Comments by "Wandering Existence" (@WanderingExistence) on "How HR Came To Rule Corporate America" video.
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I don't think it's a good thing; Wage Labor Is Renting Yourself via "self ownership". Employment is literally renting another human being as if they're property. The employer-employee relationship is a very insidious dynamic. Employment is a rental contract, like if you rented capital (say, a chainsaw from Home Depot), you pay rent for the "time preference" (basically the cost of time) for a piece of property. Capitalism is based on a principle of self ownership, which sounds empowering, until you realize that most people don't own capital goods other than themselves, and must rent out the authority over themselves as pieces of "human capital". This is a process of dehumanization where human beings are valued for their return on investment as capital goods. This is why, at the very least, capitalism needs unions and safety nets (or abolishment), or else the system won't value people for their human value. Importantly we must also think about our sick, elderly, and disabled people, as they can't provide competitive economic return for the investor class to value. We must figure out a way to change this economic system if we wish to value each other.
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@DeltaGreenA You guys realize there are other ways, right?? Cooperatives are economic democracy, if you want more money you can't just rent yourself you deserve to own the profits as well;
"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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@DangRenBo What makes you think I don't have actionable solutions? 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 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. 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.
Preston was based on The Evergreen Cooperative, here how that's been; "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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@Marqan Even somebody who's self-employed, I was for 8 years, is still dehumanized by the market. People are commoditized by the market which means that they are treated as if they're humanness expendable- working directly for your customers for cash is still hyperrationalized and constrained by market forces.
I'll give you two instances of how organizations can deal with downturns by caring about people or treating them as expendable. Firstly, cooperatives are a type of democratic business structure where everybody gets paid a wage but they are also entitled to the profits that they help produce and they have a say in how their workplace is run. Because cooperatives are run for the benefit of their members, they don't go and fire a bunch of people when a downturn happens; they look to take care of their fellow workers. When cooperatives democratically cooperate together they can more easily ride out downturns. Now on the flip side, while I wait for Social Security Disability, I have to live off of stocks. I own some GOOGL that's up almost 300%, with a recent boost to the share price being caused by them laying off 7,000 workers and then doing a $70 billion stock buyback. I mean, that's literally kicking out workers to pay shareholders. I don't know about you but the cooperative model seems like it values taking care of people more than taking care of capital.
My perspective is that we, as a species, made a huge moral leap in the 1800's by pushing to start the abolishment of owning other people as property. The morally better option was to give people the right to self-ownership. Unfortunately ownership within capitalism still sets up power structures that allowed one group of people to rent another group of people. Humans within capitalism will be valued for their profit making input as human capital, not for their human spirit or the cheer that they bring to others- through the lens of a balance sheet a human is just a piece of property to be exploited like all other capital resources. In this we have succeeded in abolishing slavery, but we haven't succeeded in not treating people as property to be commoditized. The next step to becoming a more caring and conscientious species is to abolish the ability to rent humans, and instead legalizing cooperative determination as a standard in the socioeconomic sphere. Democratic self-determination is an economic Right just as it is a political Right. In fact, political democracy will be perverted without economic democracy to fund its integrity.
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