https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxZO0jd8VoU
@Hyolobrika @meso I'd start with working monopoly control...
Market socialism seems to be a way of making that happen without the civil liberties issues.
@Hyolobrika @meso I did not mean to say owning the workplace was bad. It is actually a very good idea in my opinion.
What made me comment about monopoly control is that first, it is something that is already promised, just not provided. Like don't start the hard stuff when fixing the easy stuff could provide results. Secondly, owning the workplace is a phrasing i am way more comfortable with, "market socialism" invites too many possible misinterpretations.
@Hyolobrika @meso It hinges upon how distributed it is.
If all power in the private sector is in the hands of one person or a small group of people, this is the problem we currently see. This small group can heavily influence politics up to the point where it's an oligarchy.
If we take Hyo's previous "workers own where they work", we should get a pretty good distribution of power, such that a democracy can work. Also the people that have a say in something are actually competent in the matter. Also they will likely suffer the consequences of externalizing problems (dumping waste), which should serve to discipline them.
If we would go with "who is influenced", it becomes complicated. Any company that has an environmental impact influences everyone. I see no clear line that could be argued to prevent an oligarchy, so i think this will lead to scenario one.
If many people are shareholders, as you say, i think this is an unstable state that will devolve to scenario one, as it happened, at least if it is not prevented (monopoly control should also prevent monopolies in shares, i guess).
Parallel to that i think democracy also declines if more critical infrastructure is private owned, like internet access, water, energy. I do see the spying problem with internet in the public hand, but they can create a totalitarian state without owning the access companys anyway.
@Hyolobrika @meso The "they can do that anyway" part applies to those, too. Either there is democratic control preventing those or it's more of a "how fast" than an "if".
If companies can withstand state mandated spying, censorship and propaganda, you're in shadow run territory and have a completely different problem.
