Democratically Run Companies

[Stormin Norman]

Many of you here believe that socialism entails democratically run industries. I would only ask you this:

What considerations must the operators of a business face in order to run efficiently.

In short, tell me everything that you know about running a company. Give me the faith that I need in order to agree that socialists could effectively maintain operations over important industries.

(Edited by Stormin Norman at 3:20 am on Nov. 10, 2002)

[antieverything]

Several of Spain's largest and most successful corporations are controlled, either in part or completely, by unions.

You lose again.

[Stormin Norman]

How have I lost? You never answered the question. Not to mention, Spain produces very little and takes ciestas in the middle of the day. How many hours a week do they work again? What important products do they produce? What is there GNP and GDP again? What is the tax rate in that nation?

(Edited by Stormin Norman at 3:53 am on Nov. 10, 2002)

[antieverything]

They all make a living wage, which you can't say for alot of capitalist corporations.

What they make is irrelevant, someone is buying it and the corporations are making large enough profits to give all workers a living wage and create new jobs at the same time. The work day of the workers is irrelevant as well, they are being productive enough to make a profit that provides them with a comfortable living. What else would they want?

[Stormin Norman]

"to give all workers a living wage and create new jobs at the same time"

What is the growth rate of their economy?

[Stormin Norman]

Here are some facts:

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/archives/2...0/12/0000106821 (http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/archives/2001/10/12/0000106821)

It appears that the private sector is doing quite well. In fact they are a leading economy in the world. I have yet to see anything that would back up your position that industry is run exclusively by government. Furthermore, I doubt that business is democratically run. If it were democratically run, the numbers would not be this encouraging. I will keep looking for information about how socialized their economy remains.

[Stormin Norman]

Here are some more facts that demonstrate how wrong you are. It appears that Spain's economy is considered to be a mixed capitalist economy. Sounds similar to the U.S. economy. Perhaps that is why they one of the leading European economies. I met some people from Spain this summer. They made Spain sound like a pretty forward thinking place, grounded in good policy. From what I have read, looks like they weren't bullshitting.

http://education.yahoo.com/reference/factb.../sp/econom.html (http://education.yahoo.com/reference/factbook/sp/econom.html)

[antieverything]

I said that several corporations were worker-run, not that Spain was a socialist country. You forgot to mention that Spain has the EU's highest unemployment rate. According to our liberal friends at the CIA, "Spain's mixed capitalist economy supports a GDP that on a per capita basis is 80% that of the four leading West European economies." Of course, the other said economies are from countries with much more left-wing governments. Remember that economic growth is greatest when there is room to grow. Spain was less industrialized, is now begining to industrialize at a higher rate and therefore has a rapidly growing economy.

I don't know what your links are supposed to prove as none of my arguments are addressed in any way in either of them.

(Edited by antieverything at 4:37 pm on Nov. 9, 2002)

[Stormin Norman]

Well you never did make a coherrent argument, or address the questions that I asked you. I had to extrapolate from the bit of nonsense that I did get. Since you tried to shift the argument and avoid the topic I had to try to determine how your comments were even relevant to the subject.

[peaccenicked]

The fascistic anti human moron SN tells us workers are too stupid to run the economy. Is argument is based on people on this sites adminisrative abilities.
He implies that workers incapable of learning crass accountancy.
What a woose!

[Moskitto]

spain isn't a leading european economy, it is a net EU benefitiarry along with Greece, Ireland and Portugal, leading European economies are Germany, UK, France and Italy

[antieverything]

Exactly Moskitto, SN doesn't know what he's talking about.

Of course I didn't even try to respond to your question directly. You are using an old coward's trick in debating: asking a person to answer a question that would take several minutes--maybe even hours--to respond to.
[hr]
Example: SN, tell me EVERYTHING that you know about economics.

The question is as silly as it is diversionary.
[hr]
Instead of telling you what workers must know to run a company, I gave you a perfectly good example of a few very successful, high-tech, corporations that are controlled by workers. This proves that workers do in fact have the ability to run an industry. Do some research on Mondragon in Spain.

I'll reiterate: workers are perfectly capable of running a complex, high-tech corporation and doing it successfuly. They are doing as we speak [or type!].

