Let's break the anti-communist taboo

[Jarhyn]

Or it requires a software and operational change wherein some percentage of every transaction of stock, sale OR collateralization, goes to an automatic union formed of the employees.

They then come to gain position on the board.

It's a soft form of movement towards a corporate form of Communism.

The protection from "misuse" is that ultimately, it is not a thing that is controlled by committee and allotment of whatever. It's a system which redirects ownership away from "that which I have now is mine forever until I see fit" to "that which I have now, I keep by contributing to, and maintaining."

There is little to abuse in this. In fact, it corrects a great and ancient abuse.

This sort of option has been presented before--and it suffers the problem of buy-in. Either a new worker brings assets equal to the share of the company they will be getting (and where do they get that money??) or they don't (and it's almost certainly not in the worker's interest to hire anyone else as that's giving away their assets.)

The asset the worker brings is their work, time, and effort.

Either the company needs them to be what the company is, or the company does not so need them. If the law is simply that 100% of work in the US yields an equal share of stock transfer dies, there is nothing to buy.

Either they need a worker to do the work, to which they yield their leverage as to themselves when they exert it... or they do not.

There is nothing to buy in. A financial law gets passed, and then this thing starts happening, as a function of all stock trades and collateralization on the market.

Of course, it won't happen. The world is too broken at this point, and it is now too hard to just tear down those who are too powerful to ever slip their grasp.

Thus no company ever grows. Nor do new companies come into existence. Nor do workers change jobs.

Sounds rather dystopian to me.

No, companies grow, but under the control and direction of the workers, over time, rather than the people who merely got the thing started. They are guaranteed value in their sale and leverage! Stocks are supposed to gain between 5 and 10%. This means that owning company stocks for the purpose of flipping (speculation) dies, but speculation is bullshit anyway, it adds NOTHING.

It creates an effective tax on stock collateralization, and on sale, the beneficiaries of which are the people who gave that stock any actual material backing.

A worker gets his equal share of stocks in a job they are in, while they are in that job, and it's not like they would lose them for quitting. They would lose them as those stocks produced VALUE for them, or leverage, or any other material assets.

I join BigCorp as a janitor. Over year while I work, 1000 stocks of BigCorp changed hands or were operated on. On average there have been 9 other people working during this period. This means I have roughly 1 stock. So do the other 9 folks.

I quit. I keep my share because I wish to have a vote on the BigCorp board. Every year I show up, and lose 1% or whatever of my share. Every year I take dividends... And lose another percent of it. Eventually, it's mostly gone, or at least insignificant. It's gone back to the workers I stopped working with.

Or perhaps I just sell it to the union, or on the market, and I just get some quick money.

Eventually, this will create more and more worker seats on the board as they use their control and shares to leverage value out of the company.

Why would an entrepreneur want to start a company in this type of system? You want workers to be able to control their labor. Well, when I start a company (I've started 3), I want the ability to control my labor, my capital, and my time. Worker controlled companies have their place. My wife worked for a very successful one (large retail company). But they won't work as well in all companies. They obviously won't attract much investor capital. And a growing company constantly needs capital to grow.

Because if they do not, then they do not get to have anything, and die on the street cold, alone, and destitute.

They start it because they wish to have something that they will profit off of and own to the extent that ownership still exists for the extent of years that their work and activity implies.

You are failing to grok how this works in failing to observe that it will, at some point, be universal.

You start a corner store (small and not strictly applicable but easy to handle and transform into a more complicated example) knowing that in 20 years, as one of three employees, you will probably come to own only a third of the store, with the other two thirds of ownership spread across the population of employees held over those 20 years. Should you choose to buy out the former workers as they leave, assuming they sell, that number could be much higher than a third. Or you could choose not to start a store and acknowledge that it will take 20 hard years of working to get even a third of that business in your pocket, and the owner/manager is still going to be able to fire you because they have a controlling share. It also means that if the manager is being shitty to the two employees of 20 years they can fire him and his remainder of stake will be his shares that he still owns and can leverage at marginal "leverage tax" or whatever you want to call this

If your only contribution to the store is to leverage it into existence and say "there needs to be a store there!" Then the extent of your ability to hold it decays over time indefinitely to 0%, and I'll laugh at you remorselessly when you do, even despite the reality that you, without doing material labor, got interest on your investment (assuming it didn't fail).

No risk justifies infinite rewards.

Ownership of stock that does not decay is an infinite reward for risk.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Thus no company ever grows. Nor do new companies come into existence. Nor do workers change jobs.

Sounds rather dystopian to me.

No, companies grow, but under the control and direction of the workers, over time, rather than the people who merely got the thing started. They are guaranteed value in their sale and leverage! Stocks are supposed to gain between 5 and 10%. This means that owning company stocks for the purpose of flipping (speculation) dies, but speculation is bullshit anyway, it adds NOTHING.

What you are missing is that in hiring a worker they are giving away a piece of the company. It would be a rare situation where it's worth it to do so.

It creates an effective tax on stock collateralization, and on sale, the beneficiaries of which are the people who gave that stock any actual material backing.

A worker gets his equal share of stocks in a job they are in, while they are in that job, and it's not like they would lose them for quitting. They would lose them as those stocks produced VALUE for them, or leverage, or any other material assets.

I join BigCorp as a janitor. Over year while I work, 1000 stocks of BigCorp changed hands or were operated on. On average there have been 9 other people working during this period. This means I have roughly 1 stock. So do the other 9 folks.

I quit. I keep my share because I wish to have a vote on the BigCorp board. Every year I show up, and lose 1% or whatever of my share. Every year I take dividends... And lose another percent of it. Eventually, it's mostly gone, or at least insignificant. It's gone back to the workers I stopped working with.

Or perhaps I just sell it to the union, or on the market, and I just get some quick money.

