10 ms·

My country has had national assets sold to the private sector by neoliberal ideologues: I feel viscerally that energy generation should be in the public sector.

by psd1 3y ago

My country has had national assets sold to the private sector by neoliberal ideologues: I feel viscerally that energy generation should be in the public sector. The truth is that their needs to be a balance. All political opinions are wrong and harmful, as a fact of human linings on complex systems with enormous numbers of unknowable factors. So we should instead consider complex systems. A complex system needs to have capacity to change, and contain variation within itself. If it is too chaotic, it will dissipate; if it is too stable, its effectiveness will plummet when the environment changes. This demonstrates why communists and libertarians are both full of shit. It suggests that a nation should have a mix of private and nationalised industry. When new categories emerge, besides private and national, then nations should have some of that in the mix, too: in order to maintain internal heterogeneity, to provide a reserve of dynamism.

jampekka 3y ago
This is quite close to at least nordic social democracy, in which the economy was actually called mixed economy (as opposed to e.g. capitalist or socialist). Until the rapid neoliberalization in late 80's and early 90's. Finland's national and third sector (e.g. co-operatives) were (and still are) plundered quite a bit too, although of course nothing like ex-socialist countries. There indeed needs to be a mix. The "mix" in mixed economy wasn't just about gov ownership vs capitalist ownership. It was also about co-ops, unions, worker ownership and non-profits.
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  > It was also about co-ops, unions and non-profits. Those all sound like things that would exist just fine in a capitalist system. It's just "free agreement between individuals to create organisations that can only compete based on rules set out by the government". They can all exist in that framework, and do. Co-ops are just a type of ownership structure, like any other. Unions are a condition of employment agreement between employee and employer. Non-profits, like charities, are just a type of governance and taxation arrangement that exists fine in that system.
  - jampekka 3y ago
    Co-ops, unions and non-profits are detrimental to private capital profit and thus they tend to get marginalized when private ownership becomes too powerful. E.g. telecoms were co-ops, but then privatized and the memberships-turned-shares were amassed by big investors. Similar happened to banks in the UK (in Finland many non-profit banks were more or less plundered to bankcrupty). That said, co-ops are still huge in Finnish retail, banking and insurance (to great annoyance of the right). But they nowadays they tend to even sort of hide being a co-op and economy is mostly discussed as for-profits vs gov ownership. Other than for-profit doesn't really sit that nicely in the neoliberal ideology. Co-ops are quite a different form of ownership from private corporations and bring about different kinds of economic organization that is e.g. more robust against offshoring, speculation and asset-stripping. The type of ownership, i.e. what is enforced by the law, and violence in the extreme case, is the crux of any economic system. E.g. socialism vs capitalism difference is essentially what kind of ownership is enforced by law/state/community.
    - robertlagrant 3y ago
      > Co-ops are quite a different form of ownership from private corporations and bring about different kinds of economic organization that is e.g. more robust against offshoring, speculation and asset-stripping. Can you explain how that is? My conception is if I set up a company today that has as part of its rules the idea that when any employee joins/leaves shares (or virtual shares) with voting rights are rebalanced, do I not have the basic elements of a co-op? Aren't co-ops still for-profit?
      - jampekka 3y ago
        There are different kinds of co-ops. Most in Finland at least are consumer co-ops. You join the co-op by buying a membership/share at a fixed price from the co-op (the share is created at the spot, there's always as many shares as members. The price is typically mostly nominal, e.g. 50 eur). The share can't be resold (you can end your membership and you get the share price back) and one person can only buy one share. Each share gets one vote in the co-op election. The co-op can run a profit, but typically the charter is to provide some service (e.g. retail or banking) for the members (and typically for non-members too). Profits can be shared as dividends for the shares, but this is quite rare nowadays, and more often used to invest in new stores etc and/or lower prices. It typically doesn't make much sense for the members that e.g. your grocery store is moved to Bangladesh, so that quite rare. Worker co-ops are a bit different. You have to work at the co-op to have a share, and the payout is typically the salary. But crucially an investor can't just buy shares and just move the production to Congo and kick out the employees etc what for-profits do all the time if it gives the owners a higher profit.

by psd1 3y ago

jampekka 3y ago

This is quite close to at least nordic social democracy, in which the economy was actually called mixed economy (as opposed to e.g. capitalist or socialist). Until the rapid neoliberalization in late 80's and early 90's. Finland's national and third sector (e.g. co-operatives) were (and still are) plundered quite a bit too, although of course nothing like ex-socialist countries. There indeed needs to be a mix. The "mix" in mixed economy wasn't just about gov ownership vs capitalist ownership. It was also about co-ops, unions, worker ownership and non-profits.

robertlagrant 3y ago
> It was also about co-ops, unions and non-profits. Those all sound like things that would exist just fine in a capitalist system. It's just "free agreement between individuals to create organisations that can only compete based on rules set out by the government". They can all exist in that framework, and do. Co-ops are just a type of ownership structure, like any other. Unions are a condition of employment agreement between employee and employer. Non-profits, like charities, are just a type of governance and taxation arrangement that exists fine in that system.
- jampekka 3y ago
  Co-ops, unions and non-profits are detrimental to private capital profit and thus they tend to get marginalized when private ownership becomes too powerful. E.g. telecoms were co-ops, but then privatized and the memberships-turned-shares were amassed by big investors. Similar happened to banks in the UK (in Finland many non-profit banks were more or less plundered to bankcrupty). That said, co-ops are still huge in Finnish retail, banking and insurance (to great annoyance of the right). But they nowadays they tend to even sort of hide being a co-op and economy is mostly discussed as for-profits vs gov ownership. Other than for-profit doesn't really sit that nicely in the neoliberal ideology. Co-ops are quite a different form of ownership from private corporations and bring about different kinds of economic organization that is e.g. more robust against offshoring, speculation and asset-stripping. The type of ownership, i.e. what is enforced by the law, and violence in the extreme case, is the crux of any economic system. E.g. socialism vs capitalism difference is essentially what kind of ownership is enforced by law/state/community.
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    > Co-ops are quite a different form of ownership from private corporations and bring about different kinds of economic organization that is e.g. more robust against offshoring, speculation and asset-stripping. Can you explain how that is? My conception is if I set up a company today that has as part of its rules the idea that when any employee joins/leaves shares (or virtual shares) with voting rights are rebalanced, do I not have the basic elements of a co-op? Aren't co-ops still for-profit?
    - jampekka 3y ago
      There are different kinds of co-ops. Most in Finland at least are consumer co-ops. You join the co-op by buying a membership/share at a fixed price from the co-op (the share is created at the spot, there's always as many shares as members. The price is typically mostly nominal, e.g. 50 eur). The share can't be resold (you can end your membership and you get the share price back) and one person can only buy one share. Each share gets one vote in the co-op election. The co-op can run a profit, but typically the charter is to provide some service (e.g. retail or banking) for the members (and typically for non-members too). Profits can be shared as dividends for the shares, but this is quite rare nowadays, and more often used to invest in new stores etc and/or lower prices. It typically doesn't make much sense for the members that e.g. your grocery store is moved to Bangladesh, so that quite rare. Worker co-ops are a bit different. You have to work at the co-op to have a share, and the payout is typically the salary. But crucially an investor can't just buy shares and just move the production to Congo and kick out the employees etc what for-profits do all the time if it gives the owners a higher profit.