Maybe I was unclear before. Did I clear things up?

Thanks for your time, Norm.

[Moskitto]

I know someone who does economics a level and he hates it.

[Lefty]

I am probably wrong on this, but don't Sweden and Norway have at least somewhat Socialist economies, and aren't their economies doing well? I'm probably wrong, sorry.

[Sol]

Norman, I have a question. You sound like you want and encourage democracy and equality. How do you get those things when the very institutions that distribute and produce materials needed for survival are run in an authoritarian hierarchy?

I'm not presenting an argument here, so leave the insults at home. I'm genuinely curious.

[antieverything]

Should I just go ahead and put another tally in the "win" column?

[Guest]

and who does better in most things? the governement or private corporations? So what if a company is like a monarchy, they can't legally do anything to you at the point of a gun, only the government can.

you can always quit a job, its not like your a slave or anything.

YES, you can quit unless you live in some god-forsaken country like sudan, so dont give me that crap about how you really cant quit the job because you'd watch your family starve. Come to think of it, if a person was so poor that quiting a job would ensure his family starved what on earth does he have a family for? Seems kind of irresponcible to me.

[antieverything]

I'll just go ahead and put this in the "win" column, ok Norm?

[Stormin Norman]

You didn't think that I would let your pathetic claim to victory stand, did you?

As per your constant and incessant requests for me to revisit the issue, I have come back to the thread where you claimed to have beaten me. Let's take an objective look at what transpired.

The original question posed by me was this:

Many of you here believe that socialism entails democratically run industries. I would only ask you this:

What considerations must the operators of a business face in order to run efficiently?

In short, tell me everything that you know about running a company. Give me the faith that I need in order to agree that socialists could effectively maintain operations over important industries.

In response to the question anti-everything stated this:

"Several of Spain's largest and most successful corporations are controlled, either in part or completely, by unions."

This response not only fails to address the key question of whether or not successful companies can be run democratically by a group of socialists, but it demonstrates the ignorance of my opponent. If we are to take a look at single businesses, the United States also has many worker-owned companies dominated by unions. Does that make us a socialist country? Furthermore, the examples of these types or worker owned companies have been largely unsuccessful. Take United Airlines as an example. Although the Board decided to give their employees a vested interest in the company by providing stock options and offering opportunities for direct input into the companies operation, this company is on the verge of bankruptcy.

In addition, antieverything failed to provide any examples of the supposed union run companies in Spain. Just because someone puts the words down on a medium does not necessarily make them true. I challenge you to find a good example of one of these union-run companies operating in Spain, so I can analyze its earnings to make a determination as to the success of this company.

Besides isn't the notion of a union run company in itself a contradictory idea. Isn't the purpose of a union to counter management and ensure set wages and guaranteed benefits to the employees. How exactly does a union organization work when it becomes the very entity that it is designed to challenge? Wouldn't using the words 'union run company' be superficial since the union effectively dissolves when it takes on the role of management?

These questions are beside the point since they have nothing to do with the topic of discussion in the first place. The presence of unions within an economy does not necessarily make it a socialists system. Although unions do have socialistic tendencies, their presence does not signify the collective or government ownership of all means of production or even critical industries. A monopoly of labor in certain markets would speak to the contrary. Unions exist in both capitalist and socialist economies to set wages and ensure benefits within collectively owned industries. This fact might suggest that the price of labor remains a problem even in the most socialistic economies. Therefore, it can be said that the problems sited by most socialists as a reason to socialize remain prevalent even after the nationalization of industries. Since this is a true statement, should I have faith that socialism will in fact deliver on its promises to alleviate the problems inherent in a capitalists system? Nothing I have ever seen would lead me to conclude this much.

Now that I have tied this unrelated issue to the original question asked, I feel that we can proceed with confidence that socialism fails to evade the law of supply and demand when it comes to the labor market.

Of course when you made premature claims to victory, I did make it obvious that you evade the question when I asked:

“How have I lost? You never answered the question. Not to mention, Spain produces very little and takes ciestas in the middle of the day. How many hours a week do they work again? What important products do they produce? What are there GNP and GDP again? What is the tax rate in that nation?”

These were all good questions that I had to answer for myself when you replied only with this:

“They all make a living wage, which you can't say for alot of capitalist corporations.