Eventually, this will create more and more worker seats on the board as they use their control and shares to leverage value out of the company.

The same failure communism always has--it relies on someone else to build the system and then steals it.

Adam, Bob and Charlie take $100k and make Acme Widget Works. Should they hire Don? They are in effect giving him a $25k hiring bonus with no obligation to stick around. Don won't get hired.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Because if they do not, then they do not get to have anything, and die on the street cold, alone, and destitute.

But you're virtually always worse off if you hire than if you don't. There are no jobs, no way to gather the money to start a business and no way to operate a business that needs more capital than workers can bring.

You'll die sooner if you follow your route than if you simply live on the capital.

You are failing to grok how this works in failing to observe that it will, at some point, be universal.

No, we grok it fine, you just can't see the problems.

You start a corner store (small and not strictly applicable but easy to handle and transform into a more complicated example) knowing that in 20 years, as one of three employees, you will probably come to own only a third of the store, with the other two thirds of ownership spread across the population of employees held over those 20 years. Should you choose to buy out the former workers as they leave, assuming they sell, that number could be much higher than a third. Or you could choose not to start a store and acknowledge that it will take 20 hard years of working to get even a third of that business in your pocket, and the owner/manager is still going to be able to fire you because they have a controlling share. It also means that if the manager is being shitty to the two employees of 20 years they can fire him and his remainder of stake will be his shares that he still owns and can leverage at marginal "leverage tax" or whatever you want to call this

No, you'll own a sliver.

A practical example of what happens in such situations is in the history books: The Cultural Revolution. It was a disaster. We have an even worse example from the Khmer Rouge. That's what happens when you have diluted responsibility.

If your only contribution to the store is to leverage it into existence and say "there needs to be a store there!" Then the extent of your ability to hold it decays over time indefinitely to 0%, and I'll laugh at you remorselessly when you do, even despite the reality that you, without doing material labor, got interest on your investment (assuming it didn't fail).

No risk justifies infinite rewards.

Ownership of stock that does not decay is an infinite reward for risk.

In the real world businesses generally don't last forever. And the value of future money isn't as great as the value of current money. Even if a business was going to last forever the value of the stock wouldn't be infinite.

Note that in an efficient market the value of stock is the risk-adjusted present value of all future earnings. In practice stock often trades above this point. Stock isn't the windfall you think it is.

 

[Jarhyn]

Thus no company ever grows. Nor do new companies come into existence. Nor do workers change jobs.

Sounds rather dystopian to me.

No, companies grow, but under the control and direction of the workers, over time, rather than the people who merely got the thing started. They are guaranteed value in their sale and leverage! Stocks are supposed to gain between 5 and 10%. This means that owning company stocks for the purpose of flipping (speculation) dies, but speculation is bullshit anyway, it adds NOTHING.

What you are missing is that in hiring a worker they are giving away a piece of the company. It would be a rare situation where it's worth it to do so.

It creates an effective tax on stock collateralization, and on sale, the beneficiaries of which are the people who gave that stock any actual material backing.

A worker gets his equal share of stocks in a job they are in, while they are in that job, and it's not like they would lose them for quitting. They would lose them as those stocks produced VALUE for them, or leverage, or any other material assets.

I join BigCorp as a janitor. Over year while I work, 1000 stocks of BigCorp changed hands or were operated on. On average there have been 9 other people working during this period. This means I have roughly 1 stock. So do the other 9 folks.

I quit. I keep my share because I wish to have a vote on the BigCorp board. Every year I show up, and lose 1% or whatever of my share. Every year I take dividends... And lose another percent of it. Eventually, it's mostly gone, or at least insignificant. It's gone back to the workers I stopped working with.

Or perhaps I just sell it to the union, or on the market, and I just get some quick money.

Eventually, this will create more and more worker seats on the board as they use their control and shares to leverage value out of the company.

The same failure communism always has--it relies on someone else to build the system and then steals it.

Adam, Bob and Charlie take $100k and make Acme Widget Works. Should they hire Don? They are in effect giving him a $25k hiring bonus with no obligation to stick around. Don won't get hired.

In hiring a worker, they give away nothing. In fact they don't even give away anything for retaining the worker.

They give away stocks in exactly two situations: when they leverage those stocks, and when they exercise authority with them, and an exceedingly small percentage, to boot, and exclusively to the people who are doing the material work of building the thing.

I think it is a very wise situation to do so, in the knowledge that it is either give it away a bit at a time or give it all away over the threshold of their own bloody corpse.

It is worth it to do so so that those that have been cheated for a millennia do not outright kill those who cheated them, come their understanding of 'the cheat'.

The system is built by the people who will be the beneficiaries of the policy, explicitly.

It is not a 'hiring bonus' it's a 'working under our operation of leverage' bonus.

I cannot believe you are unable to understand the concept of "you get an equal share of all and only the share margin that comes to exist while you are employed".

It is essentially a compulsory stock offerings program, the options for which come from the leveraging of stocks.

 

[Harry Bosch]

Or it requires a software and operational change wherein some percentage of every transaction of stock, sale OR collateralization, goes to an automatic union formed of the employees.

They then come to gain position on the board.

It's a soft form of movement towards a corporate form of Communism.

The protection from "misuse" is that ultimately, it is not a thing that is controlled by committee and allotment of whatever. It's a system which redirects ownership away from "that which I have now is mine forever until I see fit" to "that which I have now, I keep by contributing to, and maintaining."

There is little to abuse in this. In fact, it corrects a great and ancient abuse.

This sort of option has been presented before--and it suffers the problem of buy-in. Either a new worker brings assets equal to the share of the company they will be getting (and where do they get that money??) or they don't (and it's almost certainly not in the worker's interest to hire anyone else as that's giving away their assets.)

The asset the worker brings is their work, time, and effort.

