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In Training posted:I think worker co-ops are a helpful additive to a milieu of other worker self organization, in addition to trade unions and communist political parties. Any approach to revolutionary socialism that highlights a single tactic that is going to solve all our problems is of course laughable this, i used the language i did to make it clear it is simply one tactic for one specific class relationship co-ops are not a goal in themselves
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Apr 7, 2023 17:14
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ive changed my mind and the weird lawsuit guy should stay the gently caress out
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Apr 7, 2023 17:14
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atelier morgan posted:this, i used the language i did to make it clear it is simply one tactic for one specific class relationship i should have been clearer about this myself. i dont think co-ops or indeed any other tactic is a silver bullet. i do think that workers need to be organized in every way they can in order to have the power and resources to seize chunks of the power structure during the constant crises of capitalist production.
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Apr 7, 2023 17:16
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Brain Candy posted:definitely not some dusty-rear end 19th century answers that didn't make it into the 20th century let alone the 21st While there aren't many, there are some major co-ops that survive, Mondragon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation being one of if not the largest examples It's still a better model than dumping all your profit into a rich fail kid's bank account, and it still hates dipshits who can't work together because their feeble minds don't understand why they still need management/leadership even if said leaders are chosen by and serve only at the desire of the workers In Training posted:I think worker co-ops are a helpful additive to a milieu of other worker self organization, in addition to trade unions and communist political parties. Any approach to revolutionary socialism that highlights a single tactic that is going to solve all our problems is of course laughable also this, it's just one tool
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Apr 7, 2023 17:16
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I always found this to be a better example of coops. Even works in le third world so you can't complain about imperial superprofits. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amul
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Apr 7, 2023 17:19
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Tempora Mutantur posted:While there aren't many, there are some major co-ops that survive, Mondragon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation being one of if not the largest examples sure, but it doesn't build socialism. it can be a completely basic accumulation of experience, either in having agency and/or getting crushed and i understand why if you're wolfe you retreat to it because people need to be introduced to even the idea of actually having any power, as it's been beaten out so thoroughly. you can argue for them cynically to a broader group, and i will respect that, but if you're trying to tell me in a marxist discussion that what we need is more proudhon i'm going to push back at you
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Apr 7, 2023 17:31
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A worker co-op is clearly better than a firm that is not owned by its own workers. It doesn't solve all the problems because the firm still operates in the market and is subject to the pressures of the profit motive: if it doesn't turn a profit, it ceases to exist and the workers have to find new jobs and go back to being exploited by other firms. The result, a valid criticism that often gets treated like a thought-terminating cliche, is that in a worker co-op the workers exploit themselves - i.e., they have to impose a similar degree of labour discipline as would be imposed on them in another firm, in order for their co-op to survive. However, in a vacuum this isn't necessarily a problem. In the abstract, labour discipline contributes to labour productivity and makes a firm more productive overall, which is a good thing when thinking about the ultimate goals of prosperity for all and/or for reducing working hours as labour productivity means we no longer have to work long workweeks to survive and thrive. It becomes problematic when the discipline is imposed from the outside so that the firm's owner can extract greater and greater profits from the firm's workers by making them work harder without compensating them commensurate with their higher productivity--when the owner extracts additional surplus value by disciplining the workers. When the owner is the workers, yes, they discipline themselves/each other, in order to survive in the market and increase labour productivity to keep the firm competitive with its rivals, but the basic difference that this is not being done so that someone else can extract surplus value from them is a big difference, because it means the workers directly receive the benefit of their own discipline. Worker co-ops aren't going to build socialism on their own, but they're still something to be supported where possible, because compared to the alternative they are a real, tangible step towards the emancipation of the workers at the level of an individual firm.
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Apr 7, 2023 17:41
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Brain Candy posted:sure, but it doesn't build socialism. it can be a completely basic accumulation of experience, either in having agency and/or getting crushed again respectfully, im curious about your list of things that build socialism, if an arrangement where workers directly own their means of production isnt on it
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Apr 7, 2023 17:49
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tbh as of right now there needs to be massive interference in the market from the state aimed at things like building productive capacity, increasing employment and reducing the asset disparity between the haves and havenots.
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Apr 7, 2023 18:08
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I can see the argument going both ways. Developing class consciousness would surely be a part of building socialism and asserting control over one's working conditions should be a part of that, but co-ops can also definitely be ideologically appropriated by individualistic liberals. See: luxury food coops that provide an outlet of "ethical consumption" while functionally excluding working class people through pricing, membership requirements etc.
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Apr 7, 2023 18:08
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Tankbuster posted:tbh as of right now there needs to be massive interference in the market from the state aimed at things like building productive capacity, increasing employment and reducing the asset disparity between the haves and havenots. i agree, but the state (in the us) is completely captured by capital. so how does a left movement motivate state actions in the direction we want without first developing our own bases of power?
