Leftist twitter...

[Cassius Clay]

...has been having an insane and crucial debate for the last few days and it's been marvelous. The fight started with Benjamin Dixon and Briahna Joy(both black socialists)...who are friends/respect each other...but have some philosophical differences regarding race/class coalition-building. The differences seem relatively minor/superficial at first but as the argument escalates they start to uncover how deep these differences go(it's gotten a little ugly at times). I'm just glad this conversation is finally fucking happening at this level. It's about all the shit that I've tried to articulate about the Left (and arrogant white progressives) for years. And I'm not really sure what the right answers are. I've gone back and forth and I can see where both sides are coming from. But, for years, I've been side-eyeing some of the things Briahna has said and it's interesting to see all the white progressives rally behind her. Typically, in a conversation involving race, when most of the white people are on your side it's not a good sign...but Briahna is smart as hell and making really solid points(there is a lot of bad-faith misrepresentation/over-simplification coming from her and her camp tho). Honestly, both camps have positions that are more nuanced than the other side is consistently reading them. But there is something much deeper going on here. It's a necessary/overdue fight and if you're not following it you're missing out.

[Cassius Clay]

It's basically a left twitter version of this:

[youtube]https://youtube.com/watch?v=ECZP2IceKiA[/youtube]

Entertaining, but important. And if we don't resolve this issue, so we can organize more effectively, we're all going to fucking die.

[OpiateOfTheMasses]

Y'see. There's a moral there. You should be more like me. Fiscally right wing. I'm socially very liberal - but when it comes to the money, I can't tear myself away from believing that if you earn it you should get to keep a big chunk of it.

You don't catch us arguing over the minutiae of socialism like that.

[Derived Absurdity]

Capitalists don't earn shit. They steal the value workers labor to create. Workers should keep 100% of the value they create.

[Anakin McFly]

@DA - sorry for my ignorance, but is that belief part of mainstream communism? I was under the impression that it meant workers were all to receive the same salary regardless of how much value they create, which seemed like a recipe for disaster and was something I couldn't get on board with (while acknowledging that exceptions are needed for those who are less able or unable to work, because no one should have to die due to an inability to afford life). I really don't like the idea of being unable to improve one's life through increased effort and work, but if workers can keep whatever value they create, that's great. Likewise the notion that people would not be allowed to own anything as everything would be considered public property owned by the state, that needed to be applied for with long waiting times and that could be taken back any time.

Sorry again if this is completely off, since I have limited knowledge of the subject that's also informed by a close friend who grew up in communist Romania and has very strong feelings against communism.

[Derived Absurdity]

Holy crap, lol. No, that's not communism. Communism is workers directly owning the means of production and receiving all of the value their labor creates. As opposed to capitalism, where the value they create is stolen by private owners/bosses for profit, who then give a fraction of it back to them in the form of wages/salaries. Workers are exploited under capitalism in that they're forced to give more (the value they create through their labor) than they receive (wages/salaries); communism says to end the exploitation by eliminating private ownership over the means of production. It doesn't mean people won't be personally allowed to own things. Communism is anti-statist, so everything owned by the state is the exact opposite of what we want. The state is what upholds private property laws that enable capitalism and all the other ancillary nodes that are required to keep it running (the police force, the military, the courts, the media, and so on). So-called "communist states" like Romania were in reality state capitalist, where the means of production were simply owned directly by the state instead of by private individuals/groups.

I'm sorry if something bad happened to your friend, but she's spreading misinformation.

[Cassius Clay]

Also, there are basic needs that should be treated as fundamental human rights regardless of how much value one creates.

[Cassius Clay]

Y'see. There's a moral there. You should be more like me. Fiscally right wing. I'm socially very liberal - but when it comes to the money, I can't tear myself away from believing that if you earn it you should get to keep a big chunk of it.

You don't catch us arguing over the minutiae of socialism like that.

Organizing is easy on the right because it's very easy to align yourself with money/power. A power structure already exists...so all you have to do is find your place within it...and be willing to throw people under the bus to "get yours."

Convincing all the different intersecting identities/positions(that are oppressed by the structure in unique ways) to act as one to dismantle the structure is naturally the harder job.

