engels making the "socialism is when the government does stuff" joke in 500 words or more
Ok what do you actually mean by this, is this just vague shit stirring or do you have something to say about socialist states? Cause it's pretty obvious what he means and it isn't a predictive dunk on China or whatever.
If I'm understanding this correctly, he's saying that state ownership ≠ socialism. Only when taking over an industry is "economically inevitable" could it be considered a step towards socialism. I wonder what he considers "economically inevitable" or the necessary "economic compulsion" for the taking over of an industry to be considered socialistic.
I think he would consider it when the economic forces are "fully developed" (which wasn't the case with, say, rail at the time). Of course that itself is a vague term, but once something is a natural monopoly or duopoly the need for capitalist accumulation would diminish. Lenin of course felt a socialist state could develop these forces anyway, with mixed but mostly positive results.
Note that this is exactly how China is working, use capitalists to develop an industry to "mature" status, then merc the billionaire and nationalise the industry. Xi reads theory.
The USPS and municipal garbage collection means America is socialist
I've seen libs unironically try to point to the US military and CIA as forms of socialism.