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Apr 7, 2023 18:09
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i would say that instead of hr forcing people to watch presentations about how to best protect the company, they should hold political education seminars at workers coops
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Apr 7, 2023 18:12
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what im getting at is any anti-capitalist movement needs money. not donations from trust fund kids in brooklyn to run a vanity magazine but real, self-generating revenue. theres multiple ways to go about this (crime being a historically popular revenue stream) but one that seems obvious to me is worker co-ops with strong ties to a socialist party. obviously we need education and to spread class consciousness but that takes money! it all takes money!!
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Apr 7, 2023 18:19
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vyelkin posted:A worker co-op is clearly better than a firm that is not owned by its own workers. It doesn't solve all the problems because the firm still operates in the market and is subject to the pressures of the profit motive: if it doesn't turn a profit, it ceases to exist and the workers have to find new jobs and go back to being exploited by other firms. The result, a valid criticism that often gets treated like a thought-terminating cliche, is that in a worker co-op the workers exploit themselves - i.e., they have to impose a similar degree of labour discipline as would be imposed on them in another firm, in order for their co-op to survive. this misses that the relation is not just between the workers and the firm, but workers in other firms; the logic of the firm means that lower cost inputs are desirable and those lower costs must come from the theft i would hope this would be understood, but this is exactly why you can't stay a 'good' capitalist vyelkin posted:Worker co-ops aren't going to build socialism on their own, but they're still something to be supported where possible, because compared to the alternative they are a real, tangible step towards the emancipation of the workers at the level of an individual firm. the emancipation of individuals or a group is not to be opposed of course, but if you're arguing that it builds socialism, you're incorrect. emancipation of individuals can even be beneficial to capitalism because selective relief obliterates your former class consciousness by changing your class
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Apr 7, 2023 18:21
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Brain Candy posted:this misses that the relation is not just between the workers and the firm, but workers in other firms; the logic of the firm means that lower cost inputs are desirable and those lower costs must come from the theft im not convinced that co-ops will instantly and/or inevitably shift worker interests from CMC to MCM this way.
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Apr 7, 2023 18:24
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croup coughfield posted:what im getting at is any anti-capitalist movement needs money. not donations from trust fund kids in brooklyn to run a vanity magazine but real, self-generating revenue. theres multiple ways to go about this (crime being a historically popular revenue stream) but one that seems obvious to me is worker co-ops with strong ties to a socialist party. I've got the solution: investment banking (but also it's socialist)
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Apr 7, 2023 18:25
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croup coughfield posted:im not convinced that co-ops will instantly and/or inevitably shift worker interests from CMC to MCM this way. of course not but it's a tendency like i'm sure there are nice small business tyrants out there too
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Apr 7, 2023 18:27
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Mechafunkzilla posted:I've got the solution: investment banking (but also it's socialist) i think it was pener who had the idea for a peoples capital mgmt firm that launches on member donations then uses the money to buy up distressed properties, reorganize them, then redistribute the surplus to the membership. i havent thought it out all the way through but it's interesting to me on its face.
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Apr 7, 2023 18:28
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i want to know how the ownership structure works for WinCo, which is a giant worker coop grocery store all pver the west. what i'm able to find is that the stores are majority owned through a stock participation program, which is mostly focused on the employees enjoying a robust retirement savings. seems like thats going to hardly budge the needle re workers having a shift in class
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Apr 7, 2023 18:28
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croup coughfield posted:what im getting at is any anti-capitalist movement needs money. not donations from trust fund kids in brooklyn to run a vanity magazine but real, self-generating revenue. theres multiple ways to go about this (crime being a historically popular revenue stream) but one that seems obvious to me is worker co-ops with strong ties to a socialist party. expropriation of productive industry by the state is a good way to get what the financial influencers call passive income.
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Apr 7, 2023 18:31
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Al! posted:i want to know how the ownership structure works for WinCo, which is a giant worker coop grocery store all pver the west. what i'm able to find is that the stores are majority owned through a stock participation program, which is mostly focused on the employees enjoying a robust retirement savings. seems like thats going to hardly budge the needle re workers having a shift in class my suspicion is that worker co-ops, having core principles in collectivism, might serve to deflect some of the ideological baggage that comes with having wealth, at least in the short term. we can always kill them later
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Apr 7, 2023 18:32
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Tankbuster posted:expropriation of productive industry by the state is a good way to get what the financial influencers call passive income. 100% true but then we're back to how we leverage the state to our interests without any money to begin with
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Apr 7, 2023 18:33
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id love to hear from someone with a better understanding of theory on this possibly ignorant thought: they overall seem good because they encourage (or force) the workers there to rethink their relationship to management and profit while simultaneously providing an immediate (or near immediatea) improvement to their working conditions/pay. the argument against them seems to be that they are not sufficiently revolutionary and thus dissipate revolutionary potential which could instead be channeled into <something I don't understand> which will assist further with the tearing down of the capitalist mode of production. also, as they function within the capitalist system, they are liable to be coopted (no pun intended) by leaders solely out for their own benefit. it seems to my ignorant self that even if they aren't sufficient to overthrow capitalism that they at a minimum do more good than harm, and in particular in the absence of a better alternative, seem like an unalloyed positive, but im prepared to have someone more learned correct me.