Either the company needs them to be what the company is, or the company does not so need them. If the law is simply that 100% of work in the US yields an equal share of stock transfer dies, there is nothing to buy.

Either they need a worker to do the work, to which they yield their leverage as to themselves when they exert it... or they do not.

There is nothing to buy in. A financial law gets passed, and then this thing starts happening, as a function of all stock trades and collateralization on the market.

Of course, it won't happen. The world is too broken at this point, and it is now too hard to just tear down those who are too powerful to ever slip their grasp.

Thus no company ever grows. Nor do new companies come into existence. Nor do workers change jobs.

Sounds rather dystopian to me.

No, companies grow, but under the control and direction of the workers, over time, rather than the people who merely got the thing started. They are guaranteed value in their sale and leverage! Stocks are supposed to gain between 5 and 10%. This means that owning company stocks for the purpose of flipping (speculation) dies, but speculation is bullshit anyway, it adds NOTHING.

It creates an effective tax on stock collateralization, and on sale, the beneficiaries of which are the people who gave that stock any actual material backing.

A worker gets his equal share of stocks in a job they are in, while they are in that job, and it's not like they would lose them for quitting. They would lose them as those stocks produced VALUE for them, or leverage, or any other material assets.

I join BigCorp as a janitor. Over year while I work, 1000 stocks of BigCorp changed hands or were operated on. On average there have been 9 other people working during this period. This means I have roughly 1 stock. So do the other 9 folks.

I quit. I keep my share because I wish to have a vote on the BigCorp board. Every year I show up, and lose 1% or whatever of my share. Every year I take dividends... And lose another percent of it. Eventually, it's mostly gone, or at least insignificant. It's gone back to the workers I stopped working with.

Or perhaps I just sell it to the union, or on the market, and I just get some quick money.

Eventually, this will create more and more worker seats on the board as they use their control and shares to leverage value out of the company.

Why would an entrepreneur want to start a company in this type of system? You want workers to be able to control their labor. Well, when I start a company (I've started 3), I want the ability to control my labor, my capital, and my time. Worker controlled companies have their place. My wife worked for a very successful one (large retail company). But they won't work as well in all companies. They obviously won't attract much investor capital. And a growing company constantly needs capital to grow.

Because if they do not, then they do not get to have anything, and die on the street cold, alone, and destitute.

They start it because they wish to have something that they will profit off of and own to the extent that ownership still exists for the extent of years that their work and activity implies.

You are failing to grok how this works in failing to observe that it will, at some point, be universal.

You start a corner store (small and not strictly applicable but easy to handle and transform into a more complicated example) knowing that in 20 years, as one of three employees, you will probably come to own only a third of the store, with the other two thirds of ownership spread across the population of employees held over those 20 years. Should you choose to buy out the former workers as they leave, assuming they sell, that number could be much higher than a third. Or you could choose not to start a store and acknowledge that it will take 20 hard years of working to get even a third of that business in your pocket, and the owner/manager is still going to be able to fire you because they have a controlling share. It also means that if the manager is being shitty to the two employees of 20 years they can fire him and his remainder of stake will be his shares that he still owns and can leverage at marginal "leverage tax" or whatever you want to call this

If your only contribution to the store is to leverage it into existence and say "there needs to be a store there!" Then the extent of your ability to hold it decays over time indefinitely to 0%, and I'll laugh at you remorselessly when you do, even despite the reality that you, without doing material labor, got interest on your investment (assuming it didn't fail).

No risk justifies infinite rewards.

Ownership of stock that does not decay is an infinite reward for risk.

Well, your comments above are the issue. You don't respect or understand the importance of having a person who leads a company. Success or failure of a company is mostly decided by the decisions that a company makes. In particular the strategic decisions. And most of these decisions are made by the President for most companies. In my company, my partner and I developed and secured the technology, developed the manufacturing process, established the distribution, hired the key managers, created the customer demand, I go skiing with the banker to keep her happy and engaged with the company, figured out how to manufacture in this crazy covid world, and etc. I'm on call, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I have to know and be able to cover for all positions in the company. I'm grooming a manager right now to buy me out. But it's not as simple as you'd think or enticing. As an engineer in high demand, he could get a comfortable wage slave job 40 hour a week job making $150,000 a year no problem. Being an owner is not what it is cracked up to be.

You are free to start an anarchist company. My first one could be considered anarchist. Just don't assume that everyone will be happy and fulfilled in an anarchist company! There are some employee owned companies that work and do well. But it's just very difficult to motivate people when there isn't a leader or someone responsible at the top.

 

[Jarhyn]

Or it requires a software and operational change wherein some percentage of every transaction of stock, sale OR collateralization, goes to an automatic union formed of the employees.

They then come to gain position on the board.

It's a soft form of movement towards a corporate form of Communism.

The protection from "misuse" is that ultimately, it is not a thing that is controlled by committee and allotment of whatever. It's a system which redirects ownership away from "that which I have now is mine forever until I see fit" to "that which I have now, I keep by contributing to, and maintaining."

There is little to abuse in this. In fact, it corrects a great and ancient abuse.

This sort of option has been presented before--and it suffers the problem of buy-in. Either a new worker brings assets equal to the share of the company they will be getting (and where do they get that money??) or they don't (and it's almost certainly not in the worker's interest to hire anyone else as that's giving away their assets.)

The asset the worker brings is their work, time, and effort.

Either the company needs them to be what the company is, or the company does not so need them. If the law is simply that 100% of work in the US yields an equal share of stock transfer dies, there is nothing to buy.

Either they need a worker to do the work, to which they yield their leverage as to themselves when they exert it... or they do not.

There is nothing to buy in. A financial law gets passed, and then this thing starts happening, as a function of all stock trades and collateralization on the market.

Of course, it won't happen. The world is too broken at this point, and it is now too hard to just tear down those who are too powerful to ever slip their grasp.

