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Socialism! Socialism is a common topic of debate and discussion today in the United States, so let's start with some definitions. What is "socialism?" Well, that's a huge matter of debate! I would say the bare minimum is the classic Marxist "a society in which the workers own the means of production." This is a somewhat technically vague statement and there's a lot of variation in what people believe the best mechanism to achieve this is. Please, feel free to debate this! What is "capitalism?" quote:Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. From Wikipedia. Who was Karl Marx? Karl Marx (1818-1883) was a historian, philosopher, and an early forefather of modern sociology. He came up with a social theory of history we now call "Marxist" or sometimes "social conflict" theory, which explained in brief is the idea that there are historically haves, and have nots, and they will come into conflict over the stuff, which is what drives history. He believed that there would eventually be a revolution of some kind, and this would lead to socialism and eventually communism, a hypothetical stateless, classless society. Everything I just wrote is probably hugely controversial among leftists and I'm sure the first posts in this thread will be people arguing that I'm wrong and explaining Marx badly. That's ok! That's what this thread is for! I'm trying to keep things really entry level, partly because my background on Marx is weak and partly because I want this thread to be accessible. Here is a read-along thread in CSPAM for the work of Marx for the uninitiated, courtesy of kind user Ruzihm. Ruzihm posted:While we're giving out resources, if someone wants an okay video introduction to the concepts in Capital, this video series is alright. King of Solomon posted:Hey, Lightning Knight, this page is a good write-up of socialist terms. It might be worth adding to the OP or second post as a resource. Lightning Knight posted:I am going to edit some media recommendations into the OP. More will be added as they are recommended. Lightning Knight posted:
~*~ So, some rules. What is this thread for? This thread is for discussing socialism in the United States. Comparisons and relevant aspects of socialism in other countries is ok (*cough* the Soviet Union and the PRC, etc. *cough* ) but we should try to focus on American socialist history itt. We have a thread about Russian and Soviet Union history here: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3874294 If anyone wants a thread about socialism in China and Southeast Asia, or another region, that's something we can do! I will say that socialism in countries like Cuba and the rest of Latin America is generally going to be germane to this thread as well, because you can't really properly separate US history from Latin American history. This is also true of socialist movements in Canada. The principle focus of this thread should remain on the United States, because there's where most goons are from, but the Western Hemisphere is ok as long as you try and keep things neat and organized. Who is this thread for? This thread is for everyone! That means non-leftists can post here too! But, if you come barreling into this thread to complain about Venezuela and "how will you pay for it???" you will probably be relentlessly mocked. Don't be racist, or sexist, ableist or homophobic itt. I will loving hit you. Does that mean you can't criticize neoliberal identity politics and tokenism? No. But understand that it's very easy to cross from that criticism to being a huge piece of poo poo. Don't be Angela Nagle, Angela Nagle and people like her are lame. And remember! "From each according to his ability, and to each according to his need!" If you don't know anything about socialism, come ask! But don't posture as if you do know things if you don't, and be respectful of others. That doesn't mean you can't call someone a shitter if they're being a shitter, but don't make this thread immediately flame out into mean spirited name calling if you can avoid it please. This thread will follow American rules re: gendered insults like "oval office," etc., sorry Commonwealth goons.  When is this thread for? This thread is for socialism then and now in the United States and Western Hemisphere! So if you want to tell us the true history of Che Guevara and his exploits against the CIA, or if you want to chat about DSA elections today, that's ok! As long as it's about socialism and preferably about the United States or Western Hemisphere, that's great! "Is this the Democrats Are Bad containment thread?" Well, no. The Democrats are a center right neoliberal institution, they don't seem very relevant to a discussion about socialism and this is not a replacement for Thunderdome. I'm hoping to generate more constructive leftist discussion here, so please try to be productive and generate Good Content (tm)! What about unions and organization of labor? Unions and organized labor are an integral part of socialism, but at the same time they have a fraught history with careerism, regulatory capture, and rejection of marginalized communities. It's ok to discuss organized labor here and attempts to radicalize organize labor to be ideologically leftist, historical organized labor, etc., but I would also approve of a separate thread specifically about unionization and labor organization that is more about the technical side of things. Perhaps Your Boy Fancy could oblige. Can I post my super edgy takes about how America is fascist and all Americans deserve to die? I mean, I would prefer that you didn't. If you want to constructively make ideologically Marxist-Leninist critiques of the United States as a settler-colonial state that oppresses other peoples, then that's ok, but don't edgelord in here please. It's boring. Are tankies invited