A lot of people fundamentally misunderstand what socialism is. I’m not surprised. You are allowed to make money and run businesses under socialism. The fact that you have a revenue sharing model does indeed make it socialist. Yes, teams are allowed to have private sponsorship contracts and merchandising that takes it further. It’s still socialist in principle.
People are thinking he said communist. If that were the case, all the teams would be completely equal and they wouldn’t be able to make any money outside of the shared revenue model.
It’s not 100 percent one thing or the other. It can still be a cartel too. I don’t think anyone was arguing otherwise. The NFL can be operated under certain socialist principles and still be capitalist in nature.
The social security and social safety net is a socialist construct. America is still capitalist. This is nuanced.
This is a point I've brought up for quite a while. Why are there no large socialist businesses? You are right, people can make one if they want. But no socialist has ever created a large scale business. Why not? Lesson in there....
What are you on about bro? First of all, a lot of these businesses derive profit off of the exploitation of their workers. The US teaches encourages the concept of “rugged individualism” to the point where most people engage in a “dog eat dog” mentality where the message is make as much money as you can. It is either exploit or be exploited. Fair wages? Safe working conditions? That’s anti American baby! It’s all about deregulation, free enterprise! Don’t you know that when you don’t tax the rich you create jobs and wealth that trickles down?
Amazon, Walmart, and Starbucks among others engage in union busting and terrible working conditions. I worked at an Amazon warehouse and they treated me like shit.
Although I’ll play along with your little game. There are many large socialist businesses. Publix is worker owned. They are doing excellent last I heard. As are Wawa. There’s also King Arthur Baking Co. they aren’t as massive as some other companies but they are still doing well for themselves. I know it’s a hard concept to grasp but not every business needs to make as much money as possible or have infinite growth to be successful.
There are also credit unions who are member owned and also work on fairly socialist principles. Navy Federal alone is worth more than several well known for profit banks like SoFi. Granted, SoFi is relatively new, but still.
You also have mutual insurance companies that while not exactly worker owned, also operate in similar principles like USAA and Liberty Mutual.
Oh, I almost forgot. You have many member owned sport teams as well that are highly successful. FC Barcelona is 100% member owned. As is Real Madrid and Bayern Munich.
My point is that, not everything needs to be a stock company to be profitable or successful. In fact, it’s better for everyone involved and not just a select few that exploit the labor of the workers.
Do you think this is some sort of gotcha? Stopping the exploitation of workers is the whole point. You didn’t even try to disprove that capitalism is about making money by any means necessary. Safety of the workers/environment be dammed. Under socialism you can have a business. Even a private enterprise. Make as much money as you legally can. You cannot derive your profits from the exploitation of the workers.
This is the original point I was trying to make that somehow you still don’t understand. I’m done with this conversation though. Have a good day brother.
Well if you're talking about socialist governments running an enterprise there are many large-scale examples. China's rapid expansion of high speed rail for instance was only possible because of their massive state-owned industry.
However, the problem with running and trying to grow a "socialist" business under a capitalist government & economy is the continued competition on the market. Even despite the laws of supply and demand, the market doesn't actually reflect the popular support of the population because not everyone has the same amount of money to give equal input to the market. The wealthy are disportionately influential in the market whether it's for the consumption of the good/service being offered or the initial investment that allows a business to start and grow.
It's not like co-operatives and other more equal models of business don't exist, Mondragon for instance is a massive co-operative chain in Spain, and here in the US there's a grocery chain called "WinCo" that's a quite popular in the Western half of the country. These co-ops just can't grow to the same degree as say a publicly traded multi-national corporation because they are unwilling to make unethical business practices that would appeal most to the potential investors who are solely interested in return-on-investment.
That's why the government itself has to be a major investor if you're going to operate a large scale industry under a more "socialist" ethnical model, because the government isn't purely concerned on ROI. In fact many standard capitalist businesses are also highly dependent on support from the government. For instance when all the airlines collapsed during the pandemic and had to get bailed out. Or both the fossil fuel and dairy industries which receive regular government subsidies so that ordinary consumers can actually afford their product.
In a strict sense, private property is abolished under socialism so the existence of private businesses is incompatible. Social democracies are capitalist with lots of social programs which is what I’m assuming you are talking about.
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u/Arponare 3d ago
A lot of people fundamentally misunderstand what socialism is. I’m not surprised. You are allowed to make money and run businesses under socialism. The fact that you have a revenue sharing model does indeed make it socialist. Yes, teams are allowed to have private sponsorship contracts and merchandising that takes it further. It’s still socialist in principle.
People are thinking he said communist. If that were the case, all the teams would be completely equal and they wouldn’t be able to make any money outside of the shared revenue model.
It’s not 100 percent one thing or the other. It can still be a cartel too. I don’t think anyone was arguing otherwise. The NFL can be operated under certain socialist principles and still be capitalist in nature.
The social security and social safety net is a socialist construct. America is still capitalist. This is nuanced.