What they make is irrelevant, someone is buying it and the corporations are making large enough profits to give all workers a living wage and create new jobs at the same time. The work day of the workers is irrelevant as well, they are being productive enough to make a profit that provides them with a comfortable living. What else would they want?”

I found that to be pretty funny, since Marxists always claim that capitalists pay only a living wage to their employees in order to ensure their survival so they continue to work as slaves. Then you go on to say that what they make is irrelevant. If you thought it was irrelevant why would you start your thread with such a thoughtless statement?

Furthermore, the nature of a country's economy is extremely important when trying to gauge the strength of their economy. How much government taxes its citizens also remains relevant when asking about wages. The wages the workers are getting might be artificial in a socialist country because they might tax more successful sectors of the population in order to maintain wage levels in other industries. This also speaks to one of the reasons why socialism is inherently more inefficient than capitalist economies. The signals of supply and demand are not allowed to operate, as prices do not reflect fluctuations in the labor market. Therefore the principle of opportunity cost says that another sector of the economy must suffer as a result of this failure to reallocate labor resources.

In response to the links that I provided that answered my own questions about the validity of your misrepresentation of Spain as a pseudo-socialist country you responded:

“I said that several corporations were worker-run, not that Spain was a socialist country. You forgot to mention that Spain has the EU's highest unemployment rate. According to our liberal friends at the CIA, "Spain's mixed capitalist economy supports a GDP that on a per capita basis is 80% that of the four leading West European economies." Of course, the other said economies are from countries with much more left-wing governments. Remember that economic growth is greatest when there is room to grow. Spain was less industrialized, is now begining to industrialize at a higher rate and therefore has a rapidly growing economy.”

Here you refer to the C.I.A as a source but fail to provide evidence to support your claim. We will just let that one go until you provide something that substantiates your claim. By the way, why should I believe that these four countries are more left wing than Spain? First you try to misrepresent Spain as a leftist economy, then you expect me to believe that there are four countries out their that beat it in terms of GDP solely because they are ‘more leftist’. Assuming that you might be able to provide evidence that supports your position here, I will only say that there are more important reasons as to why a ‘more leftist’ country would outperform Spain in terms of GDP. Size of the economy and wealth of resources might provide a significant reason as to why this may or may not be true.

I would also ask Moskitto to provide a source for his claim that:

“spain isn't a leading european economy, it is a net EU benefitiarry along with Greece, Ireland and Portugal”

Antieverything then rails on and on with excuses as to why he did not answer the question and attacks me personally by saying, “SN doesn't know what he's talking about”. Victory you say. It seems rare that the victor is forced to result to ad hominem attacks.

Before I said that you did not answer the question. That may have been a misstatement on my part, for in your own indirect way you did. By proving your ignorance and inability to provide coherent responses to any of my questions you have confirmed my suspicions that I would be doomed if the fate of capital markets were left to the devices of those like you. People who proclaim their faith in socialism would be over their heads if asked to maintain an efficient economy. They always try to ignore the laws of economics and avoid the reality of price fluctuations. In fact, that is how all the disasters of socialism have taken place in history. Ignorance and stupidity can be quite dangerous, especially when one places all of their faith in the two concepts.

(Edited by Stormin Norman at 12:12 am on Nov. 27, 2002)

[antieverything]

The major collective corporation in Spain is called Mondragon...I don't know the website. I do know that they are quite successful and have a strong commitment to creating new jobs.

My CIA source was from the CIA World Factbook which can be found over at www.cia.gov

I challenge you to point out exactly where I hinted that Spain had a socialist-type economy of any kind.

"Although unions do have socialistic tendencies, their presence does not signify the collective or government ownership of all means of production or even critical industries. A monopoly of labor in certain markets would speak to the contrary. Unions exist in both capitalist and socialist economies to set wages and ensure benefits within collectively owned industries."

A collective is worker owned, and worker run. The union is the governing body of a worker's collective-corporation. I don't exactly see what you are trying to say here but you obviously don't understand what I mean by "worker-run" or "collective".

"Many of you here believe that socialism entails democratically run industries. I would only ask you this:

What considerations must the operators of a business face in order to run efficiently?

