this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2023
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The factory has owners. It would be unfair to not compensate them for their capital investment. You are describing a situation where you disallow private enterprise, but all systems describing this type of agreement to date have resulted in terrible outcomes. It will destroy competition. I am reminded of hearing about my brother’s visit to the Soviet Union when he was younger. He went with his group to an ice cream shop and asked what flavors they have and they said vanilla. As in, this limits options and provides a shitty quality of life. It also leads to issues where people who are able to provide a high value to society are not rewarded at a higher rate than a lazy or dumb person. The incentive is gone. These are issues that no text has reconciled. Even Plato’s dreamed Utopia, he knew that such a thing only would work if you brainwashed people generationally to value the idea of communal ownership. He basically left it at the leaders not being able to own things, but having all that they need while other classes under them could still own things. In essence, his utopian society was totally unrealistic in any meaningful timeline and still formed different classes of people.
It destroys society to take away people’s possessions because we built a system where property ownership is a central component. Having possessions is such a basic human construct that your are living in a pipe dream if you feel that you can remove that. The idea that people would share with one another and not get what they are worth to society is salient in describing why socialism as a whole crumbles. You can have socialized policies, but destroying the whole economic system doesn’t work. See my reply later in this thread for examples of real incremental changes.
Let's start with your first assumption. Why must a factory have individual owners? Why not instead have it owned by the workers who are the ones actually producing?
Also, don't conflate private and personal property. If you are indeed talking about private property, it is very unlikely you have any to begin with. The vast majority of private property is owned by a few billionaires.
Lastly, people do not need money to incentivise work. Boredom, creativity and the desire to help and or contribute to society does that well enough. Given a stable level of comfort, people will seek work that matters to them.
Because the workers didn’t find the money to buy a whole factory..
And what system do you think is keeping the workers too poor to do that?
What system makes it so that work must involve the buying of private property in the first place?
Also, here's a perspective you might not hear often: why should the owner bear that burden and risk alone? That seems like too much pressure for one person. Poor capitalist. Doesn't he realise he needs help?