Should socialists own businesses?

The answer is yes.

Millions of people nationwide are “aspiring entrepreneurs”. You go on YouTube and within a couple of clicks you can find that gurus that teach you “how to make money online” and “how to gain financial freedom” are getting hundreds of thousands of views.

I’m willing to bet that many socialists have watched these videos, and may even have a business idea that they think could solve a problem for people. Realistically, it makes sense that anybody, not just a business-bro, would want to learn more about how to be financially free.

Ultimately, people feel this way and many go down the path because they feel the alienation that comes from capitalist labor. Their boss doesn’t feel this in the same way, and so it’s only logical that almost everybody would dream of being their boss making the money and doing the minority of the work.

Socialism as an ideology is antithetical to the pursuit of profit being the end-all-be-all. It is one that focuses on humans above all, not unending growth of a business for shareholder value. However, I think if you want to make a business as a socialist, you should.

We live in a capitalist society, and it makes sense that not everybody would take the same path. However, that doesn’t mean that you should take advantage of the unfair position you will gain as the business owner.

Be different and stand out. Be a worker co-op, unionized, or other methods to be as ethical as possible to your employees. Don’t take the cheapest option, choose to do the thing that is better for society and your people, not your pocketbook.

This, of course, will make you less competitive in the market. That’s why capitalism has pure evil at the top- they ignore morals in order to gain as much power as possible. But in this system, I do believe that being “inefficient” can still lead to financial security as a business owner and that sticking to your morals as best as possible within the confines of the system can be a respectable position.

I’m not telling you that everybody can be wealthy or that everybody needs to start drop-shipping, I am simply saying that if you see an opportunity to help people that can be profitable, I don’t think you should give up on that by purity testing yourself.

Ultimately, you should advocate for a world that makes the pursuit of human progress over profit even as the business owner, but we are not a poverty cult. Engels was a factory owner who was wealthy, he was a Marxist nonetheless.

Take care of your people, don’t take shortcuts that cost other humans, and be as ethical as possible in your process.

Nothing is ethical under capitalism, but that isn’t an excuse to be unethical. Be the best you can—even within a system that may seem antithetical to your beliefs.