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WRONG - it should be voluntarily expanded to everything. One dealbreaker for me and far-left thinking is the required authoritarianism of implementing their id

WRONG - it should be voluntarily expanded to everything. One dealbreaker for me and far-left thinking is the required authoritarianism of implementing their ideas in society. If your ideas are so good, go start something yourself, and see if it catches on. If people still want to work for Apple, there must be a reason, despite the lopsided revenue distribution.

asdff 3y ago
You can do it but part of the issue is that the market effectively silences you to begin with. Its like you are at a thermodynamic disadvantage when you are a coop bootstrapping the company with your own owned means of production, versus one that is able to sell itself off to speculative investors for capital to "growth hack" as they say. The experiment of seeing if it catches on would therefore always fail even if the idea was actually better for most people. I'm not imposing on anything, I'm just highlighting how logically it makes a lot of sense to spread wealth around, and yet the very nature of capitalism perpetuates it to the exclusivity of all else, collectively shared vs individually held benefits be damned. I can see why Marx thought the only path forward from capitalism to a collectivism would take a revolution. Greed is sadly more competitive in a free market business environment where natural wealth is divvied up into private ownership.
satvikpendem 3y ago
I have often had the same conversation with people in that spectrum, that people should just start coops if they feel like it but to not force me into them, and they tell me that it only works when all businesses are coops, ie workers own the means of production everywhere. Well, if it requires such a fundamental change to society, perhaps it's not actually a feasible solution at all?
dontlaugh 3y ago
Workers don’t have capital, by definition. How would they start anything significant, in general? The current authoritarianism of the capitalist class is what keeps workers from having capital, by not paying workers the full value their labour produces. They enforce this with laws, courts police and armies. Workers did in fact also start things themselves and got attacked for it. From monopoly practices to starve co-ops to coups, sanctions and wars against countries that collectivise.
- monero-xmr 3y ago
  The whole article and HN comment thread is about how people are doing this! Themselves! As the proletariat! So don't force me at gunpoint to do the same
  - dontlaugh 3y ago
    In a few isolated cases. Very good, but not enough on its own. Stop forcing me at gunpoint to give up a large portion of the value I create. And stop supporting your country forcing others at gunpoint to be like it.
    - monero-xmr 3y ago
      You can always go to Venezuela, enjoy
      - dontlaugh 3y ago
        Why should I not want my own country to be sovereign? And why should I not want NATO to stop attacking Venezuela?

asdff 3y ago

You can do it but part of the issue is that the market effectively silences you to begin with. Its like you are at a thermodynamic disadvantage when you are a coop bootstrapping the company with your own owned means of production, versus one that is able to sell itself off to speculative investors for capital to "growth hack" as they say. The experiment of seeing if it catches on would therefore always fail even if the idea was actually better for most people. I'm not imposing on anything, I'm just highlighting how logically it makes a lot of sense to spread wealth around, and yet the very nature of capitalism perpetuates it to the exclusivity of all else, collectively shared vs individually held benefits be damned. I can see why Marx thought the only path forward from capitalism to a collectivism would take a revolution. Greed is sadly more competitive in a free market business environment where natural wealth is divvied up into private ownership.

satvikpendem 3y ago

I have often had the same conversation with people in that spectrum, that people should just start coops if they feel like it but to not force me into them, and they tell me that it only works when all businesses are coops, ie workers own the means of production everywhere. Well, if it requires such a fundamental change to society, perhaps it's not actually a feasible solution at all?

dontlaugh 3y ago

Workers don’t have capital, by definition. How would they start anything significant, in general? The current authoritarianism of the capitalist class is what keeps workers from having capital, by not paying workers the full value their labour produces. They enforce this with laws, courts police and armies. Workers did in fact also start things themselves and got attacked for it. From monopoly practices to starve co-ops to coups, sanctions and wars against countries that collectivise.

monero-xmr 3y ago
The whole article and HN comment thread is about how people are doing this! Themselves! As the proletariat! So don't force me at gunpoint to do the same
- dontlaugh 3y ago
  In a few isolated cases. Very good, but not enough on its own. Stop forcing me at gunpoint to give up a large portion of the value I create. And stop supporting your country forcing others at gunpoint to be like it.
  - monero-xmr 3y ago
    You can always go to Venezuela, enjoy
    - dontlaugh 3y ago
      Why should I not want my own country to be sovereign? And why should I not want NATO to stop attacking Venezuela?