why dont all us socialists

[bloody_capitalist_sham]

and we could run them through workers control

We already have organs to get people together, like all the socialist parties and anarchist orgs.

I guess we would need capital to get it going, which, for working class people is the big problem.

But, in theory, in a capitalist society, would it be okay for class concious workers to do this?

[ComradeR]

From what i've heard it's been tried but it usually fails, because capitalist corporations (who exploit thier workers giving them an economic advantage, and who often enjoy capitalist government support) force them out of business.

[Vargha Poralli]

I think this has been tried by Utopian socialist like Robert Owens and others but have failed. May be we can analyse their work and try to repeat it but the biggest problem for us will be the accumulation of capital. And we can't maintain the capital without exploiting the labour so i think the chance for success will be next to impossible.

[Kropotkin Has a Posse]

There's always the IWW's Wobbly Shop. They're a great example to follow, anyways.

[More Fire for the People]

Workers’ co-operatives are efficient but they're at a disadvantage. The free market does not select for co-operatives. [ markets and democracy ] (http://www.amazon.com/Markets-Democracy-Samuel-Bowles/dp/0521432235/ref=cm_lm_fullview_prod_2/102-0957240-8389720)

[cb9's_unity]

Why don't we start something like a music label. Were not really going to exploit anybody, mainly cuase bands make most of there money off of touring ,so all we'd have to is work on marketing the bands and distibuting the CD's. This would be perfect because we could send shirts and stickers and all that to communist/anarchist groups and mabey even have online stencil layouts so that high school kids could start advertising the bands. We could get the message out but at a more publicly seen level.

[RGacky3]

The point of being a socialist is to help those being exploited liberate themselves. Comming together and making a Co-Op does'nt really help that.

[which doctor]

We would still be forced to be capitalists, just capitalists who democratically come to decisions on how we shall exploit eachother and the consumer.

[Don't Change Your Name]

This has been suggested millions of times.

It won't work, simply because you need money to start the business and keep it running. Plus existing capitalists have more experience and resources, and they are organized to "maximize their benefits".

[JKP]

Coming from supposedly objective communists and anarchists, the amount of factless assertions in this thread is disturbing.

Collectives have been quite successful, since the collective ownership of production is more efficient and profitable than private or state owned one.

The Argentinian factory takeovers come to mind:
http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/2005-10/25trigona.cfm

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by [email protected] 24, 2007 07:42 am
Good article. I love pro-workers actions. It's inspiring, if nothng else. and absolutely--- working conditions are always much better in a collective. But they are still living in a capitalist society and a communist collective can never be fully realized within those parameters. i.e. they still have to pay taxes to a state that are not beholden to their interests, still have to operate in Capitalist markets, etc. I think that's what everybody means here.
Yes, that's exactly the point. It is not that worker-owned companies are less efficient, or that they are intrinsically bad, or that they will dupe the workers, or that they will exploit the workers within themselves. We should have nothing against them, in principle.

What we should be able to point is, they are not conceivably a road to a classless society. They remain trapped within the capitalist system, the capitalist competition, and the bourgeois laws of the bourgeois State (consider, for instance, the problem of inheritance).

Luís Henrique

[Dewolfemann]

Exactly, its not that they aren't efficient, just they wont lead us to socialism

Engles looked at this very topic, maybe we should take a look at his work

Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/index.htm)

[Don't Change Your Name]

Originally posted by [email protected] 24, 2007 03:52 am
Coming from supposedly objective communists and anarchists, the amount of factless assertions in this thread is disturbing.
You obviously haven't read the thread

[Janus]

But, in theory, in a capitalist society, would it be okay for class concious workers to do this?
There's nothing wrong with establishing collectives as an alternative but the problem is one of practicality and the fact that it is quite difficult in very developed nations to create and maintain such industries. Of course, if profit is not your sole pursuit, then collectives can indeed be sustainable.

