Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uunet!aplcen!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!psuvax1!psuvm!auvm!BROWNVM!JWS From: JWS@BROWNVM.BITNET (Joseph Sullivan) Newsgroups: bit.listserv.politics Subject: Re: Worker-owner corporations Message-ID: <90043.2240.JWS@BROWNVM> Date: 12 Feb 90 22:40:24 GMT Sender: Forum for the Discussion of Politics Reply-To: Forum for the Discussion of Politics Lines: 17 Approved: NETNEWS@AUVM Gateway In reply to Mark's posting (2-12) disputing the 'socialism' of the Weirton Steel Co., it needs to be said that socialism is worker ownership and manage- ment of the means of production. State ownership is state ownership, period. I can't account for what passed for Socialism in Europe, but in the US, the Socialist Party consistently has advocated worker ownership, or, put another way, economic democracy. The view that "socialism means the state owns every- thing" is a continuing misconception. From its first Presidential campaign in 1900, the SP has, through Eugene Debs and later through Norman Thomas, worked strenously to make that fact known. The association of American Socialism (or 'democratic socialism' as you put it) with Stalin and the Soviet Union is just one of those misconceptions that won't go away no matter how many party platforms have been issued. Your view that Weirton sounds more like capitalism isn't actually far off base. "Making every worker a capitalist", in the sense that each worker receives the full of value of his/her labor, and not the full value of someone else's labor, is precisely what the Socialist Party has pursued all along. Receiving what YOU earn, and not what 400 factory workers have earned for you.