Of course not. Socialism is the ownership and control of the means of production and distribution, of capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole. Abetting corporate ownership does absolutely nothing to steer such control into the hands of the community as a whole. It just moves it from one oligarch to another, leaving nothing in the control of the community.
It is still taking taxpayer money and giving it to an entity over which the taxpayers have no control.
No, it’s buying votes.
Only a True Scotsman practices True Socialism.
There’s no point in getting too detailed in the definitions. Subsidizing a company isn’t the same as state ownership, but it’s not the same as free enterprise either. And we do a lot of subsidizing in one way or another. Sometimes it’s considered to be for the good of the people directly, going right to the end of the line, to make sure we have affordable food for instance. Other times it’s done for the good of the businesses to promote stronger free enterprise. And no matter the motivations determining the results of the effort is rarely clear. So on the spectrum between pure capitalism and pure socialism there are plenty of ways we’ve operated between the extremes. Overall we maintain a capitalist system, but as we granularize the components of the economy we can see some socialism at play.
You don’t remember the yelling and screaming about the government picking winners? I do, because I passed the place on my way to work.
It should have been looked on as venture government capitalism, but Obama did it so it was bad.
I find the question rather odd. Perhaps OP should instead ask “What is the definition of socialism?” or “Are ‘propping up a dying industry’ and the term ‘socialism’ both {good,bad} things?”
But the short answer to OP’s question is: No, of course not (or “Hell No” to conform with the poll). Diverting public money to private corporate coffers is rather the opposite of socialism.
Let me ask OP: In 1954 the C.I.A. used taxpayer dollars to overthrow the democratically-elected government of Guatemala in support of the United Fruit Company. Was that “socialism”? (I’m not claiming that hiring coal miners and killing Guatemalan protestors are the same thing, but a reductio ad absurdem may clear one’s head.)
I missed the post you’re responding to but I assume you’re speaking of government investment in Solyndra. Any venture capitalist will tell you that if none of your ventures fail you’re not venturing enough! It’s amusing that right-wingers, who pretend to understand capitalism, don’t even get this. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 showed a net profit (despite losses like Solyndra) at a time when “white knight” capitalists couldn’t be found and America and the world were on the verge of plunging into depression. The ARRA was crafted to incorporate right-wing concerns, yet most Republicans pigheadedly voted against it. These facts are lost to FoxNews viewers who are left chanting “Hillary Solyndra Benghazi e-mail Benghazi.” :rolleyes:
In fact, it’s even worse as a measure of socialism. When taxes are collected and are still in the hands of the government, the revenue remains to some degree under under the control of the community through the ballot box or other measures to coerce the government to spend for public or community benefit. But when it is handed over to a private corporation, all public control of the money is gone, as well as any potential public benefit from the money, which is the furthest you can get from socialism.
Socialism means for the benefit of the entire community, not just for the befit of somebody other than the government.
It’s not socialist. It’s fascist. Especially when you consider that propping up said industry is supposed to be in the national interest.
Since the dying industry may or may not be socialized, propping it up has nothing to do with socialism either way and more to do with bureaucratic incompetence, corruption, populism, etc. Which is not to say that ostensibly socialist regimes have not experimented with [poor] economic planning, but so have non-socialist governments.
FWIW because I don’t think my previous post made it clear, I think Trump’s coal plan is a spectacularly dumb idea for many, many reasons but I think calling it socialism is no longer a valid argument because the term has lost its meaning and become shorthand for “Government regulations I don’t like” for Conservatives.
I would probably use the term “planned economy”, but that can be an element of socialism (depending on your definition).
It does.
It’s socialism if the government took over the coal mines and ran them.
This is corporatism, where the government does what the corporations want without concern for the economy as a whole.
Actually this is probably the closest - National Socialism rather than socialism. Although National Socialism in strictly economic terms is even more loosely defined than most economic systems.
Regards,
Shodan
The theory, as I understand it, is that coal and nuclear power plants store the fuel onsite, so in the event of a natural disaster, terrorist attack or whatever, they would be able to continue to produce energy, while natural gas plants might not. Similarly, the government might decide that having a domestic shipbuilding industry is in the national interest, and so it might choose to subsidize the building of naval ships and cruise ships if that allows US shipyards to stay open.
I don’t know whether this is a valid concern with regard to coal and nuclear power plants, nor whether it’s just an excuse to support an industry owned by friends of the president, or whether it’s just an attempt at getting voters in coal country on his side. (How much coal is stockpiled at a typical coal-fired power plant anyhow? How many days or weeks could such a plant continue to produce power?)
This is never possible to fully disentangle IMO. It’s one reason I think it’s important to first honestly discuss collectivism*, and not interpret the identification of collectivism with automatic opposition to all collectivism. Why and in whose favor (supposedly or actually) collectivism is being imposed isn’t the same question as whether a policy is collectivism or not.
There are coal plants in the lower Great Lakes region which get most of their supply from lake ships carrying it from Superior WI, after it’s railed from mines in southeast MT. They basically stockpile during the shipping season what they will need from early-mid January through late March when ice prevents the ships from running. They might receive rail shipments of that or other coal in the winter, but basically it’s not unheard of to stockpile months’ supply. But in case of coal plants normally fed by rail year round it’s not necessarily economical to tie up capital in big piles of coal. The govt could mandate this, but does not. Also some coal fired power plants are built immediately adjacent to coal mines.
Modern gas fired plants consist of gas turbines with the exhausts firing waste heat boilers whose steam drives steam turbines. Those gas turbines can easily burn diesel oil or jet fuel in the alternative and some plants have oil tanks for that purpose. Again though it’s not necessarily economical to have those tanks, or that they be any given size, the govt could mandate it, but doesn’t. And also similarly to some coal plants, some gas fired plants are specifically built in gas fields, true of some recent ones built or being built in PA.
*‘socialism’ is to liable to sidetracking to pedantic points that if something doesn’t constitute govt ownership of the means of the production it’s not socialist. That’s an impractical definition in a world where every rich country has significant elements of what socialism originally aimed for, with in many cases (though not as common in US) politicians in favor of relatively more of these policies say they are socialists. Simply including ‘social democratic’ policies along with tariffs and regulations seeking particular economic outcomes, other than market outcomes, as collectivism avoids this pedantic argument and gets more to the point IMO.
I went sort of. I think of it more in terms of “social democrat”/German form of socialism that actual social-collectivism somewhere but a really good name escapes me at the moment.
It is a much worse idea than you think, though a lot of us will not be around to see how bad.
Exactly. Solyndra was working on a new technology for solar power cells, which didn’t work out, which is the case for lots of new technologies.
There have been much worse government investments. NSF has a small business grant program, you know to give money to real Americans and not pointy headed scientists. (Forced on them by Congress, I believe.) I was involved in reviewing a few sets of these, and much of the proposals came from companies whose business model seemed to be getting grants. I only did it because my daughter was in college near DC and this way the gummint paid me to visit her.
They all had a section on how the grants would help the disadvantaged. (They used better words.) One proposal was for robots to polish the bottom of yachts - reading their answer to that question was a real hoot.
I think its good in terms of the Postal Service and Amtrak.
+1.