@@DJWeiWei I was thinking this was the case. I'm willing to bet Wolff knows but chooses to communicate "private" in the colloquial rather than technical sense.
Agreed, The Attlee government in uk🇬🇧 1945 to 1950 i would class as Democratic Socialist, public good utilities, heating via coal , electricity, rail all provided by the state (nationalised) and a National Health Service provided by the state paid for from genral taxation ,and housing but most housing was privately owned 🤗 sadly we are about to follow USA, i hope not😟😟 good people though you are
In a true socialist economy, there is not private property as we know it; but there is personal property (a basic rule of thumb is things you own that are portable). Since housing and the land it sits on are considered an essential human need, they are held in the public trust, though obviously people get to use them, they cannot sell them or make profit off them. Professor Wolff is referring to countries that have claimed to have socialist economies, though by having authoritarian governments, what winds up happening is actually a form of state run capitalism (the state owns the means of production and use wage labor to produce profits that the state keeps and often abuses).
Thank you , Professor. Some things that seem obvious to sensible and rational people do have to be explained in detail because of the barrage of misinformation other people we live with have been exposed to for so long.
To paraphrase an earlier comment "Unless you are preaching to the converted, it's best to simplify the rhetoric to appeal to someone's current understanding, rather than introducing multiple new concepts and running the risk of being misunderstood.
It's actually false, there's no difference What you I suppose mean is private ownership of the means of production, or unethical land ownership, which is complete bullshit and only exists cuz it's enforced by a govt
What are your opinions on the semi socialist and semi anarchist Democratic Confederalism and Communalism? Do you think that a decentralized state, built exclusively from radically democratic communities which would be much more systemically accountable to it's populace would work better than a centralized state? It's my estimation that all centralized state socialist systems have failed to "dissolve the state" as is the goal of communism. I'm a socialist myself, but fall somewhere in the camp of somewhat more anarchist than not, and seeing the past histories of anarchist and communist in-fighting makes me worry for the future of leftist unity. Feel free to paraphrase my question or comments, but do please site some articles or studies on the matter of the outcomes of statist governmental architecture as distinct from more anarchist, or at least communal confederalist governmental architecture.
How can you possibly know in advance what property relations will actually look like in any situation that has not yet come to be? You can only speculate on what you’d like to see and that may or may not come to pass. A transition to socialism involves actual people, with interests they will fight for. How far are you willing to go?
To be fair , in Stalin’s USSR and even after that , private property was not owned by the bottom sections of the society who were large in number . Same in Cuba , most of the elites owned private property.
No. In socialism MUSTN'T be market relationships nor private property (of means of production), but socialized property which is democratically used by the workers for the general benefit, with a well planned economy for the necessities not for profit.
@@GC-yw1mn Central planning is just a modification of the class hierarchy that all capitalist societies are premised on. Counterposed to that class hierarchy is the plan of freely associated producers who, having control over their own productive activity, freely come together to carry out production for their mutual development as human beings.
Dear Professor Wolff, Great GREAT commentaries. Please keep them coming. But one small suggestion: do a little "social distancing" from the camera. It will help. Thanks for all you do!
Didn't Marx distinguish between personal and private property in the Communist Manifesto? The example of homes, cars, toothbrushes, etc., are personal property, whereas a factory is private property. Private property allows people to accrue wealth and to oppress people and should be abolished. Eliminating private property would limit the amount of personal property one could accrue (e.g., no more yachts and mansions). Some people could earn a bit more than others, but wealth inequality would not be nearly as terrible as it is today.
Richard, houses, cars, toothbrush etc. perhaps call those personal possessions to differentiate them from private property being the means of production. This is to avoid confusion for entry level leftists. Thanks
That’s still unacceptable. If I want to start a business, that’s my right and I have the right to own that business. If I own land and rent it out, that’s my right. Most business owners are not money hungry billionaires. Most businesses are small businesses .
Also, what are the possibilities for entrepreneurs who do not want to work in coop businesses but would rather follow their own pursuits and use their homes as workspaces? Do we make amends for private property being used as a workspace? Are they forbidden to do this?