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Apr 7, 2023 18:35
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Azathoth posted:it seems to my ignorant self that even if they aren't sufficient to overthrow capitalism that they at a minimum do more good than harm, and in particular in the absence of a better alternative, seem like an unalloyed positive bell hooks became a landlord
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Apr 7, 2023 18:39
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Mechafunkzilla posted:I can see the argument going both ways. Developing class consciousness would surely be a part of building socialism and asserting control over one's working conditions should be a part of that, but co-ops can also definitely be ideologically appropriated by individualistic liberals. See: luxury food coops that provide an outlet of "ethical consumption" while functionally excluding working class people through pricing, membership requirements etc. imo there's a significant difference between worker co-ops and consumer co-ops, in that one of them is oriented towards production and involves the workers owning the means of production in some way, and the other is oriented towards consumption and is strongly incentivized to drive down the price of consumption for its members (which can incentivize a lot of bad behaviour), or to cater to some specific target demographic like rich people looking for luxury "ethical consumption". They're both called co-ops but they're fundamentally different kinds of institutions.
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Apr 7, 2023 18:40
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Brain Candy posted:bell hooks became a landlord Jim Cramer was a marxist and became a capitalist, therefore marxism leads to capitalism and cannot be used for worker liberation.
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Apr 7, 2023 18:46
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im convinced. a better world isnt possible. im hanging it up
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Apr 7, 2023 18:48
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Brain Candy posted:this misses that the relation is not just between the workers and the firm, but workers in other firms; the logic of the firm means that lower cost inputs are desirable and those lower costs must come from the theft In a theoretical world of worker coops doesn't that mean that the other workers would have their own firm to oppose them? A sort of balance of powers? Instead of owners at war with its own workers, it would be groups of workers at odds with each other. The difference would be that the various groups of workers wouldn't be able to create massive power gaps like an ownership class could. This could lead to larger groups of workers having dominance over smaller groups, but that would incentivize recruiting more and more workers into this giant, all powerful umbrella because the more workers you have the more leverage you have. Sort of like the natural monopolization that the profit motive follows except instead of getting better at loving every worker it would only gently caress the workers that aren't part of the firm. And to do this it must include more and more workers, therefore shrinking the group of people getting hosed and growing the group of people who benefit. A sort of dictatorship, sure.
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Apr 7, 2023 18:52
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This all assumes they don't just invent a loophole where they can hire workers who don't own an equal share of the business but 
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Apr 7, 2023 18:55
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my understanding which people don't seem to share here is that one of marx's big insights is that we get people's relations to politics backwards. that our politics are determined by our conditions and not the other way around, we don't freely choose them in this sense class consciousness is not something you are educated on directly at all or rather you are constantly educated on it by your experiences. if you are within a class, you have the shared experiences necessary to behave in a certain way; capitalists don't need a ted to talk to know that wages going up means less money for them. and what was hoped was that the shared miserable experience of people in factories would be enough that people could act in shared self-interest to overthrow the bourgeois state and this never happens! not in germany as everyone was thinking! and definitely not russia or in china, where vanguardists got the backing of the conscripted military and the peasants respectively. but it's not like it invalidates marxism, marx was only trying to find what seemed like a plausible out, and what he missed was that capitalists would actually be smart enough to buy people off so the imperial core becomes nicer, conditions become better. this changes conditions so it changes politics, it makes the experience of someone extracting rubber vastly different that some one working in the factory processing that rubber. the latter is still exploited but not to the degree that they are willing to rise up and potentially die, at least beyond an improvement for their own conditions being bought out, being removed from the harm that capitalism causes, is exactly the thing that causes people to accept it and live under their dry roof with their warm food
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Apr 7, 2023 19:01
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Brain Candy posted:my understanding which people don't seem to share here is that one of marx's big insights is that we get people's relations to politics backwards. that our politics are determined by our conditions and not the other way around, we don't freely choose them i can see where you're coming from but i think you've missed some critical points. before we get into that though, i have to ask: what is the means by which to foster class consciousness in the masses without education?
