GenZhouArchive

u/aimixin - originally from r/GenZhou
Two points:

First, the phrase "worker ownership over the means of production" is a bit misleading because it seems to suggest petty bourgeois property (like your self-employed example) or even co-operative ownership, are examples of "socialist property", when they aren't. Socialism is based on centralized public ownership, not direct ownership by a specific group or a single worker who holds that property in private from the rest of society.

Second, no, Marxist-Leninists aren't going to take your means of production. Yes, your ownership is private, but that doesn't mean an ML government can abolish it, either. Again, social ownership has to be centralized. Your little private lemonade stand or whatever is obviously not centralized, it's small, individual production, done by you personally. What ML governments aim to make public is things like your Amazons, Walmarts, Vanguard Groups, etc, things that are already centralized and thus can be made public.

The goal of Marxists is not to just pass a law that says "private ownership is illegal", this is a weird revisionist interpretation of Marx that arose from ultraleftists in the mid-20th century. The goal of Marxism is to develop the productive forces so far that private ownership would become unfeasible simply due to economic conditions, independent of any laws passed.

Imagine if, for example, the state expropriated The Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo. These two companies completely dominate the soda market. Why? Because (1) they're improved their sodas for decades so that they're genuinely desirable, (2) they've improved their production process for decades so that they can be produced incredibly cheaply, and (3) they've improved their marketing tactics so they can make them appear the most appealing.

Even without the state expropriating these two companies, building a real competitor is nearly impossible. Not because it's illegal, but because these two companies have so effectively dominated the market that constructing a real competitor is nearly impossible. If the state expropriated them, this would remain true. It wouldn't need to be made illegal for you to try and start a private soda company, it would just become impractical.

Another obvious example is Apple. Can you start a private company from your basement to compete with Apple? No, why not? Because Apple has hundreds of billions of dollars worth of capital, and this is necessary to even begin the production of smartphones. The smartphone industry is so advanced and relies on so much technology, that no one can compete without already having hundreds of billions in capital. If the state expropriated Apple, the reason you couldn't compete with the state would not be because it's illegal to have a private smartphone business, it would be because the state is already so efficient at it, and the barrier of entry is so high, that actually entering into competition with it is nearly, if not actually, impossible.

The goal of Marxists is not to just make your private lemonade stand illegal, but to improve the state's efficiency at producing lemonade to such a high degree that the state's lemonade is not only the most desirable, but also by far the cheapest. Mass production based on high levels of science and technology would allow it to pump out an enormous amount of lemonade at such a low price that no one could practically actually start a small business in competition with it.

It is actually a rather anti-Marxist viewpoint to believe in the expropriation of small businesses, since Marxists see the foundations for socialism as laid upon large-scale production, so expropriating a small business would be trying to lay socialism on foundations that do not match socialism, it would lead to economic inefficiencies and other problems, and likely lead to the rise of black markets that try to resolve those inefficiencies through small businesses.

Marxists see small production as an inevitable result of low levels of development, and market in turn are an inevitable result of small production, as small producers will want to exchange with each other. Hence, the foundations for socialism can really only be laid by market mechanisms. If a sector of the economy is too underdeveloped to be expropriated, you have to leave it up to the markets. Your self-employed small business would be left up to the markets until market mechanisms found a way to centralize that business and drive you out of business on its own.

It's not Marxists who abolish most private property, the vast majority of all private property is gradually abolished by the markets themselves. Capitalism abolishes private property for the vast majority, and does it continually every day, the proportion of small businesses to big business is always on the decline. Marxists just want to take that final step, of taking those highly centralized big businesses, those large oligopolies and monopolies, and abolish private property there, and thereby restoring ownership over the means of production to the vast majority of people that was abolished by the markets.