Thus no company ever grows. Nor do new companies come into existence. Nor do workers change jobs.

Sounds rather dystopian to me.

No, companies grow, but under the control and direction of the workers, over time, rather than the people who merely got the thing started. They are guaranteed value in their sale and leverage! Stocks are supposed to gain between 5 and 10%. This means that owning company stocks for the purpose of flipping (speculation) dies, but speculation is bullshit anyway, it adds NOTHING.

It creates an effective tax on stock collateralization, and on sale, the beneficiaries of which are the people who gave that stock any actual material backing.

A worker gets his equal share of stocks in a job they are in, while they are in that job, and it's not like they would lose them for quitting. They would lose them as those stocks produced VALUE for them, or leverage, or any other material assets.

I join BigCorp as a janitor. Over year while I work, 1000 stocks of BigCorp changed hands or were operated on. On average there have been 9 other people working during this period. This means I have roughly 1 stock. So do the other 9 folks.

I quit. I keep my share because I wish to have a vote on the BigCorp board. Every year I show up, and lose 1% or whatever of my share. Every year I take dividends... And lose another percent of it. Eventually, it's mostly gone, or at least insignificant. It's gone back to the workers I stopped working with.

Or perhaps I just sell it to the union, or on the market, and I just get some quick money.

Eventually, this will create more and more worker seats on the board as they use their control and shares to leverage value out of the company.

Why would an entrepreneur want to start a company in this type of system? You want workers to be able to control their labor. Well, when I start a company (I've started 3), I want the ability to control my labor, my capital, and my time. Worker controlled companies have their place. My wife worked for a very successful one (large retail company). But they won't work as well in all companies. They obviously won't attract much investor capital. And a growing company constantly needs capital to grow.

Because if they do not, then they do not get to have anything, and die on the street cold, alone, and destitute.

They start it because they wish to have something that they will profit off of and own to the extent that ownership still exists for the extent of years that their work and activity implies.

You are failing to grok how this works in failing to observe that it will, at some point, be universal.

You start a corner store (small and not strictly applicable but easy to handle and transform into a more complicated example) knowing that in 20 years, as one of three employees, you will probably come to own only a third of the store, with the other two thirds of ownership spread across the population of employees held over those 20 years. Should you choose to buy out the former workers as they leave, assuming they sell, that number could be much higher than a third. Or you could choose not to start a store and acknowledge that it will take 20 hard years of working to get even a third of that business in your pocket, and the owner/manager is still going to be able to fire you because they have a controlling share. It also means that if the manager is being shitty to the two employees of 20 years they can fire him and his remainder of stake will be his shares that he still owns and can leverage at marginal "leverage tax" or whatever you want to call this

If your only contribution to the store is to leverage it into existence and say "there needs to be a store there!" Then the extent of your ability to hold it decays over time indefinitely to 0%, and I'll laugh at you remorselessly when you do, even despite the reality that you, without doing material labor, got interest on your investment (assuming it didn't fail).

No risk justifies infinite rewards.

Ownership of stock that does not decay is an infinite reward for risk.

Well, your comments above are the issue. You don't respect or understand the importance of having a person who leads a company. Success or failure of a company is mostly decided by the decisions that a company makes. In particular the strategic decisions. And most of these decisions are made by the President for most companies. In my company, my partner and I developed and secured the technology, developed the manufacturing process, established the distribution, hired the key managers, created the customer demand, I go skiing with the banker to keep her happy and engaged with the company, figured out how to manufacture in this crazy covid world, and etc. I'm on call, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I have to know and be able to cover for all positions in the company. I'm grooming a manager right now to buy me out. But it's not as simple as you'd think or enticing. As an engineer in high demand, he could get a comfortable wage slave job 40 hour a week job making $150,000 a year no problem. Being an owner is not what it is cracked up to be.

You are free to start an anarchist company. My first one could be considered anarchist. Just don't assume that everyone will be happy and fulfilled in an anarchist company! There are some employee owned companies that work and do well. But it's just very difficult to motivate people when there isn't a leader or someone responsible at the top.

No, I don't respect or like the idea that people can own any thing indefinitely regardless of their leveraging against it.

You act as if the decisions a company makes cannot be made by people elected by workers rather than rich people, or that people not born rich could have more strategic minds, or even that people born rich could completely lack a strategic mind divorced from psychopathy, and act serially to undermine their own wellbeing by parasitism on their workers by failing to accept that they ultimately have a right to own some of the tools they use, on the basis of use.

YOU are the one who has invoked "anarchy" on me, and invented of me an anarchist. I tried correcting you, but you persist in bad faith. I just unignored my whole list in what will probably be a "Christmas" tradition. Keep doing it and you'll be the first of the new crop this year. I don't have time to engage with bullshit.

I never said there would be no executive. That decision after 30-40 years would probably be up to different people, probably many who believe an executive is necessary, and probably a few of which who would do decently well in the position.

That's fully up to those who have the shares at the time. And they release a small percentage of that leverage, mostly back to the current workforce doing the thing, each in equal measure.

 

[Gospel]

Introducing the nuances of socialism is like Mickey Mouse trying to disassociate himself with Disney.

 

[Harry Bosch]

Or it requires a software and operational change wherein some percentage of every transaction of stock, sale OR collateralization, goes to an automatic union formed of the employees.

They then come to gain position on the board.

It's a soft form of movement towards a corporate form of Communism.

The protection from "misuse" is that ultimately, it is not a thing that is controlled by committee and allotment of whatever. It's a system which redirects ownership away from "that which I have now is mine forever until I see fit" to "that which I have now, I keep by contributing to, and maintaining."

There is little to abuse in this. In fact, it corrects a great and ancient abuse.

This sort of option has been presented before--and it suffers the problem of buy-in. Either a new worker brings assets equal to the share of the company they will be getting (and where do they get that money??) or they don't (and it's almost certainly not in the worker's interest to hire anyone else as that's giving away their assets.)