Examples: Racist white women that vote Trump have chosen to align themselves with whiteness because it's easier. They may have multiple oppressed identies but have prioritized whiteness.

The hot debate around racist, "economically-anxious" whites is similar. Poor whites should be allied with the left but they are holding on tightly to their whiteness because it's easier to side with the bullies when you're a scared/powerless kid at a new school than it is to act with integrity.

[Boomer]

So-called "communist states" like Romania were in reality state capitalist, where the means of production were simply owned directly by the state instead of by private individuals/groups.

So why does every communist revolution seemingly result in state capitalism?

Or has there never been a “real" communist revolution?

[OpiateOfTheMasses]

"Workers owning the means of production" is a slightly vague statement. Let's say that they do. How is that ownership shared out? Equally? Or based on length of service (so someone who's been there gets a larger share than someone who's only been there a couple of months) or some other way (such as how much effort/value they add)?

And even once you've decided how to share out the ownership of the company, how do you decide what to pay everyone? Does everyone get the same? Probably not. Whilst I agree that the "big bosses" very often don't deserve the silly salaries they often receive, getting good CEOs and CFOs (etc) is actually quite difficult because there is a limited number of people that can do those jobs very well. And they can be very stressful and they can involve long hours. So they probably do deserve a bit more money. How do you figure out how much to pay them? Or do you just elect someone from the floor so rather than selecting the best, you just end up selecting the most popular/the person with the most populist policies?

The devil is generally in the detail. So whilst communism/socialism sounds like a great idea, I've yet to hear pragmatic solutions to the details...

[Derived Absurdity]

So-called "communist states" like Romania were in reality state capitalist, where the means of production were simply owned directly by the state instead of by private individuals/groups.

So why does every communist revolution seemingly result in state capitalism?

Or has there never been a “real" communist revolution?

Because every twentieth century communist revolution followed the Marxist-Leninist model of a small group of revolutionaries overthrowing the existing ruling class and establishing control over the state. They also mostly attempted communism from poor agricultural societies, when Marx and multiple other socialists pointed out before (and still do) that a communist economy would only work in a society that already had abundant resources. A large-scale redistributive economy with very scarce resources is likely to fail over the long run.

Marx's main focus and critique of capitalism centered on the relationship between boss and worker. He wasn't interested in the role of the state or the market, the two things communist revolutionaries of the past focused primarily on. A bottom-up transformation of society (workers establishing local control over the means of production) in an environment of abundant resources (such as America) has a much greater chance of working than a top-down transformation of society in an environment of scarce resources, which is why I support that idea to establish socialism in the twenty first century.

[Derived Absurdity]

"Workers owning the means of production" is a slightly vague statement. Let's say that they do. How is that ownership shared out? Equally? Or based on length of service (so someone who's been there gets a larger share than someone who's only been there a couple of months) or some other way (such as how much effort/value they add)?

And even once you've decided how to share out the ownership of the company, how do you decide what to pay everyone? Does everyone get the same? Probably not. Whilst I agree that the "big bosses" very often don't deserve the silly salaries they often receive, getting good CEOs and CFOs (etc) is actually quite difficult because there is a limited number of people that can do those jobs very well. And they can be very stressful and they can involve long hours. So they probably do deserve a bit more money. How do you figure out how much to pay them? Or do you just elect someone from the floor so rather than selecting the best, you just end up selecting the most popular/the person with the most populist policies?

The devil is generally in the detail. So whilst communism/socialism sounds like a great idea, I've yet to hear pragmatic solutions to the details...

Worker cooperatives where employees own and manage the workforce, participate democratically in the decision-making, and directly receive the value they put in already exist. You make it sound like this idea is some abstract fantasy not out of the planning stages. Worker cooperatives have existed for a long time. You listed some really basic problems that different people can each easily and straightforwardly solve in their own unique ways, and have.

[Gendo]

So how does communism decide who the "workers" are? As a simple example, take a factory. People who assemble parts of stuff are clearly the worker,s and thus should own the means of production, right? As in, the person who assembled a car should earn the value of the profits of that car.