to the dinner table? Yes! But you should be prepared to debate. Please don't devolve into boring name calling about who supports Putin and who is a counterrevolutionary reactionary or whatever bullshit, at least try to be nice to each other. Can I say that electoralism is garbage here? Yes! But I expect you to respect people who want to engage in electoralism as long as they respect you. You don't have to agree on best methods, but at least acknowledge that not everyone is suited to different mechanisms. This also applies to people who are pro-electoralism. Anything else? Be nice to each other! Or at least try! That doesn't mean you have to  it up and it has to be sunshine and rainbows here, but I want to see this thread generate Good Content (tm).Do not import drama from other threads/helldump itt. If you are told to come here from another thread, then that's one thing, but don't quote people from like USPOL because you want to mock them. Succzone in CSPAM is perfectly fine for that. At the same time, if someone calls you out and wants you to come here to debate your opinions on leftism or whatever, then do it! Be brave! Defend your opinions. I make few ideological demands of you, but please make sure your leftism is intersectionalism. There are a variety of good, radical, left-wing activists and agitators throughout history who were POC, LGBT, and women. This is not the "shitpost about Bernie 2020" thread. That's in CSPAM. You can argue that Bernie is good and useful to American socialism if you desire but put substance in your argument. If you empty quote memes in this thread I will hit you. This goes for any other topic. Do not call for violence on other posters or wish that other posters will kill themselves. Follow Something Awful's rules. Be wary of calls to violence, you all know the drill. This OP may be updated with necessary new rules, pictures, etc. I'm not feeling great right now, which is why this thread is lacking in specific content right this second. Lightning Knight fucked around with this message at 00:15 on Dec 7, 2018 |
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Nov 28, 2018 23:10
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Helsing posted:Also to be slightly more constructive, some freely available places to start if you wanted to compare your ideas with others or get an idea of what best practices are for developing your ideas: Helsing posted:Can somebody give me an operational definition of "Narrativism" and an example of distinctively non-Narrativism behaviour for contrast? Lightning Knight fucked around with this message at 17:06 on Dec 1, 2018 |
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Nov 28, 2018 23:11
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This thread is a good idea LK! As a generally ignorant person, why did the Socialist movement around the turn of the 20th century in the US die out? There were actual Socialist Party members of Congress back in the 1910s, but the party pretty much died by the end of WW1 in terms of federal representation. Why? Was it because of Lenin in Russia? Why did they not become more popular like in the UK/France/Germany after the Great War?
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Nov 28, 2018 23:15
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Socialism is good and socialism will win
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Nov 28, 2018 23:24
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Phi230 posted:Socialism is good and socialism will win I'm glad you made this post, because going forward, people need to try harder than this. While I agree with you, this doesn't really add anything to the discussion. Why is socialism good and why will/should it win? Tell us more!
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Nov 28, 2018 23:25
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axeil posted:This thread is a good idea LK! it was brutally and systematically crushed during the first red scare by the federal government. thousands of radicals were arrested and deported, the national guard crushed striking unions, socialists elected to office were not allowed to take their seats, a massive media campaign was launched to label socialists as foreign invaders, eugene debs was arrested for sedition for opposing the first world war, etc. this is where j. edgar hoover made his bones and is essentially the root of the FBI. before the first red scare the Socialist Party had over 100,000 members, after it had 10,000.
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Nov 28, 2018 23:31
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Socialism will win if only because capitalism will eventually fail as a mode of production. Marx made a great case for why in Capital. There was a read-along thread here that was pretty good. It has some good resources & discussion in it.
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Nov 28, 2018 23:31
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Sheng-Ji Yang posted:it was brutally and systematically crushed during the first red scare by the federal government. thousands of radicals were arrested and deported, the national guard crushed striking unions, socialists elected to office were not allowed to take their seats, a massive media campaign was launched to label socialists as foreign invaders, eugene debs was arrested for sedition for opposing the first world war, etc. this is where j. edgar hoover made his bones and is essentially the root of the FBI. Ah, thanks for this info. Was this directed by the incumbent political parties at large or was this all J. Edgar Hoovers idea? I'm trying to figure out what the US would've looked like without that crack-down as the early 20th century US seemed a pretty good breeding ground for a strong Socialist Party/movement given all the Robber Barons and other poo poo.