The asset the worker brings is their work, time, and effort.

Either the company needs them to be what the company is, or the company does not so need them. If the law is simply that 100% of work in the US yields an equal share of stock transfer dies, there is nothing to buy.

Either they need a worker to do the work, to which they yield their leverage as to themselves when they exert it... or they do not.

There is nothing to buy in. A financial law gets passed, and then this thing starts happening, as a function of all stock trades and collateralization on the market.

Of course, it won't happen. The world is too broken at this point, and it is now too hard to just tear down those who are too powerful to ever slip their grasp.

Thus no company ever grows. Nor do new companies come into existence. Nor do workers change jobs.

Sounds rather dystopian to me.

No, companies grow, but under the control and direction of the workers, over time, rather than the people who merely got the thing started. They are guaranteed value in their sale and leverage! Stocks are supposed to gain between 5 and 10%. This means that owning company stocks for the purpose of flipping (speculation) dies, but speculation is bullshit anyway, it adds NOTHING.

It creates an effective tax on stock collateralization, and on sale, the beneficiaries of which are the people who gave that stock any actual material backing.

A worker gets his equal share of stocks in a job they are in, while they are in that job, and it's not like they would lose them for quitting. They would lose them as those stocks produced VALUE for them, or leverage, or any other material assets.

I join BigCorp as a janitor. Over year while I work, 1000 stocks of BigCorp changed hands or were operated on. On average there have been 9 other people working during this period. This means I have roughly 1 stock. So do the other 9 folks.

I quit. I keep my share because I wish to have a vote on the BigCorp board. Every year I show up, and lose 1% or whatever of my share. Every year I take dividends... And lose another percent of it. Eventually, it's mostly gone, or at least insignificant. It's gone back to the workers I stopped working with.

Or perhaps I just sell it to the union, or on the market, and I just get some quick money.

Eventually, this will create more and more worker seats on the board as they use their control and shares to leverage value out of the company.

Why would an entrepreneur want to start a company in this type of system? You want workers to be able to control their labor. Well, when I start a company (I've started 3), I want the ability to control my labor, my capital, and my time. Worker controlled companies have their place. My wife worked for a very successful one (large retail company). But they won't work as well in all companies. They obviously won't attract much investor capital. And a growing company constantly needs capital to grow.

Because if they do not, then they do not get to have anything, and die on the street cold, alone, and destitute.

They start it because they wish to have something that they will profit off of and own to the extent that ownership still exists for the extent of years that their work and activity implies.

You are failing to grok how this works in failing to observe that it will, at some point, be universal.

You start a corner store (small and not strictly applicable but easy to handle and transform into a more complicated example) knowing that in 20 years, as one of three employees, you will probably come to own only a third of the store, with the other two thirds of ownership spread across the population of employees held over those 20 years. Should you choose to buy out the former workers as they leave, assuming they sell, that number could be much higher than a third. Or you could choose not to start a store and acknowledge that it will take 20 hard years of working to get even a third of that business in your pocket, and the owner/manager is still going to be able to fire you because they have a controlling share. It also means that if the manager is being shitty to the two employees of 20 years they can fire him and his remainder of stake will be his shares that he still owns and can leverage at marginal "leverage tax" or whatever you want to call this

If your only contribution to the store is to leverage it into existence and say "there needs to be a store there!" Then the extent of your ability to hold it decays over time indefinitely to 0%, and I'll laugh at you remorselessly when you do, even despite the reality that you, without doing material labor, got interest on your investment (assuming it didn't fail).

No risk justifies infinite rewards.

Ownership of stock that does not decay is an infinite reward for risk.

Well, your comments above are the issue. You don't respect or understand the importance of having a person who leads a company. Success or failure of a company is mostly decided by the decisions that a company makes. In particular the strategic decisions. And most of these decisions are made by the President for most companies. In my company, my partner and I developed and secured the technology, developed the manufacturing process, established the distribution, hired the key managers, created the customer demand, I go skiing with the banker to keep her happy and engaged with the company, figured out how to manufacture in this crazy covid world, and etc. I'm on call, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I have to know and be able to cover for all positions in the company. I'm grooming a manager right now to buy me out. But it's not as simple as you'd think or enticing. As an engineer in high demand, he could get a comfortable wage slave job 40 hour a week job making $150,000 a year no problem. Being an owner is not what it is cracked up to be.

You are free to start an anarchist company. My first one could be considered anarchist. Just don't assume that everyone will be happy and fulfilled in an anarchist company! There are some employee owned companies that work and do well. But it's just very difficult to motivate people when there isn't a leader or someone responsible at the top.

No, I don't respect or like the idea that people can own any thing indefinitely regardless of their leveraging against it.

You act as if the decisions a company makes cannot be made by people elected by workers rather than rich people, or that people not born rich could have more strategic minds, or even that people born rich could completely lack a strategic mind divorced from psychopathy, and act serially to undermine their own wellbeing by parasitism on their workers by failing to accept that they ultimately have a right to own some of the tools they use, on the basis of use.

YOU are the one who has invoked "anarchy" on me, and invented of me an anarchist. I tried correcting you, but you persist in bad faith. I just unignored my whole list in what will probably be a "Christmas" tradition. Keep doing it and you'll be the first of the new crop this year. I don't have time to engage with bullshit.

I never said there would be no executive. That decision after 30-40 years would probably be up to different people, probably many who believe an executive is necessary, and probably a few of which who would do decently well in the position.

That's fully up to those who have the shares at the time. And they release a small percentage of that leverage, mostly back to the current workforce doing the thing, each in equal measure.

Well, the thread is about anarchy communism! However, I'm sorry. I probably didn't read your post well. I sometimes skim and make assumptions.

