"Reform or Revolution"? Nationalization taxes, Meidner, etc.

If this group will discuss immediate policy, I think a "reform or revolution" demarcation line can be drawn by platform inclusion or omission of the following:

Direct confiscation would complete this quickly, often at one stroke, while confiscation through taxation permits the disappearance of capitalist property through a long drawn out process proceeding in the exact degree in which the new order is established and its benevolent influence made perceptible […] Confiscation in this way loses its harshness, it becomes more acceptable and less painful. The more peaceably the conquest of the political power by the proletariat is attained and the more firmly organized and enlightened it is, the more we can expect that the primitive forms of confiscation will be softened.

[This refers to tax-to-nationalize schemes, whereby what is taxed is later on used in eminent domain or compulsory purchase.]

In the 1970s, German-born Swedish economist Rudolf Meidner outlined a similarly protracted plan for the increase of real social savings and investment (in turn for, among additional and exclusively public purposes, sustaining real wage growth and the least the limited Keynesian definition of “full employment”), by first means of mandatory and significant redistributions of annual business profits – with no allowances for net loss rebates (the exact opposite of “privatize the gains, socialize the losses” bailouts) – by private enterprises with more workers than a defined threshold, as non-tradable and superior voting shares to be held by geographically organized worker funds; the respective specifics are twenty percent of business profits (again, no net loss rebates), fifty employees, and regional and not union-level organization of wage-earner funds. Naturally, the Swedish bourgeoisie mobilized well-funded opposition towards this decades-long plan to peacefully liquidate them as a class within decades.

Let us imagine a quick transition from the deeply irrational, ultimately unsustainable economic system we presently inhabit to a democratic, socialist economy, one in which enterprises are run democratically, and economic stability no longer requires keeping our capitalists happy. Suppose we do get a financial meltdown on the scale of the Great Depression. And suppose we had a government newly elected, determined to effect this transition.

The first thing would be to assure everyone, a la Franklin Delano Roosevelt, that there's nothing to fear but fear itself. I mean, we are not talking about a meteor crashing into the earth, or an incurable plague, or a nuclear war. Pieces of paper have suddenly lost their value. Our resources are still intact. Our skill base is still intact. There's no reason for ordinary people to lose their jobs or see their incomes plummet-no material reason, that is.

What next? Well, since the stock market has tanked, let the government step in and buy up those now near-worthless shares of the publicly-traded non-financial corporations. (The price tag may well be less than Paulson's $700b. The government can print the money, if need be. In a depression it's essential to stimulate the economy by pumping money into it.) Suddenly our government has controlling interest in all the major corporations. (Notice, these assets are not "expropriated" by the government. They are paid for at full market value.)

So the failure of the meidner plan stemmed from that it left the bourgiose enough time to mobilize the liquidation of the proletariat? My proposal for a Workers Protection Agency was aimed to defend against the harassment, and/or pressuring of the workforce into rejecting the plans.

Though I suppose whether or not the creation of the WPA is effective depends on how the proletariat is at threat of being liquidated. How was the Swedish proletariat liquidated? If we can anticipate the tactics of the bourgiose we can plan a response to them.

Furthermore I think I should explain why I oppose nationalization in the United States. The fact is that unless there is a profound revolution in the political conscioussness of the population, the government is regarded as inherently bad by the majority of citizens. In addittion to this, considering that the democrats are charged with authoritarianism for supporting mandated healthcare purchases, any workers party will be swiftly disregarded as another totalitarian communist conspiracy.

The non-state character of the PESOP alleviates it of the intensity of popular scrutiny that nationalization would be plagued by in the United States. Another positive feature of the plans is that they could be won through mass worker action, rather than only through the legislation of a workers government.

No, there was no failure of the Meidner Plan per se, just that there wasn't enough support gathered for it. Today, though, it's good to raise this point and gather support: The increase of real social savings and investment by first means of mandatory and significant redistributions of annual business profits, by private enterprises with more workers than a defined threshold, as non-tradable and superior voting shares to be held by geographically organised worker funds.

People are crying for the Federal Reserve to be nationalized, for state-level public banks, etc. The theme re. the tax-to-nationalize tax remains the same: at whatever "level of government," regular business incomes, windfall profits, financial assets, etc. are taxed and then the full proceeds are used by said "level of government" to exercise eminent domain over the equivalent market value of shares and other ownership stakes.

I agree that significant redistribution of corporate and private profits to social investment is necessary but I don't understand how it would work with the geographically organized worker funds. Who would compose them and how would profits be redistributed to them?

My EMPs have a different focus which I feel is imperfect precisely due to the lack of immediate Geographic organization, but that can efficiently redistribute profits from capitalists to workers. The organization of this redistributive process is employee oriented rather than geographic.

I wrote about how the EMPs in this thread; http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?...cussionid=6553

Maybe you could explain the geographically organized worker funds, and contrast them to my EMP models.

I agree that significant redistribution of corporate and private profits to social investment is necessary but I don't understand how it would work with the geographically organized worker funds. Who would compose them and how would profits be redistributed to them?

Huh? The respective specifics were twenty percent of business profits, fifty employees, and regional and not union-level organization of wage-earner funds. Some sort of representative mechanism would compose the worker funds.

Maybe you could explain the geographically organized worker funds, and contrast them to my EMP models.

The most basic difference is individual vs. collective redistribution, I think.

Ok my point of confusion was more over how the distribution takes place. In the EMP model, company power, and company revenue would be redistributed to the employees of the company.

My question was more how do you determine which companies distribute to whom? For example, if there was a workers fund in say massachussetes, would all of the companies in massacussettes be responsible for distributing their assets/power to the members of the fund? And if this is the case, what about corporations that operate nationally, and mulit-nationally?

Take walmart for example. Would walmart contribute to the massachusettes worker fund? It certainly conducts business within massachussetes, but it also does so across the entire nation. What would walmart contribute to the massachussets fund? Would it be 20% of all the profits they made through business conducted in massachusettes or would it be through some other arrangement?

And then for purposes of clarification, the worker funds do not rely on equal distribution of revenue, but investment of it into social programs. Where revenue is investested will be determined through a democratic representative system. Is this an accurate summary of how they would operate?

Ok my point of confusion was more over how the distribution takes place. In the EMP model, company power, and company revenue would be redistributed to the employees of the company.

My question was more how do you determine which companies distribute to whom? For example, if there was a workers fund in say massachussetes, would all of the companies in massacussettes be responsible for distributing their assets/power to the members of the fund? And if this is the case, what about corporations that operate nationally, and mulit-nationally?

That's why my preference is for these things to be implemented "federally."

I don't find the question of nationalisation/taxation so difficult to be honest, or rather one that will have to be seen in the given circumstances. Given that the private capitalist economy of the near future will need to be again, heavily subsidised, they are a burden on functioning enterprises and need to be taken out of the circuit of the private capitalist economy. The focus of a governing workers party in the west would have to be on the 'unionisation' of economic sectors (getting rid of inner-sector competition) to ultimate complete socialisation of the national economy. This is of course only possible through "federal" means, democratic centralism if you will.