I don't know what "use their homes as workplaces" means. You could mean that said people live isolated from everyone else and simply produce for their own subsistence, in which case they are a non-issue. If you mean that their house takes on the role of a cite of social production then I don't know why you are describing it as a "home" rather than just a site of social production like any other. I don't think socialists should be any more gratified if capitalists combine their factories and land with their personal estate.
@@GC-yw1mn I don't really care about his obsession with cooperatives, I think it's misguided from a socialist perspective. However, if your objection to socialism is merely "what if I want to keep the status quo???!!" then I'm not sure how it's an interesting objection. Slave owners and feudal lords presumably wanted to keep the status quo. If you are going to move anyone to agree with you you have to make some argument that the status is is preferable to socialism rather than the other way round.
Why can’t we have economic diversity and allow them to compete? If people are allowed to have traditional capitalist workplaces but are forced to compete with co-operatives the “invisible hand” would decide which system truly works realistically for the people. I’d love to hear what threat some capitalist businesses would have if the freedom of choice was present.
My prefered solution (or something like it): (1) For private owership of housing: Singapore's Solution is best, but Japan's works well too. Govt pays for appartment construction, sells directly to mainly working** owner-occupiers at cost price. Some property could be for the rich, but not to the extent they force everyone else to play their "only game in town". In western world we have Federal Govts often giving tax incentives to reward multiple home ownership & to make property more expensive. MOST OF ALL Local Govts use zoning laws to prevent enough housing being built. (2) Business Diversity: Govt ownership of natural monopolies (theft not needed to aquire though) or Govt Owned & competing bussiness where good public interest case (e.g. big pharma). Big, medium & small business still exist. Co-ops subsidized at start up stage, like other businesses often are (e.g. agriculture). (3) Transport Diversity: Range of practical & safe options, instead of car-Centric. **to prevent urban blight.
We need smaller government in Australia you socialist moron , you claim in my other comment your not a socialist oh plz you support dickhead Albo that want to grow pubic sector
@@coopsnz1 I'm not a socialist, and i don't care is "big or small" as long as people have real choice. I am not ideologically committed to anything, just practical solutions that make the society better for next generation - which is up for debate of course. You didn't answer anything I said.
@@coopsnz1 Are you saying prefer the No-Choice/Banking-Interests-first Housing system in Australia? Why would you be against something like what (very capitalist) Singapore does where there is a sperate market for those who want housing for Speculation and for basic living? They have a CHOICE. I am lucky that i own my home outright (luck of born circumstances like you), but young people today will not have that.
This is just nationalization of the commanding heights of the economy. That's been done under every real/really existing/state socialist regime on the planet. It just creates a bureaucratic ruling class embedded in the state apparatus as opposed to a ruling class of private entrepreneurs and the politicians they control. Why is that an improvement?
I'm not sure why the professor answered this way, especially since he doesn't take real/really existing/state socialism to be socialism. What went on in the socialist bloc under communist parties and what still goes on under the remaining regimes today is wholly irrelevant to what would be the case in a socialist society. If you take socialism to be an alternative to capitalism and not merely a version of capitalism different from what historically obtained in the west then real/really existing/state socialism doesn't tell use anything about socialism because all of those regimes were and are fully integrated into the capitalist world-system; meaning they were embedded in both the capitalist world-economy and that world-economy's geopolitical hierarchy of states. If you take socialism to be the social control of production then it would make sense to think of property the way Marx thought about it. For Marx property in the abstract is different than class property. Property in the abstract is simply what human beings appropriate from the natural world. Everything that we produce and accumulate is property in this sense. Class property is the control of production by a certain section of the population to the exclusion of the rest of the population. Social control of production implies the abolition of class property, but it does not imply the abolition of property in the abstract. As for the market, socialists have obviously had different ideas about this issue historically, but it's been argued effectively in my opinion that social control of production implies the abolition of the market. The argument is as fallows: The market requires producing things to buy and sell (exchange) which itself requires 2 things incompatible with social control of production. It requires firstly that producers are engaged in production separately rather than in cooperation since buying and selling is the activity of autonomous producers in a sphere of commodity circulation (market) and secondly requires the fetishization of commodities. This phrase was coined by Marx to describe how the production of commodities gives things power over people by making human activity conditional on buying and selling; I don't produce and consume things as I need, but only in so far as I can participate in buying and selling. This clashes with social control of production because if all human beings cooperatively control the production process then they must be able to produce and consume as they need.