 

[Jarhyn]

Or it requires a software and operational change wherein some percentage of every transaction of stock, sale OR collateralization, goes to an automatic union formed of the employees.

They then come to gain position on the board.

It's a soft form of movement towards a corporate form of Communism.

The protection from "misuse" is that ultimately, it is not a thing that is controlled by committee and allotment of whatever. It's a system which redirects ownership away from "that which I have now is mine forever until I see fit" to "that which I have now, I keep by contributing to, and maintaining."

There is little to abuse in this. In fact, it corrects a great and ancient abuse.

This sort of option has been presented before--and it suffers the problem of buy-in. Either a new worker brings assets equal to the share of the company they will be getting (and where do they get that money??) or they don't (and it's almost certainly not in the worker's interest to hire anyone else as that's giving away their assets.)

The asset the worker brings is their work, time, and effort.

Either the company needs them to be what the company is, or the company does not so need them. If the law is simply that 100% of work in the US yields an equal share of stock transfer dies, there is nothing to buy.

Either they need a worker to do the work, to which they yield their leverage as to themselves when they exert it... or they do not.

There is nothing to buy in. A financial law gets passed, and then this thing starts happening, as a function of all stock trades and collateralization on the market.

Of course, it won't happen. The world is too broken at this point, and it is now too hard to just tear down those who are too powerful to ever slip their grasp.

Thus no company ever grows. Nor do new companies come into existence. Nor do workers change jobs.

Sounds rather dystopian to me.

No, companies grow, but under the control and direction of the workers, over time, rather than the people who merely got the thing started. They are guaranteed value in their sale and leverage! Stocks are supposed to gain between 5 and 10%. This means that owning company stocks for the purpose of flipping (speculation) dies, but speculation is bullshit anyway, it adds NOTHING.

It creates an effective tax on stock collateralization, and on sale, the beneficiaries of which are the people who gave that stock any actual material backing.

A worker gets his equal share of stocks in a job they are in, while they are in that job, and it's not like they would lose them for quitting. They would lose them as those stocks produced VALUE for them, or leverage, or any other material assets.

I join BigCorp as a janitor. Over year while I work, 1000 stocks of BigCorp changed hands or were operated on. On average there have been 9 other people working during this period. This means I have roughly 1 stock. So do the other 9 folks.

I quit. I keep my share because I wish to have a vote on the BigCorp board. Every year I show up, and lose 1% or whatever of my share. Every year I take dividends... And lose another percent of it. Eventually, it's mostly gone, or at least insignificant. It's gone back to the workers I stopped working with.

Or perhaps I just sell it to the union, or on the market, and I just get some quick money.

Eventually, this will create more and more worker seats on the board as they use their control and shares to leverage value out of the company.

Why would an entrepreneur want to start a company in this type of system? You want workers to be able to control their labor. Well, when I start a company (I've started 3), I want the ability to control my labor, my capital, and my time. Worker controlled companies have their place. My wife worked for a very successful one (large retail company). But they won't work as well in all companies. They obviously won't attract much investor capital. And a growing company constantly needs capital to grow.

Because if they do not, then they do not get to have anything, and die on the street cold, alone, and destitute.

They start it because they wish to have something that they will profit off of and own to the extent that ownership still exists for the extent of years that their work and activity implies.

You are failing to grok how this works in failing to observe that it will, at some point, be universal.

You start a corner store (small and not strictly applicable but easy to handle and transform into a more complicated example) knowing that in 20 years, as one of three employees, you will probably come to own only a third of the store, with the other two thirds of ownership spread across the population of employees held over those 20 years. Should you choose to buy out the former workers as they leave, assuming they sell, that number could be much higher than a third. Or you could choose not to start a store and acknowledge that it will take 20 hard years of working to get even a third of that business in your pocket, and the owner/manager is still going to be able to fire you because they have a controlling share. It also means that if the manager is being shitty to the two employees of 20 years they can fire him and his remainder of stake will be his shares that he still owns and can leverage at marginal "leverage tax" or whatever you want to call this

If your only contribution to the store is to leverage it into existence and say "there needs to be a store there!" Then the extent of your ability to hold it decays over time indefinitely to 0%, and I'll laugh at you remorselessly when you do, even despite the reality that you, without doing material labor, got interest on your investment (assuming it didn't fail).

No risk justifies infinite rewards.

Ownership of stock that does not decay is an infinite reward for risk.

Well, your comments above are the issue. You don't respect or understand the importance of having a person who leads a company. Success or failure of a company is mostly decided by the decisions that a company makes. In particular the strategic decisions. And most of these decisions are made by the President for most companies. In my company, my partner and I developed and secured the technology, developed the manufacturing process, established the distribution, hired the key managers, created the customer demand, I go skiing with the banker to keep her happy and engaged with the company, figured out how to manufacture in this crazy covid world, and etc. I'm on call, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I have to know and be able to cover for all positions in the company. I'm grooming a manager right now to buy me out. But it's not as simple as you'd think or enticing. As an engineer in high demand, he could get a comfortable wage slave job 40 hour a week job making $150,000 a year no problem. Being an owner is not what it is cracked up to be.

You are free to start an anarchist company. My first one could be considered anarchist. Just don't assume that everyone will be happy and fulfilled in an anarchist company! There are some employee owned companies that work and do well. But it's just very difficult to motivate people when there isn't a leader or someone responsible at the top.

No, I don't respect or like the idea that people can own any thing indefinitely regardless of their leveraging against it.

You act as if the decisions a company makes cannot be made by people elected by workers rather than rich people, or that people not born rich could have more strategic minds, or even that people born rich could completely lack a strategic mind divorced from psychopathy, and act serially to undermine their own wellbeing by parasitism on their workers by failing to accept that they ultimately have a right to own some of the tools they use, on the basis of use.

