Let me return the appreciation for a thoughtful response! Unfortunately I don’t have an equal abundance of time (nor fast typing skills). Where’s the outcry for the parent class?

Those cube dwellers (labor) are often better compensated and lead more secure, comfortable lives than small business owners (ownership). If you instead frame the problem as income inequality rather than straight up Marxism, I think you’re still naturally led to the tax reforms you’re describing. However, I don’t view that as “anti-capitalist”. It’s restoring guardrails that shouldn’t have been removed under Reagan.

No, a large portion of the damage done was so regular people could keep driving their oversized cars, eat out of season food, and cheaply heat their homes. Socialism does not require good environmental policy. Capitalism does not prohibit it. Climate change is a human problem.

It’s really not that hard to start a small business. There’s no grand shadowy conspiracy against your idea. If it was a superior method, it would see more widespread success. Bluntly forcing one business structure and removing freedoms when there are far less drastic tools is a big ask.

Sorry I gotta provide some counterbalance here. This is a very dated Marxist perspective that I think is missing some modern fundamentals. Dividing the world into “ownership class” and “labor class” is simplistic thinking from the Industrial Revolution and doesn’t hold up anymore without modifications. Your typical high salary cube dweller is neither ownership nor identifiably labor. If you’re negatively classifying labor as “not ownership”, you’re talking about 99.9%+ of the population and it’s a rather meaningless distinction and unhelpful in discussing policy.

Perhaps a I misinterpreted you when you stated “not a lot would have to change”. Those sound like some pretty extreme changes from the status quo, actually.

Perhaps a I misinterpreted you when you stated “not a lot would have to change”. Those sound like some pretty extreme changes from the status quo, actually.

not a lot would have to change, other than putting legal protections and norms in place for workplace elections and so on.

I definitely don’t identify as a Socialist but even still, I would have added, “tax the fuck out of the rich”. Income inequality is the root evil for most people today.

It’s not illogical to be pro-Capitalism while not owning any “means of production” if it means you still have better outcomes.

There are no true Capitalist countries and no true Socialist countries. It’s not even a spectrum; it’s a giant mixed bag of policies. You can be for some basic capitalist principles (market economy, privately held capital) and for some socialist policies (safety nets, healthcare) and not be in contradiction with yourself. There’s more to capitalism than the United States.

I think OP was seeing a lot of “burn the system down” talk. Revolutions aren’t bloodless, instantaneous, or well directed. Innocent people will die and generations will suffer. It’s stuff only the naive, the malicious, or the truly desperate will support. And if you’re here posting it on the daily, I don’t believe you’re that desperate.

Can you point to a socialist country where it has resulted in better outcomes than its peers? Cuba might be a contender but then there’s also Venezuela next door…

I do not consider China to be a socialist country. It is a market economy where your average Foxconn employee no more controls the means of production than your average Detroit autoworker. My understanding is that China doctrine states socialism is one big long term TODO (with ever moving goalposts), requiring their economy and material wealth to have grown first. Well, you can’t deny it’s grown but I’m still hearing a lot about Chinese billionaires while there’s also a huge swath of Chinese rural poor.