this post was submitted on 25 Nov 2025
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Not necessarily. Capitalism functions by the following circuit:
M-C...P...C'-M'
Money is used to buy commodities, such as machinery, raw materials, and labor power, then production happens, then higher value commodities are the result of said production and sold for greater sums of money. M' is fed back into this system, and M'' is output at the end, over and over. The increase in value comes from unpaid labor, ie wages that don't actually cover all of the value created, because capitalists cannot profit otherwise.
Socialist systems don't have equal pay for everyone (that isn't the goal to begin with), but also don't have this system of capital ownership as the principle aspect of their economies and as such private ownership is phased out over time in these countries.
I think you will see plenty of private ownership in any country. Unless you accept the paper only "public property" with a ruling class of "I am the state" philosophy.
Every country has billionaires, in capitalist countries they buy politicians and in authoritarian countries they are the politicians, but inequality is there nonetheless.
Publicly run industry doesn't normally function with the same circuit of turning money into a larger sum of money that I described, nor are administrators a "ruling class." Inequality in distribution exists, but isn't necessarily the problem, equalitarians that seek equal distribution for everyone are exceedingly rare. There's a qualitative difference in outcomes for the working classes in socialist countries where public ownership is the principle aspect that manifests in dramatic uplifting of their material conditions, whereas the point of the capitalist system is said inequality. The sheer scale of inequality in capitalist systems far surpasses socialist countries.
In the USSR, for example, the gap between the wealthiest, ie professors and scientists at the top and the average factory worker towards the bottom, was about ten times. In capitalist countries, that number skyrockets to billions. In the PRC, which has a socialist market economy, the number of billionaires is going down while the GDP and GDP per capita of the PRC is growing dramatically year over year, alongside real wages.
Yes, Stalin was not ruling class. Not at all. Benevolent caretaker. Same as Maduro, the Kims and Xi.
PS: lol at professors being the wealthiest in the USSR. Big lol.
Correct, none of them were part of a "ruling class," administration is not a distinct class. The proletariat is in control in socialist countries.
Lol
Amazing.
Indeed