But, what if in order for the factory to run smoothly, they need a foreman to oversee things? That foreman doesn't assemble anything; but he's still a worker... he helps things get assembled indirectly at least. How does communism decide what percentage of the car profits he should get?

[Derived Absurdity]

"Communism" wouldn't decide anything. The factory workers would. That's the point.

[Cassius Clay]

Capitalist propraganda has really done a number on us all.

[Gendo]

"Communism" wouldn't decide anything. The factory workers would. That's the point.

But to be clear, the foreman is considered a factory worker as well? So the assemblers and the foreman all agree on which of them should get which amounts?

If so, then the foreman might be able to convince them that his part of the job is more skilled; and thus he should get a bigger cut. And didn't that just become basically capitalism? The foreman is making more; and overseeing the assemblers who are making less. Perhaps it's not thought of as the foreman giving out salaries to the assemblers, but I don't see how it actually ends up being meaningfully different.

[Cassius Clay]

Since no one is the sole owner he/she won't have the power to fire people willy nilly. Capitalism is authoritarian. Yet we've been propagandized to believe it's the ultimate form of democratic freedom.

In other news, I just had a convo with my very strict Catholic grandmother and she is convinced Trump is the antichrist. I couldn't even argue with her because it sure looks like it...as the whole world seems to be embracing fascism. I think I'll watch The Omen this weekend.

[Gendo]

So I understand the difference in principle, but not in practice. "Owner" is just a term that capitalism uses. If the collective bargaining of communism agrees that one person has a more important job, and thus should get paid more, you end up with a company that looks very much like capitalism.

In capitalism an "owner" can fire an employee at-will, but in communism, workers could agree to trust the judgement of a worker who is trained in management skills to make such decisions. The factory would still need to have some recourse for dealing with a worker who is not pulling his weight; or perhaps even hindering production.

I realize that part of the issue here is that I'm coming from a capitalist mindset (having been the only thing I've known my whole life) and trying to map its concepts onto similar concepts in communism, which is probably the wrong way to go about it. But I'm just not clear on how communism doesn't end up functioning the same as capitalism except with different terms. Instead of "manager" you have "worker whose skillset is managing people". Instead of "owner" you have "worker whose skillset is providing direction and resources for the other workers".

[Cassius Clay]

Well the way capitalist society determines the "importance" of a job is already based on flawed "meritocracy"....and it's really just a glorification of hierarchy. Like I don't believe a "manager" automatically deserves a higher salary...which is the standard in our society.

DA can speak to this better than I....but I imagine every decision would be democratic, so workers (who are part owners) won't be as easily replaceable/exploitable. Problem-solving would have to be more collaborative rather than dictatorial. Which I understand takes some imagination when you've been indoctrinated in capitalism. We're so conditioned to workers being "managed" with threats that we can't visualize anything else. Think about the underlying power dynamics...they are fundamentally different. We should think of managers more like people who work for/with you (kinda like an actor's manager)...rather than some authority figure with power to take away your livelihood.

[Gendo]

So it seems like it's largely a difference in mindset of all employees, both laborers and management. There's nothing in capitalism that prevents laborers from being paid as much or more as managers; other than laborers' willingness (or feeling forced) to work for less pay.

And of course, I've been using "manager" here, but I really meant that as a stand-in for a job that involves more mental energy and less physical energy.

It just seems like what is needed to switch from one to the other isn't as much a restructuring in organization; but a re-thinking about the idea of "skilled labor" as a whole. A capitalist company in a capitalist society is perfectly free to decide that they find physical labor equally important and deserving of equal pay to owners and managers. They just don't think that way.

Perhaps what's unclear is what it would mean for "society" or "government" to be one vs the other. I view the USA as a capitalist society purely because that's how most companies choose to run themselves. Any group of people within the USA are perfectly free to combine together to start their own company in which they are all seen as full equals; it seems that this would be a communist company, as it is being described. And from what I understand, a lot of start-ups are run that way.

Thanks for all the explanations.