What is your opinion on CCP's and Russian Regime? While the state owns the means of production, the wealth concentration is not distributed back to the workers/people and it resembles less of the socialism envisaged by Marx. Isn't the current examples just another form of dictatorship?
He has several videos related to that. He says Stalin called it "socialism" to appease the people but it was not too different from capitalism in practice.
@@GeraltBosMang That's a very complicated question because it greatly depends on how this "true socialist regime" came about. People around the world should learn about things like workplace democracy to increase the likelyhood of some parts of the world surviving with a more egalitarian mode of production and for capitalism to be eventually dismantled.
@Pack -A- Punch you can use your house and a place of production like a small factory. That would make it state property. In fact you have the means to produce so that would make you a state property under socialism. Socialism sucks always failed and will continue to.
I pay 60% tax in Australia im in middle class. Income tax32%- 45% , cars tax 18% - 54% " fuel tax 60% , liquar tax 80% , smokes tax 90% , superanuation tax 16% , property tax 15% , products tax 10% -20% . In Australia we also have 5% custom duty. Australia also has highest household debt in world thanks to high taxes
@@coopsnz1 One problem could be because the government didn't really tell you what it would do with your tax money. In this case, more government transparency would be a good thing.
I live in Oz too. But our high taxes are not necessary, because taxes pay to take money out of economy, taxes literally don't pay for spending because we have a Soverign Fiat Currency. It is a psychological reasons we pay tax, not because the govt needs currency it creates. With a sovereign Fiat currency, the big issue for the Govt is (1) INFLATION & DEFLATION (2) What is for sale in their currency. If you issue the currency, how can "where will the money come from?" be a problem? Also, a lot of money in economy comes from Bank Credit (which functions just like currency) rather than from Central Bank. And yeah, i disgree with central bank policies too (e.g. make housing unaffordable for n3xt generation). It is more the result of Neoliberal economic views + govt spending, not socialist economics or housing. But YES i agree many, many Lefties have the same Neoliberal econimic views, thus the higher taxes.
"private property is preserved under socialism because it existed in countries that identified as socialist and real socialism is whatever you call socialism."
Prof Wolff was a college professor for decades. He is a book author and gets paid good money to give speeches throughout the land thanks to our capitalist economy. I'm betting Prof Wolff has accumulated a handsome personal retirement pension while many of the people he preaches to have none. Would Wolff have been able to accumulate his handsome pension and personal wealth in a socialist economy ? Bernie Sanders, the loudest cheer leader for democratic socialism owns 3 homes including a $575,000 water front vacation home. I place Wolff and Sanders in the same boat as hypocrites who talk the talk but don't walk the walk.
there is private property in socialism until there is not. it vanishes and re-emerges at the whim of the ruling party/parties and administrative apparatus. don't be fooled by sugar coating the history and promises of 'some markets' ...both my family and my wife's family lost our homes in socialist experiment of Czechoslovakia, both our grandfathers were hunted down and relocated for greater good both dying shortly after the coup, one at the pauper house the other one shortly after being released from gulag. the simple fact of being property owners once was permanent stain on our entire family record for ever. consequently three generations were denied admission to the schools of higher education based on 'political background' and 'class predetermination'. i have great dislike for this corporate version of state capitalism i am seeing around in both the EU and the USA where i live nowadays, yet i have to say it is quite an improvement from the life i led behind the Iron Curtain once. the only thing i miss in the USA compared to the EU is the affordable universal healthcare and comprehensive system of public transport. i'd rather stay stuck in the hell of private health insurance of the USA than go into second socialist experience in my lifetime.
