Sooo… the working class should own the means of production?
How can the working class own something if the state owns it?
It’s very simple.
Nationalists nationalize.
Socialists socialize.
If one is doing the other it means somebody is lying to you.
That’s just nonsense there’s plenty of reasons certain resources should be nationalized. Why do I care if the company that owns all the clean water is owned by one asshole or a group of them? Certain things in a nation belong to the people of the nation as a whole. Namely the national resources. No one company deserves to own that.
Simple if you understand the theory and history. The main difference between Communists and anarchists is the involvement of the state.
…what? Have you just assumed that words are the same because they sound similar?
Nationalisation of industries and resources refers to public ownership vs private ownership
Nationalism is an ideology that became widespread in the late 19th Century, that emphasises the codification of States on ethnic grounds
Nachos are a type of corn or potato chip, often combined with cheese and guacomole
As a programmer, I think it’ll be pretty tough to achieve this entirely with pure functions, at some point we’re going to have to store state.
It’s important to consider the conditions in which state ownership was deemed necessary. Countries with a starving and illiterate working class isn’t as capable at a true worker owned economy as one that already has a well fed and educated working class. A true socialist society needs basic infrastructure and fulfillment of the basic needs of its people before it can be properly implemented.
Lenin’s concept of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat was intended to be a temporary system intended on rapid development and growth of the economy. It was more important to try and stop starvation and establish railroads than build worker co-ops. The mistake was when the leaders that came after decided to never cede power back to the working class.
The mistake was when the leaders that came after decided to never cede power back to the working class.
Unfortunately I see this as a permanent road block because we can’t rid ourselves of the worst kinds of people, they’re just born psychopaths/sociopaths and seek positions of power to exploit :(
Certainly Lenin and good compatriots has the best of intentions with their vanguard approach to intention. But, as you noted, that concentration of power ultimately corrupted in the hands of a nefarious few. These ideas were not Lenin’s alone and even Marx promoted the idea of a Vanguard long before the Bolshevik revolution, which Bakunin (an early anarchist) was opposed due to the likelihood of the vanguard becoming entrenched within that power. That concentration of power by a class of elite was the mistake. To argue there wasn’t time to educate the masses is to ignore the fallout of that approach. These are important lessons to remember, even should the future approach to revolution be focused on the establishment of worker co-ops. Positions of power and power between cooperatives are likely to remain and we will need systems of control to mediate these types of emergent hierarchies.
I have a new working theory. We reward assholes and no system we can ever hope for will ever overcome the asshole engorgement paradox therefore all systems will always turn to shit.
Lenin’s concept of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat was intended to be a temporary system intended on rapid development and growth of the economy. It was more important to try and stop starvation and establish railroads than build worker co-ops. The mistake was when the leaders that came after decided to never cede power back to the working class.
Marx came up with the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, not Lenin, and it didn’t mean Dictatorship over the Proletariat, but of the Proletariat, as a contrast to the Capitalist Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie.
The DotP is not to stop starvation or anything, it’s to protect against the resurgance of Capitalism. It additionally wasn’t meant to be “ceded back to the working class,” but become unnecessary as the mechanisms for Capitalism to come back were erased.
Neither Marx nor Lenin were advocating for literal modern conceptions of dictatorship, but consolidating all power away from the bourgeoisie and into the hands of the Proletariat.
I work in an esop. It’s pretty cool in that we own the company in shares based on tenure, it’s not like a union though.
We don’t vote on the CEO or the board, we have third party trustees that manage the esop account.
We aren’t beholden to external shareholders, which is the absolute best part. Line doesn’t go up, it really just affects our retirement accounts, but even then our valuation takes into account stuff like cash on hand and contract stability. So… We have pretty fiscally conservative management, which is a great thing for us.
This sounds like a worker cooperative which is a classic socialist concept that could be applied to modern social democrat capitalism.
Since I straddle the line in my political views between Marxism and social democracy I’d like to share an approach.
Mandatory profit sharing and workers always have a certain proportion of the board elected democratically. Simple as that. CEO bonuses should be made illegal and all of those profits should be funneled to the workers. People will be a lot more involved in the corporate governance and it will align the will of the workers with that of the shareholders.
Economists say that in the long run productivity is everything and worker’s having a for-profit voice that will make arguments like “we’re losing our best workers because of low pay” to increase salaries is important. This will make each person higher paid and more productive.