YOU are the one who has invoked "anarchy" on me, and invented of me an anarchist. I tried correcting you, but you persist in bad faith. I just unignored my whole list in what will probably be a "Christmas" tradition. Keep doing it and you'll be the first of the new crop this year. I don't have time to engage with bullshit.

I never said there would be no executive. That decision after 30-40 years would probably be up to different people, probably many who believe an executive is necessary, and probably a few of which who would do decently well in the position.

That's fully up to those who have the shares at the time. And they release a small percentage of that leverage, mostly back to the current workforce doing the thing, each in equal measure.

Well, the thread is about anarchy communism! However, I'm sorry. I probably didn't read your post well. I sometimes skim and make assumptions.

No, the thread was about communism. I propose a communistic solution that directs capital into the hands of workers peacefully, slowly, and with all reasonable accolade for the risks taken, monetary and otherwise.

It requires minimal change from the way things are operated today.

 

[SigmatheZeta]

Introducing the nuances of socialism is like Mickey Mouse trying to disassociate himself with Disney.

I disagree. In Ukraine, anarchists were among the fighters that helped to fight back AGAINST the Soviets, and they were partly responsible for producing the relatively independent Ukraine that is there today. They are still trying to get a stronger political foothold, but I believe that once they have done so, they will become a very powerful part of Ukraine's political left. Unlike conventional communists, they are extremely anti-authoritarian.

Proudhon did not give us a finished product, but he gave us an inspiration to build on. Kropotkin was just one of many philosophers that helped to build upon it.

 

[Jarhyn]

Introducing the nuances of socialism is like Mickey Mouse trying to disassociate himself with Disney.

I disagree. In Ukraine, anarchists were among the fighters that helped to fight back AGAINST the Soviets, and they were partly responsible for producing the relatively independent Ukraine that is there today. They are still trying to get a stronger political foothold, but I believe that once they have done so, they will become a very powerful part of Ukraine's political left. Unlike conventional communists, they are extremely anti-authoritarian.

Proudhon did not give us a finished product, but he gave us an inspiration to build on. Kropotkin was just one of many philosophers that helped to build upon it.

Personally, I prefer as stated to take capitalism and just modify it in the slightest way so that society can start healing.

And eventually when nobody does work and nobody leverages their ownership (so as to not release some leverage against the last remaining jobs), then everyone has a big pile of points or whatever to wear as e-peen in the post scarcity world.

And that thing may end up being an AI. That would be funny.

 

[SigmatheZeta]

Introducing the nuances of socialism is like Mickey Mouse trying to disassociate himself with Disney.

I disagree. In Ukraine, anarchists were among the fighters that helped to fight back AGAINST the Soviets, and they were partly responsible for producing the relatively independent Ukraine that is there today. They are still trying to get a stronger political foothold, but I believe that once they have done so, they will become a very powerful part of Ukraine's political left. Unlike conventional communists, they are extremely anti-authoritarian.

Proudhon did not give us a finished product, but he gave us an inspiration to build on. Kropotkin was just one of many philosophers that helped to build upon it.

Personally, I prefer as stated to take capitalism and just modify it in the slightest way so that society can start healing.

And eventually when nobody does work and nobody leverages their ownership (so as to not release some leverage against the last remaining jobs), then everyone has a big pile of points or whatever to wear as e-peen in the post scarcity world.

And that thing may end up being an AI. That would be funny.

I just think that there is a better way to pursue communism than by taking away people's right to sell stuff if they want to sell stuff.

Under my thinking, if you want to sell stuff, sell it.

If you want to share stuff or make stuff together, then do so.

The same person can do both for different reasons.

 

[Jarhyn]

Introducing the nuances of socialism is like Mickey Mouse trying to disassociate himself with Disney.

I disagree. In Ukraine, anarchists were among the fighters that helped to fight back AGAINST the Soviets, and they were partly responsible for producing the relatively independent Ukraine that is there today. They are still trying to get a stronger political foothold, but I believe that once they have done so, they will become a very powerful part of Ukraine's political left. Unlike conventional communists, they are extremely anti-authoritarian.

Proudhon did not give us a finished product, but he gave us an inspiration to build on. Kropotkin was just one of many philosophers that helped to build upon it.

Personally, I prefer as stated to take capitalism and just modify it in the slightest way so that society can start healing.

And eventually when nobody does work and nobody leverages their ownership (so as to not release some leverage against the last remaining jobs), then everyone has a big pile of points or whatever to wear as e-peen in the post scarcity world.

And that thing may end up being an AI. That would be funny.

I just think that there is a better way to pursue communism than by taking away people's right to sell stuff if they want to sell stuff.

Under my thinking, if you want to sell stuff, sell it.

If you want to share stuff or make stuff together, then do so.

The same person can do both for different reasons.

That's the beauty. It doesn't take away their right to sell stuff. It just says "when you sell stuff, and that stuff represents worked capital, some of that stuff you sell gets returned to the workers; same as when you leverage authority over them through this capital."

All the remaining architecture stays in place. Some of it will be quickly recognized as dysfunctional, and the self preservatin instincts will quietly stop doing that.

It gives society a knob to turn.

 

[SigmatheZeta]

@Jarhyn

And you know there is nothing I like better than having a knob to turn.

I really like the idea of worker coops, myself. The concept is catching on in Spain.

 

[Harry Bosch]

@Jarhyn

And you know there is nothing I like better than having a knob to turn.

I really like the idea of worker coops, myself. The concept is catching on in Spain.

