[juniperus]

funny to note how Europe is considered more socialist and America more capitalist, but in America, the public owns the means of production through pension-based stock market ownership, which is one of the core tenets of communism, whereas this article points out European pensions are state-based or through bond investments. Of course, not much power is derived through American ownership of the means of production via the stock market because that power is delegated to the institutions who have the actual control, serving the same role as the politburo, for instance, in more ostensibly communist systems.

[luckylion]

While the public doesn't have immediate power, it has a lot of freedom. If you manage your retirement fund, you can use it in whatever way you want. Buy a boat. Start a company. Gamble it all away in a week.

A lot of European countries have a much more paternal approach. Citizens can't be trusted to make good decisions, so they only receive part of their salary, and the rest is being managed "for them" - and that's non-negotiable (but there are some exceptions). A lot more stable, but a lot less free because you have a guardian making those decisions for you.

[tfourb]

This is not what happens. European public pension systems are mostly based on a solidarity system in which current wage earners pay for the pensions of current pensioners.

This system has its problems, mostly demographics with fewer young people entering the workforce and an unwillingness to fill the gap with immigration, but it has nothing to do with not trusting people to make their own decisions. It’s simply a historically grown approach which actually has worked quite well (and better than in the US for a greater share of society) for over a century.

[lucketone]

Your analysis is fully correct.

I want to add one more aspect to this.

If I gamble my pension away, I have detrimental effect on my neighbours and the rest of society. Sure I could work for a little longer, but not for too long.

One non-exhaustive example: If I don’t die right after my last contract ends, it means I’m consuming food and have some kind of shelter, which is payed by somebody.

[dlcarrier]

I think what's more important isn't who runs current production, but who can start future production. The people of the US own the means of production because they can legally start their own companies, with relatively low barriers to entry, to replace the ones currently in power.

The US has far more protectionism and other barriers to entry than it did when it seized the means of production from England, through the Boston tea party and the revolution that followed, but it still has enough freedom of business that it easily beats the European Union in pretty much every developing field.

Where the American Revolution differes from communist reviolutions is that, after seizing the means of production from a repressive government, the revolutionaries' new government did not hold onto the means of production through a planned economy, but instead held effectively zero economic oversight, leaving production open to a free market and anyone who wished to participate in it.

[motorest]

> (...) but in America, the public owns the means of production through pension-based stock market ownership, which is one of the core tenets of communism (...)

Do they own it, though?

Or is the US public relegated to a position of financing investment corporations without any ownership or control in exchange for a fraction of the profits and the bulk of the losses?

If anything, the US public seems to be used as a strategy to lower investment risks of investment firms.

> (...) whereas this article points out European pensions are state-based or through bond investments.

The "state-based" aspect which you are casually glancing over refers to full blown income redistribution schemes, where everyone's paycheck, being rich or poor, is proportionally deducted to finance retirement pensions, unemployment benefits, parental leaves, and even medical leaves.

Do you think that paying a corporation to invest in the stock market is more socialist than this?

[9rx]

> Do they own it, though?

Yes.

Do they control it? If you really get right down to it, technically also yes. If the public banded together to get things done, it would get done. But as with anything shared by millions people in the real world there becomes a disconnect between the people and in the chaos of lack of communication and no shared will to get things done a few actors end up usurping control. So in practice, no. But, I mean, that has always been the criticism of socialism — that a few actors end up taking control — so no surprises there.

[9rx]

> which is one of the core tenets of communism

One of the core tenants of the Communist Party, who believe (on paper, at least) that socialism is the path to enabling post-scarcity.

Communism is an imagined sci-fi world where we've already achieved post-scarcity; Star Trek is a more modern adaptation of the same idea. If it has anything resembling "core tenants", there being no ownership is one of them. It is imagined that in a post-scarcity world, ownership doesn't mean anything.