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Nov 28, 2018 23:38
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I view Socialism and Capitalism as existing on a spectrum. Germany has corporations etc. but it's closer to Socialism on this spectrum than the USA. The typical Republican argument is to say that people advocating a shift to the Socialist side would take us to Venezuela like conditions. The counter would be to say going full Capitalist would be Somalia. Climate change is merely the "Tragedy of the Commons" writ large, unregulated Capitalism. We really don't have a choice if we want to fix that.
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Nov 28, 2018 23:41
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venezuela's condition has nothing to do with socialism and everything to do with them putting all their eggs into a basket that they didn't actually control
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Nov 28, 2018 23:42
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I would disagree with this in the OP:quote:Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. You can have differing kinds of capitalism. For example, many would call the Soviet Union from Stalin on "State Capitalism". The means of production were owned by the state, but they were run by a small group for the benefit of the state apparatus. Capitalism is when the "surplus" is retained by the owners of capital and what that surplus is used for is decided solely by them. EDIT: I would also add that most people in the US think "socialism" is Keynesianism with lots of tax-funded government spending on social programs. The fact that so much of the US population is afraid of even that is sad. Lumpy fucked around with this message at 23:49 on Nov 28, 2018 |
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Nov 28, 2018 23:44
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Lumpy posted:I would disagree with this in the OP: I'm glad you brought this up because this is exactly one of the arguments I was thinking about when I was writing those definitions. The idea that the Soviet Union wasn't "real socialism" seems to be a common one and I've heard compelling arguments both ways.
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Nov 28, 2018 23:45
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Maybe this is a stupid question, but aside from unions being a negative due to the mentioned regulatory capture, etc. is there any argument to be made that a union can be too strong? Are there any examples of this? I’m absolutely not making a case that they are too strong, I’m aware that unions are largely getting squeezed out of existence and to reduce their strength at every turn. I find unions and organized labor to be super loving interesting and I’m hoping this can be a somewhat unbiased source or at least have enough people screaming at each other that I can see what the sides are.
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Nov 29, 2018 00:07
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well there's the prison guard union in california that forces through terrible legislation to lock up more people for longer times by supporting terrible state propositions
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Nov 29, 2018 00:10
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I'd like to take a moment to ask that we mourn Harry Leslie Smith, an elderly British man, WWII vet, and socialist activist, who passed away recently. 
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Nov 29, 2018 00:12
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BigLeafyTree posted:Maybe this is a stupid question, but aside from unions being a negative due to the mentioned regulatory capture, etc. is there any argument to be made that a union can be too strong? Are there any examples of this? Historically police unions have been right arsewipes. A union is only as good as its members and when its members are all bastards, so goes the union. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 00:21 on Nov 29, 2018 |
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Nov 29, 2018 00:18
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OwlFancier posted:Historically police unions have been right cunts. Hey. You. Read the OP. This is your only warning. 
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Nov 29, 2018 00:19
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Oh, oops, will fix that. Too used to UKMT.
OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 00:31 on Nov 29, 2018 |
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Nov 29, 2018 00:21
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OwlFancier posted:Oh, oops, will fix that. Good man.  I am going to edit some media recommendations into the OP. We can start with: Current Affairs, a socialist magazine based in New Orleans, focused on American politics but it has general articles. Their online stuff is only a fraction of their total output, and if you, unlike me, have money, you subscribe to them for the the cool print version. Citations Needed podcast isn't strictly speaking socialist, but they are sympathetic to socialism and routinely host left-wing guests, and have had episodes about socialist history. It's also just a good podcast. The Left POCket Project is a leftist/socialist podcast hosted by Wendi Muse. It is also cool and good. I hesitate to recommend Jacobin because it has... issues, but Jacobin is probably at least worth a cursory examination. Natalie Shure, at least, writes great content.
