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Mondragon as the new city-state

elysian.press

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Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#151

Post by K0balt »

harwoodjp wrote: post #143
nyokodo wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why don't workers unite to democratically manage production? Because the majority of workers are doing the minimum amount of work to get by, because ~50% of workers are below average intelligence, because those with the entrepreneurial skill and/or business management competence necessary to make this happen benefit more from the current system and have less motivation to mess with it.

[flagged]

I can’t speak to op’s emotional well being, but he is spot on with his reasoning. In the rarified air that most of us here inhabit, it’s easy to forget that for every college professor there is someone for whom tying their shoes is a significant cognitive challenge. For every really smart person, there is someone who lacks the cognition to participate meaningfully in society. For every brilliant individual, there is someone whose mental capacity puts them in need of lifelong care.

The bell curve is a bitch.

The average person just gets by and doesn’t think all that much about anything outside of their immediate surroundings. For most, politics and such is a team sport, not an intellectual pursuit.

It’s an uncomfortable fact of life, and those that have talents and gifts above the norm are by default responsible for guiding and advancing society. We ignore that burden at the peril of all.

Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#152

Post by ertian »

harwoodjp wrote: post #72
intalentive wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To elaborate on my previous comment: if you want people to be less individualistic and more community-minded, and especially if you want economic organization to be more cooperative, decentralized and bottom-up, then people are going to need to feel a deep sense of buy-in and belonging, and you don't really see that in an undifferentiated mass of atomized "consuming and producing units". But you do see it among the A…

It's true that, in those groups, a shared ethnic identity enables economic cooperation. But the lack of solidarity you observe is the result of a regime of coercion. The official policy: leave your neighborhood, family, friends, and passions for 40+ hours a week to build a capitalist's business. You have to do it to survive. And the police are there to make sure revolts don't break out.

The claim that work is inherently coercive is crazy to me. In order to live, we need food, clothing, shelter, comforts. Those take labor to produce. We've abstracted labor using money, allowing for specialization, so you can perform some specialized labor to provide for all your needs.

The needs aren't forced upon you. They're inherent. Labor is required to meet the needs you must meet in order to live (and live in comfort). They'd be needed even if no board of directors had ever sat in a meeting room. So who's coercing you? It's like a farmer hating his field: you're mad that companies 'make' you work to survive; a farmer might hate his field for 'making' him plant seeds to produce food.

I don't get it. It seems delusional.

Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#153

Post by gengwyn »

jmyeet wrote: post #47
RHSeeger wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no value without labor. While this is generally true, it's also not the entire equation. For example, there's no gain without risk. - When I work for someone else, I am offloading some of the risk to that person/owner. When someone starts a company and hires other people... if the company goes belly up, the founder loses their investment; the workers find another job. - When I rent from someone else, I am…

> When I work for someone else, I am offloading some of the risk to that person/owner. Workers generally risk their lives or simply injury. Owners "risk" capital. I put that in quotes because our government is typically set up to rescue failing businesses and by that I mean bailing out the owners. If the business fails, the owner simply has less money or they have to become a worker. So who is really taking a risk he…

There is risk to capital. The government does not bail out every business that fails. That's ludicrous. Investors like VCs can and do lose their investments all the time with no government intervention whatsoever. An owner is also risking in terms of opportunity cost - time lost to starting a business and failing is inherently riskier than working with similar talents and investing in safer assets like index funds for the potential upside of higher returns if the business succeeds.

Bootstrapped companies also come with risks to the founder's own capital and credit risk if loans are taken and the business fails to generate revenue to service them.

Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#154

Post by [deleted] »

WalterBright wrote: post #141
greenie_beans wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there is a risk for the worker and renter, too. and opportunity costs. my shelter not being destroyed is extremely more important to me and my life than my landlord who has insurance for such things, especially in a place with a housing vacancy less than 1% (aka very very hard to find housing). if i leave, they will have no problem finding a tenant to take my place. any repairs and maintenance are essentially paid fo…

Places with 1% vacancy rates only exist when the government prevents more housing from being built, or makes it unprofitable to be a landlord.

