Is Nationalization/State Ownership socialism?

[Grayson Walker]

The idea of nationalizing industries is something I don't quite understand. To me, socialism is workplace democracy and self management, and state-run industries is, as far as I know, just state-run capitalism.

Or is it different? Is socialism instead where the state owns all land but workers democratically manage their firms? If this is the case, what do the workers decide, exactly? A bunch of squabbling workers, I feel, would have a hard time with economic planning if they're decentralized but on the other hand state dictatorship of the economy via command economics is certainly not socialism.

[tuwix]

Nationalization doesn't automatically mean socialism. And in all known cases of nationalization it doesn't have to do anything with socialism at all.

As you noticed correctly, there must be workers' control over means of production. Will be in form nationalized property or self-governing cooperative is completely irrelevant.

[ralfy]

Probably not given a mixed economy.

[bropasaran]

Socialism = abolition of exploitation. Exploitation is the extraction of "surplus value" from the workers, which can happen in two ways- in the sphere of production- by alienation of labor and/ or assumed alientation of it's produce (i.e. there are bosses over the workers), and in the sphere of circulation by extracting value in exchange for permission of use of anything that is accepted to be owned by the lessor (i.e. there are rentiers and people who lend money on interest). If you abolish exploitation you have a socialistic economy.

So, can nationalization/ state ownership can be socialism? Presumably nationalization means a planned economy- there is no trade (i.e. there is no money, at least as a commodity), and therefore- there cannot be any exploitation in circulation. If the state itself is directly-democratic, meaning that the workers have control over production (i.e. there are no bosses) then there is no exploitation in production- meaning- such a nationalized economy would be socialistic.

[TheWannabeAnarchist]

As you noticed correctly, there must be workers' control over means of production. Will be in form nationalized property or self-governing cooperative is completely irrelevant.

That sums it up. There's a fine line between socialism and state capitalism. Take Belarus for an example. They are a Soviet relic. About 50% of the national economy is controlled by the state. But there's no worker participation, no management and accountability to the general public. In other words, the state is nothing more than a big, powerful corporation.

[Brotto Rühle]

Nationalization is but a juridical change. It's nothing more than the means of production changing hands from private capitalists to a capitalist state. The social relations of production remain capitalist, and nothing has occurred to abolish these capitalist relations. Further, nationalization would make one presume there is a state, which is an aspect of class society. Socialism isn't a class society, making both a state and the aspect of nationalization, moot.

There is NOT a fine line between socialism and state capitalism. The line between state capitalism and socialism is the same line as that between fascism and socialism. Social Democracy and Socialism. Laissez Faire and Socialism: IT'S THE LINE BETWEEN CAPITALISM AND SOCIALISM.

[Magneto]

This is exactly what I was thinking. State ownership could only be socialism given that the government is controlled by the workers. I can't think of any examples of this.

I think this is part of why many right-wingers claim that fascism is a form of socialism. They define socialism as any system where the government controls the economy. By this definition, fascism is socialism. But in reality, fascist governments would probably be either corporatist or state capitalist.

[Brutus]

The socialist economy is where the means of production are owned by society as a whole (a society of free producers), and production is done scientifically in accordance to a common plan. For this to become a reality, classes and existing social conditions need to be abolished. Whatever happens in the frame of bourgeois social-relations is invariably capitalist.

[RedWorker]

Engels pointed out in "Socialism: Utopian and Scientific" that state ownership is not socialism but rather state capitalism. It is also why the USSR was not actually socialist.

[Five Year Plan]

"State ownership" is a necessary but not sufficient component of the transition to socialism. It is not socialism itself.

[Broviet Union]

The socialist society is likely going to need to direct surplus value to common public projects and some minimal amount of defense spending. If the state refers to a democratic control of the surplus then state ownership is "socialism".

[exeexe]

Albert Einstein said:

I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself (not the state) and are utilized in a planned fashion. A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child. The education of the individual, in addition to promoting his own innate abilities, would attempt to develop in him a sense of responsibility for his fellow men in place of the glorification of power and success in our present society.
Nevertheless, it is necessary to remember that a planned economy is not yet socialism. A planned economy as such may be accompanied by the complete enslavement of the individual. The achievement of socialism requires the solution of some extremely difficult socio-political problems: how is it possible, in view of the far-reaching centralization of political and economic power, to prevent bureaucracy from becoming all-powerful and overweening? How can the rights of the individual be protected and therewith a democratic counterweight to the power of bureaucracy be assured?
The answer to this question is of course federalism which is the opposite of statism.

[hashem]

Engels wrote this in Anti-Duhring:

"... since Bismarck became keen on nationalizing, a certain spurious socialism has recently made its appearance -- here and there even degenerating into a kind of Qunkeyism -- which without more ado declares all nationalization, even the Bismarckian kind, to be socialistic. To be sure, if the nationalization of the tobacco trade were socialistic, Napoleon and Metternich would rank among the founders of socialism. If the Belgian state, for quite ordinary political and financial reasons, constructed its own main railway lines, if Bismarck, without any economic compulsion, nationalized the main Prussian railway lines simply in order to be better able to organize and use them in face of war, in order to train the railway officials as the government's voting cattle, and especially in order to secure a new source of revenue independent of parliamentary votes, such actions were in no sense socialistic measures, whether direct or indirect, conscious or unconscious. Otherwise, the Royal Maritime Company, the Royal Porcelain Manufacture, and even the regimental tailors in the army would be socialist institutions (or even, as was seriously proposed by a sly dog in the thirties during the reign of Frederick William III, the nationalization of the -- brothels)"

[reedwolf]

In my opinion state ownership could be short transitional phrase right after the revolution. The state, which is now under the control of the proletariat, would nationalize all means of production in the state. After that a redistribution phrase would begin. However remaining at state ownership would only be vaguely socialistic, and not at all if the government is authoritarian.