You guys know about Walmart, that one rose to success by profit sharing but capitalism got the better of it and now so many workers both time and money poor because they work there.
I work in consultancy and have a dream of forming a small elite company of consultants, employee owned, just 10 or so people who are shit hot at their jobs.
I would plan for it to always be 10 people, deliberately no growth. Do the job well, take a good wage, have some parties.
It’s when companies look for massive growth and shareholder value that everything starts to go to shit.
In 2024, a crack team of management consultants was assembled to solve the toughest business challenges. These consultants promptly escaped from traditional firms to form their own elite unit. Today, still wanted by companies worldwide, they survive as consultants of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire… The C-Team.
[Cue dramatic music]
Hey, me too! Except I want growth. I want an army of consultants, all of whom own equal parts of the company. We could charge 3/4 of our competition and still make a ton of income while undercutting the larger, shareholder controlled firms. Someday…
Its definitely the dream!
10 is a lot of cats to herd though. Do you already have your fantasy football team ready? Do you think that they share your (lack of) ambition?
At the same time 10 is a small number if a couple go on parental/sick leave at the same time. Are you ready to ‘hold the baby’ and get no extra credit? Who will do the admin/HR/sales/marketing/taking-the-bins-out/whatever you don’t like doing?
10 people is enough that it would be very hard to run in a truly egalitarian way - its your idea, so would you be the ‘primus inter pares’? ;-)
Honestly, It could be great - so please see me poking holes as a way to make your plan stronger.
Not the person you responded to but I have a similar plan for a company. The one hole I have a solution for I believe should be adopted by all companies: if it’s a job that isn’t your core focus, outsource. Everything from bookkeeping to janitorial staff should be an outside company (with your same ethics). I dream of a world where everyone is self-employed or part of small co-ops, and not one single company expands vertically or horizontally. Pick one thing you’re good at and do that one thing well. Everything else, give that labor to someone else. I’m looking at you, Amazon.
I’m looking at you, Amazon.
You mean that you want to copy Amazon? Since this is exactly what they have done, outsourced delivery drivers; driven to pissing in bottles, outsourced sellers; selling items at a loss to imaginary bots to get positive reviews (amazon making its cut all the same).
I shouldn’t respond… but let me guess:
The one thing that you are good at isn’t unblocking toilets, is it? No, I’ll bet you are really good at something rewarding like solving difficult math problems, or ‘consulting’ or some other rewarding job. I’m sure that you were top of your class at school, but in the real world, if you didn’t turn up, the world would keep turning just fine.
I am saying this from no moral high ground at all (I am well rewarded for what is termed a ‘bullshit job’), just pointing out that what you are saying kind of assumes that the proles want to live in your utopia, do you still expect to have a better living than the person who shovels your shit when you block the toilet? Thought so.
[edit: sorry for being such a curmudgeon - I must be having a bad day. If I’ve offended - check your idealism. Please start your ideal business - the world needs idealists… as well as people with shovels]
Why are you down voting the guy?? They have ethics, a vision, and totally reasonable way of building a 10 people community that care for each other.
You know, capitalism may outlive all of us but it’s not forever. This wasn’t the way to do things before shareholder supremacy in the 80s.
Balance your workload with care. Once you have “enough” work, hopefully you have other firms you can refer unwanted work to. My small business is run by a guy who A) isn’t growing the business and B) says yes to every assignment. He’s burning out, I’m burning out, and one of our best people burned out and quit last month. It’s a nightmare.
I was thinking a kind of get-in-line attitude. We can get to you but not for 6 months, that’s just how it is.
If the original owner can do it better on their own they should go into business for themselves rather than create an LLC, once LLC it should be mutually beneficial, not just there to protect the owners private assets
I mean, I’m a single-member LLC (electrician). I’m not sure what you mean.
In the UK we have the designation of Sole Trader for that. Is there not something similar where you are?
This was my opinion. Any company that wants to go public should be required to restructure as a cooperative. Stay private means you get to be the man running the show. But the benefits the market gives business also means those business usually impact people at a scale that no individual or handful of individuals should be making decisions especially when those decisions are " increase profits at all costs". Cooperatives bring locals to the decision making and helps regulate some choices that are made at the executive level
