for what they need, resulting in further inequalities and the resurgance of full capitalism.
You're using "realistically" in place of ideally, here. There's no basis for this when you intentionally demolish proletarian organization in favor of petty bourgeois cells.
Cooperatives in Italy exist in the context of a capitalist state, made up of petty bourgeois worker-owners trying to do better for themselves than standard firms allow. This is progressive compared to standard firms in the context of capitalism, but potentially reactionary in the context of socialism (if they truly exist to turn public property into private as you alleged earlier).
Not collectivizing. Collectivizing meaning at mass scale, not at small, local levels. I'm aware that cooperatives exist, and tend to support them over standard firms, but this isn't socialism.
I understand how cooperatives work.