In short, tell me everything that you know about running a company. Give me the faith that I need in order to agree that socialists could effectively maintain operations over important industries."

I assume that you still want me to answer this "question". I won't. I'm obviously too ignorant about business. Instead, why don't you tell me everything that one would need to know in order to run a company? Please, enlighten me.

"I found that to be pretty funny, since Marxists always claim that capitalists pay only a living wage to their employees in order to ensure their survival so they continue to work as slaves."

Capitalism pays a subsistance wage in a normal, healthy market and below that in an unregulated, highly competitive market. What Leftists refer to as a living wage means a wage where one is able to pay for all of the necessities and not go into debt...breaking even and staying above the poverty line.

That post was a fine bit of masterdebating...good job, now go get a Kleenex and wipe that stuff off your chin.



by the way...why the hell won't the 'quote' command work right?

[timbaly]

This is a quote from neutral nation. This might help answer the question.

"THE BOSS NEEDS US - WE DON'T NEED THE BOSS
COMMON SENSE REASONS FOR WORKER SELF-MANAGEMENT

HOW BOSSES GET RICH AND POWERFUL AT OUR EXPENSE

What do bosses do?
- Scheduling-Deciding when work needs to be done. Setting deadlines. This could just as easily be done by the workers themselves.
- Coordinating-Making sure that activities which depend on each other don't hold each other up. Making sure resources are distributed to those who need them. Often, the centralized control of resources is more of a bottleneck that keeps people from getting what they need to do their jobs. Much of this is actually done informally by the workers themselves.
- Accounting-This is a clerical job, counting the money you make for them.
- Budgeting-The actual cost estimates are done by those who do the work and only compiled by the manager. The manager then sets priorities.
- Staffing-Hiring, firing and assigning people to tasks.
- The less work a boss does, the more they are paid! This is because they are not paid for doing actual work. They are paid for how well they get others to do the most work for the least compensation. It also occurs because bosses tend to use their power to make themselves richer.

What do stockholders (Capitalists) do? Nothing!
- Capitalists buy part of a company ("stock" is a measure of ownership) and receive a portion of the value of what its workers produce (profit taken from workers called a "stock dividend" ) or rent their money to a company by buying bonds and are paid "interest." They do no work for this money outside of the kind of brain work a thief would use in choosing an easy victim.

Where do profits come from? You!
- The cost of running a business is the money spent for labor, machinery and tools, materials, rent, utilities, interest on loans, maintenance, and other services. The value of labor is the difference between the income of the business and it's non-labor expenses. Profit is the difference between the labor value and the money the boss actually pays the workers in salary and benefits.
- A bosses performance is usually measured by how much profit they can squeeze out of you. Many are paid in stock or profit-sharing to make them more greedy.

Having a boss is a dictatorship.
- Modern Bureaucracy was invented in Nazi Germany by a guy named Max Weber who patterned it after a military chain-of-command. Failure to follow orders results in discipline or being fired!
- Modern production was invented by Henry Ford who wanted to reduce the actions of the workers to the repetitive motions of machine and Frederick Taylor who wanted to minimize the number of motions to maximize the "productivity" of each worker. Bosses design work tasks to dehumanize workers.
- Many workplaces require you to work overtime. Many workers are paid a fixed salary (instead of by the hour) so they can be worked as much as the boss likes without paying them for overtime.
- Most workplaces discourage dissent, worker organizing or even asking questions of management outside of how to follow their orders.
- Many workplaces pretend to involve workers in decision making to get them to spy on each other.
- Many workplaces spy on their workers using time clocks, computer programs, hidden cameras, informers, and even private detectives. Some workplaces even limit the number of times and amount of time workers may spend going to the bathroom!
- Many workplaces now require workers to wear uniforms.

Bosses are inefficient!
- Many managers create unnecessary work or make you redo work "their way" just to justify their job or to make you think you have to go through them to get your work done.
- Many managers create "empires" of things under their centralized control so you can't get resources or information you need to do your day-to-day work. Without a boss, access to these crucial resources would be decentralized and made available based on need.