[Derived Absurdity]

The primary focus of a socialist workplace is not about the differences in importance between managers and physical laborers or mindset or salaries or how easy it would be fire to someone. Those are all relevant but not fundamental. The fundamental difference between a capitalist organization of the workplace and a communist one is the existence of surplus value. I already explained this in this thread, but under capitalism workers are forced to produce more than they get. They create value for the company they work at, all of which gets automatically funneled to the private owners, who then take it upon themselves to decide how much of that value will be given back to them in the form of wages/salaries. It's always less than the sum of what the worker created, because if it wasn't the company wouldn't make a profit. Workers are never fully compensated for the value they create. Some companies exploit their workers a lot, some exploit them a bit less, but no capitalist company is non-exploitative. A socialist workplace would eliminate the means of exploitation by eliminating private ownership over what the workers create. That's just the first step. Of course there would be problems of how to manage and organize everything after that, which they'll have to deal with. But a socialist workplace could also have hierarchies and managers and differences in "salary" and so on if that was what everyone agreed to. The difference is that no one would be exploited.

The fact that capitalist modes of production are extremely authoritarian even without the exploitation is also a problem, but the two issues need to be separated. A workplace can be authoritarian without necessarily being exploitative; it just so happens that capitalism is both. A socialist workplace would aim to be both non-exploitative and relatively egalitarian where democratic decision-making is at least considered a value. It would be a collective workplace owned directly by the workers, where every single one would have at least some say on how their labor is organized. There would be no surplus extraction: every person would directly receive the product of his or her labor. You would work to make yourself rich, not someone else, as the value you create would go to you directly, not second-hand through a private owner. Everyone would participate in the decision-making process, hence there would be no person or small group of people unilaterally making decisions that would affect everyone else (like layoffs and closures and so on). It doesn't mean everyone is exactly equal at everything in all respects. Just that everyone is afforded some basic dignity and democratic rights.

[Gendo]

I guess where I get tripped up is that goals of capitalism sound like the same thing; it's just doing it in such a way that leads to exploitation of workers. That is; capitalism also says that each person gets the value of the thing they produce; but then it greatly misjudges that value by saying that a CEO brings thousands of times more value to the company than a manual laborer.

The problem is that unless each person is doing all jobs individually (one person gathers materials, creates the thing from those materials, and sells the thing he created to someone who needs it), then there will exist uncertainties about who provided how much value to the operation as a whole... did the guy who crafted the thing that was sold provide more or less than the guy who went out and sold the thing? I feel like I understand the theory, but I don't see how that theory is put into practice without ending up like something that looks just like capitalism except with different labels... that is, no one would be called "the owner", but someone would still be making far more money than most other people, because his value would be deemed (whether correctly or not) to be worth that much.

[Derived Absurdity]

The point is that capitalism doesn't give each person the value of what they produce. It says it does, but it doesn't.

[Anakin McFly]

@DA - Thanks for that explanation! The misinformation didn't come directly from my friend, but rather that I (maybe she as well) assumed Romania was an example of what a communist country would look like, since it considered itself communist by name. Likewise from friends in China and school history lessons of what went on with the communist revolution there, which did not end well.

@Gendo - I'm reminded of my church's organisational structure, which is very flat with minimal hierarchy. There's a church council and board directly elected by the congregation, and they are the ones who decide on things like which pastors to hire and how much to pay them. When it comes to votes they also require full unanimity, not just a majority, and if there's disagreement they thus have to find a compromise that everyone can agree on before moving forward. There's a lot more mutual accountability. So that's different from churches where the head pastor wields a disproportionate amount of power and risks making the church into a personality cult while raking in millions, or intimidating people into silence over various abuses, and that's how many church scandals come about.

I imagine the same could be applied to a company, where while there may be foremen and other leaders, they are still very much part in tune with the rest of the workers rather than someone sitting in a metaphorical ivory tower with the power to decide who goes and who stays. So it would be more collaborative, and the value of each person's work agreed upon by the group. It's like if a bunch of friends are stranded on a desert island and have to work to survive - because they care about each other, they'll try to make things fair for everyone; there's no longer that competition. So perhaps that need for care is crucial to getting communism to work.

