FBXL Social

@Hyolobrika The members of a cooperative are capitalists, in the sense they are a group of private individuals who own the means of production! There are many possible forms of capitalism, defined as private ownership of the means of production (and even more possible forms of a mixed economy).

@Hyolobrika@social.fbxl.net @interfluidity@zirk.us
Cooperatives are worker owned so they can exist under socialism. I'd be in favor of turning all companies into coops instead of state ownership. Not a big fan of any centralized government.

@Hyolobrika If you define capitalism on the basis of emergence of a class of passive income recipients, people who earn without labor, then a system with only syndicalist cooperatives would not conform. There are challenging questions about how such a system would work in practice, but I’d sure love to see more experimentation.

@Hyolobrika@social.fbxl.net @interfluidity@zirk.us
Well they can also exist under capitalism but if all companies are coops then that's effectively socialism yk what I mean.

@interfluidity @Hyolobrika They may be capitalists, but i think the shared ownership between people that have a direct connection to what is produced does make a difference.
If you look at it from the connection to the product perspective, a cooperative is more directly connected than a socialist state owned factory, or rather the people deciding stuff for that factory. Worst case, an uncaring state could easily perform just as bad as a single private owner.

Seems the underlying question is "where do we put power?", and that makes clear why there is little experimentation. Nobody gives up power voluntarily.

@dushman @Hyolobrika It’s not effectively socialism, bc some cooperatives might be extraordinarily successful, earn very high per worker profits, others might yield quite meager incomes, nothing would ensure full employment by some cooperative, guarantee education, housing, medicine, or retirement income. It’d be an interesting economic form, perhaps much better than contemporary capitalism, but still distinct from what most people are after from socialism.

@admitsWrongIfProven @Hyolobrika I’m not saying ubiquitous cooperative ownership wouldn’t be meaningfully different or couldn’t be much better than contemporary forms of capitalism. It might! I’m just saying it’s also a form quite distinct from what most people mean by and want from socialism.

@interfluidity @Hyolobrika Hmm, but combinations could exist, if you separate details of how stuff is done from planning.
It's not necessary to have socialism, it could be planned what boundary conditions have to be met (limiting environmental harm, limiting resource usage by how sought after the product is) in a democracy. This would still play with cooperative ownership.
If one wants socialism, since socialism is not one definitive thing set in stone, similar adjustments could be made. But i'd rather retain a vote...

@admitsWrongIfProven @Hyolobrika I think in practice almost all desirable economic forms will be mixed economies. The details of what gets mixed will very important! Cooperative worker ownership vs passive absentee ownership might be an important dimension within the sphere of privately held firms. I very much agree that we want a democratic state, where we all have a vote, setting the ground rules under which economic units whatever their form must operate.

@Hyolobrika@social.fbxl.net @interfluidity@zirk.us
Yeah it's more or less what I mean. I want worker ownership of the means of production but without central state planning of the economy.

@Hyolobrika @dushman It’s not typically what “socialism” is defined as. Socialism is typically defined as a system in which the means of production are collectively or state owned. The collective is a much broader category than “workers” in any society. 1/

@Hyolobrika @dushman Typically ~50% of humans do not work, because they are children, informal carers, retired, or disabled. I think, under contemporary states, we’d all object to a system that restricted the franchise only to those formally employed. 2/

@Hyolobrika “Syndicalism” is the closest word I know to this system that you and @dushman are describing. /fin

@Hyolobrika p.s. @dushman is your name taken from the Romanian duşman?

@Hyolobrika@social.fbxl.net @interfluidity@zirk.us
Yeah it is a reference to a character in the stalker series. It's pretty great. The Anomaly mod is probably the most approachable, standalone so you don't need to own any of the og games. Runs on wine btw.
https://www.moddb.com/mods/stalker-anomaly

@interfluidity@zirk.us @Hyolobrika@social.fbxl.net
Well what you call it is just semantics. Something like that would be my ideal anyhow.

@Hyolobrika@social.fbxl.net @interfluidity@zirk.us
Can't wait for S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2 to come out

@dushman @Hyolobrika @interfluidity Hmm, what happened were mainly dictatorships, with the authoritarian nature filling in the void that merely having cooperative ownership leaves all around.

Anarchy in the "most people decide to work together of their own accord, using soft pressure on uncooperative ones to dampen their mischief" sounds cool, but i doubt humanity can achieve it as a one-step thing.

So i guess a state as a facilitator (aggregating open overarching questions like how much economy vs. ecological preservation, providing an infrastructure for mass decision making) would be nice, but still not achievable as demonstrated by people voting for autoritarians. Can't have freedom if most don't want it.

Even the vestigial democracy is hollowed out by lobbyism.

So the question i see unanswered is with what to replace the right of the strongest with until humans can reach adulthood?