Bosses can get you killed!
- Work is one of the leading causes of death from accidents and health problems.
- Accidents occur when your boss tries to speed-up the work to increase their profit.
- Bosses try to cut costs by cutting safety measures and practices on the job.
- Jobs can be stressful due to overwork, harassment, competition, scheming, manipulation, etc. by bosses and co-workers who think they can kiss their ass to get ahead. stress will hurt your health, weaken your body and ultimately shorten your life
- "Accidents" at work kill people, but bad working conditions are no accident.

But workers need to be told what to do? Why?
- Workers get together on the job informally all the time to talk about how to do a job or solve a problem on the job. They don't ask the boss because he/she doesn't know how to do the work.
- Workers regularly get together with friends or family members to make decisions without the need for a boss. They go out to have a good time together. They plan vacations and road trips. They make "management" decisions all the time about their home and personal life.

But bosses go to school to learn how to be managers...
- Actually, most of them don't have degrees in business administration or public administration (MBA, MPA). Master's Degree programs in these fields teach accounting and Capitalist economics, but you won't learn anything about people or problem-solving which you don't already know from experience. What you learn is management and motivational theory: How to exploit people through psychology. Most managers (bosses) just have business degrees, at best, which is a degree in Capitalism: Banking, Accounting, Profiteering, etc.

But bosses create jobs... No!
- The boss only hires and fires you. Jobs are created because the boss sees a chance to get richer, but the amount of work involved is greater than what those who currently work for the boss can do alone. Bosses will do anything possible to avoid hiring new workers including assigning more tasks to each worker ("work speed-ups" ), buying machines to take workers jobs and paying overtime. Overtime costs a boss less than hiring a new worker, but the workers who works overtime actually gets paid less than that additional work after they pay income tax (it may even increase their tax rate).

But my boss is "nice"... Don't trust them!
- A boss is a boss.
- A "kindly" boss is still a BOSS. A "friendly" boss is still a BOSS. A boss who drapes himself in red flags is STILL A BOSS.
- The boss knows that their job depends on being able to exploit you. You can depend on them only to tell you what you want to hear. The boss you think you know and "trust" is a facade.
- If you work hard, they will work you harder.
- If you do a good job at work, they will criticize the quality of your work then take credit for it in from of their boss. They will use your work to get themselves a promotion.
- If there is a problem at work, they will tell their boss it's your fault.
- If you know more than your boss, they will try to get you fired or harass you so you will quit or make mistakes they can use against you to get you fired. They will tell you things like "I want to help you" or "you are overqualified". When you hear this, you will know the end is near.

But what if the boss is the owner?
- First of all, most small businesses are usually owned by the bank (through a mortgage or small business loan) and a landlord (most are in rented commercial property) who collect money from you through your boss for doing nothing.
- It is arguable that many small business "owners"/operators work harder than if they were working for someone else, but the chances are, even if they do, they still don't pay their workers for the full value of the work their workers do. The best evidence of this is that while you have to ride the bus to work, the boss owns a car. While you have to rent or share an apartment, the boss has a house. Obviously, you can't afford to live like your boss and even the hardest working boss doesn't do that much more than you do, to be equal to the difference in the money each of you get out of the business.

But, if I work hard and do what I'm told, I can be rich and successful...
- People who work hard and are smart at what they do are usually viewed as a threat by their boss because they probably know as much or more about the work than those in charge.
- Working for a boss isn't competitive. Chances are, if your boss want's to hire or promote someone, they will chose someone they think is like them or a friend, regardless of their qualifications.
- Take a look around you. How many rich people do you see? There aren't a lot compared to the rest of us. Now common sense tells us that if you subtract the majority of rich people who merely inherited their money, there are only a handful left and they all got their money from owning stock or property and not from honest work. At best, hard work can make you comfortable. At worst, it will make you sick and your boss rich! The best way to insure that you are working for yourself is to have no boss at all!

HOW WOULD WE WORK WITHOUT BOSSES?

How are decisions made?
- Workers are organized into working groups based on what they do (their tasks). Decisions are made democratically by those who do the work.
- Each group sends a representative to all coordinating meetings for their section of the workplace. Each section coordinating committee sends a representative to the coordination committee for the workplace.
- Representatives can be changed at any time by the group who chooses them. They have no authority over those groups.
- Conflicts are resolved through mediation and arbitration by someone neutral and impartial.