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Nov 29, 2018 00:28
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To perhaps elaborate further you can run into a problem whereby unions can represent people who are at odds with the rest of the workforce. The police are there to victimize the rest of society and strikebreak and so their union is no different. This feeds in broadly to a critique of trade unionism itself, whereby some argue that all it really does it pit workers of different trades against one another. This forms the basis of industrial unionism as practiced by the IWW. They would argue that if say, two companies in the same field are represented by two different unions, and one goes on strike, the other one is effectively scabbing by doing their work. Far better would be if the whole industry went on strike, were it necessary, so as to maximise the effect. This is obviously a terrifying prospect to governments the world over which is why sympathy strikes are outlawed basically everywhere. Because if your workers were organized to such a point as not only could the rail workers strike, but also the bus drivers, and the taxi drivers, and everyone else working in transportation, they would be able to completely shut down cities or even countries on a whim. That is a strike that could not be ignored. So governments absolutely hate the idea. And I suppose depending on your disposition you might consider this an instance of a union being too powerful rather than an instance of unions being loving awesome  They also argue that an international union of all workers is a very good basis for political organization anyway. And I would argue that it is going to be increasingly necessary if you are going to preserve the power of the union in the age of global capitalism. Unionization, ultimately, is a political tool, and a democratic one. If you create a democracy consisting solely of one group of people, turns out they will probably vote for their own interests at the expense of others. And when a union employs its power unilaterally, as is the point of them, this results in the employment of union power against people you might prefer it not to be. The solution, I would argue, is better and bigger unionization against those interests. OwlFancier fucked around with this message at 00:48 on Nov 29, 2018 |
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Nov 29, 2018 00:31
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Raskolnikov38 posted:venezuela's condition has nothing to do with socialism and everything to do with them putting all their eggs into a basket that they didn't actually control also, the food shortages are caused by the rich holding the food hostage, so their only failing was not being left enough
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Nov 29, 2018 00:46
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Yinlock posted:also, the food shortages are caused by the rich holding the food hostage, so their only failing was not being left enough You should expand on this more, because Venezuela is a hot topic right now in discussions of American socialism. What role did the United States play in Venezuela's current predicament?
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Nov 29, 2018 01:04
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i'm sure whatever fuckery the US has been up to venezuela hasn't helped but the origin of their problems lies with them basing their economy on oil prices being high forever, both in 00's and when they pretty much had the same exact crisis in the 1970's/80's. if you really want to rail against chavez, complain about him not diversifying the economy when he had the chance rather than saying him trying to improve peoples' lives is the problem
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Nov 29, 2018 01:12
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Raskolnikov38 posted:venezuela's condition has nothing to do with socialism and everything to do with them putting all their eggs into a basket that they didn't actually control I agree, I'm just sharing that it's a popular example by the right.
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Nov 29, 2018 01:28
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Lightning Knight posted:Please don't devolve into boring name calling about who supports Putin and who is a counterrevolutionary reactionary or whatever bullshit, at least try to be nice to each other. this thread was looking really promising until this line Raskolnikov38 posted:i'm sure whatever fuckery the US has been up to venezuela hasn't helped but the origin of their problems lies with them basing their economy on oil prices being high forever, both in 00's and when they pretty much had the same exact crisis in the 1970's/80's. if you really want to rail against chavez, complain about him not diversifying the economy when he had the chance rather than saying him trying to improve peoples' lives is the problem if we assume he had absolutely nothing to do with the current kleptocratic nightmare (and tbf that's an argument i've seen in the wild), then yes, his biggest error was non-diversification poor handling of nationalized companies/industries/real estate and particularly the whole price-controls-without-subsidies sure are on the list too, though Lightning Knight posted:You should expand on this more, because Venezuela is a hot topic right now in discussions of American socialism. What role did the United States play in Venezuela's current predicament? not a lot afaik, and in fact the current batch of US sanctions is (presumably for cynical messaging reasons, but still actually correctly) focused on limiting the ability of the faux-socialist elites to loot the country and abscond to America with their gains There's actually a lot to learn from Venezuela's fuckups and (less visible than the fuckups) successes, much of which I am not really informationally equipped to discuss - I have only the very cursoriest familiarity with their more grassrootsy rural agricultural reform, for example, but it seems to have gone better than their top-down-er nationalizations which include a lot of extremely high-profile disasters. Goatse James Bond fucked around with this message at 01:47 on Nov 29, 2018 |
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Nov 29, 2018 01:35
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I think Richard Wolff summed up one possibility of socialism's now vs then very well in this particular segment straight from the local church's basement for realDr. Wolff posted:Socialism has changed and one of the directions it has changed in, very very important for me so I want to tell you where I'm coming from here, is that it's a kind of socialism that is critical ... of the focus of the old socialists on the state, on the notion that the state is what we need, the state to do this good thing, the state to do that good thing. Socialists have worried about that because if you give the state the power to do all those good things you run a risk, which is with that amount of power which you need to do the good things you can also choose to do not so good things with that power, and that clearly has happened, and therefore has to be taken account of in some way. How do you deal with that? Whats your response, as a socialist, to that situation? He goes on further to say that openness to socialism will lead to greater variation of opinions within it. I think his arguments are really compelling way to approach Americans for which socialism has always been a poisoned, but nebulous word for someone like generations of white sad olds. stone soup fucked around with this message at 02:31 on Nov 29, 2018 |
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Nov 29, 2018 01:54
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Wally Joyner posted:I think Richard Wolff summed up one possibility of socialism's now vs then very well in this particular segment straight from the local church's basement for real I'm going to use this (good) post to say:  If you post a video that is meant to be educational, please provide a transcript as well, at least of the relevant parts. For podcasts you don't have to do a full transcript since they tend to be longer but some choice quotes would be appreciated.
