An #EconomicDemocracy is a market economy where most firms are structured as #WorkerCoops.
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A group of people is de facto responsible for a result if it is a purposeful result of their intentional joint actions. The pure application of the norm that legal and de facto responsibility match is to deliberate actions. The workers joint actions that use up inputs to produce outputs are planned and deliberate. They meet the criteria for being premeditated. The workers are not under duress in normal work, and consent to the employer-employee contract.
I’m not a socialist because I think markets are useful and haven’t seen a planned economy proposal that seemed plausible. Worker co-ops and unions aren’t socialism in 20th century sense because they are technically compatible with markets and private property.
An economic democracy is a market economy where all firms are worker co-ops, so I was speaking about managers in a worker co-op
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Creating or joining a worker coop is a much more actionable political step that someone could take then completely transforming the government. If the worker coop movement grows big enough, it could acquire the economic power to purchase it own lobbyists to influence the political process to hopefully pass those reforms
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It is irrelevant that some workers don’t want to be held responsible for the positive and negative results of their actions (the whole result of production). Responsibility can’t be transferred even with consent. If an employer-employee cooperate to commit a crime, both are responsible. This argument is establishes an inalienable right i.e. a right that can’t be given up or transferred even with consent like political voting rights today
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The idea that the employer is production’s whole result’s just appropriator due to the risk they bear is tautological and circular reasoning. Risk, in this case, refers to bearing the liabilities for used-up inputs, which is production’s whole result’s negative component. It ignores the joint de facto responsibility of workers in the firm for using up inputs to produce. By the norm of legal and de facto responsibility matching, workers should get the whole result of production
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The empirical evidence I have seen on worker coops and employee-owned companies seems to suggest that worker-run companies are slightly more productive.
I oppose socialism as I think markets are useful. I advocate economic democracy
In an economic democracy, the employer-employee contract is abolished, so workers automatically legally get voting rights over management upon joining a firm.
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Worker coops can have managers. Managers’ interests can be aligned with the long term interests of the firm by giving them non-voting preferred shares as part of their compensation. Managers will make sure workers they are managing perform. The difference is that these managers are ultimately accountable to the entire body of workers and are thus their delegates.
Profits/wages don’t have to be divided equally among workers.
I’m going to use multiple toots since I’m on Mastodon
Your reforms sound good, but aren’t pragmatic. Today’s system requires you to have lobbyists to push an agenda through. Who is going to fund the lobbyists to make these reforms happen.
Also, even in an ideal capitalism, there is still an injustice at the heart of the system. The employer-employee contract violates the tenet of legal and de facto responsibility matching. The workers are jointly de facto responsible for production, but employer is held solely legally responsible.
There is information in it. Namely, that it itself is false. It is fully grammatical. Similar sentence are obviously valid such as:
This sentence has five words.
That is a true valid grammatical sentence.
I didn’t invent the paradox. Philosophers have been contemplating this paradox for a long time.
The problem it gestures at is very deep and similar paradoxes showed up in the foundations of mathematics in the 20th century. It can’t be dismissed easily.
There are other alternatives to capitalism besides Authoritarian Marxist-Leninist states. An example would be Georgist economic democracy. Some policies in such an economy:
All firms would be legally mandated to protect the inalienable right to worker democracy by structuring as democratic worker coops. There would thus be no haves appropriating 100% of the fruits of the have nots’ labor
100% land tax and carbon tax
PCO for all capital
Guaranteed minimum income
"We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor.” – Abraham Lincoln
This quote captures the differing understandings and notions of liberty between these different political groups
I made a post in this community of a moral argument for mandating employee-owned companies. It isn’t based on a gut feeling. It is based on the theory of inalienable rights. Here is a link to that post:
Can you give an example in the case where investors hold non-voting preferred shares?
I’m not sure how cross posting works from Mastodon to Lemmy. I thought I had to do that to get boosted by the group
Why do investors defeat the whole purpose? @general
Not quite. Voting rights over firm governance are non-transferable/inalienable. The employer-employee contract is abolished, and everyone is always individually or jointly self-employed.
Incorporating social objectives should be done at the level of associations of worker coops
While many socialists supported worker coops in the interim, an economy of exclusively worker coops comes more so from the classical laborists such as Proudhon.
Intellectually honest people that for whatever reason started out on the center-right can be convinced to support worker coops. The arguments in favor of them are personal responsibility arguments that center-right people tend to favor. I actually posted one such moral argument for worker coops in this community. Here is a link to that post:
I agree that it is not capitalism as it abolishes the employer-employee contract, but it isn’t quite socialism either because it is technically compatible with private property.
In terms of expanding the worker coop sector, I actually have some ideas for getting startup funding for worker coops, and creating economic entities that would buy up capitalist firms and convert them into worker coops
There are 2 risk reduction strategies commitment-based and diversification based. The diversification-based strategy is the usual spread your eggs across many baskets strategy, but there is also a commitment-based dual strategy where you put your eggs in a few baskets and watch over them carefully.
Workers in coops can share risks with investors with non-voting preferred shares and other financial instruments. They can diversify by investing in other worker coops non-voting shares
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If a worker voluntarily commits a crime for their employer, that is still inalienably their decision. Yes, the employer told them to do it, and that gave them a reason to do it, but having a reason doesn’t absolve them of guilt or responsibility for their actions
@technology