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Mondragon as the new city-state

elysian.press

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Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#321

Post by KingMob »

WalterBright wrote: post #280
Apocryphon wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you know there used to be people who lived on that land

I missed the railroads, steel industries, chip manufacturers, iphones, etc. that were looted from those people? BTW, studies of the bones of pre-Columbian Indians shows they worked hard and suffered from periodic famines, as well as a lot of violence.

Those things weren't looted from the natives.

But the profits were looted from the workers who actually built all that stuff.

Capitalists aren't the ones hammering in steel spikes or wearing clean-room fab suits.

Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#322

Post by MrDrMcCoy »

partomniscient wrote: post #318
kragen wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i appreciate the additional information! are they funny in romanian?

I'd imagine the Silly Walks sketch transcends language boundaries.

I would venture to guess that absurdity is the easiest form of humor to translate by far. I can imagine the parrot sketch, the Hungarian phrasebook, how not to be seen, and most of the bits in "And Now for Something Completely Different" working pretty well with minimal English language comprehension.

Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#324

Post by aguaviva »

WalterBright wrote: post #316
aguaviva wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there any sustainable socialist economies by any metric? China has hit it out of the park, I think it's quite fair to say. (Could easily name a whole bunch more, but gotta keep this short. It's also a moot subject, per my last item below). Colonialism is not free market. That's the thing -- "free market" societies have never really been free, once externalities are accounted for. But the multi-century European co…

China abandoned communism and turned free markets. That's why they "hit it out of the park". > "free market" societies have never really been free Of course. But the free'er they are, the better they work. > has been a working hybrid of both systems The socialist part flounders along, supported by taxes on the free market. The bigger the socialist part, the worse the economy as a whole performs.

China abandoned communism and turned free markets.

We weren't talking about communism, but rather socialism. Also, its markets are very far from free.

That's all I have time for. Good luck.

Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#325

Post by loa_in_ »

rglullis wrote: post #293
jszymborski wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not "social washing" if it's actually a working co-operative. We all collectively own the funds, and if we ever want to lower yearly rates or pay our members dividends from surpluses, members are free to put it to a vote. Part of the reason we run a surplus is to deal with any unexpected costs (they don't just scale with users, but also the popularity of users on our server), but FWIW I think we should open up a…

What would be the point of "paying dividends from surpluses", if the funds are getting in and out of the same (collective) pockets? And if "everyone" owns the coop, then why do you need to get the surplus in the first place? Seems to be it would be just fine to say "Every month we run a report of the total expenses, and every member pays an equal share".

I imagine bulk buying, less packaging, easier budgeting, among other things.

Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#326

Post by max_hoffmann »

WalterBright wrote: post #262
max_hoffmann wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s why cooperatism is superior to socialism and capitalism. It’s a free market of worker-owned companies, creating things by running their businesses together.

It's not a free market if you do not allow capitalism to exist. Note that capitalism does not exclude worker-owned companies at all. You're free to start one.

The free market is a set of principles between companies, not a principle for how companies need to be organized internally. Capitalism is based on single-owned companies. Cooperatism is based on worker-owned companies. Cooperatism is a better free market based economy. It’s capitalism 2.0.

Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#327

Post by K0balt »

Viliam1234 wrote: post #228
harwoodjp wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You guys are both discussing intelligence hierarchies (wtf?) without regard to actual history of popular labor movements being violently squashed.

Maybe the ability and willingness to violently squash others is the highest form of "intelligence"? If you're so smart, why are you beaten up by my thugs?

If everyone started at exactly the same point, there might be some validity to the idea that the ability to ensure one’s own security was a useful proxy for intelligence. But, clearly, that’s not the world we live in.

Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#328

Post by rglullis »

loa_in_ wrote: post #325
rglullis wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would be the point of "paying dividends from surpluses", if the funds are getting in and out of the same (collective) pockets? And if "everyone" owns the coop, then why do you need to get the surplus in the first place? Seems to be it would be just fine to say "Every month we run a report of the total expenses, and every member pays an equal share".

I imagine bulk buying, less packaging, easier budgeting, among other things.

How does that apply to a coop offering digital services, which have no physical shipping and costs can be easily fractioned/metered?

Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#329

Post by harwoodjp »

WalterBright wrote: post #309
harwoodjp wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> violence necessary to steal the means of production You could argue that private property is theft, necessarily enforced by a repressive state, and reappropriation is justice. The general strike is non-violent (until the police arrive). > You also conflation democracy with freedom. 49% gets subjugated by the other 51%. The interesting part about decentralization is that it somewhat relieves this problem. Federation…

> You could argue that private property is theft [...] You could, but it wouldn't be convincing. It's a bit hard to convince me that things I bought or made I actually stole. Are you going to argue that if I hire someone to build a patio, I actually stole it from him?

Personal property is distinct from private property.

Re: Mondragon as the new city-state

#330

Post by mapt »

aussieguy1234 wrote: post #140

Its interesting that Rojava wasn't mentioned here. After driving out Islamic State, they founded their own country in north east Syria, not widely internationally recognised yet but functioning much better than the rest of Syria. They are still a developing country and by no means wealthy, but the average income in this area is double what it is in the rest of the country. Their economy is built almost entirely on co…

Iraq and Turkey, as of a few days ago, are making a new agreement for a transport corridor and peaceful coexistence, which includes Iraq getting more reliable access to river water, and Turkey getting more reliable targetting access to Kurds with aspirations of self-rule.

Every regional power seems to periodically crush the population of their sector of Greater Kurdistan, and encourage their neighbors' sectors to start an insurrection.

The US has sacrificed these people over and over again in pursuit of foreign policy objectives.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/13/the-kurds-a-bi...

https://theintercept.com/2019/10/07/kurds-syria-turkey-trump...

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