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Nov 29, 2018 02:21
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https://thenib.com/history-american-socialism I was going to link the whole thing on new hosting but there's so much it would destroy page 1's weight so I'm just going to leave it with some choice ones:         Hey look at that folks, we're winning. RuanGacho fucked around with this message at 03:32 on Nov 29, 2018 |
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Nov 29, 2018 02:39
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Yinlock posted:also, the food shortages are caused by the rich holding the food hostage, so their only failing was not being left enough I was going to chime in with this. My source is Robin Hahnel's Alternatives to Capitalism, where he describes Venezuela as having established a "social economy" in parallel with the private and state (i.e. the nationalized oil industry) sectors, and how this sort of incrementalism has actually ended up being counterproductive because it "distracts" people from having to behave and work in socially-conscious ways when there's a perfectly irresponsible sector right over there, on top of the fact that the private sector's resistance to being nationalized/absorbed/subsumed means they're going to sabotage the Venezuelan government's attempts at strengthening and promoting their socialist projects by withholding critical supplies and goods. quote:Different economic systems rely on different ways to motivate people. At some point I believe Venezuela will have to choose between motivating people through greed and fear—as they do in their private sector—ordering people around—as they do in their state sector—and motivating people by letting them decide what they want to do as long as it is socially responsible, and rewarding people according to their work efforts—as they are trying to do in their "social economy." In other words, once the social economy has proved its superiority to a majority of Venezuelans, because their incentive systems are not only different but also contradictory, I think it would be a mistake not to extend the social economy system to the entire economy in a non-incremental way.
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Nov 29, 2018 04:04
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VideoGameVet posted:I view Socialism and Capitalism as existing on a spectrum. Germany has corporations etc. but it's closer to Socialism on this spectrum than the USA. This is not particularly accurate unless you're defining socialism as "social democracy." Socialism generally entails some fundamental reorganization of the economy, not just expansion of the welfare state and more progressive taxation. For example, having all businesses be co-owned by workers or eliminating private property (in the sense of property that generates value). The ultimate goal includes eliminating the aspects of capitalism that basically guarantee inequality and wealth flow to the top (so you wouldn't have things like businesses owned by private investors who profit from the labor of the business's employees). Basically, under most uses of the term, it doesn't make sense to view it as a "spectrum." My personal feeling is that it's not really guaranteed that socialism in the full "eliminate private property" sense is doable, but that it should still be pursued as a goal simply because any form of capitalism, including social democracy, is fundamentally unjust, and it's dumb to just accept that as "the best we can hope for." I'm pretty sure that, at the very least, it's possible to implement something like workers' self-management (that is, all businesses being run as co-ops, with their employees filling the role shareholders often do now). Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 05:34 on Nov 29, 2018 |
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Nov 29, 2018 05:30
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Follow this simple chart to see why socialism will never work anywhere. 1. Socialism starts and the people are generally happy. 2. The people in charge fight. 3. The winner kills everyone that is a threat. 4. The winner kills everyone that might be a threat. 5. Every thing sucks for everyone except for an elite dictatorship ruling party that are not called dictators because they claim to be socialists (for some reason) 504 fucked around with this message at 05:52 on Nov 29, 2018 |
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Nov 29, 2018 05:50
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504 posted:Follow this simple chart to see why socialism will never work anywhere. drat, all that happened in the paris commune?
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Nov 29, 2018 06:01
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Ytlaya posted:The ultimate goal includes eliminating the aspects of capitalism that basically guarantee inequality and wealth flow to the top (so you wouldn't have things like businesses owned by private investors who profit from the labor of the business's employees). The problem is efficency is often driven by scale and scale creates inequality, and this isn't nessisarily connected to the nature of the owner ship of firms. It's borders on being mathematical consequence of maximization.
