a very short “summary” of two opposing views. but why is this even up for debate and where is the actually socialist perspective here- that’s government ownership not workers’ ownership-
Yes. In practice, socialist governments have seized the means of production and directed the economy through central planning. “The government owning part of Intel is, on some level, socialism. It’s at least socialism-ish!” Robby Soave writes for The Hill.
No. The United States has a long history of getting involved in company ownership for the purpose of staying competitive with rival nations. “When America faced an international communist threat sponsored by Moscow, conservatives knew absolute devotion to free markets was self-defeating,” Daniel McCarthy writes for The Daily Signal.
“Socialism is when the government does stuff, and the more stuff it does the more socialister it is.”
-Carlos Marks
The real problem is the right wing labeling anything and everything socialism and so even people on the ostensible “left” get an absolutely distorted view of what it is.
We have got to stop letting the right dictate the terms of public conversations because this is what you end up with: total misunderstanding rooted in the right’s purposeful distortion of reality and language.