4 ms·

It will happen. The limiting factor is we need to get the friction for forking an existing co-op down close to zero. Unfortunately most people who work for a co

It will happen. The limiting factor is we need to get the friction for forking an existing co-op down close to zero. Unfortunately most people who work for a co-op still think of it as proprietary ("this is my co-op, and we don't have any openings right now. If you want yours you have to start your own"). Intellectual resistance from co-opers isn't the main bottleneck though. Management infrastructure needs to be all digital and open source, and forking needs to be technically easy. That means the accounting, staffing, and operations procedures all written out in code, rather than in QuickBooks on some computer in the stock room. On github, with one-touch deployment to Heroku, or some equivalent. Ethereum maybe. Once we're there I think it will be fairly easy to sell the employees on the "you should spend some time training people who are forking your business" concept, since they are (mostly) already amenable to anarchist (you don't really own anything) values. At that point it will be viral and anyone who is providing ops and logistical support for that ecosystem will get very rich.

throwaway71958 10y ago
>> It will happen. As someone who was born and raised in the Soviet Union and spent the last 20 years in the US, I hope to dear god this doesn't ever happen. I don't know where else I'd have to emigrate if it does. To Mars maybe? What you're describing is essentially "collective enterprise" or "kolkhoz", where nominally you own a share in a venture, but in practice you don't own shit, and as a result you don't consider it "your own", and as a direct consequence of not actually owning property, you just can't bring yourself to care. This gives rise to a lot of unsavory and damaging behaviors: from not actually working all that hard, to outright stealing. They had a saying in the USSR: "Everything belongs to the kolkhoz, so everything belongs to me." So who's to judge you if you e.g. steal a couple of tons of kerosene to heat your hothouse in winter? Communists had to _shoot people_ who had even a modicum of entrepreneurial skill ("kulaks"), and take away their property in order to get the rest to join after the October Revolution of 1917. I suspect that's how things looked to the revolutionaries back in late 19th century. They've never experienced their proposed ideology on their own hide and therefore did not see its rough edges and downsides. All of this collectivism in the US can exist only as a part of a broader staunchly capitalist economy, and then only during the "good times" when people's needs are more or less met and they can spare some energy on pursuing ideological purity. All of this discussion about communist ideals from people who have never experienced anything anywhere close to what it's like is like a bad nightmare to any Eastern European who actually has a first hand experience living under a communist regime. Truly, those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it. I, for one, will sacrifice everything I've got to prevent any even remotely communist development of events here in the US. Yes, that does include not considering Bernie "Money grows on trees" Sanders seriously. Communism does not work. It never did work. It never will work. I'm 100% certain of it. Cue people explaining to me that the "USSR never actually had communism" and "you're holding it wrong". You're missing the point.
- erikpukinskis 10y ago
  You were flagged, but I don't see any rule violations so I vouched for you. I share many of your same fears. But your argument is a slippery slope argument, so I can't really argue against it. Maybe you're right, and the worker-owned Pizza co-op down the street from me will slide into Stalinist authoritarianism. We'll see. I think the fact that it is voluntary and you are at will to choose an ownership-based enterprise instead is a key difference from the Soviet Union. I'll also point out that the vast majority of U.S. employees don't have ownership stakes and they still show up to work and work hard. Many people (retirees, the rich, other do-gooders) even work hard for organizations and don't get paid. I appreciate your recounting of history though, and share your concern. The biggest fear I have is that decentralization of operations will make it easier for exploitation of workers on a small scale in secret. I also do share your fear that my understanding of how much resources will be needed is off because I grew up in a country where those resources were presumed. But these fears are not enough to stop my work. Capitalism has led to my neighbors in the Bay Area being regularly shot, and that's a real problem I am dealing with today. So my concern over those shootings is greater than my concern about the theoretical future ones you are cautioning against. You're wrong to assume that us naive Americans have no idea what it's like to see your friends and neighbors be shot for political reasons.
  - throwaway71958 10y ago
    The point is that your pizza co-op can only exist as a non-dominant form of organization in a wealthy society. Once it becomes the dominant form, everything goes to hell. There isn't a single country in the history of this civilization where this wasn't proven true. Now, you could argue that we're not "cultured" enough to live onder such utopia, but my retort will be that you need to figure out a way to experiment with it at scale first without subjecting everyone to what you think (but, obviously, not _know_) is better. As they used to say back in the day in the Soviet Union "test it on dogs first". Even Lenin (patron saint of communist revolutionaries and a murderous dictator) ended up realizing he's wrong about collectivism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Economic_Policy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Economic_Policy "Exploitation of workers" is actually the greatest thing about the West. Those workers wouldn't even be able to care for themselves if they weren't "exploited", and by creating the societal pressure to do so, through moderate poverty (very few people in the US know what real, actual poverty is), and general disapproval of leisurely lifestyle, you motivate people to be productive, which ultimately benfits society. Then, once they acquire a modicum of wealth and property, they get to "exploit" others by paying them a mutually agreed upon fee in order to have some work done. I'm technically a "worker" who is quite happy to be "exploited" by my capitalist overlords, as long as I get paid a few hundred thousand dollars a year. Sure, they make millions, and I make much less but so what?
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