I also really like the idea of a gift economy, but that doesn't seem practical on a national scale. I've participated in that in various online communities, where people do things for each other for free out of their own goodwill without expecting anything in return, but often have that same goodwill returned to them.

[Gendo]

The point is that capitalism doesn't give each person the value of what they produce. It says it does, but it doesn't.

Agreed on that. I guess I'm seeing the biggest difference in being how much value is placed on each person's labor... which is a difference in degrees rather than in actual structure.

[Cassius Clay]

But in a capitalist system, you are incentivized to be as exploitative as you can get away with. You literally have people(investors) sitting on their asses taking massive amounts of "value" from people breaking their backs. And the workers can't do anything about it because they don't own production/capital. The fact that one person is allowed to gatekeep production, so that everyone else is dependent on them, allows them to suck economic value out from society over time. Capitalism is an immoral system and we need to move away from it. I honestly don't even care if other systems don't work...we have to try. Maybe you can build a flourishing economy with capitalism, but you can do the same with slave labor...that's how the country got rich in the first place. But as long as a few have all the means of production, they will exploit the economy...and inequality will become so extreme that the system collapses. It's heading in one direction....all regulations have only slowed down the inevitable.

@DA Don't you need an authoritarian structure to be able to be exploitative?

[Derived Absurdity]

Yeah. That's why I mentioned that you can have authoritarian structures without them necessarily being exploitative, at least in the technical sense (worker coops can technically be authoritarian if structured that way even without surplus extraction), but not the other way around.

[OpiateOfTheMasses]

It's great in theory and I can see it working in small work places, but it relies on a large amount of goodwill from the participants.

In a large organisation though (e.g. many thousands of people working at multiple sites - potentially very remote from each other) you certainly couldn't expect everyone to always agree on everything so you will end up with the situation of some people imposing their will on others for "the greater good".

And that can cause issue.

And again, if it's a small organisation with half a dozen people doing broadly similar roles deciding how to split the earnings is probably reasonably straightforward. But in the larger organisation where skills, efforts, local costs of living and other factors may not be so apparent deciding what an appropriate split of the earnings is becomes less apparent and getting a universal buy-in will become harder. Or even impossible.

And then there's the question of the longer term strategy for the business? When you have a surplus you can obviously take that money out and share it with people or you can re-invest it in the business to improve it (e.g. buy new machinery, develop new products, whatever) - who makes those decisions? Collective negotiation is not renowned for it's long term thinking.

As I say - it's great in theory and if you want to set up a small workshop I'm sure it'd work fine. But if you want to run a petrochemical business it's not going to fly. The devil's in the details.

[Derived Absurdity]

Apparently the Mondragon Corporation just doesn't exist. Or CHCA. Or the REWE Group. Or Mwalimu Sacco. Or Publix. Or Migros, Switzerland's largest retailer. Or thousands of other cooperative workplaces employing thousands of people. It's amusing to read people argue against the theoretical possibility of things that have existed for almost a hundred years.

And then there's the question of the longer term strategy for the business? When you have a surplus you can obviously take that money out and share it with people or you can re-invest it in the business to improve it (e.g. buy new machinery, develop new products, whatever) - who makes those decisions? Collective negotiation is not renowned for it's long term thinking.

Yeah, it's not like most democracies have voters elect representatives to carry out their will or anything. That's how we've always done it here in America, the people have always just collectively negotiated everything. Every time we want to pass a new tax policy everyone in the entire country just gathers together and hashes it out with each other until we agree on something. A company where elected representatives make the important decisions instead of mass unaccountable collective debate is just COMPLETELY UNTHINKABLE. It's either totalitarianism or mob rule. There are no other conceivable options!

[OpiateOfTheMasses]

I said it can work, but it relies on a large amount of goodwill from all the participants. And looking at the examples you list - they generally started from scratch like that, so the people joining them are signing up to it from Day One and know exactly what they're getting into to.

So if this is the dream you're wanting on the world then rather than calling for the existing order to be over-thrown and replaced with these in some overnight coup - shouldn't you be campaigning for more of these business to start up and challenge the established order?

