• sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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      4 days ago

      He really isn’t anti-capitalist, he’s against concentrations of wealth generally, but he’s absolutely in favor of our capitalist system, he just thinks there should be more rules so workers fare better. He’s not a socialist, much as the right wants to think, he’s just in favor of a large welfare system and high taxes on the wealthy. He doesn’t want to fundamentally change our economic system, he just wants to make it more fair for his definition of “fair.”

      • J Lou@mastodon.social
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        4 days ago

        I agree he is not a socialist in the 20th century sense, but he clearly says that workers should have ownership stake in companies, which is not a capitalist sentiment. He advocates for employee ownership of companies. I also am aware of who his economic advisors on these issues are and they are very much anti-capitalist

        @noncredibledefense

        • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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          4 days ago

          he clearly says that workers should have ownership stake in companies, which is not a capitalist sentiment

          It absolutely is though. Partnerships have been a thing since pretty much forever, and a lot of publicly traded companies and some private companies hand out company stock as part of compensation. Employees owning stock isn’t socialism, it’s capitalism, and the goal is for employees’ interests to be more aligned with the company’s so overall profitability is higher.

          Sanders is approaching it from an employee outcomes perspective, but it’s still very much from a capitalist mindset.

          He’s not advocating for companies to be run democratically like they would under socialism, he’s advocating for more profit sharing without meaningfully changing ownership.

          • J Lou@mastodon.social
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            4 days ago

            I agree that giving alienable voting shares to workers isn’t anti-capitalist. It becomes anti-capitalist when the voting rights over management and corporate governance are inalienable meaning they are legally recognized as non-transferable even with consent.

            Here is a talk by people involved with Bernie Sanders politically about how all companies should be democratically controlled by the workers: https://youtu.be/E8mq9va5/_ZE

            Sanders supports worker co-op conversions

            @noncredibledefense

            • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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              4 days ago

              Sure, and many capitalists support socialist ownership structures within an otherwise capitalist system.

              I’m pretty supportive of laissez faire capitalism (with caveats; I consider myself a left-leaning libertarian), and I also agree that worker co-ops are a great idea in many cases. The important thing, to me, with capitalism is that profit motive drive the decision making process in a competitive market. Sanders seems to largely agree, he just wants more of that profit to make its way to the workers.

              Socialism (generally speaking, I know socialism is a big tent), seeks to eliminate both the profit motive and competitive markets, seeing both as waste. From what I know of Bernie Sanders, he’s not on board with that view of socialism, he just wants the average person to be better off.