>>.. Once the pioneers or settlers were given property rights, they grew their own crops and had an abundance, whereas under communism there was a shortage.
>>
>>Michael, you get the Gold Star.
>
>Thanks, I will treasure that Gold Star for the rest of the year.
>
>So, we live in a failed communist state.
>Whodathunk?

Now Cecil and Bill would be surprised, but the kind of socialism I have in mind is actually equal opportunity capitalism, the way Adam Smith envisioned it. IOW, kill off the corporations (or, rather, revoke their permits - they aren't a service to the society anymore) and reinstate the direct ownership. What was wrong with any system of socialism so far is equally wrong in the corporate capitalism: there's no direct ownership, therefore no responsibility. Just like the apparatchik could drive a state-owned enterprise to ruin and then get promoted for discovering the enemies of the state who sabotaged it, or the director of a crumbling self-managed enterprise would get reelected by the workers because he managed to borrow money somewhere and let them sit on their butts for another year while eating the base capital, so the managers of a fund can play the stock market and get rich on betting that the enterprise whose stock they manage will fail - which isn't hard to arrange.

In statist socialism nobody cares, because their salaries depend on the hierarchy in the state/party, not on how they perform. They become specialized in playing the system, not doing their jobs. Work doesn't pay.

In self managed socialism the people allegedly have the incentive to perform the best they can, and reap the benefits on the market, but they soon hit a wall of limitations when they try to really reap it, and they don't actually own anything - they only manage. They can decide to cut their own salaries for a few years, to invest in expansion, to build a new unit - and then the workers in that unit declare independence and take it all with them. So they gradually build a "nobody can pay me as little as little I can work" attitude, because work doesn't pay.

In corporate capitalism one owns many bits of many enterprises, a so-called portfolio, but with such a minuscule percentage everywhere, that he never has a say in any of them. Most of the time, doesn't even know exactly what he owns, that's why he has a middleman. The ownership, when put together, is a matter of reading the quarterly reports, not of knowing your property. The larger owners also own pieces in other places, so they don't really care much for each individual piece, they care about their total; they often may own a competing business as well, and may decide to just shut one of them down to favor the other. The enterprise isn't managed by its owners, but by yet another middleman, the manager - who only has to show profit, not necessarily any long term growth, stability, wise investment etc. The manager only needs to show growth and profit, every quarter, and his interest is to build a reputation and/or get a golden parachute - the actual performance of the enterprise is less important, the books can be cooked. The easy way to show growth is to fire 10% of the workforce - as was already done many times - which looks very nice on the quarterly report, raises the stock. The workers can get fired at any time, regardless of their performance. Their salary doesn't depend on their performance; it is a cost, fixed. When the company is in trouble, they get fired; when it swims in money, they got their fixed salary and rarely get to feel some of the windfall. Work doesn't pay.

So sack all those intermediaries and other middlemen who are smart when holding money of others. Actual owners should work in the place they own, and those who work should own a piece of where they work. The better you, and your enterprise, perform - the more you take home. And there should be no way to make money on ruining a business.

Call this naive capitalism, or small owner socialism (I know theoreticians on both sides would gladly shoot me for this), I'd rather see something like this than what I've seen so far.