How is work organized?
- Working groups plan the work and divide up the tasks. Without a boss you don't have to wait for the boss to OK something, you just agree with your co-workers what needs to be done. Workers decide for themselves which jobs they wish to learn.
- Coordinating committees coordinate scheduling and the allocation of group resources to projects. It is also how working groups share information and find out what's going on at the workplace.
- The workplace coordinating committee coordinates budgeting and major functions like accounting, purchasing and sales so that production is based on demand for the products or services of the workplace.
- New workers are brought into a workplace when the current workers agree more people are needed.

How are workers paid?
- The workers decide how much of the income earned by their work goes to keep the business going and how much goes to them as compensation for their labor.
- Without "make work" from bosses, every job becomes equally necessary: both physical work and brain work. The workers may choose to each take an equal share or to pay everyone based on how many hours they work.
- Without stockholders and overpaid bosses, more money goes to those who actually do the work.

What about benefits?
- Without bosses, workers are no longer considered "expendable." Medical Care, Dental Care, Child Care, Disability, Vacation Time, Sick Time and Retirement are considered part of the cost of maintaining the workplace and are paid for out of the earnings of the workplace.
- The workplace also covers the cost of your tools, safety equipment and training.

What about promotions?
- Tasks are assigned based on your skills and abilities: what you know and can do. There is no "kissing arse' because no one tells anyone else what to do and people are paid based on their work and not their position.
- You learn on-the-job how to do more and more complex tasks. Self-managed workplaces have apprenticeship/internship procedures for new workers.
- The only "promotion" is in the area of responsibility. Since no one is in-charge, The working group gives the most responsibility to those they trust. The reward is personal satisfaction and respect.
- By doing away with the real parisites in the workplace (bosses), you have a lot more people to do the work and you can reduce the amount of work everyone has to do to be productive. This means that the workday can be shorter and more flexable and that work won't be as strenuous. People can also choose to work part time.
- Without a boss, the stress at work would be lower.

What about Shirkers?
- Shirking is usually a subconscious response to being exploited. Without exploitation, there will be less incentive to shirk off work.
- Those who still want to stand by and let their co-workers do the work while they do nothing, will be stealing from them. It is up to the workers to decide if and when someone's lazyness is unfair to the rest of them. Workers who try to live of the work of others while doing nothing will be kicked out of the job at the discretion of their co-workers."

[antieverything]

...a long pause...

[new democracy]

i didn't read the entire thread, but here is an interesting article about it

Workers Self-management in Argentina

Over 20 years of IMF loans, structural adjustment plans and "free-market reforms", involving the privatisation of practically all public services, has left Argentina - once one of the richest country's in the world - with an economy in utter ruins. Over half of the countries population now live below the poverty line and unemployment has sky-rocketed leaving over one in five people jobless.

In December last year, as the government responded to the worsening economic crises with vicious cuts in public spending and the expropriation of a substantial part of the capital of hundreds of thousands small and medium savers, popular unrest which had been growing for several years exploded onto the streets of Argentina. The president had declared a state of emergency when, soon after a general strike involving 7 million workers, hungry people began looting shops and supermarkets so they could feed their families. All constitutional rights were suspended and meetings of more than three people banned. Argentineans had had enough and in Buenos Aires alone, over a million people voiced their anger and disgust at the discredited political elite by defying the state of emergency and taking to the streets.

Despite the lack of mass unified actions since then, the mass movement is in no way over and a report by the Interior Ministry holds that some 13,582 protests, road blockades and similar political actions have been staged so far this year (1). As well as protesting, however, people have - largely through necessity - started to take matters into their own hands and to organise together to try make real changes to improve their situation.

Neighbourhood assemblies

Even before the events of December in some neighbourhoods of Buenos Aires local people had begun to meet on street corners to share their unease about the deteriorating economic and institutional situation and to discuss effective forms of protest. After the December protests these neighbourhood assemblies quickly multiplied and by February alone there was over 50 such assemblies meeting in different neighbourhoods throughout Buenos Aires (2). An inter-neighbourhood assembly was soon created to co-ordinate the proposals and report back on the work of the local assemblies. This mass inter-neighbourhood assembly meets once a week and has an average of 3000 local co-ordinators from all the city's neighbourhoods participating in it. The local assemblies, which are autonomous, rotate the task of co-ordinating and organising the inter-neighbourhood ones.

