> I'm pretty sure most people didn't own their own farm in the 1920s... So what is this saying about ownership?
But they did own it in the sense of day-to-day control. Soviet Union turned farming into service, a move that caused lots of suffering and is widely remembered today as a Bad Idea.
The Soviet Union's troubles with farming stemmed more from politicians ordering the farmers to plant specific crops, with absolutely no understanding of farming, soil, climate, seasons or anything, really.
Fair. But then again, if you outsource your movies, music or farming to one of the megacorps everyone else outsources too, you're still under rule of some distant managers that don't have your best interest in mind.
That fits well with the analogy of the distant overlords with no connection to either production nor the end user.
To them, we're all just interchangeable cogs in the machine, our input and experience is not important, we're just supposed to fit in a predefined box.
But they did own it in the sense of day-to-day control. Soviet Union turned farming into service, a move that caused lots of suffering and is widely remembered today as a Bad Idea.