Significant Social Change Through Community-Owned Businesses

[Major K.]

I was watching a video where Chomsky was talking about unaccountable corporate tyrannies being the primary exploitative/oppressive force in modern capitalist societies at a friends house, and it got me thinking about how businesses can be reshaped according to a communist model.

I connected this line of thought with the fact that there already are successful small-scale models of community-owned businesses out there, like food co-ops and the like.

This got me wondering whether an internal, non-violent transformation of the nature of corporations could be a powerful aspect of a (non-state) socialist revolution.

I've brainstormed up a few possible ways of doing this:

1) Participate in business and encourage a new wave of business values, wherein decision making power is dramatically less hierarchical (a 100% non-hierarchical power structure seems impractical and unnecessarily tedious. Community plays fundamental role in policy, not necessarily in practice).

2) Incentivize businesses to follow a communal model through community support of communal businesses and rejection of hierarchical businesses. This can also be achieved by the community pooling money together to offer money to businesses who are run by the community and having a % tax on any business organized hierarchically.

3) Encourage discussion and respect for businesses who follow a communal model, and don't advocate their universal destruction (businessmen will likely still have a place in a minimally exploitative society, and at the very least, their allegiance will be very important in building up such a revolution of economic influence).

This last point brings us to the apparent problem of transnational corporations. They seem to be inherently not local and thus seem the least accountable. This is in some ways true, but the nature of their lack of accountability leaves them susceptible to a determined undermining of the capitalist ideology.

We must consider the earth as these corporation's local communities, and thus their model is to be transformed to serve every community they have a presence in, at least to the degree that they have stakeholders in those communities. This is not necessarily to be made into law, but can be incentivized through the very thing that makes capitalism seem like such an out of control train: the profit motive. I'm thinking this could be done in a way I talk about in point #2 above.

And as local, community oriented businesses gain influence on a global scale, the transnational organizations will be forced into the fold. No, forced isn't the right word. They will come running to enter this new communal economy.

Capitalists aren't inherently bad people -- they are simply opportunists and try and make the best with what they have. Give them the option to win respect and support their communities and families, all without threatening their profit-margins, and I think they would gladly take it.

Of course, there will be some corporations that resist this new communal model, recognizing its threat to capital hegemony. These can be dealt with through another strategy, similar to the first.

Undermine their workforce by PAYING the workers to strike, and to make production inefficient for them unless they come in the fold. Only need to do this in a few key factories for the others to start falling in line with the threat of their labor force being bought to rebel from right under them.

The tools of influence are in place for any to utilize. I very much like the idea of guiding the essential forces of capitalism to the defeat of themselves.

This means...

-a non-violent revolution
-a win-win situation for both the bourgeoisie and the proletariat (People would rather see one another thrive than starve. The bourgeoisie largely feels powerless too).
-the dominant ideology, conveyed through economic interests, becomes socialist.
-The power system already in place can be used to create a global society where the workers participate directly in the decisions of the company, and the company better represents the will of its community.

What values are to be emphasized in corps then?

Well-being of members and the creation of a superior product. The main goal is not profit, though there probably needs to be enough for it not to go under (especially early on, as the dominant market ideologies remain brutally capitalistic), but the main goal is the well-being of the company's local community and the active creation of a product people can be reasonably proud of together.

-Major K.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I was watching a video where Chomsky was talking about unaccountable corporate tyrannies being the primary exploitative/oppressive force in modern capitalist societies at a friends house, and it got me thinking about how businesses can be reshaped according to a communist model.

The short answer is that they can't. Communism, or socialism, means the abolition of private property, the abolition of wage labour, and the abolition of commodity production. That means that, in socialism, goods and services are not produced to be sold on the market, but according to a scientific plan to satisfy human need. There is no communist business. Communists are opposed to private property in general, and that includes "community" business and co-ops as well as transnational corporations. Any sort of private property is forced to maximise its rate of profit or be ejected from the market, no matter what the ideas of the founders were. You say capitalists aren't bad people. I have no idea - rather, the point is that they act as they do, not because of any inherent personal characteristic but because of the manner in which present society organises itself to produce the necessities of human life. Capitalism creates capitalists.