The local assemblies are organised non-hierarchically and are open to almost everyone. People get a chance to discuss the problems they are facing and to organise effective ways of dealing with them. For example, in one neighbourhood, the assembly organised pickets to prevent the authorities from closing down a baker who could not afford to pay his rent.(3)

In a move that is a direct challenge to capitalist property the assemblies have also started to occupy abandoned commercial premises, reusing them with a social function, such as turning them into neighbourhood social centres which provide a permanent presence and meeting space.(4)

More general questions on the economic and political system are also discussed at the assemblies and proposals such as "The people must govern through its assemblies" are brought back to the inter-neighbourhood assembly. Through these grassroots assemblies the idea of direct democracy, of mass direct intervention in public decision-making, has gained legitimacy amongst wide sectors of the population.


Occupied Factories

However the most direct challenge to capitalism is the occupation of factories by workers. On the 1st of October last year, the workers of the Zanón ceramics factory in Neuquén, one of Latin America's largest ceramics producers, occupied their factory and have kept it running ever since. The bosses had stopped production, claiming the factory was no longer profitable and that they could no longer pay the workers. In similar circumstances in Buenos Aires, the female workers of the Brukman textile factory occupied their workplace and have been running their plant successfully for the last 10 months.

The textile workers managed to get rid of all wage arrears and to get the same pay they used to get under the bosses. Likewise the workers in Zanón have managed to keep their pay at the same level as before despite the fact that they sell the tiles at 60% of the previous price. They have even hired, with equal pay, unemployed people coming from the picketers (unemployed workers) movement in the region and are planning to set up a Technical School to train young people and create more jobs.

The workers became acquainted with the whole production process, set up departments for running production and marketing, and in Zanón organised a network of vendors who sell the tiles in the city. Both factories are operated on the principle of grassroots democracy with decisions been made at general assemblies of workers, and shop stewards and co-ordinators relying on grassroots' mandate.

By October 1st this year, the workers of the occupied factories, had already published five issues of their own paper "Nuestra Lucha" (Our Struggle/Fight) with the motto "An injury to one is an injury to all" and "take over and run production in every single closed company". They have already convened two National meetings of occupied factories, the last of which saw the participation, among others, of a delegation elected from the Jun'n Clinic from Córdoba province, which has been in operation without the bosses since last June 13. 40 neighbourhood assemblies were also involved in this meeting and there is now an attempt to set up a co-ordinating body to build permanent links with the neighbourhood assemblies. The workers of the occupied factories are also raising the need for a National Congress convened by the assemblies, the picketers and the occupied factories.(5)

By restarting production in the occupied factories, the workers have shown up the parasitic nature of the ruling class and have set an example to the exploited class that there is an alternative way out. This shows, once again, that when we finally overthow the market economy of capitalism we will have little difficulty in taking control of our workplaces and our lives.

from: http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/wsm/ws/20.../argentina.html (http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/wsm/ws/2002/73/argentina.html) . and i read in an article posted in news that now those factories work better than the way the worked before the self-management.

[new democracy]

and i must say that what neutral nation said is very true.

[timbaly]

Quote: from antieverything on 5:36 pm on Nov. 30, 2002
...a long pause...


Don't tell me you couldn't get through that post, some of yours are just as long if not longer.

[antieverything]

I was commenting on Norman's silence.

[new democracy]

Quote: from antieverything on 5:10 pm on Dec. 1, 2002
I was commenting on Norman's silence.
and SN said that he will be here in christmas time http://politics.host.sk/discussion/html/emoticons/laugh.gif

[antieverything]

Norman certainly gives 'strawmen' a bad name, wouldn't you say?

[new democracy]

Quote: from new democracy on 10:42 pm on Nov. 29, 2002
and i read in an article posted in news that now those factories work better than the way the worked before the self-management.

here is that article: http://www.che-lives.com/cgi/community/top...um=25&topic=446 (http://www.che-lives.com/cgi/community/topic.pl?forum=25&topic=446) .

[antieverything]

Remember this?