The US has had worker coops and ESOPs for many years. Like all entities, they have pros and cons. Here are some negatives:
1. Lack of diversification. ESOP plans are usually funded entirely with company stock, employees can become very overweighted in this security in their own investment portfolios. Then if the company goes under, they have nothing. And their entire likelyhood is tied to the company. If you don't have full control of a company, your better off with diversification. I'm the majority shareholder in my company. But I'm the decision maker. I know how to run this company and am comfortable that risk. But I would not want to be in a position where I could be wiped out due the decision maker at one company that I couldn't control.
2. Management. Sometimes ESOPs get bogged down not properly allocating decision making due to lack of trust. The inventory manager needs to be able to make quick decisions and not be overruled due to fear from the operations manager. Slow decision making is a killer. To fix this, most ESOPs give some owners voting rights; others no voting rights. The problem here is that shares with no voting rights are worth less.

 

[SigmatheZeta]

@Jarhyn

And you know there is nothing I like better than having a knob to turn.

I really like the idea of worker coops, myself. The concept is catching on in Spain.

The US has had worker coops and ESOPs for many years. Like all entities, they have pros and cons. Here are some negatives:
1. Lack of diversification. ESOP plans are usually funded entirely with company stock, employees can become very overweighted in this security in their own investment portfolios. Then if the company goes under, they have nothing. And their entire likelyhood is tied to the company. If you don't have full control of a company, your better off with diversification. I'm the majority shareholder in my company. But I'm the decision maker. I know how to run this company and am comfortable that risk. But I would not want to be in a position where I could be wiped out due the decision maker at one company that I couldn't control.
2. Management. Sometimes ESOPs get bogged down not properly allocating decision making due to lack of trust. The inventory manager needs to be able to make quick decisions and not be overruled due to fear from the operations manager. Slow decision making is a killer. To fix this, most ESOPs give some owners voting rights; others no voting rights. The problem here is that shares with no voting rights are worth less.

I am aware that those sorts of organizations exist in the USA.

Myth: anarcho-communists are advocating a new and untested idea and want to force it on everybody.

Reality: organizational types influenced by anarcho-communist philosophy have been around worldwide for several generations, and in the USA, there is already a regulatory structure for them. While they are still a continuously evolving concept, they are also well established institutions that have their own company culture. Not all of them are particularly liberal, though most are, and members often have strong libertarian views of one kind or another. Only a few are edgy enough to call themselves anarchists, though the term would be somewhat accurate in dome cases if one merely acknowledged that there could be such a thing as a "moderate anarchist."

 

[Loren Pechtel]

In hiring a worker, they give away nothing. In fact they don't even give away anything for retaining the worker.

That's not what you said before. You said the worker gets a share of the company and keeps it when they leave. Share of the company = stock.

I cannot believe you are unable to understand the concept of "you get an equal share of all and only the share margin that comes to exist while you are employed".

It is essentially a compulsory stock offerings program, the options for which come from the leveraging of stocks.

Your honor, I must protest. I did not take a week to reply, it was only 7 days!

 

[Loren Pechtel]

No, I don't respect or like the idea that people can own any thing indefinitely regardless of their leveraging against it.

You act as if the decisions a company makes cannot be made by people elected by workers rather than rich people, or that people not born rich could have more strategic minds, or even that people born rich could completely lack a strategic mind divorced from psychopathy, and act serially to undermine their own wellbeing by parasitism on their workers by failing to accept that they ultimately have a right to own some of the tools they use, on the basis of use.

In this case "rich" is simply a measure of past good decisions.

I have seen what happens when management isn't paying enough attention. Workers optimize their part of the job--accomplishing their goal without regard for the big picture. Yes, you won't produce quite as much output if you go find the job at the top of your screen rather than do the job that's sitting in front of you. Will the company prosper if you never process the warranty jobs, though???

You use the pre-surfaced wood. Yes, you save a little time but there was a reason you weren't supposed to--the guys with the numbers figured out it was better for the company to finish the wood ourselves for all bulk uses.

And don't get me started on all the fuck-ups when non-IT people think they know more than we do about how the systems operate.

You're describing an epic fuck-up, not a good way of doing things. China's Cultural Revolution comes to mind. Can you say "megadeaths"?

I never said there would be no executive. That decision after 30-40 years would probably be up to different people, probably many who believe an executive is necessary, and probably a few of which who would do decently well in the position.

That's fully up to those who have the shares at the time. And they release a small percentage of that leverage, mostly back to the current workforce doing the thing, each in equal measure.

If the executive serves at the behest of the workers he can't make unpopular decisions. You'll get the common fate of worker-owned enterprises: they are unable to downsize and thus tend to fail in economic downturns.

And note that you have increased the cost of operations. The profit margin is down. New companies will not appear until attrition has destroyed enough existing ones to bring the profit margins back to what they were.

You keep arguing for conditions that would make the Great Depression look like a golden era.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Myth: anarcho-communists are advocating a new and untested idea and want to force it on everybody.

Reality: organizational types influenced by anarcho-communist philosophy have been around worldwide for several generations, and in the USA, there is already a regulatory structure for them. While they are still a continuously evolving concept, they are also well established institutions that have their own company culture. Not all of them are particularly liberal, though most are, and members often have strong libertarian views of one kind or another. Only a few are edgy enough to call themselves anarchists, though the term would be somewhat accurate in dome cases if one merely acknowledged that there could be such a thing as a "moderate anarchist."

Reality: Slapping new labels on things that have failed doesn't make them work any better.

 

[Gospel]

Introducing the nuances of socialism is like Mickey Mouse trying to disassociate himself with Disney.

I disagree. In Ukraine, anarchists were among the fighters that helped to fight back AGAINST the Soviets, and they were partly responsible for producing the relatively independent Ukraine that is there today. They are still trying to get a stronger political foothold, but I believe that once they have done so, they will become a very powerful part of Ukraine's political left. Unlike conventional communists, they are extremely anti-authoritarian.

Proudhon did not give us a finished product, but he gave us an inspiration to build on. Kropotkin was just one of many philosophers that helped to build upon it.

Sorry, I was really talking about how difficult having the discussion with most Americans is (myself included).