That's the authoritarian experiment of Marxist-leninism, a term coined by Stalin. The failure of an authoritarian experiment in your country does not make you any smarter on the many political theories included in this umbrella term of "Socialism". Do you believe that a company's profit or surplus value should be controlled by the few up top or democratically controlled by the workers of said company?
@@timekeeper2538 the companies surplus should be sold by the company for profit. That’s the point of a business. The workers agree to work for their wages. In America you don’t like what they pay you go work somewhere else. It’s that simple.
@@improvisedsurvival5967 Wrong, workers work 'cause they'd starve without money. A wage never represents the value you bring to the company, wages are only ever tolerated. The system must be changed by force, just like what was done to Feudalism.
I would distinguish between private property and personal property.
@@DJWeiWei I was thinking this was the case. I'm willing to bet Wolff knows but chooses to communicate "private" in the colloquial rather than technical sense.
Agreed, The Attlee government in uk🇬🇧 1945 to 1950 i would class as Democratic Socialist, public good utilities, heating via coal , electricity, rail all provided by the state (nationalised) and a National Health Service provided by the state paid for from genral taxation ,and housing but most housing was privately owned 🤗 sadly we are about to follow USA, i hope not😟😟 good people though you are
In a true socialist economy, there is not private property as we know it; but there is personal property (a basic rule of thumb is things you own that are portable). Since housing and the land it sits on are considered an essential human need, they are held in the public trust, though obviously people get to use them, they cannot sell them or make profit off them. Professor Wolff is referring to countries that have claimed to have socialist economies, though by having authoritarian governments, what winds up happening is actually a form of state run capitalism (the state owns the means of production and use wage labor to produce profits that the state keeps and often abuses).
Every society that has tried to implement true socialism reaches the state run capitalism phase and then gets stuck there until it dies.
@@PCFLSZ ummmm. China? Cuba? Vietnam? Last I checked these are still alive
@@Mark-zk3gu All three are examples of state run capitalism.
@@PCFLSZ Umm, yes. They aren't dead are they?
@@Mark-zk3gu no but they are shit countries
I ALWAYS LEARN SOMETHING NEW FROM THE WOLFF...
Thank you , Professor. Some things that seem obvious to sensible and rational people do have to be explained in detail because of the barrage of misinformation other people we live with have been exposed to for so long.
why don't you use the "personal" vs "private" terminology?
To paraphrase an earlier comment "Unless you are preaching to the converted, it's best to simplify the rhetoric to appeal to someone's current understanding, rather than introducing multiple new concepts and running the risk of being misunderstood.
It's actually false, there's no difference
What you I suppose mean is private ownership of the means of production, or unethical land ownership, which is complete bullshit and only exists cuz it's enforced by a govt
Very interesting Professor, thank you
What are your opinions on the semi socialist and semi anarchist Democratic Confederalism and Communalism? Do you think that a decentralized state, built exclusively from radically democratic communities which would be much more systemically accountable to it's populace would work better than a centralized state? It's my estimation that all centralized state socialist systems have failed to "dissolve the state" as is the goal of communism.
I'm a socialist myself, but fall somewhere in the camp of somewhat more anarchist than not, and seeing the past histories of anarchist and communist in-fighting makes me worry for the future of leftist unity.
Feel free to paraphrase my question or comments, but do please site some articles or studies on the matter of the outcomes of statist governmental architecture as distinct from more anarchist, or at least communal confederalist governmental architecture.
How can you possibly know in advance what property relations will actually look like in any situation that has not yet come to be? You can only speculate on what you’d like to see and that may or may not come to pass. A transition to socialism involves actual people, with interests they will fight for. How far are you willing to go?
To be fair , in Stalin’s USSR and even after that , private property was not owned by the bottom sections of the society who were large in number . Same in Cuba , most of the elites owned private property.
No. In socialism MUSTN'T be market relationships nor private property (of means of production), but socialized property which is democratically used by the workers for the general benefit, with a well planned economy for the necessities not for profit.