[Stormin Norman]

Thanks for the reminder. I was meaning to refute Timbaly's copy and paste article, point by point. Then I will find evidence of the countless disasterous outcomes "democratically" siezed companies and markets have endured.

I do have a question. Is theft excused when it is done by popular consent? Truly despicable, the mind of a leftist is.

[antieverything]

So, you just assume that they exist?

Don't bother with timbaly's article...just stick to the origional topic, we don't want to be arguing 30 different issues.

It isn't a question of "theft" so much as a question of who has the right to own it in the first place.

[Stormin Norman]

One only need to look at the many failures of "agrarian-reform" to find clear indication of the failures of collective theft. From Argentina to Zimbabwe, most of these collective models rely on import substitution in order to industrialize. The failures of import substitution have been apparent since the 1929 crash on Wall Street. If the economic model you praise were so sound, why then would they depend on a system of industrialization that has been discredited for over a half century?

-Why is Zimbabwe importing more food stuff after its reform policy was implemented?

University of Zimbabwe business lecturer Tony Hawkins said: "This will definitely result in increased borrowing and increased inflation and worsen the country's chances of regaining the support of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), particularly in light of the promise made by the government to rein in money supply." -fromhttp://www.fingaz.co.zw/fingaz/2002/July/J...ly25/2045.shtml (http://www.fingaz.co.zw/fingaz/2002/July/July25/2045.shtml)

Now they are having a hard time growing a coupe kernels of corn. Great system you got there. Congratulations, Zimbabwe!

[antieverything]

Could it possibly have anything to do with one of the worst droughts on record?

[Stormin Norman]

I am sure that is their excuse. Why you would offer it up for them, I don't know. That's right, you are an apologist for these thieves.

[antieverything]

I suggest you look at the reasons why land reform was instituted in the first place. It wasn't pretty. Actually, it still isn't pretty.

[Stormin Norman]

"land reform"

Theft by any other name is still theft. Two wrongs don't make a right, as my mother used to tell me.

[antieverything]

...in most cases, land reform is not so much theft as it is returning land to those it was origionally stolen from.

[antieverything]

But, I don't think that land reform was ever a topic of this discussion...let's get back to the point.

[Stormin Norman]

Agrarian reform is the same principle as democratically stolen companies. I say we are still on topic, as the two topics are linked. Land theft and nationalizing corporations often come hand and hand.

[antieverything]

Well, the corporations which I refer to were origionally started by the workers themselves. Those in Argentina that you read about (you read about them, right?) were put in workers' hands because the owners abandoned them because of national financial crises.

[Stormin Norman]

"However the most direct challenge to capitalism is the occupation of factories by workers. On the 1st of October last year, the workers of the Zanón ceramics factory in Neuquén, one of Latin America's largest ceramics producers, occupied their factory and have kept it running ever since. The bosses had stopped production, claiming the factory was no longer profitable and that they could no longer pay the workers. In similar circumstances in Buenos Aires, the female workers of the Brukman textile factory occupied their workplace and have been running their plant successfully for the last 10 months."-from the Blackflag site New Democracy referred us to.

Is this the kind of peaceful worker startup company you are talking about? *To me, it sounds as if the original owners of the capital were going to shut the plant down, and the workers occupied the factory. *Even if they were closing their doors the property belongs to the original owners. *Had the workers purchased the material and machinery on the market, I would say they have as much right as any other corporation to exist. *However, they stole the materials necessary to get started, hardly a noble enterprise. *

Many companies are run by the workers. *These are called small businesses. *The person builds their capital base from the ground up. *They do not steal it from others. *I see a definite difference in how these companies get their start. *You would call them the rich who need to get taxed more heavily than the poor. *I would say that these business owners represent the virtuous startup company that you suggest seized companies exist as. *Theft and rightful ownership are two separate things. *I think that trying to tie what happened in Argentina to the small business owner, or even the model United Airlines used is dishonest, a tactic that only a conspiring thief would use.

[antieverything]

United Airlines in a model of nothing but mismanagment, it wasn't high labor costs that did it in.

The thing is that these people would go hungry without these jobs, the boss in many cases just left the country...they don't give a fuck about what happens in the factory anymore. The funny thing is that the capitalists shut down the factories because the weren't profitable but they are profitable enough for these people to live on...