Yeah, it's not like most democracies have voters elect representatives to carry out their will or anything. That's how we've always done it here in America, the people have always just collectively negotiated everything. Every time we want to pass a new tax policy everyone in the entire country just gathers together and hashes it out with each other until we agree on something. A company where elected representatives make the important decisions instead of mass unaccountable collective debate is just COMPLETELY UNTHINKABLE. It's either totalitarianism or mob rule. There are no other conceivable options!

Haha! Thanks for making my point! Governments are terrible at making long term plans and making difficult decisions. How often do you see a government going to the public and saying "we would like to spend you tax money on a project that will benefit the country in 20 years! But you get to pay for it now!"? Or telling the public that they need to take some pain now to avoid taking even more pain in the future (Climate Change anyone?)? No. People generally vote for whomever promises to make things better now! and they don't think long term which is why politicians don't plan long term and why national debts keep rising....

[Derived Absurdity]

So if this is the dream you're wanting on the world then rather than calling for the existing order to be over-thrown and replaced with these in some overnight coup - shouldn't you be campaigning for more of these business to start up and challenge the established order?

Yeah. Which is why that's literally exactly what I said I supported in this thread. Reply number 10. It's right there.

Haha! Thanks for making my point! Governments are terrible at making long term plans and making difficult decisions. How often do you see a government going to the public and saying "we would like to spend you tax money on a project that will benefit the country in 20 years! But you get to pay for it now!"?

Seems like universal healthcare polls pretty good. And lowering higher ed costs. And rebuilding our infrastructure. Pretty sure the average American is at least vaguely aware that they're gonna have to raise taxes to pay for those. Yet they still support them. Pretty sure most people would support raising taxes for a long-term investment if the government actually convinced them it would be worth it. Pretty ironic to me that you're using these to bash democracy and saying the short-sightedness of the public is why we don't do stuff like them when the actual reason we don't do stuff like them is because the democratic public will is ignored.

Or telling the public that they need to take some pain now to avoid taking even more pain in the future (Climate Change anyone?)? No.

Most people say they think climate change is worth taking seriously. They don't listen to people telling they need to take some pain to avoid climate change because most of the people who say that fly around on jets and hang out on yachts all the time. They might intuitively understand that the real problem exacerbating climate change isn't the middle and lower classes driving too much but the oligarchy sucking up all the resources on the planet and destroying it in the pursuit of profit. Climate change is entirely an oligarchy problem, despite its propaganda telling us that it's our problem. And again, it's ironic that you're using it as a cudgel against the efficiency of democracy when climate change is happening precisely because the oligarchy responsible for causing it is completely unaccountable to democracy and the representatives and politicians who could curtail it are completely bought by it.

But yeah, you're right, people are basically goldfish and they're too stupid to think ahead and they never choose to sacrifice for long-term benefits, which is why Social Security and retirement pensions are incredibly unpopular, why no one ever buys health or car insurance, why no one ever goes to college to get a high-paying job, and why you never ever see people save money for any reason. It's completely unrealistic to think that anyone working at a worker co-op would ever choose to make temporary sacrifices for the long-term health of a company they're emotionally and financially directly invested in and that their financial livelihood depends on and where they spend almost half of their waking life. That's a pretty compelling argument.

[OpiateOfTheMasses]

I could be wrong, but I think I might be picking up a hint of sarcasm in some of that post... but regardless I will continue.

Yes - some people do plan for the future. But from my experience/observations many do not. I don't know how it works in America but here in the UK, the government only fairly recently changed the law to essentially force people to contribute to pension funds because so many people weren't doing it themselves and have advertising campaigns still going trying to explain to people why paying into a pension fund is a good idea. So whilst you can glibly say "pension funds are unpopular" in a sarcastic tone - it would appear that in many instances they are.

And your premise that staff will be emotionally invested in their place of work is a big assumption. From my years of managing young, low skilled workers they aren't interested in the work, the company or anything else that's going on there. All they want is a pay cheque so they can go out that weekend. So whilst this model might work in certain environments with more mature or more skilled employees it's not going to work in every industry. If I gave my old 100 seat call centre any sort of say of how it ran they would unanimously vote for whatever resulted in them having to do less work, get more pay or at the very least let them spend more time on social media sites.