[deleted]

Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#155

Post by fragmede »

max_hoffmann wrote: post #62
glutamate wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A workers cooperative is owned by its current workers. Are you going to argue that consultancies and law firms are not really owned by their current partners, either?

Profits belong to the people who create them, not to people who used to work at the same company in the past. Expecting future employees of a company to work for ex-employees in the future is unfair. Having worked for a company, doesn’t entitle anyone to remain on the paycheck until death, despite not working there anymore.

> Having worked for a company, doesn’t entitle anyone to remain on the paycheck until death, despite not working there anymore

This arrangement is called a pension, and is still quite popular in areas of the world with strong workers rights.

Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#156

Post by positr0n »

devman0 wrote: post #28
metabagel wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that more important than ownership is the purpose of the company. Most companies have the purpose of making money. Few have a purpose which includes contributing to quality of life, unless that’s something which can be sold for a profit.

Not just making money, but making more money than they did last year, forever. Like a company can't just be cool with the fact that they serve a profitable market niche and gainfully employ people. Investors need capital gains and won't just be satisfied with getting reliable dividends! Stock buy backs ruined corporate governance...

What different effects do stock buybacks have on corporate governance compared to dividends?

My understanding is both return $X/share of capital to shareholders, buybacks are just more tax efficient, flexible, and a little more difficult to see the direct effect of.

Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#157

Post by harwoodjp »

ertian wrote: post #152
harwoodjp wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true that, in those groups, a shared ethnic identity enables economic cooperation. But the lack of solidarity you observe is the result of a regime of coercion. The official policy: leave your neighborhood, family, friends, and passions for 40+ hours a week to build a capitalist's business. You have to do it to survive. And the police are there to make sure revolts don't break out.

The claim that work is inherently coercive is crazy to me. In order to live, we need food, clothing, shelter, comforts. Those take labor to produce. We've abstracted labor using money, allowing for specialization, so you can perform some specialized labor to provide for all your needs. The needs aren't forced upon you . They're inherent. Labor is required to meet the needs you must meet in order to live (and live in…

Automation makes jobs unnecessary. We should build social infrastructure that allows people to pursue their passions with basic necessities guaranteed. This has been possible for awhile now.

Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#158

Post by mikojan »

WalterBright wrote: post #127
mikojan wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The collective farm that produced SpaceX is the United States Government. It carried out all the research and development necessary to create and further the North American space program. And it is existential in furthering it to this day. Without this source of contracts, research projects and income SpaceX would not be able to produce its commercial spin-off products.

If it weren't for the Wright Brothers, NASA would never have existed.

Maybe so but I am not arguing with that. The original claim is much weaker: No "collective" produces innovation.

Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#159

Post by gengwyn »

jmyeet wrote: post #52
shafoshaf wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure your economic terms are not what the consensus of professionally trained economists would say. >>>Locally-owned businesses. That's socialism. There is definitely nothing in the definition of socialism that says everything is locally-owned. Moreover, that can be a way to end up with things like Redlining and other institutional racial issues. >>>There is no value without labor. The great thing Marx did…

> I'm pretty sure your economic terms are not what the consensus of professionally trained economists would say. It's an oversimplification to highlight the main point: workers' relationship to the means of production. In capitalism, capital owners own the means of production. In socialism, the workers own the means of production. IME most Americans not only don't know what socialism is (despite being opposed to it),…

Because the failures of the USSR occurred entirely within the USSR's borders, under its jurisdiction, and were entirely within its power to resolve. Meanwhile, the 9 million deaths of starvation you cite are across multiple countries with multiple overlapping legal regimes and are multi-causal, from corruption to war and failed states like Haiti and Syria.

Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#160

Post by thinkingtoilet »

kragen wrote: post #121
thinkingtoilet wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>anarcho-syndicalist I'm sure 99% of people first heard this term in the famous Holy Grail bit. I have never seen it used in the wild. Thanks!

you are overestimating the degree to which your personal social group is typical in the world by probably about a factor of 100

I think you misunderstood. I said if someone has heard the term "anarcho-syndicalist", there is a very high chance it's from the Holy Grial. Not 99% of people in the world are familiar with the term.
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