Democratically owning the means of production among the workers. Instead of some greedy rich guy who'd want to give as little of the profit as possible to the people actually making the product or providing the service.
Simple. You know all those scientists that work at $40 billion chip plants? They would actually take the $40 billion and not some random suit who doesn't do any of the actual work. Executive leadership is important, but it's not worth 1000x the average worker's salary.
Work isn't just physical you know. Management, planning, etc is work too, and they'd get paid according to how many want to do them, and how hard they are.
The difference is, like I said, that some greedy rich bastard who’d want to give as little of the profit as possible to the people actually making the product or providing the service wouldn't own that means of production.
Co-ops and unions are certainly steps in the right direction, but they're more like temporary band-aids over Capitalism instead of implementing proper Socialism.
Communism without actually sharing isn't communism. Democracy without fair elections isn't democracy. Socialism without the socialisation of the benefit of production is not socialism. Your ignorance of these things doesn't change what they are.
No, it's not a democracy because it doesn't even bother following actual democratic principles. It's just like Napoleon's idea of democracy: I am the people, therefore if I have absolute power I'm being democratic.
Basically Cuba on steroids
I copy-pasted my answer because you copy-pasted your comment
North Korea calls itself democratic. Everyone in the country votes for a new leader every five years. It's just that there's only one name on the ballot.
One would be foolhardy to call that democracy.
One would be even more foolhardy to argue that this means that democracy is a stupid idea.
All while the world's current top superpower is right beside them, sees them as an enemy, and has a still ongoing embargo on them for 60 years now to prevent them from trading with other countries. That'll hopefully change once China's Belt and Road Initiative is complete though.
Clearly this model works. It does require expelling landleeches, plantation owners and billionaires if they don't hand over the means of production to the workers (like Cuba did after the revolution), but I don't think most people would mind that.
It also historically requires fighting off the US though because military, oil, and other private corporation owners can't exploit Socialist countries as much, which is harder.
It is though? People directly nominate individuals in their area, and the ballots are checked in public where anyone can attend.
This results in a Parliament that evenly and properly represents the entire population. That's why Cuba has an unusually high percentage of women in the government, 53.22% now (U.S has 29.0%), and better LGBT rights than the U.S. nowadays.
Being rich as an advantage is also taken away by banning advertising yourself/anyone. You need social connections with the people in your area (Socialism) instead.
Not knowing something is fine, but being ignorant and arrogant about it is unfortunate. Though I suppose it is unbelievable, if you're in a Capitalist country, to hear that a nation has solved homelessness, starvation, and education by just changing its political/economic system (and fighting off the US after).
Imagine its sheer potential once it can trade with other countries with that massive advantage, after the US is eventually forced to stop the embargo.
That's an oxymoron. There is literally no such thing as a capitalist cooperative. By definition, co-ops are socialist. Also, the right wing populist wants to socialize the airlines?
If that's what you think this says, then you completely misunderstand anarchism.
This book describes current and past societies that have functioned using anarchist principles such as horizontality, mutual aid, none of which are utopian, but all of which are significantly more equitable than systems like capitalism, feudalism, authoritarianism, and statehood.
Thank you for the link! AnarchistLibrary is cool but sometimes it's hard to find the solid stuff from the tumblr rants.
I agree, it's amazing how "revolutionary" it is to hold the idea that people can lead and cooperate just fine without a someone "on top" making all the rules everyone just follows because they say so. Some people just can't fathom not being lead around by the nose.
They think we're utopian, but I'd rather work towards an equitable world using anarchist principles, knowing it won't create a utopia, than give up and let greed and hatred win out because that's the status quo.
"This current situation is the best we've got so far" is such a low bar.
Amen. One of the things I like best about anarchism is it introduces concepts that we can begin to practice immediately vs. awaiting some future revolution.
I really like the book I linked because to me it's so much easier to read and digest than some of the famous works by authors like Kropotkin or Goldman.