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Nov 29, 2018 06:31
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504 posted:Follow this simple chart to see why socialism will never work anywhere. This seems very unfair and not posted in good faith. I don't think you can jump from 2 to 3 that simply. There's nothing about a socialist system that requires violence against the people. Corruption and inefficiency maybe, but violent action isn't always baked in. Hell you can make a full on communist system where violence against the people isn't required, although I'm a bit more skeptical there because the complete absence of market structures might cause lots of resentment and rebellion when the inevitable shortages happen.
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Nov 29, 2018 07:19
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Ruzihm posted:drat, all that happened in the paris commune? 504 posted:Follow this simple chart to see why socialism will never work anywhere. You forgot the part where if the revolution is being guided by vaguely competent and non-violent socialists they get violently overthrown by the CIA or Western powers like what happened to Allende, Sankara or Mossaddegh.
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Nov 29, 2018 08:38
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A Typical Goon posted:You forgot the part where if the revolution is being guided by vaguely competent and non-violent socialists they get violently overthrown by the CIA or Western powers like what happened to Allende, Sankara or Mossaddegh. Anyway, I hear nothing but extremely bad things about the state of American Communism: that you mainline individualism like you're paid to, that you're obsessed with IdPol the same as liberals and that none of you have the least bit of mainstream success, with the closest being the SocDem DSA which survives by attaching remora like to the rear end of the Democratic party. Are there any, even the tiniest of success in your country on this end?
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Nov 29, 2018 15:21
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I like Wikipedia's definition of socialism:quote:Socialism is a range of economic and social systems characterised by social ownership and workers' self-management of the means of production as well as the political theories and movements associated with them. axeil posted:This seems very unfair and not posted in good faith.
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Nov 29, 2018 15:59
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Ytlaya posted:This is not particularly accurate unless you're defining socialism as "social democracy." Like, if state ownership and control counts as socialism, then, say, state-owned public transportation systems should count as socialism, should they not? They're definitely not capitalist, there's no profit-making or capitalist investing in the public transportation system itself.
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Nov 29, 2018 16:05
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Cicero posted:It seems like the implication of the USSR not being "real socialism" is that the state owning everything is not real socialism, you'd need the workers to literally own their stuff, like with a worker co-op. The theory is that "the state owns everything" can still be a form of socialism if "the state" is also democratically controlled enough that the state's decisions regarding the workplace are a direct reflection of the workers's desires. Cicero posted:That has some interesting implications though, because a worker co-op that owns their means of production would presumably be for-profit, just with the profit going to the workers. In that case, a lot of anti-consumer exploitative behavior people complain about existing in capitalism would still probably exist, as the workers in question would still be incentivized to engage in predatory tactics that would maximize their profit. That's really more a problem with the continuation of the existence of markets, which promote this behavior of externalizing as many factors as possible in order to maximize profits, as well as trying to pull off worker co-ops in a capitalist framework: if your factory is democratically run, and the other two factories are owned by capitalists, then they're going to out-compete you because they can engage in exploitative behavior, and you either can't, or you'll simply democratically convince your workers that they need to debase themselves in the same way anyway. And this goes back to my earlier post about how socialism, at some point, has to be transformative leap, rather than an series of incremental steps. gradenko_2000 fucked around with this message at 16:17 on Nov 29, 2018 |
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Nov 29, 2018 16:15
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Cicero posted:I like Wikipedia's definition of socialism: There is an argument to be made that cooperatives are not socialist because they too must maximize the extraction of surplus value in order to continue producing. Coops are even more efficient at concentrating capital, because more revenue can be reinvested directly into exclusively expanding a firm's productivity instead of being paid out as "wages" to unproductive elements such as CEOs, shareholders, etc. https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2010s/2014/no-1313-january-2014/marx-co-operatives-and-capitalism-0/ posted:The recent failure of the co-operative bank and its rescue by hedge funds seems an apt time to review Richard Wolff’s latest book, Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism(Haymarket Books), which advocates co-operatives as the way towards economic democracy for the working class. Wolff rejects the label ‘co-operative’, perhaps because of its historical baggage, and chooses another term, ‘workers self-directed enterprises’ (WSDEs), to describe what he advocates. In practice, though, what Wolff advocates is indistinguishable from the historical aims of the co-operative movement to re-distribute profit amongst its members. Wolff is also an open advocate for long-established co-operative projects such as Mondragon in Spain. Wolff’s aims, though, run deeper than support for extending the popularity of co-operatives as presently understood. What Wolff seeks to do in Democracy at Work is to redefine working-class co-operative production as socialism in action:
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Nov 29, 2018 16:20
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