[Derived Absurdity]

And your premise that staff will be emotionally invested in their place of work is a big assumption. From my years of managing young, low skilled workers they aren't interested in the work, the company or anything else that's going on there. All they want is a pay cheque so they can go out that weekend.

Yeah. That's literally the point. Christ. Under capitalism workers are alienated from their labor. They have no rational reason to be emotionally invested in it. They're not privy to the value they create. They have no say in how their labor is organized, or the workplace decisions that affect them. They're completely psychologically disconnected from it. The benefit of a coop is that worker alienation will be eliminated. They'll get the value of what they make, they'll have more direct control over how their labor is organized, they'll be able to participate and have influence over the large-scale direction of their workplace. Of course this means they'll be more emotionally invested in it.

[phe_de]

Apparently the Mondragon Corporation just doesn't exist. Or CHCA. Or the REWE Group. Or Mwalimu Sacco. Or Publix. Or Migros, Switzerland's largest retailer. Or thousands of other cooperative workplaces employing thousands of people. It's amusing to read people argue against the theoretical possibility of things that have existed for almost a hundred years.

So?
These cooperations exist; but they are still profit-oriented and are still competing economically with other corporations that are not cooperations.
The fact that cooperatives exist does not negate capitalism.

[Gendo]

Ok now I'm more confused after having another conversation with someone else about this. They pointed out the Google-definition of Communism:

“a political theory derived from Karl Marx, advocating class war and leading to a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs."

This sounds like the opposite of what you guys have been saying. Are you saying Google is flat-out wrong here?

[Derived Absurdity]

Apparently the Mondragon Corporation just doesn't exist. Or CHCA. Or the REWE Group. Or Mwalimu Sacco. Or Publix. Or Migros, Switzerland's largest retailer. Or thousands of other cooperative workplaces employing thousands of people. It's amusing to read people argue against the theoretical possibility of things that have existed for almost a hundred years.

So?
These cooperations exist; but they are still profit-oriented and are still competing economically with other corporations that are not cooperations.
The fact that cooperatives exist does not negate capitalism.

I never fucking said they did you stupid piece of shit. What the hell is wrong with you? I had better reading comprehension when I was nine years old than you do at middle age.

[Derived Absurdity]

Ok now I'm more confused after having another conversation with someone else about this. They pointed out the Google-definition of Communism:

“a political theory derived from Karl Marx, advocating class war and leading to a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs."

This sounds like the opposite of what you guys have been saying. Are you saying Google is flat-out wrong here?

How is that the opposite of what I'm saying? I'm wanting privately owned workplaces to be collectively owned. A society of coops is just a midway stage from capitalism to full communism.

[Gendo]

Google (and most sources I'm finding) is saying that in communism the means of production are owned by the state, and given out to the workers... basically like capitalism except with the state being the boss instead of some rich asshole.

But you said "everything owned by the state is the exact opposite of what we want", and that workers would not get paid a particular salary, but instead would simply get all the profit from what they earned. These things are the exact opposite of what I'm finding now.

Maybe the issue is the phrase "publicly owned" here. I'm seeing most people interpret "publicly owned" as "owned by the state, or all citizens collectively". While you perhaps are saying that publicly owned means owned by each individual worker?

[phe_de]

A bottom-up transformation of society (workers establishing local control over the means of production) in an environment of abundant resources (such as America) has a much greater chance of working than a top-down transformation of society in an environment of scarce resources, which is why I support that idea to establish socialism in the twenty first century.

Maybe it would, but the corporations owned by the workers would still have to compete with other corporations in a market economy. And the corporations would also have the goal of maximizing profits for their own corporations. In other words, the workers would become the capitalists, which would make a statement like "Capitalists don't earn shit. They steal the value workers labor to create" absurd.

You were fluent in three languages when you were 9 years old? That's impressive. Out of curiosity: What are your second and third language?

[Derived Absurdity]

Google (and most sources I'm finding) is saying that in communism the means of production are owned by the state, and given out to the workers... basically like capitalism except with the state being the boss instead of some rich asshole.

