How would private businesses be run under communism?

[Jacob Cliff]

How would, say, a McDonald's be run under communism? Or a liquor store? Small businesses? Would the diversity of fast food (like Burger King, Wendy's, McD's, etc.) still exist, but are socially owned? How would management work as well?

[Creative Destruction]

there would be no private businesses in communism...

[Redistribute the Rep]

Well things wouldn't be made for profit and instead will be designed for maximum utility. Restaurants with servers will probably be replaced by centralized buffet style cafeterias where you serve yourself, for example.

[Creative Destruction]

Well things wouldn't be made for profit and instead will be designed for maximum utility. Restaurants with servers will probably be replaced by centralized buffet style cafeterias where you serve yourself, for example.

or dinner clubs where there would be published lists of who wants to cook for a bunch of people that night. like a socialist yelp.

or something like that.

eta. 1000th post!

[G4b3n]

The notion that material goods need a "brand" is a phenomena unique to capitalist commodity production. What practical function does calling your chicken nuggets "Mcnuggets" serve? There is none, other than attempting to concentrate as much profit directed toward that brand as possible. In a communist society, the idea is just nonsensical because it is irrelevant to both the human desire to labor and the needs of humans to consume.

Also, small business will go the way of big business, it will be abolished and become unnecessary to a socialist mode of production/

[Loony Le Fist]

Well things wouldn't be made for profit and instead will be designed for maximum utility. Restaurants with servers will probably be replaced by centralized buffet style cafeterias where you serve yourself, for example.

That sounds like a great idea, actually.

[Sentinel]

I do think there will be restaurants with waiters for the foreseeable future, the difference will be that noone will be forced to sell their labour power and work as one to provide for themselves. While such no doubt will also exist, only having 'centralised self service buffets' sounds way too institutional to be enjoyable.

I don't in general think service jobs should or can be abolished, but they will certainly be very different in character after capitalism and private property are abolished.

[consuming negativity]

how are bk/wendys/mcdonalds supposed to be a "variety"?

no, every burger joint will not be the same. even mcdonalds within the company will vary from place to place as far as quality of the food goes and they are intentionally trying to create the same product. and if you leave the country or whatever, they do change their menus to suit the customers, but again, it's still the same company making the same food.

so yeah i think we can do better than that.

i imagine that regional differences will end up creating a lot of different/interesting menus depending on where you're at. even now there are definitely different styles of foods in restaurants as you travel around; louisiana barbeque is not the same thing as north carolina barbeque, for example. why would any of those things stop existing because of a change in the mode of production? if anything, more time and desire to experiment, along with less fast food standardization bullshit, would lead us to a lot more variety.

[Blake's Baby]

So; what is Macdonald's?

On the one hand, it's a global fast food company - that would cease to exist.

On the other hand, it's a place in your town or neighbourhood where people go to eat hamburgers. There is a possibility that that might still exist. People will still need to eat after all. But I suspect, as communer suggests, that local preferences will make their way into the 'cuisine' (I use the term loosely) on offer, as the restaurant is now run by the community not some global corporation.

Though my guess is a lot of them will just close, there'll be better places to run community restaurants.

[jullia]

i hope restaurant like macdonald will just be close under communist state. Not only all the liberal value represent by this firm.
But also because it's unealthy food.

[motion denied]

and down here it's fairly expensive.

[Lord Testicles]

I do think there will be restaurants with waiters for the foreseeable future, the difference will be that noone will be forced to sell their labour power and work as one to provide for themselves. While such no doubt will also exist, only having 'centralised self service buffets' sounds way too institutional to be enjoyable.

I don't in general think service jobs should or can be abolished, but they will certainly be very different in character after capitalism and private property are abolished.

While I don't think all service jobs will disappear, how do you imagine that waiters would still be a thing? People can order and retrieve their food on their own in most cases.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

I know waiters who genuinely enjoy the job, what about that possibility? In homage to catalonia, orwell talks about waiters still performing the job but refusing tips, and presumably the social relationship that comes with tipping.

[Rudolf]

While I don't think all service jobs will disappear, how do you imagine that waiters would still be a thing? People can order and retrieve their food on their own in most cases.


I'd imagine it'd be limited to certain celebrations. It'd be a bit rude asking an 80 year old who's spent their life helping others to get their own birthday cake.

