this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2025
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What does it even mean to own the means of production? How are decisions made? Big decisions can go to a vote, but what about small ones? I don't see how any organization can function without some kind of hierarchy. But the way you describe socialism implies that hierarchy can't coexist with socialism.
Maybe the pirate ship system would work well.
Every man got the same share except the captain (2x) and quartermaster (1.5x) and the doctor (1.5x) any of that position can be replaced anytime by a vote
Aye, this be a fittin' trajectory for ye politics
Maybe the base pay the same for everyone but and only do a multiplies on profit sharing.
The socialist democratically owned company would still elect a CEO or something like it to make those kinds of decisions, and if they don't make good decisions they can be recalled by the employees to be replaced with someone else. The way I look at it it would be like how companies are currently but with all employees owning shares of the company rather then outside investors or the owner of the company. Atleast that's how I interpret it but there's probably a million different ways you could set it up while still having it be much more democratic then the modern structure.
True, and actually these companies already exist, at least in name. Not sure how well they function or how closely they follow what you describe.
That is capitalism
"Capitalism is when there's management"?
Many of the contradictions and crises of Capitalism are still present even under worker coop models in a market economy. Surplus value is still extracted, that money must be reinvested in the business to remain competitive. Meaning the Tendency of The Rate of Profit to Fall Remains, meaning capitalist crises remain. Imperialist incentives remain, and a worker coop nation-state would be equally imperialist as one with private corporations.
Profit falling leading to imperialism seems like its because of profit/expansion driven leadership which isn't impossible under a coop model but seems fairly unlikely and is more or less a certainty under a more undemocratic and authoritarian hierarchy under capitalist enterprises.
In fact, one of worker coop's "weaknesses" is that they have a tendency to not grow at all, which has been suggested as a major reasons why they don't dominate our economy despite tending to be more resilient than conventional firms.
Leadership is irrelevant. Firms MUST reinvest some surplus value back into the firm. This will lead to the increase of capital in the business, and lead to overaccumlation crises. Firms must find new markets for their goods, or face certain economic despair.
In order to compete and grow, sure, reinvestment is needed. But even within capitalism, when markets are saturated the lay offs only happen because of a desire for profit growth when faced with a ceiling and they just cannibalize their own company because of perverse incentives. Cooperatives often willingly just impose pay cuts and hour cuts across the board during lean times like a market saturation and then usually endure as a result without the brain drain with their workers still "employed" at the end of the tunnel. Even if new market growth never comes, coops would simply stabilize and become easier work if become fairly low paying work. Where as capitalists tend to sell off the husk of a barely functioning firm for one last quick buck just before its usually doomed to closure from being carved up and mismanaged by leadership that no longer gives a shit.
I'm a socialist but not a strict Marxist. Even if I agree with a lot of his work, in particular I think his analysis is correct about the unsustainable relationship between labor and capitalists because of exploitation for profit, alienation, lack of control over laborer's own work, etc. That said, I find meta-narratives (by any economist or philosopher) fairly wrong headed and verging on mystical and the level of rigidity towards market's functionality regardless of potential configuration (like say into a mutualistic market system of coops) similarly wrong-headed and "prophetic". I meet that level of certainty with skepticism.
I do think that eventually a mutualist market would probably become sort of meaningless eventually and turn into something else.
Cool. Worker coops have this.
As worker coops have.
As worker coops have. Especially in a majoritarian "democratic" worker coop model.
No prophetism here.
Worker coops involve:
A worker, going to work, and selling their labor power for a wage. Just with an extra bonus at the end of the year with the profits and maybe some involvement in voting for decisions of the firm. The production of products for exchange value rather than use-value, a commodity. That's called capitalism. The firm MUST reinvest SOME of the surplus extracted from their workers, into the operation of the firm, or else it could not continue to operate, this is exploitation, and will lead to imperialism, crisis and alienation.
Could it be a more resilient capitalism? Sure. A better Capitalism isn't socialism though.
This is what social democrats think. That eventually the market system will "reform" itself to socialism. Capitalism can't be reformed, it's inherently flawed.
That's assuming they operate on a wage model rather than pure dividends. But whatever, you are opposed to currency in general so the specifics don't matter to you in that case. Regardless if there is a wage system its democratically agreed upon and I don't know if I see that as a big deal.
I think the alienation you are describing as stemming from being in a "majoritarian" coop is something we'd run into on a fully collectivized society as well. Its just different sizes.
I'm curious if you think syndicalism has the same problem? More or less the in-between. Instead of a market you have a single negotiating table between industries. No market competition but you still would have competing interests.
Do you think a "firm" of one person self exploits? If 99% of an economy is collectivized/communal but then some person decides to do the black market thing and self exploit for personal profit (using resources rather than currency), is that system still capitalism? Who is the immoral one in that case, the self exploiter correct? Are they cheating themselves? or the rest of the population? Both?
No this is gibberish. Exploitation is only meaningfully immoral when its a person or persons exploiting others through coercion and a undemocratic enforced authoritarian hierarchy.
As for imperialism, I don't think imperialism stems from only economic exploitation. Nationalism, racism, and a rampant growth mindset are generally an aspect if not a requirement.
Is imperialism possible under a mutualist economic system? Absolutely. I don't agree that it is inevitable.
I define socialism as worker ownership of the means of production. That can look like a lot of things. This is all semantics though and I largely don't care you call me a socialist or social democrat or whatever. Actual social democrats and left liberals would just call mutualists like myself socialists. Not socialist enough for the socialist club or liberal enough for the liberal club.
Also, if you concede that mutualism would be more resilient than capitalism, I'm not sure why you are so concerned about inevitable crisis.
The mechanism social democrats describe capitalism dissolving into socialism is through a welfare state, not worker coops. If you want to relate those together I think that's just bad faith and perceiving ideological disagreements as a monolithic opposition.
Other than the end-state of communism, a stateless, moneyless society, I'm curious as to what you think counts as 'not capitalist'?
Lord.
You run an explicitly anti-capitalist community and don't believe in the TRPF?
I think socialism requires an explicitly anti-nationalist character and the elimination of the commodity form. This looks like production with quotas (use-value), probably labor vouchers (but its not a requirement) and some form of worker ownership, like workers councils.
Marx himself regard the tendency of the rate of profit to fall as an incomplete aspect of his theories. It's highly contested, and ultimately, while important to 'scientific socialism' conceptions of why capitalism must fall, is neither explanation nor justification for those of us who believe that capitalism should fall, but will not necessarily do so of its own inherent contradictions.
Marx was a brilliant theorist, and we are all deeply indebted to his contributions to socialist thought - that's not the same as thinking that every idea he put forward, with the limited evidence available to him, and him operating as a positive trailblazer in the 19th century as an exile in a deeply hostile society, was absolutely incontrovertibly correct.
I mean, again, though, that looks to me more like the end-state of communism. If that's all you're willing to accept as non-capitalist, that's fine, I suppose, but that's a very high bar to clear, and many want clearer intermediate steps which will create the conditions to implement that.
Upvoted for having a reasonable conversation, btw, this is what left discourse is for