But you said "everything owned by the state is the exact opposite of what we want", and that workers would not get paid a particular salary, but instead would simply get all the profit from what they earned. These things are the exact opposite of what I'm finding now.

Maybe the issue is the phrase "publicly owned" here. I'm seeing most people interpret "publicly owned" as "owned by the state, or all citizens collectively". While you perhaps are saying that publicly owned means owned by each individual worker?

Ok, I was misled by the phrase "publicly owned". Communism since its inception as a political philosophy has always meant a stateless society. No state, no money, no classes. There has been a hundred-years propaganda effort on the part of the ruling class to convince the proletariat that communism means everything controlled by the state instead of worker liberation, when you'd be extremely hard-pressed to find even one self-described communist in history who desired or aimed for that. Noam Chomsky has written about this - over the twentieth century both the United States and the Soviet Union propagandized the idea that socialism meant state control over all industry, albeit for entirely different reasons, and that's the idea most people are stuck with today. But that was never the original idea; at best, state control over industry was seen as a transition period from private control over industry to common control over industry. Taking over the state was seen as the only way to get from A to B. The Bolsheviks took over the state; the next step was to grant control of industry to the proletariat, but they never did that last part and the rest is history.

[Gendo]

Thanks, that makes sense. I'll never be able to convince the other people I was talking to of this though.

So it seems a lot like most other “isms", where they're loaded terms that mean different things to different people; especially between those in the movement and those outside. Like how a feminism will say that feminism means women should have equal rights as men; while others say that feminism means that all sex is rape and all men are evil.

One final question... from everything I'm reading here; is it accurate to say that a society (or government) as a whole is not necessarily communist or capitalist; but rather that any given organization can choose how to run themselves? You normally hear about “communist countries" vs “capitalist countries", but it sounds here like any country could be made up of different companies doing each (and plenty doing something in between I'm sure).

[phe_de]

One final question... from everything I'm reading here; is it accurate to say that a society (or government) as a whole is not necessarily communist or capitalist; but rather that any given organization can choose how to run themselves? You normally hear about “communist countries" vs “capitalist countries", but it sounds here like any country could be made up of different companies doing each (and plenty doing something in between I'm sure).

I'd say that the key is the economy the country, or set of countries works on. We have market economy, and planned economy.

Capitalism relies on market economy, and assumes that people, when buying and selling, will try to get the best deal for themselves.
Communism means: The means of production are owned by those who produce. The problem I see is: Who decides how much is produced? So I believe that communism relies on planned economy.

Most countries or economic unions have something in between. Whether a country is a "communist country" or "capitalist country" is a matter of degree.
If we had unregulated market economy, then we'd have no regulation as for working conditions or ecological standards.
All planned economies in the COMECON have failed.
The best solution, in my opinion, is regulated market economy. In Germany it's called "Soziale Marktwirtschaft" (social market economy). I believe that an ideal would be social-ecological market economy.
Which tools are used for it is up to the governments. Taxes, minimum income levels, workplace security standards...

But this is vague.
I believe nobody doubts that the USA are a capitalist country. But what about China? Is their economy planned? Do they have market economy within China? I don't know. They call themselves "Popular Republic"; yet I doubt they are "communist".

[Cassius Clay]

Laws/courts enforce the system. The type of private property/ownership laws we in the US facilate capitalist exploitation of workers. You don't have to be capitalist...but our society/laws funnel everything in that direction.

And when you think about how much influence the rich have on our laws, you start to get a better sense of the type of pickle we're in. We're fucked.

Edit: Which is also why the idea that voting is meaningless is one of the stupidest ideas to ever see the light of day among leftists/libs/young people. The deck is already stacked against us...the ruling class have so much collective influence on the government...and it's somehow a good idea to completey concede the little bit of influence you might have on the government. Voting isn't everything, but can we at least try to prevent literal Nazis from completely taking the government? Fucking hell.

Why do you think the GOP tries so hard to undermine people's (particularly black people) ability to vote?

[Derived Absurdity]

In this election we get a choice between Nazis and CIA spooks. I love this country.