Comments by "Wandering Existence" (@WanderingExistence) on "Second Thought"
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@Cardd_inal13 Personally, I've been interested in two grassroots groups focused on economic democracy, called the Next System Project and the Democracy Collaborative. They have devised a way to keep production local and contract service to cooperatives, called the Preston Model. They have helped multiple cities struggling with job loss due to factory closures build back their communities, in the US and UK. In addition, trade unions, collectives, public banks, credit unions, community land trusts, CSA's, and many other democratically controlled institutions can work together to create democratic networks outside the market to create an economy that doesn't reduce people, their governments, and the environment to a monetary value. I think this can be a viable strategy to give people the autonomy over their work. I'm not for completely abolishing markets but I believe in creating institutions that utilize non-market mechanisms to decrease the influence of market commoditization of society. I believe economic democracy is the only way people who work for the economy will have the economy work for them, their families, and the planet too.
This way of revitalizing communities by building community wealth has helped many communities all over the globe, and it is utilized by the UK labor party and touted by Jeremy Corbyn. Preston, Lancashire became the most improved city in the UK because of community wealth building. https://youtu.be/MObfh_VNqs4
Not to mention, much of the progress in labor rights has been due to union's collective power. The thing that draws my conviction to the movement is that I can see it now, helping empower people to live happier, healthier, and wealthier lives. There are many names for it like cooperativeism or a 'pluralistic commonwealth', but it basically boils down to democratic socialism.
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@TheGbelcher The reason why cooperatives are not more ubiquitous is not because they're not effective, but rather in which the value system of the property norms defines what "effective" is. Cooperatives are certainly effective at helping people gain autonomy over their own lives and profit from their own labor, but private property creates a system of laws that evaluates effectiveness based on the ability to create profit for absentee shareholders. When you say "effective" you're talking about being effective to enrich capital owners, I'm talking about being effective to take care of workers, society/ the unemployed/ disabled, and the planet. Your idea of effectiveness creates negative externalities that are literally killing the planet.... But you see no problem with that because that's not considered within the value system of private property.
Who cares if the 1% rolls over, it's still a dominating class that alienates most the population for their own material gain at the expense of others. Capitalists love to use this argument that "you two can become the dominator" or "you can buy stocks", but that misses the point entirely. When 64% of the population is living paycheck to paycheck and your answer is "Well in a few decades someone will be richer than Elon Musk" is a really bad argument considering that does nothing to help the people who are living paycheck to paycheck. The fact that you think Elon Musk should be worth nearly a quarter trillion dollars at the expense of all the innovation that his workers have created is sad.
In a cooperativist economy there would be other social safety nets to provide the ability for some companies to take large risks. The mistake of thinking that these cooperatives are atomistic, one of the key principles of cooperatives is that they cooperate with other cooperatives and create networks of institutions to help each other. But of course this capitalistic culture doesn't understand anything like that because how many business schools teach cooperative economics? Basically none. Saying that it's uneffective is disingenuous considering that there's a giant cultural bias that doesn't give a level playing field. capitalists in the United States have literally created coup d'etats from the banana Wars in the early 1900s to establishing authoritarian dictatorships like in Guatemala in 1954 to take control of the banana plantations, or revolving door politics that allow Dick Cheney to take $60 million exit package then turn around and start multiple illegitimate wars in the Middle East where Halliburton can go in set up oil fields and at times receiving billion dollar no-bid contracts. The illegitimate War after the Iraq invasion in 2003 literally killed a million civilians... 1,000,000 people. Don't act like there aren't gigantic externalities associated with the blood profits that shareholders receive.
“Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all God’s children.”
– MLK, Speech to the Negro American Labor Council, 1961.
“We must recognize that we can’t solve our problem now until there is a radical redistribution of economic and political power… this means a revolution of values and other things. We must see now that the evils of racism, economic exploitation and militarism are all tied together… you can’t really get rid of one without getting rid of the others… the whole structure of American life must be changed. America is a hypocritical nation and [we] must put [our] own house in order.”
- MLK, Report to SCLC Staff, May 1967.
“The evils of capitalism are as real as the evils of militarism and evils of racism.”
– MLK, Speech to SCLC Board, March 30, 1967.
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@jbturtle I personally owned $AAPL for 5yrs... I made 350% profit and I never worked a single day at Apple. Why do you think employees would just leave when they could be pocketing that 350% profit instead of absentee shareholders like me? Why wouldn't they want to participate in profit sharing in one of the the most profitable corporations on the planet? Instead of giving a $90 billion in share buybacks to absentee shareholders, you don't think the workers would want that $90 billion?? I mean, to be fair, it probably would be a bit less considering workers would have more of a say and they wouldn't be able to exploit Foxconn workers or China's slave labor, but still, you're telling me workers don't want to have the ability to decide who tells them what to do and to be able share in profits? I guess, I just don't see it.
I like banking at a credit union because they're less likely to screw me over than a traditional bank, because I'm an owner member. Capitalism is a fantastic idea on paper but in real life it ends up just screwing over most of the population to enrich a select few... don't act like capitalism is better. Just because feudalism existed in reality doesn't mean that it's a good system, saying that your system exists doesn't mean that it's justified.