throwaway71958 10y ago

>> It will happen. As someone who was born and raised in the Soviet Union and spent the last 20 years in the US, I hope to dear god this doesn't ever happen. I don't know where else I'd have to emigrate if it does. To Mars maybe? What you're describing is essentially "collective enterprise" or "kolkhoz", where nominally you own a share in a venture, but in practice you don't own shit, and as a result you don't consider it "your own", and as a direct consequence of not actually owning property, you just can't bring yourself to care. This gives rise to a lot of unsavory and damaging behaviors: from not actually working all that hard, to outright stealing. They had a saying in the USSR: "Everything belongs to the kolkhoz, so everything belongs to me." So who's to judge you if you e.g. steal a couple of tons of kerosene to heat your hothouse in winter? Communists had to _shoot people_ who had even a modicum of entrepreneurial skill ("kulaks"), and take away their property in order to get the rest to join after the October Revolution of 1917. I suspect that's how things looked to the revolutionaries back in late 19th century. They've never experienced their proposed ideology on their own hide and therefore did not see its rough edges and downsides. All of this collectivism in the US can exist only as a part of a broader staunchly capitalist economy, and then only during the "good times" when people's needs are more or less met and they can spare some energy on pursuing ideological purity. All of this discussion about communist ideals from people who have never experienced anything anywhere close to what it's like is like a bad nightmare to any Eastern European who actually has a first hand experience living under a communist regime. Truly, those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it. I, for one, will sacrifice everything I've got to prevent any even remotely communist development of events here in the US. Yes, that does include not considering Bernie "Money grows on trees" Sanders seriously. Communism does not work. It never did work. It never will work. I'm 100% certain of it. Cue people explaining to me that the "USSR never actually had communism" and "you're holding it wrong". You're missing the point.

erikpukinskis 10y ago
You were flagged, but I don't see any rule violations so I vouched for you. I share many of your same fears. But your argument is a slippery slope argument, so I can't really argue against it. Maybe you're right, and the worker-owned Pizza co-op down the street from me will slide into Stalinist authoritarianism. We'll see. I think the fact that it is voluntary and you are at will to choose an ownership-based enterprise instead is a key difference from the Soviet Union. I'll also point out that the vast majority of U.S. employees don't have ownership stakes and they still show up to work and work hard. Many people (retirees, the rich, other do-gooders) even work hard for organizations and don't get paid. I appreciate your recounting of history though, and share your concern. The biggest fear I have is that decentralization of operations will make it easier for exploitation of workers on a small scale in secret. I also do share your fear that my understanding of how much resources will be needed is off because I grew up in a country where those resources were presumed. But these fears are not enough to stop my work. Capitalism has led to my neighbors in the Bay Area being regularly shot, and that's a real problem I am dealing with today. So my concern over those shootings is greater than my concern about the theoretical future ones you are cautioning against. You're wrong to assume that us naive Americans have no idea what it's like to see your friends and neighbors be shot for political reasons.
- throwaway71958 10y ago
  The point is that your pizza co-op can only exist as a non-dominant form of organization in a wealthy society. Once it becomes the dominant form, everything goes to hell. There isn't a single country in the history of this civilization where this wasn't proven true. Now, you could argue that we're not "cultured" enough to live onder such utopia, but my retort will be that you need to figure out a way to experiment with it at scale first without subjecting everyone to what you think (but, obviously, not _know_) is better. As they used to say back in the day in the Soviet Union "test it on dogs first". Even Lenin (patron saint of communist revolutionaries and a murderous dictator) ended up realizing he's wrong about collectivism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Economic_Policy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Economic_Policy "Exploitation of workers" is actually the greatest thing about the West. Those workers wouldn't even be able to care for themselves if they weren't "exploited", and by creating the societal pressure to do so, through moderate poverty (very few people in the US know what real, actual poverty is), and general disapproval of leisurely lifestyle, you motivate people to be productive, which ultimately benfits society. Then, once they acquire a modicum of wealth and property, they get to "exploit" others by paying them a mutually agreed upon fee in order to have some work done. I'm technically a "worker" who is quite happy to be "exploited" by my capitalist overlords, as long as I get paid a few hundred thousand dollars a year. Sure, they make millions, and I make much less but so what?

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]