The Myth of Voluntary Socialism

Are sharing and worker-owned businesses examples of voluntary socialism? I argue that if you have a right to decide whether to share or keep your things, it is capitalism. Likewise, if an employee in a worker-owned business can cash out his or her share and start his or her own business, it is capitalism.

In order for socialism to be voluntary, it must exist in a capitalist society. The act of sharing is not socialism. Sharing requires the exclusive ownership of property in the first place, which is prohibited in a socialist system. A worker-owned company is not socialism. If an employee is free to cash out of the company, to go home to private property, and to start his or her own company, then that worker-owned company exists within a larger capitalist system where means of production can be owned privately. Again, this isn’t socialism.

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