i am not a socialist for starting a business?

[lostsoul]

Hi, long time no post :-)

i just wanted some opinions. I love socialism and teach it to everyone i meet. But lately I realized, to achieve our goals we need funding. So I quit my job at IBM and started my own business. So far I have taken like 60% of my profits and donated it to an oraphage for the blind in india(I have family in india that goes there and uses the money and buys blankets and things they need), the rest of the money goes either into making the business bigger, or bonuses to the other people working with me(about 8).

But lately, I am thinking, these blind children are being abandoned by their poor families because either the family can't afford to take care of them, or they don't see profit or benfits in their child. That makes me think, that i'm not really helping the situation i'm only creating a bandaid situation(or making it acceptable for people to do).

My question is, I am wrong to start a business?(no matter what my intentions or jusification) If money is the root of all evils, am i creating more evil unknowly? And do you think money can help give socialist an edge?



sorry if this question is dumb, its late and i'm tried :-)

:blink:

[Zingu]

Well, you can't really live outside of the system sadly....well, I'm tired too, its late, I'll post more later.

[JazzRemington]

Not if you operate it under socialist traditions.

[guerillablack]

Originally posted by [email protected] 7 2005, 06:19 AM
Well, you can't really live outside of the system sadly....well, I'm tired too, its late, I'll post more later.
Is that truely true?

[Sukhe-Bator]

Latifundia perdidere Italiam. Small businesses, like small farms, are not the problem; the small business owner who treats his workers well is a benefit to the community. The small bourgeois usually does work. He lives in the community, so his income is taxed and used for welfare programs, and often (especially in your case) gives money to the poor.

It is the large capitalists, the large landowners, who are the problem; their impersonal businesses treat working people as a commodity and steal from the community rather than benefit it. The large capitalist lives in a gated community and his tax money goes to good schools for rich children in that closed community; he exits himself from the welfare state and contributes to the immiseration of the proletariat.

Friedrich Engels was a factory owner, although unlike most of his class, he provided good conditions for his workers, and thus was less well-off. He also used his money for the International and kept Karl Marx afloat and writing. Engels was a great socialist.

[redstar2000]

I think there are too many variables here to make any kind of reasonable evaluation.

1. What kind of business?

2. Why do you need to employ others for wages?

3. If you do need to employ others, why not just divide up the profits among all the people that work for you?

4. If you want to use a portion of your profits to "advance the cause", then you ought to be giving it to left groups/publications/internet sites that you agree with...not to charity. (Hint: RevLeft could always use some money. :))

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[The Feral Underclass]

It is possible to start a business collective. There are organisations designed to offer money and support. This means the business is collectivly owned and everyone recieves the same wages or, the profit can be used for something else. A housing co-operative for example.

http://www.eco-action.org/catalyst/

http://www.radicalroutes.org.uk/

[lostsoul]

Originally posted by [email protected] 7 2005, 01:11 PM
I think there are too many variables here to make any kind of reasonable evaluation.

1. What kind of business?

2. Why do you need to employ others for wages?

3. If you do need to employ others, why not just divide up the profits among all the people that work for you?

4. If you want to use a portion of your profits to "advance the cause", then you ought to be giving it to left groups/publications/internet sites that you agree with...not to charity. (Hint: RevLeft could always use some money. :))

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif
hey, 1. Everything and anything IT related, mainly setting up servers, but we do webdesign, sell hardware, service parts, etc...
2. I need to employ other people for wages because i'm pretty much scamming them if i try to get them to work for free.
3. We actually do that sometime. Divide the profits..but usually I pay people for the work they do. For example, someone who takes order's, picks up and diliverys parts gets about 60-80% of the profits on it(the rest goes into the company to either pay other people or to just put into marketing).

Dividing the profits doesn't make total sense, I look at wages affected by 3 different factors, 1) are they helping the business grow?(so although someone who refers someone doesn't techically do any real work, they are bringing us business and in that sense I pay them a percent of the profits(usually 50% for every new client), 2) time put in, If someone is working really hard to design our backend database system(for example), they are not generating any new business or servicing any customers, but they are putting alot of time to help us, therfore I pay them whatever they resonably ask for(or hourly if they want). 3. Skill, although certain jobs don't take long the people have alot of skil that i'm paying them for, for example our graphic designer, I know it takes him less then an hour to make something, but he charges and arm and leg(buts is ok).

I try to make everything balanced, I mean, I won't let the sales people make 2,000 a week while the normal employees make around 500. The sales people commision gets capped and the rest gets divided among everyone else. But on the other hand, in summer I'll pay sales people more, since its really hot outside and their moving more(maybe door to door selling, etc..)

