You assume that private and state ownership are always separate. In a non-democratic system of governance, the state is not, in my view, a public enterprise accountable to the public, at least not to the extent that the demands of the public determine its actions on a practical level. The Chinese Communist Party are primarily concerned for their party's survival; the Public Good matters only insofar as it concerns that. The members of the CCP are very much a distinct class of people--not members of the public themselves, much less worried about what the average Chinese person thinks of them (again, beyond making sure that that person doesn't want to overthrow the CCP altogether).
"And as I mentioned in the other post, I can't see how public ownership and public-goods motive can work with market mechanisms."
...Really? It actually seems quite simple to me.
Presumably, I have some idea of what constitutes Public Good (as I mentioned in the other post). I don't need to be an altruist to think that other people deserve the Public Good as much as I do; most people have an innate sense of fairness, even if it's calibrated differently from person to person. If I have some vision of how the world is "supposed to be"--which I think most people do, even if only a very rough idea--and I firmly believe in it, and I also have an ownership claim to the means of production and will thus be rewarded myself for my efforts, then presumably I will work to provide that Public Good for myself and others. If anything, this would force people to have a very refined vision of the Public Good, to ensure that whatever public ownership group they join is one producing their particular version of the Public Good, their desire to see that vision realized enhancing their efficiency in attempting to reach it.
Now, if lots of people agree with my vision of the Public Good, lots of them will join me in producing it. If it's a particularly materially-intensive vision of the Public Good, it will remain more expensive, and democratized ownership may make it inaccessible due to a lack of concentration of resource ownership. E.g., if a socialized and democratized MoP group aims to provide each of its members a private jet, we're unlikely to succeed as this is a very materially-intensive product to award to individuals; it's therefore unlikely that such a group would exist for long as none of its members would be able to benefit from being part of a group with that specified purpose. This is an example of the market acting on such an ownership structure and operation to eliminate things which are materially expensive or impossible. As the ownership of the means of production is fully democratized, no one person or group would have anymore say over the purpose of the operation of the MoP than any other person, guaranteeing a more equitable distribution of resources.
But don't think of this sort of process as simply referring to material Goods; it can extend to social Goods as well.
Take, for example, a racist vision of the Public Good. If I decide my vision of the Public Good excludes black people, I'm denying myself both their labor and, more significantly for this discussion, their claim to ownership of the means of production. This will make it more expensive for me to produce whatever other things are part of my vision of the Public Good, making it difficult, if not impossible to implement; such an exclusionary group would, again, dissolve because of low demand for that particular vision of the Public Good
By contrast, there would be many other groups for whom race is no concern for their conception of the Public Good, and the members of such socialized MoP groups would benefit from being egalitarian by including all potential sources of human labor and all sources of claims to the ownership of the means of production, reducing the costs of producing whatever else....This is the market acting on this type of ownership structure and operation to foster things which are highly-socially desirable, as determined by the existence of high demand.
In a non-democratic system of governance, the state is not, in my view, a public enterprise accountable to the public
I agree, with the proviso that I believe the same thing is true for contemporary democracies as well.
and I also have an ownership claim to the means of production and will thus be rewarded myself for my efforts
That sounds very capitalistic to me. Will there be rich people? Very rich people?
if lots of people agree with my vision of the Public Good, lots of them will join me in producing it.
So, let's say I (and a bunch of other peo...
Note: Originally posted in Discussion, edited to take comments there into account.
Yes, politics, boo hiss. In my defense, the topic of this post cuts across usual tribal affiliations (I write it as a liberal criticizing other liberals), and has a couple strong tie-ins with main LessWrong topics:
The issue is this: recently, I've seen a meme going around to the effect that companies like Walmart that have a large number of employees on government benefits are the "real welfare queens" or somesuch, and with the implied message that all companies have a moral obligation to pay their employees enough that they don't need government benefits. (I say mention Walmart because it's the most frequently mentioned villain in this meme, but others, like McDonalds, get mentioned.)
My initial awareness of this meme came from it being all over my Facebook feed, but when I went to Google to track down examples, I found it coming out of the mouths of some fairly prominent congresscritters. For example Alan Grayson:
Or Bernie Sanders:
Now here's why this is weird: consider Grayson's claim that each Walmart employee costs the taxpayers on average $1,000. In what sense is that true? If Walmart fired those employees, it wouldn't save the taxpayers money: if anything, it would increase the strain on public services. Conversely, it's unlikely that cutting benefits would force Walmart to pay higher wages: if anything, it would make people more desperate and willing to work for low wages. (Cf. this this excellent critique of the anti-Walmart meme).
Or consider Sanders' claim that it would be better to raise the minimum wage and spend less on government benefits. He emphasizes that Walmart could take a hit in profits to pay its employees more. It's unclear to what degree that's true (see again previous link), and unclear if there's a practical way for the government to force Walmart to do that, but ignore those issues, it's worth pointing out that you could also just raise taxes on rich people generally to increase benefits for low-wage workers. The idea seems to be that morally, Walmart employees should be primarily Walmart's moral responsibility, and not so much the moral responsibility of the (the more well-off segment of) the population in general.
But the idea that employing someone gives you a general responsibility for their welfare (beyond, say, not tricking them into working for less pay or under worse conditions than you initially promised) is also very odd. It suggests that if you want to be virtuous, you should avoid hiring people, so as to keep your hands clean and avoid the moral contagion that comes with employing low wage workers. Yet such a policy doesn't actually help the people who might want jobs from you. This is not to deny that, plausibly, wealthy onwers of Walmart stock have a moral responsibility to the poor. What's implausible is that non-Walmart stock owners have significantly less responsibility to the poor.
This meme also worries me because I lean towards thinking that the minimum wage isn't a terrible policy but we'd be better off replacing it with guaranteed basic income (or an otherwise more lavish welfare state). And guaranteed basic income could be a really important policy to have as more and more jobs are replaced by automation (again see gwern if that seems crazy to you). I worry that this anti-Walmart meme could lead to an odd left-wing resistance to GBI/more lavish welfare state, since the policy would be branded as a subsidy to Walmart.