Reply #106: You need to define socialism then.

[izzybeans]

Because if the person who actually built that mousetrap was given his or her just reward then you are likely talking about a specific form of socialism that has been erased from collective memory. It's merely a democratized market economy that transforms the contemporary corporate form into a democratically run business.

After the industrial revolution, mass production, the formation of mass markets, and now globalization, there is very little room in the economy for small artisans to make a living. The builder of the better mouse trap will likely only find a small niche market and then get gobbled up by the poorly produced mass manufacturers who underbid the market. Mass volumes have to be produced, managed, and distributed through large bureaucratic machines. The question is, do you install a dictator at the top of that machine who uses the bureaucracy to siphon off value and distribute it to unproductive shareholders, or do you democratize that machine and distribute the surplus value to the people who produced the good or service in the first place? All socialism is or can be, is a way to reward the architects and engineers of a quality mousetrap. There is no need to eliminate markets, competition, nor the corporate form. There is a need however to ensure that the builders of goods and the deliverer of services have ownership in the value they create. Democratize the economy and you will finally have your free market. Until then our market economy will remain grounded in authoritarian organizational forms that Rob Peter, the craftsman, to pay Paul, the succubus of profit. You are still accumulating capital, and there will still be investments to be had, but they will have to be more value driven and less credit driven. That's where those old socialist theories tend to fall flat IMO. How does the initial investment happen?

If you start a business and you give each and every worker a proportional equity share based on your organizational census, then you'll have a purely socialist business entity. Of course you can set tiers based on value added over one's work life as well. All other rules of exchange remain the same (e.g. mutually beneficial exchanges, competitive pricing, value-added competition, etc.). Imagine the engagement and attention a worker would pay to work knowing that the more quality widgets they produce and get sold (without being recalled or sold back) the more they earn. Instead we live in an economy where productivity is no longer tied to wages. Pay a living wage and reward a job well down with equity. Pennies on the dollar go a long way with mass exchanges.