[socialistlawyer]

You might be surprised to know that socialist managers are one of the best managers. Look or read how mining socialist enterprises were managed successfully in the Soviet Union. Wages are also high and not dependent on the amount of minerals they extract unlike what they do in capitalist countries. In return, socialist workers or miners tend to be inspired and log in more hours because of the job security and health benefits that they acquire. Long live Joseph Stalin!

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Yes I'm sure the extra hours were inspired by high wages and charismatic managers not political commissars or the ever present threat of a vacation to your local re-edcucation through labor camp. There are neither wages nor managers in communism, the experience of workers in socialist states should be regarded as a historical warning rather than something to be admired.

[socialistlawyer]

With due respect comrade, if the political commissars like Stalin can tirelessly work on their desk jobs which entails more consumed energy and stress, I believe that ideology had something to do with hard work and patience. To further present evidence, I am presenting myself as a model. I tirelessly work for the communist movement, inspired by Marxist teachings, 10-12 hours a day, 7 days a week. Thrive on burnout!

[Creative Destruction]

I know waiters who genuinely enjoy the job, what about that possibility? In homage to catalonia, orwell talks about waiters still performing the job but refusing tips, and presumably the social relationship that comes with tipping.

There could be a mixed automation/labor situation. I do not know very many people who enjoy waiting on others (my wife had a waiting job, so just by proxy I knew quite a few.) I know quite a few people who love bartending, but not waiting in a restaurant, even fancy ones with good tips. Most consider it a transient job that they just have to do in order to get by or get through school. In a social situation where people would be freed to actually labor doing the things they want to do, I'd imagine a huge drop in participation in that field.

I know people think the "robots!" answer is lazy, but, I mean, there are already restaurants that have little to no waitstaff and run everything on tracks and through computer systems.

[Creative Destruction]

You might be surprised to know that socialist managers are one of the best managers. Look or read how mining socialist enterprises were managed successfully in the Soviet Union. Wages are also high and not dependent on the amount of minerals they extract unlike what they do in capitalist countries. In return, socialist workers or miners tend to be inspired and log in more hours because of the job security and health benefits that they acquire. Long live Joseph Stalin!

what the fuck?

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Oh for sure I doubt many people would continue to do it, I didn't mean to imply that. But the possibility exists because I do know people who actually enjoy it. I guess I'm bothered by this vision of communism where we are all just eating from one long troth in the middle of some beige pre-fab building or something. People will express their creative energy in any number of ways. The idea that 8 or 10 people would get together and put up something akin to a 'traditional' restaurant in their community doesn't seem crazy to me.

[socialistlawyer]

When the price of your wages are determined by the demand on the products the workers are manufacturing which also happen to be very very low on demand, I'd rather prefer a centralized economy where all demands are fully satisfied. Read Soviet history. Were there even isolated cases of death by famine among party appartchiks or even those who do not subscribe. Long live the democratic centralism.

[Redistribute the Rep]

Drones can bring the food to our houses for those of us who are too lazy to cook and too asocial to go out.

[Red Star Rising]

I don't in general think service jobs should or can be abolished, but they will certainly be very different in character after capitalism and private property are abolished.

Surely service jobs would be much more prevalent due to the automisation of mist production, right?

[Redistribute the Rep]

Surely service jobs would be much more prevalent due to the automisation of mist production, right?

Well, jobs would only be based on need or want, so I imagine there would be less service jobs since most of us can just do that stuff ourselves.

[Rudolf]

Surely service jobs would be much more prevalent due to the automisation of mist production, right?


I don't think that's necessarily the case. The current trend towards automation in manufacturing is intimately linked with developments within capitalism. It's possible a communist society may have extensive amounts of manufacturing labour but the conditions and the use of productive technology fundamentally different.

[teflsecretagent]

Oh for sure I doubt many people would continue to do it, I didn't mean to imply that. But the possibility exists because I do know people who actually enjoy it. I guess I'm bothered by this vision of communism where we are all just eating from one long troth in the middle of some beige pre-fab building or something. People will express their creative energy in any number of ways. The idea that 8 or 10 people would get together and put up something akin to a 'traditional' restaurant in their community doesn't seem crazy to me.
Completely agree here. Such restaurants will exist but we can forget the capitalist elements like the crappy branding and what not.