@@GC-yw1mn Central planning is just a modification of the class hierarchy that all capitalist societies are premised on. Counterposed to that class hierarchy is the plan of freely associated producers who, having control over their own productive activity, freely come together to carry out production for their mutual development as human beings.
Dear Professor Wolff, Great GREAT commentaries. Please keep them coming. But one small suggestion: do a little "social distancing" from the camera. It will help. Thanks for all you do!
Thank you professor Wolfe, you explain things clearly, so even I can understand
Didn't Marx distinguish between personal and private property in the Communist Manifesto? The example of homes, cars, toothbrushes, etc., are personal property, whereas a factory is private property. Private property allows people to accrue wealth and to oppress people and should be abolished. Eliminating private property would limit the amount of personal property one could accrue (e.g., no more yachts and mansions). Some people could earn a bit more than others, but wealth inequality would not be nearly as terrible as it is today.
Richard, houses, cars, toothbrush etc. perhaps call those personal possessions to differentiate them from private property being the means of production. This is to avoid confusion for entry level leftists. Thanks
That’s still unacceptable. If I want to start a business, that’s my right and I have the right to own that business. If I own land and rent it out, that’s my right. Most business owners are not money hungry billionaires. Most businesses are small businesses .
You're allowed to exist and serve the state but not to be comfortable or God forbid, wealthy. Got it.
Also, what are the possibilities for entrepreneurs who do not want to work in coop businesses but would rather follow their own pursuits and use their homes as workspaces? Do we make amends for private property being used as a workspace? Are they forbidden to do this?
@@GC-yw1mn Yes because he is 100% anti democracy
@@GC-yw1mn no singular individual runs a co-op, what?
I don't know what "use their homes as workplaces" means. You could mean that said people live isolated from everyone else and simply produce for their own subsistence, in which case they are a non-issue. If you mean that their house takes on the role of a cite of social production then I don't know why you are describing it as a "home" rather than just a site of social production like any other. I don't think socialists should be any more gratified if capitalists combine their factories and land with their personal estate.
@@GC-yw1mn I don't really care about his obsession with cooperatives, I think it's misguided from a socialist perspective. However, if your objection to socialism is merely "what if I want to keep the status quo???!!" then I'm not sure how it's an interesting objection. Slave owners and feudal lords presumably wanted to keep the status quo. If you are going to move anyone to agree with you you have to make some argument that the status is is preferable to socialism rather than the other way round.
Why can’t we have economic diversity and allow them to compete? If people are allowed to have traditional capitalist workplaces but are forced to compete with co-operatives the “invisible hand” would decide which system truly works realistically for the people. I’d love to hear what threat some capitalist businesses would have if the freedom of choice was present.
That’s why I’m okay with co-ops, as long as it isn’t forced upon business owners who don’t want to run their business like that.
The market isn't freedom of choice. It operates behind the backs of the producers and gives lifeless commodities power over flesh and blood people.
My prefered solution (or something like it):
(1) For private owership of housing: Singapore's Solution is best, but Japan's works well too.
Govt pays for appartment construction, sells directly to mainly working** owner-occupiers at cost price.
Some property could be for the rich, but not to the extent they force everyone else to play their "only game in town".
In western world we have Federal Govts often giving tax incentives to reward multiple home ownership & to make property more expensive.
MOST OF ALL Local Govts use zoning laws to prevent enough housing being built.
(2) Business Diversity:
Govt ownership of natural monopolies (theft not needed to aquire though) or Govt Owned & competing bussiness where good public interest case (e.g. big pharma).
Big, medium & small business still exist.
Co-ops subsidized at start up stage, like other businesses often are (e.g. agriculture).
(3) Transport Diversity:
Range of practical & safe options, instead of car-Centric.
**to prevent urban blight.
We need smaller government in Australia you socialist moron , you claim in my other comment your not a socialist oh plz you support dickhead Albo that want to grow pubic sector
@@coopsnz1
I'm not a socialist, and i don't care is "big or small" as long as people have real choice. I am not ideologically committed to anything, just practical solutions that make the society better for next generation - which is up for debate of course.
