America has gone through a phase of de-industrialization having turned more toward a service-based economy. Doesn Socialism require an industrial economy?
Despite the fact that more people are working in the service sector, that does not mean we have moved away from an industrial economy. Fewer people work in industries today because the forces of production allow us to produce more with a smaller workforce. Regardless, the aim of Socialism is to build an economy in which the fruits of people’s labor enrich humanity as a whole, not just the owners of the means of production. Under the current economic model, employees receive wages or salaries for their work, but the owner keeps all the profits from the labor of the employees. Despite the advances in technology and production techniques, the familiar owner-worker dynamic (and all that that entails) still exists today. Therefore, the Socialist argument against capitalism still remains valid.
