From the recent Bad Faith podcast. Gonna read up on them. Seems like a decent first step towards full communism, with the added benefit of I don't think people have an immune response to the term.
"Democratize the workforce" is pretty close to "seize the means of production". I'll take it, for now.
Well, if you believe Lenin, this is pure “economism” - focusing purely on the battle between workers and employers. The fight between workers and employers is just part of the struggle for socialism. He considered this kind of narrow minded approach opportunism.
If you’re a “socialist” and not talking about the abolition of wage labour and proletarian control of the state as WELL as the workplace, you’re playing against the bourgeoisie on their own turf, by their own rules. Let’s say a bunch of private prison workers somehow “democratised their workplace” - it’s done nothing to change the prison industrial complex, except slightly rearranging who gets which slice of the pie.
Not to say that co-ops are bad, they’re a marginal improvement on the alternative, but I find it mildly concerning that someone who is clearly as intelligent as Wolfe seems to think this is the be all and end all of socialist agitation. I don’t know if it’s some kind of tactical consideration he’s made to “start small”, but if he has I suggest he read What Is To Be Done? because Lenin was calling that shit out 120 years ago.
Wolfe has mentioned that he doesnt see co-ops as the end goal, but a starting point for socialism. I would agree with him.
Still not seeing a difference between a group of workers owning their own business and the socialist "workers owning the means of production" as described by Marx.
I get what you're describing is a move towards a centralized and controlled economy- but in a market-based society, why would workers choose to pay themselves less than they produce in value if they are the owners and decision makers at their company.
This is a step for socialism, towards full on communism. In my opinion.
“The workers owning the means of production” doesn’t mean “these specific workers at this one business owning this specific business”. If one auto plant becomes a co-op, they don’t control the mine, or the smelting plant, or the place where the electronics are made, or the transport chain that gets the materials to the plant, or the distribution network that disperses the finished product. They’re still just one tiny “worker owned” cog in a bourgeois machine. It’s essentially the same as big capitalist enterprises integrating petit-bourgeois small tradesmen into their operations, which is a thing that happens already.
Not to mention I have a feeling that co-ops would eventually be squeezed out of the market, like any other petit-bourgeois element, they will eventually be proletarianised.
Ok, so what if the smelter were worker owned, and the mine, and the electronics manufacturer, and the transport company? That is better, right? Even if they are operating in a market based economy?
Are the different co-ops all “co-operating” with each other, or are they in competition? Are the smelters trying to squeeze as much profit as they can from the auto workers? Are the transporters trying to squeeze the rest of the supply chain? Because if they are, congrats, you just invented capitalism with more steps.
But it isn’t though if the whole supply chain is coops? Squeezing will result in much more effective socially needed labor contraction/wage equalization. As one labor place becomes too highly compensated, it would spawn a second shop in market paradigm.
I think industries were this is not true is only extremely high tech sector (precision instruments/silicon manufacturing/space), where labor education takes decade plus. The issue wouldn’t be competition up and down chain, it would be exclusively top of the chain in imaginary market-economy coops.
I mean, yes, they are trying to lower the price of goods. And yes, this is a market-based system, so the balance of income for the co-op, distributed among its workers to pay suitable amounts, with affordability of the products will happen. But without the bourgeois ownership, without the leeches stealing surplus value, there is likely room for price changes while still providing the workers with their value.
Isnt this desirable? Workers would see increases in income, and products would potentially decrease in price. Or go up.
Anyway, I see what you're saying, but I think it is significantly different without the leeching class stealing value across the entire supply chain.
And no, its not capitalism with more steps - worker power is a real thing in this situation, and where is the capitalist class?