Microblog Memes

Socialism is of course democratic. When people say "socialism is bad" what they mean is Socialism is good, and they're thinking about Communism, which is actually also good but has never really been implemented properly.

I mean, that's literally the conclusion that Richard Wolff came to. Call it whatever, just as long as we do it.

Seems like the pirate environment is especially suited to this type of democracy. Pirate ships operate outside the protections afforded by law, so the only thing really preventing pirate captains from being ousted (or murdered) is the crew's support.

I guess a CEO would need to maintain shareholder support, but shareholders are generally fairly disconnected from the company's day to day operations. Most individuals own shares through mutual funds or ETFs, which means they don't actually have share ownership themselves and can't vote. All you have is the fund owing you a fiduciary duty to vote in your best interests, which generally translates to whatever makes the most money. So the CEO just needs to keep a few large institutions happy, and possibly some large wealthy individual shareholders that he knows from the rotary club (where the heads of aforementioned institutions are also members)

In other words, the way the financial system is set up systematically deprives the less wealthy from their right to have a say in the operation of the companies they nominally own a part of.

Che Guevara wrote about in his book Critical Notes on Political Economy about how workers who are given full autonomy in their enterprises actually can become antagonistic towards society because they benefit solely from their own enterprise succeeding at the expense of all others, and thus they acquire similar motivations to the capitalist class, i.e. they want deregulations, dismantling of the public sector, more power to their individual enterprise, etc.

The solution is not to abandon workplace democracy but to balance it out also with public democracy. You have enterprises with a board that is both a mixture of direct appointments from the workers at that company with their direct input, as well as appointments by the public sector / central government. The public appointments are necessary to make sure the company is keeping inline with the will of everybody and not merely the people at that specific enterprise, because the actions of that enterprise can and does affect the rest of society.

Workplaces need to be democratic, but also not autonomous from the democratic will of the rest of society.

The boss can still be bossy if elected. Your 5 year rule is silly and does not address the overlying problem, which is that the CEO works for the shareholders and they only care about making record quarterly profit gains at any cost.

The boss does sometimes have to be bossy. If the workers have a stake in the company that actually matters, then they also actually care about the outcome that the company faces.

You're not going to vote to drive something into the ground if you think it will provide you with more value not dismantled and in your pocket.

Workers aren't idiots any more than CEOs are. It's why worker owned co-ops that elect their management do sometimes vote to reduce their own wages. They have a fair stake and want what's best for the business because it's best for them.

You could if you worked together... And your preferences were the majority's preferences

Except if it's capitalism right, because this bullshit is happening now

If Congress writes the law then it can be so.