Socialism and Class Traitors (Listener Questions)

So getting right to it, we got several emails following up on our market socialism episode.

It seemed to really spark interest in how to think about a viable socialism.

I think we'll probably do more episodes dealing with these issues, but here's a question from a listener asking for a clarification.

They write, "The term private property as it was used in the market socialism episode is unclear to me.

How does private property differ from personal property?"

Well, the idea of the differentiation is there's certain kinds of property that give you power over other people's labor, and that results in what's called exploitation.

So what socialists are against is not property as such, but property that enables one group of people to exploit another group of people.

And by exploitation, we mean basically to have control over their labor so that your income comes out of their labor.

Whereas personal property is just stuff that you own that you use for yourself, and it can even be stuff that you sell on the market.

I can buy a TV, and then I can sell it on the market.

I might even, in certain conditions, make a profit off of it.

Suppose TVs are in really short supply or a car that you own suddenly b- goes into really short supply.

You bought it for 10,000, and you can sell it for 12,000.

Mm-hmm.

That does not make it what we call private property.

It doesn't make it capital.

People sometimes use words like assets and capital because you learn that in neoclassical economics, and that's fine.

You can use words in any way that you want.

But that is a different way of using the term than the way it's been used by socialists and by Marxists.

Hmm.

So when we say that socialism will most likely either abolish or severely limit private property, we simply mean property that enables you to have command over other people's labor, and in so doing gives you command over those people and power over them.

'Cause remember what socialism is about.

You're trying to democratize social relations.

And having control over other people's labor not only gives you control over their work, it also gives you control over them in all sorts of ways because now they're dependent on you.

And because they're dependent on you, that control, that power can be utilized in extra economic ways, too.