What is "socialism"? - An attempt to clear up myths/misconceptions

[sc94597]

Matsku said:

sc94597 said:

Who mentioned that everybody would own everything under socialism? Socialism merely is the premise that the workers in associated labor should control the productive capital which they use to perform that labor. People could and would still take planned risks because there are still rewards achieved by reducing the costs of production. It just so happens that you can only profit under socialism by actually reducing costs rather than externalizing them on to others. 

There are also many ways people can be motivated to achieve something without financial profit. 

People might take some risks with existing companies under socialism but they wouldn't make new ones with no chance of reward from their huge risk. That's just human nature.

Why wouldn't people association and dissociate into new worker's cooperatives for a variety of reasons? Competition (and therefore innovation) will still exist under market socialism, it just happens that the rewards are distributed to more people, and therefore more people have stake in reducing costs. Hence you'll still have innovation with the aim to reduce costs of production. There will still be profits in the sense of gains in productivity and wealth over the inputs.