I would rather think that their frequency would decrease reflecting on the fact that probably very few people would want to do it out of passion and the fact that we would have the time to do it ourselves or in smaller groupings.

That said, considering the standardisation involved and the fact that the way current fast food restaurants are generally organised similar to factories. Is there not anyway that a generic, multiple location fast food outlet could exist under full communism?

[JamesG]

The notion that material goods need a "brand" is a phenomena unique to capitalist commodity production. What practical function does calling your chicken nuggets "Mcnuggets" serve? There is none, other than attempting to concentrate as much profit directed toward that brand as possible. In a communist society, the idea is just nonsensical because it is irrelevant to both the human desire to labor and the needs of humans to consume.

Also, small business will go the way of big business, it will be abolished and become unnecessary to a socialist mode of production/
In the long term, any form of branding would be unnecessary, but I do believe it is too much of a change to go from things being branded heavily to being completely unbranded. it is this sort of thinking that has helped the establishment to propagate the idea that once communism is installed the sky turns red and everything looks grey.

[contracycle]

One thing that I don't see mentioned is that people do still need a way to justify their own consumption, what they personally use from the common store. So if a person wants to serve others in this manner, waiting on tables or any other, and if others citizens feel that this is a valuable enough service to be validated by their patronage, it's a perfectly good way for an individual to make themselves a useful and productive member of society.

[Blake's Baby]

Well I think the general point is reasonable enough - even if food-consumption is more like a school cafeteria, there might still be some equivalent of 'lunch lady'-type staff serving the food as part of their contribution to helping the community (and I hope to monkeys not their only contribution). But I doubt there'll be a Claridges Tearoom with people in maids' outfits.

[hiac]

Running small business - I think we should our imagination and our knowledge of past.

Small business meets local demand. We can think about café, restaurants, artisan shop like watchmaker and so on.

Historically, there were small shops in e.g. Poland, but they were sometimes part of Union for example, selling press was conducted in "Ruch" shops, which were part of national union of press distributors. Other small businesses were private, run by private persons, e.g. watchmakers, jewellers and so on.

Imaginative, in my opinion and as I imagine communism, in communism there will be no small business. Every part of social life, of productive life will be run in cooperatives, where everyone who works there is committed to his/her job.

Example, restaurant cooperative - we know how many people need to work to run restaurant. Some will choose to be cook, some - waiters, some will work as cook in this week and waiter in other week, some will manage. As a cooperative, they will democratically choose their leaders. If someone do not want to be a waiter, she/he can swap to be a cook. Politeness and good food is a part of this profession.

But what if food is bad, and waiters rude? It was a problem in communist Poland, where sometimes/always (I grew up in 90s) staff was rude because they could, as they say, "what do you do to me, nothing you can do"

[contracycle]

I've done customer-facing work, and it grinds you down. Almost all your problems come from the people you serve, and you start to resent them, even despise them. So you get a bit rude, and you start to do the bare minimum, and you don't volunteer information, or go out of your way to be helpful.

This, I think, is the reason that so many people have bad experiences with customer service. In my opinion, people should probably only do this sort of work in rotation, something like, six months on six months off. Obviously capitalism isn't likely to implement that sort of thing, but a workers co-op certainly could.

[Hit The North]

The very concept of a "business" will not exist in communist society. Instead, a post-scarcity society will be one where work is transformed into play and business-plans are replaced with spontaneous acts of creative interaction.

The routinisation of roles and the narrowness of specialisms which are demanded by a society where labour is a commodity and where economic activity must be regulated to ensure profitability will have been abolished.

Human creativity and sociability will replace the profit motive as the guiding force of human relationships.


In the long term, any form of branding would be unnecessary, but I do believe it is too much of a change to go from things being branded heavily to being completely unbranded. it is this sort of thinking that has helped the establishment to propagate the idea that once communism is installed the sky turns red and everything looks grey.

But a brand is merely a way of distinguishing something generic from another thing which is practically identical and, in the process, adding symbolic value to the product: Levi jeans, ffs. It is the consumer-friendly logo which masks the underlying relations of exploitation. It is a marketing strategy which has no reason to exist in a world without capitalist markets. Sure, if I decide to express my creativity by distributing my unique blend of spices, I might want to distinguish it as mine and designing the packaging might be part of the creative process. But this is not what a brand is.

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