Political Crossfire Forums

I don't really care about the branch. It's only the end results of collectivism overall that I care about. The sociologists/political scientists can break that down to their technical delight.

Actually, considering that Dharma has offered those two 'Excellent corporations' as prime concrete successful examples of how his ideology might look, I'm wondering how the ideology can state that it's not possible to achieve under present circumstances.

In terms of state or communal control over the means of production, look no further than Petro-Can. We exported nearly a billion barrels of oil to the US in 2010, and that is a state-owned company extracting from state-owned lands.

In terms of economy-wide, well, you won't find a good example of relative freedom in conjunction with economy-wide state ownership.

What this indicates is that a mix of both systems is ideal. Some resources require state ownership to result in decent outcomes. Some businesses thrive under worker control. And some need to face competition in order to innovate... most, in fact.

It is impossible for Parecon to exist without the use of violence to defend communal rights. Without such protection a third party could exploit the living shit out of such a system. And so the question is, is it worth it? Minimizing harm is a good I'm sure we can all agree on, and quantifying harm caused by violence is easier than quantifying harm caused by private ownership of business.