Chomsky, to be honest, is one of those "radicals" who advocates voting for the Democrats and an "anti-capitalism" that is simply an opposition to large business corporations. But the point of socialism is not to populistically oppose more efficient capitalist business from the perspective of social forms (localism, small business, self-sufficiency) that have been overcome decades if not centuries ago, the point is to go beyond capitalism, to take the objective socialisation of the means of production, modern large-scale industrial production and the global circulation of goods, and to use them to create a society where human need rather than the market dictates what is produced.

[Major K.]

Hi Xhar-Xhar,

Thanks for your reply!

The core of my idea here is not to accommodate businesses and the market into socialism, but to use market forces to aid in the reduction and eventual destruction of capitalism.

I think the disconnect we're having boils down to a matter of definition. Businesses play a role of economic organization in modern societies, and are fundamentally a form of communication. The models of organization and group communication in a socialist world would be similar in appearance and play similar roles -- only the goals would be radically different.

And I think an intelligent socialist revolution would use the social infrastructure in place, so they can minimize the reconstruction process to avoid annoying everyone and giving momentum to a counter-revolution.

Community owned businesses seem to be a potential revolutionizing force. I think they are currently not more radical because they are in a market economy dominated by for-profit businesses, so they are not the ones setting the core rules. I hypothesize that if they become the dominant model for businesses (which may be able to be achieved through tax manipulation), business reforms could achieve all of the goals of socialism you listed:

-abolition of private property
-abolotion of wage labour
-abolition of commodity production

They would dismantle themselves as businesses, but many of these institutions could still stand, transformed into models of a socialist power system.

Honestly, I see no more efficient way of moving past capitalism than directing the forces that comprise it towards its own destruction.

Maybe you could explain to me then (this is the learning section after all) from where we stand now and not in an idealized world, what are the most powerful, efficient, and least harmful (to individuals) strategies of instigating a socialist revolution? What's the plan?

Major K.

P.S. Organizing is not a plan, as such an activity can only be valid in the context of a larger, contextual goal. It is a means, not an end. The same holds true for propagating ideas. The goal is not spreading ideas, it is social change. This post attempts to approach the "how" in actualizing social change from a pragmatic perspective on the level of the present socio-economic infrastructure.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Hi Xhar-Xhar,

Thanks for your reply!

The core of my idea here is not to accommodate businesses and the market into socialism, but to use market forces to aid in the reduction and eventual destruction of capitalism.

First of all, what does it mean to "reduce" capitalism? Capitalism is an all-or-nothing affair: as long as the private ownership of the means of production coexists with generalised commodity production, generalised wage labour and the law of value, capitalism exists. It does not exists in degrees; a region of the world can no more be a little bit capitalist than a person can be a little bit dead. Once you're dead you're dead. Likewise if capitalism exists it exists.


I think the disconnect we're having boils down to a matter of definition. Businesses play a role of economic organization in modern societies, and are fundamentally a form of communication.

That is not what businesses are, however, as the term is generally used. A business is an entity that produces commodities for sale on a market. How the various parts of a business communicate is secondary. A sole proprietorship, a co-operative, a "traditional" large business corporation like Yoyodyne, a cartel - all of these are businesses.


The models of organization and group communication in a socialist world would be similar in appearance and play similar roles -- only the goals would be radically different.

I don't think that's true. The firm is an organisational structure suited for conditions where numerous proprietors compete on the market, with resources being allocated ex post according to monetary calculations. In socialism, the means of production are held in common and are used according to a scientific plan to fulfill human need. This is incompatible with the means of production being divided among many mutually competing entities with the prerogative to use, abuse and alienate them as they see fit.

In the present society, things like aluminum smelting are done by various mutually competing groups. One company owns three plants here, another owns two plants there and two plants somewhere else, and so on, and all these compete on the market. In the socialist society, the production of aluminum will be planned to satisfy human need. Rather than many competing firms, the entire human society will be analogous to one gigantic syndicate.


And I think an intelligent socialist revolution would use the social infrastructure in place, so they can minimize the reconstruction process to avoid annoying everyone and giving momentum to a counter-revolution.

