Comment by derektank
1 hour ago
The gulf countries are the closest thing to socialist states on the planet. Something like 70-90% of the citizenry of Kuwait, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia are employed by the public sector.
1 hour ago
The gulf countries are the closest thing to socialist states on the planet. Something like 70-90% of the citizenry of Kuwait, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia are employed by the public sector.
Even if only 30% of the population are citizens (like in Kuwait)?
You have no idea what socialism is, like so many right wing propagandists and dynastic-autocracy labor-exploitation rentier-state apologists.
That's not socialism. It's an absolute autocratic monarchy distributing oil rents to a privileged citizen caste.
Most of the private-sector work is done by foreign workers who don't receive the same benefits or political rights.
Socialism is state ownership of the means of production. The governance of that state, be it democratic, monarchical, or dictatorship of the proletariat, is a separate question.
Socialism is public ownership of the means of production. If there isn’t a way for regular people / “the proletariat” to influence the government, it’s not socialism because an autocratic government isn’t “the public”
By that definition, which again proves my point that you have no idea what socialism is, a king personally owning an entire country through the apparatus of the state would be socialist. Most socialists would reject that conclusion because ownership by a state isn't the same thing as ownership by society.
State ownership alone isn't sufficient. If a hereditary ruling family controls the state, then "state ownership" just means ownership by that ruling elite, not by society.