Also if an employee asks for extra money, I usually give it(as long as we have it in the company pot, and their using it for good or something).


4. So far, I have not donated to political causes. Most of the employees(who are mostly people i knew since i was little) come from different culturals and backgrounds, each money after we look at the money left over we decided what we'll do with it together. Everyone votes, like one person says we should adopt a child(through those donatation agencies, etc..), one person has family in another country which they could give to the poor, etc..

I have also not made any crazy money yet with the business. Most of my money(as well as 4 others in the company, put more then 60-70% of our money back into the company..which either helps the company grow or is used for donatation). Actually to tell the truth, my life is a bit more shitter then it was when i was a student or working, I moved into a smaller aptarment, don't go out as much, just spend alot of time on the business(about 16 hours a day, and then just go out on fri and sat night). I can now totally see how business owners can be greedy, times at first get really really hard to the point where you either give up or live from hand to mouth, and then after there is success they think they deserve all the profits for this period of suffering. I try to avoid that, but sometimes its hard not to kind of see yourself as a step above everyone(people who didn't take risks, you don't see as equal..but i try not to think like that).

I don't know one thing that distrubes me alot lately which makes me sick with myself, is that I used to think for the good of other people..which i kind of do..but now its good for people i either know, or have sometype of connection too(people from my neighbourhood, friends, people from my country, etc..) and lately, I spend most of my time thinking of how to destory any compitition. Today I considered calling a compititing business that is looking for investors to expand, and pretending to be an investor, speak with them for a few weeks about everything, and then ask for a list of their clients and revenue and how they will increase revenue with each client. Then take their client list and contact their clients directly. It seems like a good idea, but after a few seconds I relized that was some sneaky shit.

I don't know, that kind of makes me think I am not a real socialist. But on the other hand, every socialist country has always try to destory their emenies also. So I feel consufed. I mean i won't stop supporting the cause, its just the more i work on the business the more i see enemies everywhere. Straight up, I think I see everything as a war lately, On one hand a war to help any one in need and poor..on the other hand to destory any compitition so we get and remain on top. Sometimes I think i'd doing a good job by messing with capitialist, but by definiation that makes me a capitialist too.

grrrr so confused, trying to make sense of everything...

[NovelGentry]

Make it completely democratic. Have your workers discuss what portion of the money should be taken out to continue the business -- of course after what is necessary.

Consider this, the things you use to keep the business going itself, electricity, the existing hardware/software, etc, are funcitons of reproduction. This can be assumed to have a "social tax." What you take out beyond that is to GROW the business, which is necessary under capitalism or else you'll get squished. So you can justifiably cover your reproduction costs, but it is more difficult to take from the labor of others to simply grow (even if the company might fold without that). So what you do, is make them all aware, and take a vote as to what percentages should be removed, after reproduction in order to grow it. For example, if 30% of what you make is necessary simply for reproduction, you have 70% to work with. Effectively that shoudl be your "profit." If they decide that another 20% of the total should be put towards growing, then 50% of this should be divided evenly amongst the workers.

The 20% is put in, and then what is bought, or what decisions on how to grow can also be consulted amongst the workers.

[NovelGentry]

I should probably add on to this. The more they are willing to put into growing, that is, whatever it comes down to, that means increased money in the future for them. BTW, the reason I say divide evenly is because really without any one of them you'd take a hit. If it wasn't the case, you'd probably not have hired them. You need each one of them for the business to stay where it is, thus they all have equal right to it -- because without each one of them individually, your business is something less.

[apathy maybe]

It sounds like you are doing a good job with the business. But you shouldn't be giving 16 hours a day to it.

Personally I think the best way to do things is to pay each person minimum (including yourself), then do something like what you do with the work gets reward.
Make sure decisions are done as 'democratically' as possible.

Sure money gives socialists an edge in this capitalist system. Money doesn't actually mean anything, it is just a representation of resources. If you didn't have those resources then you wouldn't be able to do anything. And so long as you don't do 'evil' things a business is ok (and doesn't clash with your principles if you are a 'market anarchist').

[OleMarxco]

Only if it's self-employed, independant and self-driven buisness with only you as employee and boss - i.e. you're exploiting no-one else than yourself ;)

If there's more people into the picture, it should be as Gent said - The people who work there should be the people who co-own there too. They should rule with you, as they are "having a say" in your buisness' council since they are respective workers for your little club, me presume. There should be no difference and is none either, between workers and owners. Workers are owners and owners are workers. Plus, I think the wage for the people in the company should get a percent of the income they work for. Sounds fair, right?