[mikelepore]

I'm in favor of the suggestion except for the phrase "our own companies", which contradicts the point of being a socialist. I would be in favor of starting one large national or global company, which should have its founding charter written very carefully. It should say that it can never pay a dividend, and any investments of capital into it are purely contributions for which the contributor receives nothing -- not a vote, not a dividend, and not a certificate that can be resold. The company can begin with any of the smallest capitalization services and product lines. All profits should go into expansion, with the goal of gobbling up as many industry sectors as possible (with the exception that it should forbid involvement in militarism and other socially useless activities). It should have clearly moral regulations, such as environmental protection, and advertising which lists objectively the advantages and disadvantages of each of its products. As more consumers are persuaded that it is most ethical to buy from this company whenever possible, various capitalists can be ruined financially, and then this company can purchase their collapsed stock. It should have a system of management by workers and their elected representatives. The charter should forbid having any top-down appointees in any management roles. The charter should require approximately equal hourly pay for all workers, except for the option of extra compensation for types of work that are more strenuous or dangerous, according to a job description plan that has to be ratified periodically by majority vote. The charter should say that the management, facing periodic reelection, should be evaluated according to the results of its responsibility to measure the wants of the public and have these wants satisfied, to protect the natural environment, and other humanistic criteria, in contrast to the way today's corporate management, facing reelection by the stockholders, publishes reports on its generation of profits and disregards the wants of the public. The charter should say that the company must not resist, but, on the contrary, must be enthusiastically cooperative, if society as a whole later adopts socialism, so that this entire company gets absorbed into a larger social movement.

[Dimentio]

Originally posted by [email protected] 22, 2007 11:34 am
and we could run them through workers control

We already have organs to get people together, like all the socialist parties and anarchist orgs.

I guess we would need capital to get it going, which, for working class people is the big problem.

But, in theory, in a capitalist society, would it be okay for class concious workers to do this?
That requires that these cooperations runs internally with some form of energy accounting and strivancy for self-sufficiency. I.E, basically the kind of proto-technate which NET plans to launch.

The most important part is actually to own the land and the infrastructure.

We also do have some comparative benefits. For example lower taxes. Businesses usually pay lower taxes than workers, so if we had a business which did'nt pay any salaries but bought food and paid electricity and water for the workers, each worker would receive much more in life-standard and pay no taxes because of no income.

[Knight of Cydonia]

Originally posted by cb9'[email protected] 24, 2007 07:06 am
Why don't we start something like a music label. Were not really going to exploit anybody, mainly cuase bands make most of there money off of touring ,so all we'd have to is work on marketing the bands and distibuting the CD's. This would be perfect because we could send shirts and stickers and all that to communist/anarchist groups and mabey even have online stencil layouts so that high school kids could start advertising the bands. We could get the message out but at a more publicly seen level.
why didn't you guys think that this is a brilliant idea :huh: i think it is,and i would like to follow if you guys made one ;) and the good part of this idea is we could run the company from the internet.

[Dimentio]

That is exactly what NET is planning.

[Knight of Cydonia]

Originally posted by [email protected] 25, 2007 10:56 pm
That is exactly what NET is planning.
what kind of internet company it is then?

[Dimentio]

That is secret for now, but on the later stages, when project ProtoTech starts and we get some material production on-going. This thread have begun to discuss that.

Enter here (http://spazz.mine.nu/cms/index.php?option=com_mamboboard&Itemid=103&func=view&id=4705&catid=6)

[RGacky3]

Serpent is so wierd! :wacko:

[which doctor]

Originally posted by [email protected] 25, 2007 07:59 pm
Serpent is so wierd! :wacko:
As are all technocrats.

Not that I really have anything against technocracy, it's just...umm...weird, as well are most of its members/

[violencia.Proletariat]

Because revolutionary socialists want to overthrow capitalism. Our organizations exist for that purpose.



We already have organs to get people together, like all the socialist parties and anarchist orgs.

Why would we want these organizations to start businesses if they are powerful enough to overthrow capitalism? A business would have hierarchy and monetary interests therefore it can not be run on a socialist idealogy.


But, in theory, in a capitalist society, would it be okay for class concious workers to do this?

Not if they consider themselves socialists or revolutionaries.

[mikelepore]

Originally posted by [email protected] 26, 2007 03:32 am


But, in theory, in a capitalist society, would it be okay for class concious workers to do this?

Not if they consider themselves socialists or revolutionaries.
We seem to be getting nowhere promoting public understanding of socialism. The degree of understanding has dropped steadily since about 1910. A way to break out of this rut must to be found. Even though the idea isn't socialism, it might be the case that certain other tests are necessary, as the Gemini missions tested out some of the techniques needed to land on the moon. The working class finds it counterintuitive that worker-management can organize industry without the supposed wisdom and genius of the capitalist. Such a project might demonstrate empirically that capitalist-appointed management is useless, and get the bugs out of the process of workers' assemblies coordinating themselves.