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Apr 7, 2023 19:08
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AnimeIsTrash posted:its so loving boring and tedious, people should just admit they had a spiritual crisis during the pandemic and turned to god (christianity) tristeham posted:it's the same garbage op, just taking different forms I just started Hammer and Hoe and right here in the preface: quote:Lipsitz’s argument that Ivory Perry was formed by and operated within a “culture of opposition” gave me the framework I needed to understand the local political culture and to help me see the Alabama Communists and their supporters as organic intellectuals. Once I did that, I could see the cultural and ideological bases of their own way of seeing alternatives to the status quo. I came to understand why the Bible was more important in challenging the dominant ideology than, say, Marx or Lenin.
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Apr 7, 2023 19:08
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Brain Candy posted:my understanding which people don't seem to share here is that one of marx's big insights is that we get people's relations to politics backwards. that our politics are determined by our conditions and not the other way around, we don't freely choose them There's another element I think a lot about but probably can't articulate very well, which is that in a post-industrial economy the proletariat is converted entirely into the lumpen self-employed. There's the gig economy, freelancer stuff but even higher-income positions (tech workers and such) expect high turnover and see themselves as "free agents". This works against class consciousness in obvious ways, but it feels like we also need new ways of thinking about class when production itself has become abstracted. Obviously the global economy isn't post-industrial and still has production but the distance is part of the abstraction. And if the answer is that we just need to have a simultaneous global revolution where all nations are abolished at once that seems, uh, unlikely Mechafunkzilla has issued a correction as of 19:12 on Apr 7, 2023 |
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Apr 7, 2023 19:09
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Cpt_Obvious posted:I'm a total idiot but: there's lots of things to say here, but i think the important one is that a theoretical world of worker coops is not the one we're actually in. we're in the capitalist one, where if you need to buy chocolate you're incentivized to buy it from slave labor, whether you like or not. because if you don't, your product is more expensive and then it doesn't sell and your children starve and your spouse dies of cancer
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Apr 7, 2023 19:10
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croup coughfield posted:an unpopular opinion in cspam: worker co-ops are pretty much required for the socialist transition imo. the argument that worker co-ops are still beholden to the profit motive has merit, but a worker co-op is also run by the people doing the actual work. that means that many of the exploitative practices currently employed by shareholders are unlikely to find purchase among the decision-making bodies of those enterprises. furthermore, as a worker co-op requires all decision makers to actually work at the enterprise, the accumulation and consolidation of executive authority across multiple enterprises and multiple industries currently enjoyed by the shareholder class (the Real Bourgeoisie™) is impossible. it also dramatically reduces the resources a non-worker can accumulate. i think this scans and encouraging worker co-ops at the low and medium level is a sensible way to do dengism. i think i've seen lenin, stalin, and mao all write to various degrees about the utility of keeping the technical intelligentsia and even (former) managers and capitalists around because they have useful administrative knowledge and can teach workers how to run poo poo for themselves, since workers don't actually know this by default, since they don't have any experience in it. so to the extent that you can foster and accelerate the process of industrial and economic self-organization, without somehow costing yourself some other more important advantage, you should Ferrinus has issued a correction as of 19:31 on Apr 7, 2023 |
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Apr 7, 2023 19:17
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a workers coop is where all the workers sleep at night
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Apr 7, 2023 19:18
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croup coughfield posted:i can see where you're coming from but i think you've missed some critical points. before we get into that though, i have to ask: what is the means by which to foster class consciousness in the masses without education? 'foster'. what education can't do is create class consciousness in of itself. it's almost impossible to make a liberal into a communist solely though education, and i wish you well if you're still at the point where you think you can. but what it can do is reveal and contextualize if, if someone has the experiences already, what it can do is take those experiences that don't fit quite into the existing modeling and put them into a new framing. that this is not a just, good, or inevitable world, that things could be otherwise, that persons without agency could should and must have it
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Apr 7, 2023 19:22
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Brain Candy posted:'foster'. so if im following you correctly, class consciousness is an attribute or trait someone has, rather than knowledge or a model of viewing the world?
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Apr 7, 2023 19:29
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croup coughfield posted:so if im following you correctly, class consciousness is an attribute or trait someone has, rather than knowledge or a model of viewing the world? you are not following it is 'knowledge or a model of viewing the world' but how it's formed is important. models are formed by the weight of experience; people are not pots to be filled with knowledge, you don't raise class consciousness by pouring some in (and discussion in dialog can itself be experience, which is why you bother, just don't expect a pamphlet to work lol)
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Apr 7, 2023 19:43
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or rather if the pamplet works it's because the person reading was already primed to believe that their current framing was incorrect and so all they needed was an alternative
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Apr 7, 2023 19:49
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