The thing is, markets and businesses operating on the market have their own logic. Their development depends, not on what their owners or their executives believe in, but by the law of value and the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. As such you can't use markets to peacefully institute socialism. What would that even entail? In your proposal, it means that money flows to certain kinds of capital - but how does that take us beyond capital? There has to be a rupture - I would say this is the central point of Marxist analysis. Society doesn't develop smoothly and gradually, it reaches certain historically stable states that are then destroyed in short periods of revolutionary change.


Community owned businesses seem to be a potential revolutionizing force. I think they are currently not more radical because they are in a market economy dominated by for-profit businesses, so they are not the ones setting the core rules. I hypothesize that if they become the dominant model for businesses (which may be able to be achieved through tax manipulation), business reforms could achieve all of the goals of socialism you listed:

-abolition of private property
-abolotion of wage labour
-abolition of commodity production

I don't think so. How would business reform end private property, for example? As long as groups of individuals have exclusive use of certain portions of the means of production, as well as the prerogative to abuse and alienate them, private property exists. It has to exist for business reform to even work.


Maybe you could explain to me then (this is the learning section after all) from where we stand now and not in an idealized world, what are the most powerful, efficient, and least harmful (to individuals) strategies of instigating a socialist revolution? What's the plan?

Major K.

P.S. Organizing is not a plan, as such an activity can only be valid in the context of a larger, contextual goal. It is a means, not an end. The same holds true for propagating ideas. The goal is not spreading ideas, it is social change. This post attempts to approach the "how" in actualizing social change from a pragmatic perspective on the level of the present socio-economic infrastructure.

I think people who answer "organising" are afraid of the real answer, to be honest. And the answer is - there is really only one way for capitalism to be overthrown. The proletariat must seize state power. The bourgeois state must be smashed. That is the only answer. There is no magical formula that will allow us to create the conditions of mass unrest that opens the question of revolution, and revolutions are made by classes, not by socialists, but unless the proletariat becomes the ruling class nothing can be done about capitalism.

Once the proletariat has secured its state power it can start to dismantle class society by nationalisation, by rationing, the elimination of "third persons" (petite bourgeoisie and those engaged in subsistence or patriarchal production), generally by replacing the law of value as the determinant of how resources are allocated by the law of planning.

[Major K.]

First of all, what does it mean to "reduce" capitalism? Capitalism is an all-or-nothing affair: as long as the private ownership of the means of production coexists with generalised commodity production, generalised wage labour and the law of value, capitalism exists. It does not exists in degrees; a region of the world can no more be a little bit capitalist than a person can be a little bit dead. Once you're dead you're dead. Likewise if capitalism exists it exists.


By reduction I mean the elimination of aspects of it, most notably, restructuring the ideology underlying the profit motive to viewing profit as communally relative. Profit is what is good for one's "local" community. This then could leads to decentralization of power, and the willing handing over of a businesses social infrastructure to the local community, which then acts as pockets of syndaclists within a larger capitalist framework, spreading like cancer (maybe not the best metaphor... ;))



I don't think that's true. The firm is an organisational structure suited for conditions where numerous proprietors compete on the market, with resources being allocated ex post according to monetary calculations. In socialism, the means of production are held in common and are used according to a scientific plan to fulfill human need. This is incompatible with the means of production being divided among many mutually competing entities with the prerogative to use, abuse and alienate them as they see fit.

I agree with you about inter-discipilinary competition having harmful effects, but that inter-competition also does help maintain a basic standard of quality. In a syndaclist system, I foresee competition just moving one level up. The means of production will still be divided because not all people are homogenous, some people are more skillful than others in certain areas, and natural resources are not divided equally or universally abundant. Over time, power aggregates unless there are checks and balances against that in place. And that usually just slows down this economic heartbeat of civilization.



In the present society, things like aluminum smelting are done by various mutually competing groups. One company owns three plants here, another owns two plants there and two plants somewhere else, and so on, and all these compete on the market. In the socialist society, the production of aluminum will be planned to satisfy human need. Rather than many competing firms, the entire human society will be analogous to one gigantic syndicate.

