Can a worker owned and managed economy work?

caveman1917 said:
How is it not? There's almost nothing more authoritarian than the relation between the private owner of a company and the workers. Manual workers have the most basic autonomy over their own body made subservient to their master, while "brain workers" (I don't know the correct term for this) have their autonomy over their own thoughts made subservient to their master.[*] If this master called himself "government" rather than "workplace owner" liberals would be all over screaming about authoritarianism.
Click to expand...
There was more to the post than what you quoted. The political dynamics between government, employers and employees has little to do with whether employees also own shares in their company which is why I disclaimed the use of "libertarian" and "authoritarian" labels with regard to employee ownership. That said, a lot of your post (mind control? - really!) belongs in the CT section.

BTW in Australia the terms used are "Blue collar" and "White collar" to distinguish between the two classes of workers.
 
psionl0 said:
There was more to the post than what you quoted. The political dynamics between government, employers and employees has little to do with whether employees also own shares in their company which is why I disclaimed the use of "libertarian" and "authoritarian" labels with regard to employee ownership. That said, a lot of your post (mind control? - really!) belongs in the CT section.
Click to expand...

What mind control? What on Earth are you talking about? Why would any of this belong in the CT section?
 
Last edited:
psionl0 said:
This sentence, " ....have their autonomy over their own thoughts made subservient to their master." got me wondering.
Click to expand...

If a white-collar worker daydreams (or more generally uses his time to think about what he wants) rather than produce the intellectual output decided upon by their boss they get fired. The same for blue-collar workers, but with body movement rather than thought.

No mind control. Just, essentially, one class of workers selling off their freedom of thought whereas the other sells off their freedom of body movement.
 
caveman1917 said:
No there isn't.
Click to expand...
Ha ha. Seems a teensy weeny little bit like a reply formed of 24 carat ideological gold.

Are you claiming environmental degradation is a net benefit to society?
Click to expand...
Ha ha again. No.

Can you define "externalities"?
Click to expand...
Seriously?

You gonna claim Wikipedia is an ideology I suppose. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality

I just gave you a definition
Click to expand...
One that included everything and nothing. Useless. Ha ha.

What what?
Click to expand...
No ideology there, no sir!

How would you know if any of those were voluntary?
Click to expand...
Because . . . they are my postulated replies to the opening post suggestion. That's how.

Should I have checked with you before coming up with specific examples, just to make sure they are allowed exist in your version of everythingness, or whether they are disqualified due to not conforming to the way you know that all things happen everywhere and always have happened and will do forever?

In the [ . . . ]
Click to expand...

Anyway it seems apparent that a couple of nanometres behind the facade of your "Don't be pulling anything ideological on me now" refrain above is a rich seam of pure ideology in your posts that is concentrated enough to power a revolution in at least seventy hundred nations on earth. I appreciate the introduction. Thank you.
 
Last edited:
Francesca R said:
Ha ha. Seems a teensy weeny little bit like a reply formed of 24 carat ideological gold.
Click to expand...

Uhu. How about you go show that surplus value that the workers purportedly get?

You gonna claim Wikipedia is an ideology I suppose. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality

{...}

No ideology there, no sir!
Click to expand...

Internal consistency isn't your strong suit, is it?

Because . . . they are my postulated replies to the opening post suggestion. That's how.
Click to expand...

They are voluntary because you postulate them to be voluntary? Well in that case I'll just postulate them to be involuntary - who knew it could be this easy.

Should I have checked with you before coming up with specific examples, just to make sure they are allowed exist in your version of everythingness, or whether they are disqualified due to not conforming to the way you know that all things happen everywhere and always have happened and will do forever?

Anyway it seems apparent that a couple of nanometres behind the facade of your "Don't be pulling anything ideological on me now" refrain above is a rich seam of pure ideology in your posts that is concentrated enough to power a revolution in at least seventy hundred nations on earth. I appreciate the introduction. Thank you.
Click to expand...

:rolleyes:
 
caveman1917 said:
How about you go show that surplus value that the workers purportedly get?
Click to expand...
I was wrong, my bad. Thanks to your insight I now understand that every single job on earth is being done by folks who have no alternative but to submit their mental and physical capabilities to the overlords who command them, under threat of death by starvation and a lot of other nasty things. Including me. Even when I was self employed by a wicked capitalist overlady.

Where do I sign up for the revolution? And thank you again. Amazing grace.
 
caveman1917 said:
Of course it can work. You also shouldn't forget that libsoc and anarchist proposals constitute more than just worker-owned workplaces, but for example also a cooperative instead of competitive economy. You can't just pick one aspect and present it in isolation. Well, I guess you could and that would leave you with what's called "market socialism" - but nobody really supports that particular one.
Click to expand...