"In the 11 years since then, Evergreen Cooperatives has added three more cooperatives to its ranks, growing from two companies with a total of 18 workers in 2010 to five companies with approximately 320 workers. Those workers are paid 20 to 25 percent higher than employees at the cooperative’s competitors. “Our average pay rate is close to $15,” says John McMicken, CEO of Evergreen Cooperative Initiative. “But when you take profit sharing into account, which could equate to $4 to $5 an hour, we’re hoping that we have a shot at breaking the $20 an hour ‘blended rate,’ if you will.” In 2019, the average compensation at Evergreen Cooperative Laundry was around $18 per hour." - Despite a Rocky Start, Cleveland Model for Worker Co-ops Stands Test of Time, by Brandon Duong
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@akastewart So you're just hand waving all the capitalist violence out of the way and ask "why aren't they starting more co-ops?".... Capitalism is not friendly to social ownership- Capitalism values profit socialism values worker freedom. When violently protecting (law enforcement) private property keeps incentivizing only the institutions that create profit to grow and dominate the economy. Worker cooperatives are going to seem small because they aren't fixated on unlimited growth, they're fixated on helping their members. You're literally comparing apples and oranges and wondering why one of them isn't citrusy like the other... It's like there's two different fruit that have two different biological processes that create different results. You do realize that the United States has caused coup d'etat in multiple democratically elected governments in order to convert them to more authoritarian capitalist banana republics? There was a long history of bloody labor movements across the world because capitalist literally wouldn't raise wages so workers could feed their families.
Of course I know that slaves didn't want to be there... The commonality of the example is being put on a market and not valued for who you are as a person but rather your return on investment for a master, either a wage master or slave master. I mean, of course it's not the same institution that's why it's an analogy because it's not a perfect example, just in certain regards. Same with the prostitution example, a boss is analogous to a pimp who siphons off money using the threat of violence- sorta on that note, strippers at one place have started to unionize and this gives them more autonomy over their body and receive larger portion of the net income they worked for.
You really love a system where 64% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, and then you suggest they just pool their money to make a co-op.... If they're living paycheck to paycheck, what money? I mean, I'm not saying things aren't possible, there's been a lot of progress in the labor movement over the past 200 years. In 1823 people worked 12 to 16 hour days 6 days a week for low pay and few safety standard.... But there was a lot of blood spilled in order to get basic worker protections, I don't think you're really appreciating the size of task you're talking about. Feudalism wasn't ended in a day, nor was I ended in a century. Feudalism in England began to shrink starting with the signing of the Magna Carta and dwindled into the late 1800s as land enclosure parcels were privatized. That's basically 600 years until you get industrial capitalism from the creation of the first political rights for Lords. Things take time, calling people "LARPers" is hilarious... Do you think UPS, UAW, SAGAFTA workers are just LARPing when they threaten to go on strike? This isn't a LARP- this is real life, not roleplay. People are having a hard time paying for rent, medical expenses, and schooling- that is real life, not roleplay.
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@self_improvement_d But that's the problem they didn't work for their money... Home Depot just gave me a raise but I've never worked there (Okay, I did do the self checkout yesterday but they don't pay me for that work, lol). They increased my dividends, increasing my income with me doing no work. I might have worked for the principal purchase price but my capital gains and dividends were not a function of my labor at Home Depot.
Alienating the workers at Home Depot from the work that they do just because you put in money early doesn't justify shareholders taking disproportionate amount of gains while their workers struggle to pay rent. I'm no super wealthy capitalist, but I do understand how capitalism works from many different perspectives.
If you need another zero you're not halfway to a billion. You make a interesting point on the exponential compounding, but what about other risks. I mean, I had a good investment plan until my health fell apart and now I'm unemployed... Guess what I'm trying to say is don't count your chickens before they roost. Life and investment come with risk, but yes, compounding is one of the ways capitalism magnifies wealth and creates the material conditions of abundance. The problem with capitalism is it aggregates power and wealth to a select few that then dictates conditions to the rest of the people. Workers don't control their labor under capitalism because they don't have the proper bargaining power against concentrated capital, which is why unions are so important. Nordic countries have stronger labor unions and have less worker regulations imposed by the state because unions allow a more equal bargaining position. I learn to invest at an early age and even as a socialist I still invest as owning the means of production is the only way for me to keep my head above water.
"Within the last 10 years, Home Depot has increased it by 18.74% annually." I don't see workers getting raises over 18% ANNUALLY. That is what capital bias is.
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@josephcarriveau9691 Um, this is basically Marxist, lol (commodity fetishism and alienation). Even Marx based much of his economics on Smith- next you'll tell me that makes Marx a classical liberal/ libertarian. "Self ownership" doesn't have to be transferable, although Anthropologist David Graeber has talked about how some of the first instances of wage labor for the literal renting of a slave labor for day labor. Under modern capitalism the metaphysics of self ownership is non-transferable, although the labor power itself is transferable as you sell/ rent your time to a boss (so labor power, rather than the laborer, becomes the transferable/ disposed commodity). Unfortunately you probably missed the fact that I was using the language of classical and neoclassical economics to undermine the ethics from the inside out, but hey, welcome aboard.
Admittedly I will say, this piece was partially unironically inspired by a libertarian... well a libertarian socialist/ anarchist, Benjamin Tucker. In his book 'State Socialism and Anarchism' he denounces land rent, interest bearing loans, and profit from wage labor as "the Trinity of Usury". From this we can see that land rent, interest, and wages are all rental agreements for different factors of production, for instance interest is just like the rental price for money or that a wage is rental price for labor. But this surely isn't the type of "libertarian" metaphysics you were thinking of, lmao. Now go put that cap on for rudely calling me a classical liberal 😜
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