You didn't answer anything I said.
@@coopsnz1
Are you saying prefer the No-Choice/Banking-Interests-first Housing system in Australia?
Why would you be against something like what (very capitalist) Singapore does where there is a sperate market for those who want housing for Speculation and for basic living?
They have a CHOICE. I am lucky that i own my home outright (luck of born circumstances like you), but young people today will not have that.
@@coopsnz1
Could you actually critique what solution i said, and give a better alternative, instead of going ideologically possessed on me?
This is just nationalization of the commanding heights of the economy. That's been done under every real/really existing/state socialist regime on the planet. It just creates a bureaucratic ruling class embedded in the state apparatus as opposed to a ruling class of private entrepreneurs and the politicians they control. Why is that an improvement?
I'm not sure why the professor answered this way, especially since he doesn't take real/really existing/state socialism to be socialism. What went on in the socialist bloc under communist parties and what still goes on under the remaining regimes today is wholly irrelevant to what would be the case in a socialist society. If you take socialism to be an alternative to capitalism and not merely a version of capitalism different from what historically obtained in the west then real/really existing/state socialism doesn't tell use anything about socialism because all of those regimes were and are fully integrated into the capitalist world-system; meaning they were embedded in both the capitalist world-economy and that world-economy's geopolitical hierarchy of states. If you take socialism to be the social control of production then it would make sense to think of property the way Marx thought about it.
For Marx property in the abstract is different than class property. Property in the abstract is simply what human beings appropriate from the natural world. Everything that we produce and accumulate is property in this sense. Class property is the control of production by a certain section of the population to the exclusion of the rest of the population. Social control of production implies the abolition of class property, but it does not imply the abolition of property in the abstract. As for the market, socialists have obviously had different ideas about this issue historically, but it's been argued effectively in my opinion that social control of production implies the abolition of the market. The argument is as fallows:
The market requires producing things to buy and sell (exchange) which itself requires 2 things incompatible with social control of production. It requires firstly that producers are engaged in production separately rather than in cooperation since buying and selling is the activity of autonomous producers in a sphere of commodity circulation (market) and secondly requires the fetishization of commodities. This phrase was coined by Marx to describe how the production of commodities gives things power over people by making human activity conditional on buying and selling; I don't produce and consume things as I need, but only in so far as I can participate in buying and selling. This clashes with social control of production because if all human beings cooperatively control the production process then they must be able to produce and consume as they need.
What is your opinion on CCP's and Russian Regime? While the state owns the means of production, the wealth concentration is not distributed back to the workers/people and it resembles less of the socialism envisaged by Marx. Isn't the current examples just another form of dictatorship?
He has several videos related to that. He says Stalin called it "socialism" to appease the people but it was not too different from capitalism in practice.
@@DiThi Thanks. Do you think a true socialist regime can survive in a globalized economy?
@@GeraltBosMang That's a very complicated question because it greatly depends on how this "true socialist regime" came about. People around the world should learn about things like workplace democracy to increase the likelyhood of some parts of the world surviving with a more egalitarian mode of production and for capitalism to be eventually dismantled.
Our financial system needs to be nationalized.
2:45 yes, yes, we're not coming for your toothbrush...
I don't think anyone thought that😂
If he was running the country,I'd be helping to organize the revolution to kick him out of office.
First point in Marx's 10 point plan is "Abolition of private property"
Private property =/= Personal property
I’m pro private property because it maximizes individualism
Did you watch the video?
He said "yes, socialist states tend to have private property ownership".
You mean personal property vs private property
would your house in a socialist society be personal property?
Yes
I don't understand how they expect to take the ownership of houses away
Yes that's what he said
@Pack -A- Punch slippery slope there
@Pack -A- Punch you can use your house and a place of production like a small factory. That would make it state property. In fact you have the means to produce so that would make you a state property under socialism. Socialism sucks always failed and will continue to.