It doesn't sound like you're taking into account the inevitable corruption and manipulation for personal gain that takes place where power aggregates. For example, imagine the oil syndaclists withholding oil from certain areas unless that area, say, promises to practice Sharia law. How is one absolute syndicate not fundamentally heirarchical?



The thing is, markets and businesses operating on the market have their own logic. Their development depends, not on what their owners or their executives believe in, but by the law of value and the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. As such you can't use markets to peacefully institute socialism. What would that even entail? In your proposal, it means that money flows to certain kinds of capital - but how does that take us beyond capital? There has to be a rupture - I would say this is the central point of Marxist analysis. Society doesn't develop smoothly and gradually, it reaches certain historically stable states that are then destroyed in short periods of revolutionary change.

When I talk about using markets to institute socialism, I'm imagining communities paying capitalists that turn over their business to a socialist model of organization enough to survive in their capitalist world, while de-incentivizing businesses that don't through the profit motive. Government supported collectives, funded by heavy taxation of for-profits, while offering support to all for-profits that are willing to transform.




I don't think so. How would business reform end private property, for example? As long as groups of individuals have exclusive use of certain portions of the means of production, as well as the prerogative to abuse and alienate them, private property exists. It has to exist for business reform to even work.

How will business reform end private property? The method I just mentioned. You rig the system so the best way for a capitalist to aggregate capital is to let their company go communal.




I think people who answer "organising" are afraid of the real answer, to be honest. And the answer is - there is really only one way for capitalism to be overthrown. The proletariat must seize state power. The bourgeois state must be smashed. That is the only answer. There is no magical formula that will allow us to create the conditions of mass unrest that opens the question of revolution, and revolutions are made by classes, not by socialists, but unless the proletariat becomes the ruling class nothing can be done about capitalism.

Once the proletariat has secured its state power it can start to dismantle class society by nationalisation, by rationing, the elimination of "third persons" (petite bourgeoisie and those engaged in subsistence or patriarchal production), generally by replacing the law of value as the determinant of how resources are allocated by the law of planning.


A proletariat revolution as the only option is kind of depressing. Any time even a spark of anarchism or communism emerges in the world, it seems to be attacked on all sides by a foe that's hugely more powerful.

I want to be optimistic here, but a proletarian revolution on a global scale (to the degree that it becomes the dominant form of political organization) seems as likely as being able to melt Antarctica by trying to start a fire in a blizzard.

And if it's historical conditions that need to change (in this metaphor, we could call it global warming), I fear civilization has a long time to wait still then. What options does a person have now to help speed up the process though?

Major K.

[Major K.]

First of all, what does it mean to "reduce" capitalism? Capitalism is an all-or-nothing affair: as long as the private ownership of the means of production coexists with generalised commodity production, generalised wage labour and the law of value, capitalism exists. It does not exists in degrees; a region of the world can no more be a little bit capitalist than a person can be a little bit dead. Once you're dead you're dead. Likewise if capitalism exists it exists.


By reduction I mean the elimination of aspects of it, most notably, restructuring the ideology underlying the profit motive to viewing profit as communally relative. Profit is what is good for one's "local" community. This then could leads to decentralization of power, and the willing handing over of a businesses social infrastructure to the local community, which then acts as pockets of syndaclists within a larger capitalist framework, spreading like cancer (maybe not the best metaphor... ;))



I don't think that's true. The firm is an organisational structure suited for conditions where numerous proprietors compete on the market, with resources being allocated ex post according to monetary calculations. In socialism, the means of production are held in common and are used according to a scientific plan to fulfill human need. This is incompatible with the means of production being divided among many mutually competing entities with the prerogative to use, abuse and alienate them as they see fit.

I agree with you about inter-discipilinary competition having harmful effects, but that inter-competition also does help maintain a basic standard of quality. In a syndaclist system, I foresee competition just moving one level up. The means of production will still be divided because not all people are homogenous, some people are more skillful than others in certain areas, and natural resources are not divided equally or universally abundant. Over time, power aggregates unless there are checks and balances against that in place. And that usually just slows down this economic heartbeat of civilization.



In the present society, things like aluminum smelting are done by various mutually competing groups. One company owns three plants here, another owns two plants there and two plants somewhere else, and so on, and all these compete on the market. In the socialist society, the production of aluminum will be planned to satisfy human need. Rather than many competing firms, the entire human society will be analogous to one gigantic syndicate.

It doesn't sound like you're taking into account the inevitable corruption and manipulation for personal gain that takes place where power aggregates. For example, imagine the oil syndaclists withholding oil from certain areas unless that area, say, promises to practice Sharia law. How is one absolute syndicate not fundamentally heirarchical?



The thing is, markets and businesses operating on the market have their own logic. Their development depends, not on what their owners or their executives believe in, but by the law of value and the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. As such you can't use markets to peacefully institute socialism. What would that even entail? In your proposal, it means that money flows to certain kinds of capital - but how does that take us beyond capital? There has to be a rupture - I would say this is the central point of Marxist analysis. Society doesn't develop smoothly and gradually, it reaches certain historically stable states that are then destroyed in short periods of revolutionary change.

When I talk about using markets to institute socialism, I'm imagining communities paying capitalists that turn over their business to a socialist model of organization enough to survive in their capitalist world, while de-incentivizing businesses that don't through the profit motive. Government supported collectives, funded by heavy taxation of for-profits, while offering support to all for-profits that are willing to transform.




I don't think so. How would business reform end private property, for example? As long as groups of individuals have exclusive use of certain portions of the means of production, as well as the prerogative to abuse and alienate them, private property exists. It has to exist for business reform to even work.

How will business reform end private property? The method I just mentioned. You rig the system so the best way for a capitalist to aggregate capital is to let their company go communal.




I think people who answer "organising" are afraid of the real answer, to be honest. And the answer is - there is really only one way for capitalism to be overthrown. The proletariat must seize state power. The bourgeois state must be smashed. That is the only answer. There is no magical formula that will allow us to create the conditions of mass unrest that opens the question of revolution, and revolutions are made by classes, not by socialists, but unless the proletariat becomes the ruling class nothing can be done about capitalism.

Once the proletariat has secured its state power it can start to dismantle class society by nationalisation, by rationing, the elimination of "third persons" (petite bourgeoisie and those engaged in subsistence or patriarchal production), generally by replacing the law of value as the determinant of how resources are allocated by the law of planning.


A proletariat revolution as the only option is kind of depressing. Any time even a spark of anarchism or communism emerges in the world, it seems to be attacked on all sides by a foe that's hugely more powerful.

I want to be optimistic here, but a proletarian revolution on a global scale (to the degree that it becomes the dominant form of political organization) seems as likely as being able to melt Antarctica by trying to start a fire in a blizzard.

And if it's historical conditions that need to change (in this metaphor, we could call it global warming), I fear civilization has a long time to wait still then. What options does a person have now to help speed up the process though?

Major K.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

By reduction I mean the elimination of aspects of it, most notably, restructuring the ideology underlying the profit motive to viewing profit as communally relative. Profit is what is good for one's "local" community. This then could leads to decentralization of power, and the willing handing over of a businesses social infrastructure to the local community, which then acts as pockets of syndaclists within a larger capitalist framework, spreading like cancer (maybe not the best metaphor... ;))

And this is the crux of our disagreement: we view the drive to maximise profits as a real mechanism of the capitalist market, not as something that is reducible to the ideological convictions of the owners of the firm in question. It doesn't matter if the owners of the firm view their profits as good for themselves, for "their" community (and to be honest I don't think it makes sense to talk about "communities" and each individual belonging to one well-defined community, except in pre-industrial societies - and the breakdown of the community is part of the progressive legacy of capitalism), for their deity, whatever, or if they correctly view it as necessary for the M-C-M' cycle, if their rate of profit falls significantly below the average for that branch of industry investments will dry up and the firm will be pushed off the market.


I agree with you about inter-discipilinary competition having harmful effects, but that inter-competition also does help maintain a basic standard of quality.

Or so liberals like to claim. In reality, the bourgeoisie demonstrably doesn't care about the quality of their products; the quality is irrelevant to the market, what is relevant is the ability to make a profit on the commodity. So we have light bulbs that die every so often, cars that explode, console exclusives and so on. The invisible hand is not there to finger you but to pick your pocket.

Now, obviously the socialist society would be concerned about the quality of the products it produces, as the people who make the decisions about production and the people who consume the final products will be the same. But then, we will not sit on our hands and wait for some blind process to magically produce quality - we will consciously organise to enforce quality standards, with inspectorates, technical committees and so on.


In a syndaclist system, I foresee competition just moving one level up. The means of production will still be divided because not all people are homogenous, some people are more skillful than others in certain areas, and natural resources are not divided equally or universally abundant. Over time, power aggregates unless there are checks and balances against that in place. And that usually just slows down this economic heartbeat of civilization.

I don't understand the claim here, to be honest. It doesn't matter where the means of production are. In modern conditions of global circulation of goods and large-scale industrial production, the employment of all of the means of production must be planned together, or there can be no planning at all.


It doesn't sound like you're taking into account the inevitable corruption and manipulation for personal gain that takes place where power aggregates. For example, imagine the oil syndaclists withholding oil from certain areas unless that area, say, promises to practice Sharia law. How is one absolute syndicate not fundamentally heirarchical?

We don't "take that into account" as we don't hold that power is some sort of transhistorical corrupting influence. The way in which human society organises to produce the necessities of human life precedes any sort of power; therefore power changes as the mode of production changes. In socialism, the public power is purely technical. In the words of Engels, it is concerned, not with government over men, but with the administration of things and the direction of the processes of production. Will there be hierarchy? Of course, the commission formed to determine safe levels of uranium in coloured glass will be subordinate to the main committee for the production of glass and so on. Will this power be centralised? Yes, it has to be centralised as it has to encompass the entire globe. But it will only pertain to the production processes. Outside the factories, the law is the law of the abbey of Thelema.

The scenarios you outline are not really possible in socialism. For one thing there is no oil syndicate separate from the rest of society. Rather, the entire society is one colossal syndicate, one cartel, a single machine geared to production for human need. There can be no Sharia law in socialism, either, as there is no law, period, no government over men, and no family. And it is impossible to manipulate the administrative processes for personal gain when every product of society is freely available to all of its members.


When I talk about using markets to institute socialism, I'm imagining communities paying capitalists that turn over their business to a socialist model of organization enough to survive in their capitalist world, while de-incentivizing businesses that don't through the profit motive. Government supported collectives, funded by heavy taxation of for-profits, while offering support to all for-profits that are willing to transform.

But that's the point: there is no socialist model of organisation that can coexist with the capitalist market. If socialism in one country is nonsense, and it is, then socialism in one firm is nonsense on stilts.


How will business reform end private property? The method I just mentioned. You rig the system so the best way for a capitalist to aggregate capital is to let their company go communal.

But then we're not talking about the same kind of "private property". Private property to us means that an individual or group of individuals - which can also mean the bourgeois state - has exclusive control, including the right to use, abuse and alienation, of some portion of the means of production, in the context of generalised commodity production. All of this is true of "communal" businesses. Private property has not been abolished but redistributed. But our perspective is to abolish private property altogether.


A proletariat revolution as the only option is kind of depressing. Any time even a spark of anarchism or communism emerges in the world, it seems to be attacked on all sides by a foe that's hugely more powerful.

I want to be optimistic here, but a proletarian revolution on a global scale (to the degree that it becomes the dominant form of political organization) seems as likely as being able to melt Antarctica by trying to start a fire in a blizzard.

And if it's historical conditions that need to change (in this metaphor, we could call it global warming), I fear civilization has a long time to wait still then. What options does a person have now to help speed up the process though?

A lot of things are depressing. I find the fact that I am going to die one day depressing. The bathroom scale has also been saying some pretty depressing things lately. That doesn't mean that these things aren't true. As for what one individual can do to "speed up the process", well, nothing. History is made by classes, not by individuals.

[tuwix]

-a win-win situation for both the bourgeoisie and the proletariat

It's just impossible.