If not capitalism, then what?

Inevitably, whenever I criticize capitalism, or even just components of it, someone comes along and says something like, “Why don’t you move to North Korea or Venezuela then?” or “All the economic systems suck, but this is the best we have” or “If you hate capitalism so much, what do you think we should have instead?”.

That last question is the one I want to address today.

Ultimately, I think socialism potentially can be better than capitalism. That statement may have automatically conjured up certain images in your mind as you read it, but there’s something you should know.

Socialism is an umbrella term.

It just means that the means of production—land, labour, capital, and infrastructure—are socially owned, rather than privately owned, as it would be under pure capitalism.

But two socialist economies might be implemented entirely differently. Cuba, for example, is a Marxist-Leninist republic, while North Korea is a Juche republic and the Zapatista autonomous territory is a libertarian socialist confederal semi-direct democracy.

But they’re all socialist.

If you’re opposed to socialism, is it because you’re opposed to all forms of social ownership of the means of production or one or two particular kinds, which has skewed your view towards socialism broadly?

What I want to do for the rest of this article is just highlight some forms of socialism to give you a better idea of the diverse ideologies that exist under this umbrella.

Social democracy

This isn’t really socialism, as social democrats simply want to reform capitalism rather than replace it. They want to leverage capitalism to create a strong welfare state but doing so with most businesses still under private ownership. I include it here only to help differentiate it from the next one on the list.

Democratic socialism

The “democratic” in this term is used as a way to differentiate from the “authoritarian” socialism that people might be thinking of when they hear the term “socialism”.

Unlike social democracy, democratic socialists want to have socialism in place in the end. They believe in a political democracy, as well as in an economy that is socially-owned. That democracy would be extended into the economy, including the workplace, where the working class would have a larger say in how the economy functions.

Democratic socialist countries today include the Nordic countries.

Marxist-Leninism

This is probably the most popular form of so-called communism that is or has been practiced by socialist states. Former Soviet leader Joseph Stalin drew on Bolshevism, Marxism, and Leninism to develop the theoretical base for this ideology.

It maintains the necessity of a vanguard party (often the Communist Party) to lead the working class in their overthrow of capitalism. The vanguard party then installs a dictatorship of the proletariat to seize state power, suppress the owning class, and transition to socialism through a strong state-controlled economy.

In contrast, democratic socialism favours reforming capitalism rather than overthrowing it, and has less state control over the means of production.

The parallel political system is democratic centralism, where decisions are democratically made within the party, not by the working class broadly, and those decisions must be strictly followed.

This is the basis for the economic and political aspects of such states as China, Cuba, and Vietnam.

Leninism

Like his successor, Vladimir Lenin also believed in the necessity of abolishing capitalism through the use of a vanguard party. However, he saw the dictatorship of the proletariat as a temporary caretaker government while the economy transitions away from capitalism to socialism and ultimately to communism, governed by the workers.

Communism

Speaking of communism, this is a classless, stateless society in which the means of production is collectively owned by the public. The economy is planned by the people, unlike in capitalism, where it is planned by the owning class. Private property is abolished, so things like land, businesses, and industries are publicly owned. There is no wage labour, no employers, and no employees. Work is done to benefit society, rather than to generate profit for the owning class. People’s material needs are met communally by the society, rather than by one’s ability to perform wage labour.

Because communism is stateless, the term “communist country” is an oxymoron. There have been no large-scale communist states.

Democratic confederalism

Related to communism is the concept of democratic confederalism, which was developed by Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party. His theories were heavily influence by Murray Bookchin’s ideas on libertarian municipalism.

In democratic confederalism, power isn’t concentrated in a central government. Rather, it’s distributed among local communities. On that note, decisions are made democratically, at the grassroots level, though local councils and larger assemblies.

Society is pluralistic and multi-ethnic, with diverse ethnic, religious, and cultural groups cooperating. Women play a key role in governance and gender-based oppression is actively opposed. It rejects nationalism and centralized states in favour of a confederation of self-governing communities.

Kurdistan (or Rojava) is probably the largest example of this ideology in practice.

Anarchism

Like communism, anarchism advocated for a stateless society. However, in anarchism, there would be no transitory state government. Anarchists believe in a spontaneous uprising to overthrow capitalism and the state and any organizing would be decentralized, rather than the overthrow being managed by a party-led revolution.

Rather than centrally planning the distribution of resources and organization of the economy, anarchism focuses on local, voluntary associations that rely on mutual aid and self-governance.

Examples of anarchist societies in the past were The Free Territory in what is now Ukraine between 1918 and 1921; The Spanish Revolution between 1936 and 1939; and the Korean People’s Association in Manchuria (1929–1931).

The Zapatista Autonomous Municipalities in Mexico is an example of an anarchist-type society today, and the democratic confederalism of Rojava was inspired by anarchism.

Anarcho-syndicalism

This is a form of anarchism that focuses on workers’s self-management, direct action, and revolutionary unionism.

In an anarcho-syndicalist society, workers directly manage the economy through democratic workplace organizations, rather than it being controlled by the state or capitalist class. This would be accomplished through worker-run syndicates and cooperatives.

Because the workers would control the means of production, there’d be no need for wage labour. Labour would be performed for the social good, and society, as a whole, would take care of the material needs of the workers (and those unable to work).

There would be no central government. Decisions would instead by made by a federation of worker councils and assemblies.

While not a full-blown society, aspects of anarcho-syndicalism was present in 2001 (and still today) when workers in Argentina took over abandoned factories and ran them cooperatively.

Something similar happened in France during the general strike of May 1968; although that was shortlived.

As you can see, there are several types of socialism. And this wasn’t even all them; there are plenty more.

But this should give you an idea of the diversity of thought and ideology under the socialism umbrella, and why it’s misleading to paint all of them the same.

And in case you’re wondering, I don’t identify strictly with any of them; although, probably unsurprising to regular readers, I tend to favour anarcho-syndicalism.