[Dimentio]

In modern society, manpower plays a diminishing role. You could have a Christiania or a Eugene. But when they cut your water supply and electricity, you will be defenseless. The only way to achieve a possibility to endure a long-time war is to control land and infrastructure, and understand it.

[Lamanov]

OK, boneheads, you cannot create a "workers' control" within capitalism in order to destroy it, because from day one you have to adjust yourself to the laws of commodity production -- so from day one workers have to reproduce themselves as commodities, only now as a collective -- which means that we're back to step one: undermining capitalism, take two.

Fuck.

[violencia.Proletariat]

OK, boneheads, you cannot create a "workers' control" within capitalism in order to destroy it, because from day one you have to adjust yourself to the laws of commodity production

Exactly!


We seem to be getting nowhere promoting public understanding of socialism. The degree of understanding has dropped steadily since about 1910. A way to break out of this rut must to be found. Even though the idea isn't socialism, it might be the case that certain other tests are necessary, as the Gemini missions tested out some of the techniques needed to land on the moon.

There have been and are leftist cooperatives operating today. They aren't overthrowing capitalism or even playing a significant role in the market.

If we're using your example, all revolutions need the basic process of building a ship and getting it to the moon. The process of building your ship is building proletarian organizations to make the trip to the moon (making revolution/overthrowing capitalism). What we have to test out is the way things will work post revolutionary society. That is something we can only theorize.

[Dimentio]

Originally posted by DJ-[email protected] 26, 2007 08:06 pm
OK, boneheads, you cannot create a "workers' control" within capitalism in order to destroy it, because from day one you have to adjust yourself to the laws of commodity production -- so from day one workers have to reproduce themselves as commodities, only now as a collective -- which means that we're back to step one: undermining capitalism, take two.

Fuck.
Without resources at our disposal, we would'nt be anything.

[Lamanov]

Who the fuck is "we"?

[Felicia]

ok, say a socialist 'owned' company were to take off. 1) you need people in power positions, working for regular wages, but with business administrative education. 2) if the business is successful by capitalist standards you'll be left with profit 3) creating a profit share program for all workers involved with the company may (depending on the degree of profits) could end up leaving the workers with an advantage over other workers in other companies, putting them above the regular working class and 4) this could set an example for other workers, lured by the profit share/capital, and therefor would be continued by selfish desires of financial gain.

[mikelepore]

Sometimes a good reason to try something is (1) because we can; (2) it couldn't be any worse that what we have now.

Some new and experimental new kind of job structure wouldn't be any worse than working for and buying our products from the Time-Warner-Westinghouse-Exxon-DuPont-Disney company or whatever it's called this week.

People might learn something from the experiment.

[Spirit of Spartacus]

But, in theory, in a capitalist society, would it be okay for class concious workers to do this?

Worker cooperatives aim to provide employment and goods and services. Profit is not a motive there. Any profit that they do make is shared among the working-class. No surplus value goes to the ruling-class.

In Italy, the workers' cooperative enterprises and low-price cooperative shops were the first targets of Benito Mussolini and his Fascist thugs. The ruling-class hated these enterprises for providing goods and services at a low price to the working-class.

If any communist movement anywhere finds it feasible to establishe these enterprises, they must do it.

[Knight of Cydonia]

Originally posted by FoB+January 26, 2007 09:09 am--> (FoB @ January 26, 2007 09:09 am)
[email protected] 25, 2007 07:59 pm
Serpent is so wierd! :wacko:
As are all technocrats.

Not that I really have anything against technocracy, it's just...umm...weird, as well are most of its members/ [/b]
and why did you said that? :huh:

coz i think Serpent is a good man, he's always saying his argument without anger like all of us do....well most of us, and that include me :P

[mikelepore]

Worker cooperatives aim to provide employment and goods and services. Profit is not a motive there. Any profit that they do make is shared among the working-class.

It would also deprive the capitalists of some increment of the wealth that they would like to use to fund war and repression. Not only do the capitalists use their wealth for luxurious living; they also use it to murder children. Buy your appliances from a nonprofit cooperative instead of General Electric, and you may have saved one baby's life.