So in other words, these libsoc and anarchist proposals are nothing more than a pipe dream. The USSR had a cooperative instead of a competitive economy; how did that work out?
 
caveman1917 said:
If a white-collar worker daydreams (or more generally uses his time to think about what he wants) rather than produce the intellectual output decided upon by their boss they get fired. The same for blue-collar workers, but with body movement rather than thought.

No mind control. Just, essentially, one class of workers selling off their freedom of thought whereas the other sells off their freedom of body movement.
Click to expand...
You still make it sound like an evil thing. There is nothing wrong with selling your time so that you can be directed to perform certain duties. Either one of you can terminate the arrangement if it is not satisfactory.

It is only when you stack the deck against the job seeker that you can say that something is wrong.
 
Francesca R said:
I was wrong, my bad.
Click to expand...

About surplus value? Yes you were.

Even when I was self employed by a wicked capitalist overlady.
Click to expand...

You were self employed by someone else?

Where do I sign up for the revolution? And thank you again. Amazing grace.
Click to expand...

No don't do that, I'm really liking this "entrepreneural activity" - so I went to buying the entire company you work for. Now work harder you slave, and worship me (without me you wouldn't have your daily bread[*] and so on and so forth) and bring me offerings, starting with a new yacht! And yes, I'm an easy-going deity, so you can keep making the offerings in terms of dividends and share price increases - you don't actually have to go out and get me a new yacht, I'll do that one myself. Being an entrepreneur is fun :)

* which is total crap, but is the core belief of the cult: that what exists wouldn't exist if it weren't for the capitalist class.
 
Last edited:
psionl0 said:
You still make it sound like an evil thing.
Click to expand...

You and your moralism. It's not evil, it's fun. It's amazing they "voluntarily" go along with that - but who am I to judge?

There is nothing wrong with selling your time so that you can be directed to perform certain duties. Either one of you can terminate the arrangement if it is not satisfactory.
Click to expand...

Only one of the two faces impoverishment, or indeed even starvation, as a result.

It is only when you stack the deck against the job seeker that you can say that something is wrong.
Click to expand...

How is that not stacked?
 
The thing I'd worry about is that this approach would tend to stifle entrepreneurs. Why would I bust my ***** building up a company with my original ideas if as soon as I take on my first employee (or at some other arbitrary threshold) that business is taken out of my hands and handed to a workers co-operative to run as they see fit.
Click to expand...

I was thinking something similar. It seems strange to me that a person who saves up money to build a pizza shop or hardware store hires a teenager, that that teenager automatically becomes an owner.
 
Jerrymander said:
I was thinking something similar. It seems strange to me that a person who saves up money to build a pizza shop or hardware store hires a teenager, that that teenager automatically becomes an owner.
Click to expand...
But not necessarily an equal shareholder or decision-maker with the longer established owner-worker. If the newcomer did, then I agree that the system would soon collapse. But that the teenager should acquire some share of the profits or of the equity in the event of liquidation, or some security of employment, is not impossible. However, I don't think such systems are easily applied to a tiny one skilled person plus apprentice outfit.

But imagine an employees' cooperative, of at least a certain minimum size, in which participants gain shares of equity through service or promotion, and have votes as a function of equity share. That might well work.
 
I don't see any reason this wouldn't work, so long as the owners realize that managers and CEOs generally don't rise from the ranks, but require special training. I don't see anything libertarian about the idea at all.

In a libertarian society, the factory would be burned to the ground in an matter of hours.
 
Loss Leader said:
I don't see any reason this wouldn't work, so long as the owners realize that managers and CEOs generally don't rise from the ranks, but require special training. I don't see anything libertarian about the idea at all.

In a libertarian society, the factory would be burned to the ground in an matter of hours.
Click to expand...
People can be trained up from the ranks, as Napoleon suggested, or the ranks can participate in a decision to employ a specialist, who then joins these owners at some level or other.

Moreover although managers in plcs may require training, shareholders don't. They merely require money, and can buy up a company in order simply to liquidate it, and share out its assets or eliminate competition.
 
Jerrymander said:
I was thinking something similar. It seems strange to me that a person who saves up money to build a pizza shop or hardware store hires a teenager, that that teenager automatically becomes an owner.
Click to expand...

Yeah because teenager working in pizza shop is such an accurate representation of the economy (specifically employment relations) at large. If you don't like the idea of a worker-owned economy then just say so, these silly petit-bourgeois retorts about teenagers in pizza shops are useless no matter how you put them.
 
caveman1917 said:
How is that not stacked?
Click to expand...
Of course it's stacked. Not only are people forced to compete with each other for low level jobs but because the resulting wages are so low many go into debt to finance the shortfall in their wages. The only way the monied classes could be happier is if we reintroduced work houses and debtors' prisons.

Of course, none of this has anything to do with employees owning shares in their employer's company.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom