Co-ops and other enterprises....

[RadioRaheem84]

Just finished a good lecture by a Marxian economist who asserted that the entrepreneurs of silicon valley, the kids working in their basements and sharing the profits, being their own board of directors, etc. are more of an example of a 'communist' enterprise than the state apparatus of the USSR.
Then there was the example of the engineering firm in Michael Moore's new film.

Could this model work for other industries? Where would people get the capital?

Anyone else care to elaborate the idea of co-ops and how this is a viable alternative to capitalism?

[RED DAVE]

Just finished a good lecture by a Marxian economist who asserted that the entrepreneurs of silicon valley, the kids working in their basements and sharing the profits, being their own board of directors, etc. are more of an example of a 'communist' enterprise than the state apparatus of the USSR.Some "Marxian economist[s]" need to study their Marx.


Then there was the example of the engineering firm in Michael Moore's new film.Sigh. Love Moore, but this wasn't the strongest point in "Capitalism: A Love Story." Moore used this firm, which is apparently worker-owned and controlled, as an argument for socialism.


Could this model work for other industries? Where would people get the capital?

Anyone else care to elaborate the idea of co-ops and how this is a viable alternative to capitalism?Co-ops are not a viable alternative to capitalism under capitalism. If someone needs a lesson that workers are capable of running industries, sure they're an example. But, as I stated above, it's not a major point.

RED DAVE

[RadioRaheem84]

Some "Marxian economist[s]" need to study their Marx.

Sigh. Love Moore, but this wasn't the strongest point in "Capitalism: A Love Story." Moore used this firm, which is apparently worker-owned and controlled, as an argument for socialism.

Co-ops are not a viable alternative to capitalism under capitalism. If someone needs a lesson that workers are capable of running industries, sure they're an example. But, as I stated above, it's not a major point.

RED DAVE

Thanks for the reply. What makes his assertion not Marxist?

What makes the co-op in Moore's film not an example of a democratically run enterprise?

Why are co-ops not viable alternatives under a capitalist system?

[What Would Durruti Do?]

Personally I think we're going to start seeing a lot more cooperatives and worker controlled businesses as a result of globalization which will probably foreshadow any true workers revolutions anywhere. occupying enterprises and resisting the state's intervention is a good way to militarize workers. We should definitely be supporting the cooperative movement. It may not destroy capitalism, but it's definitely exercising workers resistance.

True socialism comes from the bottom up. This is what Chavez and other "socialist" countries should be advocating.

[Niccolò Rossi]

Just finished a good lecture by a Marxian economist who asserted that the entrepreneurs of silicon valley, the kids working in their basements and sharing the profits, being their own board of directors, etc. are more of an example of a 'communist' enterprise than the state apparatus of the USSR.

I assume you are referring to a talk by Wolff. I have seen it. It actualy wasn't a bad talk before near the end when he got onto this stuff. All I can say is what an idiot.


Anyone else care to elaborate the idea of co-ops and how this is a viable alternative to capitalism?

They aren't. Workers' co-operatives are capitalist enterprises no different from any other except in their forms of management, namely that the exploitation takes the form of self-exploitation. The wage-labour relation continues to exist and commodities are produced in accordance with the anarchy of the market.

[Niccolò Rossi]

Co-ops are not a viable alternative to capitalism under capitalism.

How can we even conceive of co-ops outside of capitalism i.e. in a communist society?


occupying enterprises and resisting the state's intervention is a good way to militarize workers.

Historically it has also been an potent weapon of the bourgeoisie against the working class.


True socialism comes from the bottom up. This is what Chavez and other "socialist" countries should be advocating.

Advocating socialism from the bottom, from the top?

[What Would Durruti Do?]

They aren't. Workers' co-operatives are capitalist enterprises no different from any other except in their forms of management, namely that the exploitation takes the form of self-exploitation.

They can't be a good contemporary alternative achievable before the glorious world wide revolution that overthrows capitalism? Militarizing workers seems enough reason to support it to me.


Advocating socialism from the bottom, from the top?

Well obviously that's not going to happen anyway. Although I think Chavez likes to claim he is.

[Niccolò Rossi]

They can't be a good contemporary alternative achievable before the glorious world wide revolution that overthrows capitalism?

I'm not sure what this even means. Co-ops are not an 'alternative' to capitalism at all. Are they 'good'? What does 'good' mean. Communists don't speak in vague and moralistic terms such as 'good' and 'bad'.

Also, I think the hint of sarcasm you drop here is indicative of the sort of argument your making. The general attitude seems to be, even if your not doing anything, atleast appear to be. However, 'something' is not always better than 'nothing'.


Militarizing workers seems enough reason to support it to me.

The world wars did a good job of that aswell.

The question is not whether workers are 'militarized' (mobilised?), but for what class interestes they are mobilised in defense of.


Well obviously that's not going to happen anyway. Although I think Chavez likes to claim he is.

This is because Chavez is a very successful leftist populist. My problem is when self-described anarchists start advocating this sort of stuff.

[Jimmie Higgins]

These examples are good for propaganda - i.e. in showing how workers could run things themselves and make decisions and work together in a democratic way.

But co-ops and other worker-collectives are still subject to the larger contradictions and problems of the capitalist system.

When the recession hits a co-op then everyone gets to decide how to cut-back (which is obviously better than leaving it up to managers and CEOs from a worker's perspective) but they still have to slit their own throats not in the interest of the needs of the working class, but for the ebbs of the capitalist business cycle.

[Revy]

Here's a great article (http://libcom.org/library/co-operatives-all-together) debunking the "socialist" nature of worker co-operatives under capitalism.

As described in one of the comments, cooperatives often use a top-down form of managerial bureaucracy (would that be called coordinatorism?)

[Die Neue Zeit]

Besides that article and your remark on "coordinatorism," I would like to add two things:

1) The first thing is that Kwisatz said it's possible for co-ops in the capitalist mode of production to hire the labour of outside workers or even outside co-ops. It's not just market forces at work in the usual consumer goods and services, but also in the still-existent labour market.

2) "Cooperativism" is actually another narrow economistic movement because it fails to address the questions of state politics altogether (this isn't even broad economism). The only way for cooperativists to address state politics and to prop up co-ops without relying on worker spontaneity is to adopt Lassalle's slogan for "producer cooperatives with [capitalist] state aid" (http://www.revleft.com/vb/pre-cooperative-worker-t88629/index.html) (a measure which should be rehabilitated at least partially by Marxists).

[RadioRaheem84]

Here's a great article (http://www.anonym.to/?http://libcom.org/library/co-operatives-all-together) debunking the "socialist" nature of worker co-operatives under capitalism.

As described in one of the comments, cooperatives often use a top-down form of managerial bureaucracy (would that be called coordinatorism?)

This is what I was waiting for. Thanks.

I wonder why a Marxian economist like Richard Wolf would say that a co-op like the ones in Silicon Valley are examples of communist enterprises.

[RadioRaheem84]

Now is the critique for these co-ops the same critique you would apply to the worker co-ops in Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War? OR is this a totally different strain of a workers co-op?

[What Would Durruti Do?]

I'm not sure what this even means. Co-ops are not an 'alternative' to capitalism at all. Are they 'good'? What does 'good' mean. Communists don't speak in vague and moralistic terms such as 'good' and 'bad'.

Also, I think the hint of sarcasm you drop here is indicative of the sort of argument your making. The general attitude seems to be, even if your not doing anything, atleast appear to be. However, 'something' is not always better than 'nothing'.

I didn't say anything about it being an alternative to capitalism, but surely working for yourself and your fellow workers is to be preferred over lining the pockets of a fat bourgeoisie?

Whether you have problems with the words "good" or "bad" or not, I think being able to work by occupying a factory that you have been kicked out of and operating it yourself for your own interests rather than the former owner's interests is always a "good" thing. Maybe if you don't like that term, "better" is a good (damnit) way of putting it since it's obviously superior to the alternative.

I guess I just don't follow how doing nothing, and not working, and begging for charity from capitalists is a preferred strategy to taking matters into your own hands.


The question is not whether workers are 'militarized' (mobilised?), but for what class interestes they are mobilised in defense of.

I really hope you aren't insinuating that workers taking property away from capitalists and resisting the state's intervention/protection of said property is somehow defending the class interests of the bourgeois rather than their own.

It's pretty much the exact opposite. And while it won't bring down capitalism, as Gravedigger said it at least provides good propaganda for the working class.



This is because Chavez is a very successful leftist populist. My problem is when self-described anarchists start advocating this sort of stuff.I wasn't aware that anarchists were supposed to be against direct action and worker control...

[RadioRaheem84]

So the basic critique is that these co-ops, while their intentions are good, just cannot handle the stress of a capitalist society and either fail or succumb to market forces?

[Die Neue Zeit]

You forgot my second point above. :(

[RadioRaheem84]

Thanks man! You're always on top of things. I like that!

[Die Neue Zeit]

Indeed, Lassalle's slogan is a policy in place in Venezuela right now. :)

[Dave B]

Karl Marx post on co-operatives

Capital Vol. III Part V
Division of Profit into Interest and Profit of Enterprise. Interest-Bearing Capital
Chapter 27. The Role of Credit in Capitalist Production






The co-operative factories of the labourers themselves represent within the old form the first sprouts of the new, although they naturally reproduce, and must reproduce, everywhere in their actual organisation all the shortcomings of the prevailing system. But the antithesis between capital and labour is overcome within them, if at first only by way of making the associated labourers into their own capitalist, i.e., by enabling them to use the means of production for the employment of their own labour. They show how a new mode of production naturally grows out of an old one, when the development of the material forces of production and of the corresponding forms of social production have reached a particular stage.

Without the factory system arising out of the capitalist mode of production there could have been no co-operative factories. Nor could these have developed without the credit system arising out of the same mode of production. The credit system is not only the principal basis for the gradual transformation of capitalist private enterprises into capitalist stock companies, but equally offers the means for the gradual extension of co-operative enterprises on a more or less national scale.

The capitalist stock companies, as much as the co-operative factories, should be considered as transitional forms from the capitalist mode of production to the associated one, with the only distinction that the antagonism is resolved negatively in the one and positively in the other.


http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch27.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch27.htm)


I think the idea or speculation that he is making in the later part that the credit system allows for the extension of co-operative enterprises; is that workers might be able to set up co-operatives on or with borrowed capital or money.

There still would be surplus value but that would go to the money lenders or interest bearing capitalists.

The advantages of this system would be that the workers would be more and more in control of the actual production process. The same allegedly with joint stock companies as a tendency for all the production processes to be carried out by salaried employees and thus workers.

And the actual capitalists become merely receivers of dividends etc.

It needs to be born in mind I think that at the time of writing many capitalists took a very active and direct hands on role in the production process.

(It ignores to some extent the flip side of his own capitalist profit of enterprise stuff.)

Engels put a similar kind of argument in Anti duhring;


Anti-Dühring by Frederick Engels 1877, Part III: Socialism, Theoretical




If the crises demonstrate the incapacity of the bourgeoisie for managing any longer modern productive forces, the transformation of the great establishments for production and distribution into joint-stock companies and state property shows how unnecessary the bourgeoisie are for that purpose. All the social functions of the capitalist are now performed by salaried employees.

The capitalist has no further social function than that of pocketing dividends, tearing off coupons, and gambling on the Stock Exchange, where the different capitalists despoil one another of their capital. At first the capitalist mode of production forces out the workers. Now it forces out the capitalists, and reduces them, just as it reduced the workers, to the ranks of the surplus population, although not immediately into those of the industrial reserve army.


But the transformation, either into joint-stock companies, or into state ownership, does not do away with the capitalistic nature of the productive forces. In the joint-stock companies this is obvious. And the modern state, again, is only the organisation that bourgeois society takes on in order to support the general external conditions of the capitalist mode of production against the encroachments as well of the workers as of individual capitalists.

The modern state, no matter what its form, is essentially a capitalist machine, the state of the capitalists, the ideal personification of the total national capital. The more it proceeds to the taking over of productive forces, the more does it actually become the national capitalist, the more citizens does it exploit.

The workers remain wage-workers — proletarians. The capitalist relation is not done away with. It is rather brought to a head. But, brought to a head, it topples over. State ownership of the productive forces is not the solution of the conflict, but concealed within it are the technical conditions that form the elements of that solution.


http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/ch24.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/ch24.htm)

[Niccolò Rossi]

I guess I just don't follow how doing nothing, and not working, and begging for charity from capitalists is a preferred strategy to taking matters into your own hands.

I never said this, nor I do not advocate such.


I think being able to work by occupying a factory that you have been kicked out of and operating it yourself for your own interests rather than the former owner's interests is always a "good" thing.

[...]

I really hope you aren't insinuating that workers taking property away from capitalists and resisting the state's intervention/protection of said property is somehow defending the class interests of the bourgeois rather than their own.

My intent is not to insinuate it at all. I mean to state it clearly.

I think there is an important distinction which you have completely glossed over in your response, namely the difference between a workplace (factory) occupation and the self-management of production in the form of a co-operative.

Are workplace occupations an important tool in the arsenal of the working class in the class struggle? Most certainly. Do I give my solidarity, including where possible material support, to workers occupying their workplace as a means of struggle? Most certainly. Does this mean I support the formation of workers' co-operatives? Most certainly not.

Workplace occupations can be an vital tactic for workers in struggle. However when this is turned into schemes of 'self-management', occupations can become a deadly trap for workers where instead of seeking to spread the struggle, workers are trapped inside managing their own exploitation.


I wasn't aware that anarchists were supposed to be against direct action and worker control...

Maybe you misunderstand me. Despite the fact that you are a self-described anarchist, what you really advocate is socialism from below, from above'. See: "True socialism comes from the bottom up. This is what Chavez and other "socialist" countries should be advocating."

[Niccolò Rossi]

I wonder why a Marxian economist like Richard Wolf would say that a co-op like the ones in Silicon Valley are examples of communist enterprises.

Because he is an acedemic, petit-bourgeois political hack.


Now is the critique for these co-ops the same critique you would apply to the worker co-ops in Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War?

Yes, I would argue that it is.

[RadioRaheem84]

Because he is an acedemic, petit-bourgeois political hack.

Is he usually like this for most of his lectures? I mean this remark could've been one mistake.


Yes, I would argue that it is.

Hmm...that makes Chomsky wrong too.

[Niccolò Rossi]

Is he usually like this for most of his lectures? I mean this remark could've been one mistake.

I've seen some of his other lectures. I haven't read any of his books beginning to end, however.

Of course, being politically bankrupt doesn't make everything you say necessarily wrong or worthless.


Hmm...that makes Chomsky wrong too.

If this is his argument, I would disagree, however, it necessarily makes him wrong.

Also, what I said of Wolff, counts for Chomsky aswell. In my opinion he's not much more than a liberal.