I pay 60% tax in Australia im in middle class. Income tax32%- 45% , cars tax 18% - 54% " fuel tax 60% , liquar tax 80% , smokes tax 90% , superanuation tax 16% , property tax 15% , products tax 10% -20% . In Australia we also have 5% custom duty. Australia also has highest household debt in world thanks to high taxes
@Pack -A- Punch it show social democracy country screw over middle class idiot... who get richer corrupt politican happen in Australia
@@coopsnz1 One problem could be because the government didn't really tell you what it would do with your tax money. In this case, more government transparency would be a good thing.
I live in Oz too. But our high taxes are not necessary, because taxes pay to take money out of economy, taxes literally don't pay for spending because we have a Soverign Fiat Currency.
It is a psychological reasons we pay tax, not because the govt needs currency it creates.
With a sovereign Fiat currency, the big issue for the Govt is (1) INFLATION & DEFLATION
(2) What is for sale in their currency.
If you issue the currency, how can "where will the money come from?" be a problem?
Also, a lot of money in economy comes from Bank Credit (which functions just like currency) rather than from Central Bank.
And yeah, i disgree with central bank policies too (e.g. make housing unaffordable for n3xt generation).
It is more the result of Neoliberal economic views + govt spending, not socialist economics or housing.
But YES i agree many, many Lefties have the same Neoliberal econimic views, thus the higher taxes.
You can ask me for more info if you want.
@@pebblepod30 just atm social democracy doesn't work
oh no wolff
i cant keep defending your prior works when you say stuff like this
Pls,What do u mean?
We live in a republic, not a democracy.
Yes I’ve been saying this forever. I wish for the death of democracy
So any facts? Or just very bland stats?
"private property is preserved under socialism because it existed in countries that identified as socialist and real socialism is whatever you call socialism."
Prof Wolff was a college professor for decades. He is a book author and gets paid good money to give speeches throughout the land thanks to our capitalist economy. I'm betting Prof Wolff has accumulated a handsome personal retirement pension while many of the people he preaches to have none. Would Wolff have been able to accumulate his handsome pension and personal wealth in a socialist economy ? Bernie Sanders, the loudest cheer leader for democratic socialism owns 3 homes including a $575,000 water front vacation home. I place Wolff and Sanders in the same boat as hypocrites who talk the talk but don't walk the walk.
there is private property in socialism until there is not. it vanishes and re-emerges at the whim of the ruling party/parties and administrative apparatus. don't be fooled by sugar coating the history and promises of 'some markets' ...both my family and my wife's family lost our homes in socialist experiment of Czechoslovakia, both our grandfathers were hunted down and relocated for greater good both dying shortly after the coup, one at the pauper house the other one shortly after being released from gulag. the simple fact of being property owners once was permanent stain on our entire family record for ever. consequently three generations were denied admission to the schools of higher education based on 'political background' and 'class predetermination'. i have great dislike for this corporate version of state capitalism i am seeing around in both the EU and the USA where i live nowadays, yet i have to say it is quite an improvement from the life i led behind the Iron Curtain once. the only thing i miss in the USA compared to the EU is the affordable universal healthcare and comprehensive system of public transport. i'd rather stay stuck in the hell of private health insurance of the USA than go into second socialist experience in my lifetime.
That's the authoritarian experiment of Marxist-leninism, a term coined by Stalin. The failure of an authoritarian experiment in your country does not make you any smarter on the many political theories included in this umbrella term of "Socialism". Do you believe that a company's profit or surplus value should be controlled by the few up top or democratically controlled by the workers of said company?
@@timekeeper2538 thank you so much for explaining it to me, i will sleep much better now
@@timekeeper2538 the companies surplus should be sold by the company for profit. That’s the point of a business. The workers agree to work for their wages. In America you don’t like what they pay you go work somewhere else. It’s that simple.
@@improvisedsurvival5967 Wrong, workers work 'cause they'd starve without money. A wage never represents the value you bring to the company, wages are only ever tolerated. The system must be changed by force, just like what was done to Feudalism.