jlou

@[email protected]

#liberal #anticapitalism

An #EconomicDemocracy is a market economy where most firms are structured as #WorkerCoops.

#liberalism
#coops #cooperatives

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jlou, to technology

Silicon Valley’s ideology is this: Libertarianism for me. Feudalism for thee.

https://crookedtimber.org/2023/11/15/silicon-valleys-worldview-is-not-just-an-ideology-its-a-personality-disorder/#more-52003

@technology

jlou,

Land value tax would solve this when combined with a UBI from the revenue it generates

jlou,

Some Georgists don't believe in ownership of labor because that inherently implies property rights in people. These Georgists recognize the same labor theory of property, which provides an ethical justification for common ownership of land and natural resources, also provides a critique of capitalist property relations and an argument for an inalienable right to workplace democracy.
See: https://www.ellerman.org/rethinking-common-vs-private-property/

jlou,

Private ownership of labor implies the ability to alienate and transfer it for present or future benefits. Such a procedure is not possible because labor is de facto non-transferable. People can have private ownership over the products of labor, but they cannot own their labor because labor is inalienably theirs

jlou,

Land value tax is progressive. Due to land's inelastic supply, this tax cannot be passed on to others. People that own lots of land bear the entire burden of the tax. Charging for unimproved land value encourages building denser on more valuable land. This increases housing supply thus making housing more affordable

LVT is 1 policy. It can be combined with other policies. LVT is not an avoidable tax

jlou, (edited )

It meets the definition of a progressive tax.

The broader Georgist program involves aggressive taxation of government-granted monopolies like IP, which both Musk and Bezos are indirectly beneficiaries of.

LVT is 1 policy meant to solve 1 problem. It can be combined with other policies that address other problems.

The labor theory of property, a negative application of which provides a moral rationale for LVT, also provides a justification for an inalienable right to worker democracy

jlou,

LVT taxing the empty lot next door at the same rate as a multimillion dollar hotel is exactly what makes it so efficiency enhancing because it give land owners economic incentives to use their land productively rather than just holding it and waiting for it to appreciate in value. With LVT, prices would exclude the value of the land.

LVT can be combined with other policies and taxes. You have to look at the whole package of policies to determine progressivity. LVT+UBI is progressive

jlou,

LVT taxes the unimproved value of land, so we are talking about land itself not what is built on top of it such as housing. Since land is a product of nature, the supply of it is perfectly inelastic

jlou,

You can't fully experience liberty unless everyone is free

jlou,

No involuntary impositions of power and authority is the centrist position. The anarchist position should be no impositions of power and authority even if they are voluntary. A perfect example of voluntary power and authority is wage labor. By any usable standard, wage labor is voluntary. Anarchists should object to wage labor because it involves a hierarchy of alienation. This violates workers' inalienable rights, which are rights that can't be given up even with consent

jlou,

Abolishing slavery did not prevent people from acting in a manner they wished. It prevented them from having the lack of rights of a slave. Similarly, preventing people from being wage laborers just means that that working in a firm would automatically confer voting rights over the firm and make management democratically accountable to the people that work in the firm

jlou,

Marx made mistakes though. For example, he assumed that the right of appropriating the whole product of a firm and control rights to direct the workers in the firm were attached to the ownership of capital. In reality, capital can be rented out just as labor can be hired. It is really the employer-employee contract that is at the core of capitalist appropriation. Ownership of capital just increases bargaining power to get favorable contract terms such as the employer contractual role

jlou,

Marx thought that control rights over the firm were attached to ownership of capital rather than being logically separately acquired in the employer-employee relationship.

"It is not because he is a leader of industry that a man is a capitalist; on the contrary, he is a leader of industry because he is a capitalist. The leadership of industry is an attribute of capital, just as in feudal times the functions of general and judge were attributes of landed property." -- Marx

jlou,

The latter problem could be solved by banning having non-member workers at the legal level and requiring giving workers voting rights in the firm they work in.

Worker coops don't behave exactly like for-profit companies. Anti-capitalism is more than just worker democracy. For example, another aspect is common ownership of land and natural resources with fees for use. This would ensure that worker coops factor in environmental costs

jlou,

The employers' claim extend beyond a cut. They solely appropriate 100% of the whole positive and negative product of the firm while employees as employees have 0% claim on the whole product

jlou,

I disagree that the 2 options are the only ones available. We could have a funding system with aspects of quadratic funding and artistic freedom vouchers, which allows the organizations developing the software to remain private organizations. Quadratic funding is basically a public matching fund for contributions to public goods such as OSS with a special matching formula that matches small contributions from many sponsors at a higher rater than more concentrated ones

jlou,

What you are looking for is some sort of variant of quadratic funding. It is a mechanism that is specifically designed to overcome the free rider problem that public goods like FOSS suffer from. It solves it by matching private contributions to these public goods using a special formula that aligns incentives, so that everyone that knowingly benefits from a public good has an economic incentive to contribute to it because more contributors leads to a higher level of matching

jlou, (edited )

Not all anti-capitalist ideologies are like that. Some of them have a clear vision of what to build: workplace democracy, social ownership of the means of production and common ownership of land and natural resources

jlou,

This point is even stronger if you look at property rights instead of value. The workers in a capitalist firm jointly receive 0% of the property rights to the produced outputs and 0% of the liabilities for the used-up inputs while the employer receives 100% and legally owns the produced outputs and legally owes the liabilities for the used-up inputs. This is a violation of the moral principle that legal and de facto responsibility should match

jlou, to privacy

"[GNU/]Linux being secure is a common misconception in the security and privacy realm."

https://madaidans-insecurities.github.io/linux.html

"[GNU/]Linux is thought to be secure primarily because of its source model, popular usage in servers, small userbase and confusion about its security features. This article is intended to debunk these misunderstandings".

Based on this, one should try to do as much as possible on a GrapheneOS device

@privacy

jlou,

The author in another article does recommend GrapheneOS.

https://madaidans-insecurities.github.io/android.html

"The best option for privacy and security on Android is to get a Pixel 4 or greater and flash GrapheneOS. GrapheneOS does not contain any tracking unlike the stock OS on most devices. Additionally, GrapheneOS retains the baseline security model whilst improving upon it with substantial hardening enhancements ... includ[ing] a hardened memory allocator, hardened C library, [and] hardened kernel"

jlou, to economics

Quadratic Funding: A Flexible Design for Funding Public Goods

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1809.06421.pdf

"We propose a design for philanthropic or publicly-funded seeding to allow (near) optimal provision of a decentralized, self-organizing ecosystem of public goods."

@liberalism @economics

jlou,

Under postcapitalism, the factory would be commonly-owned. The company that operates the factory would worker-controlled. That being said, there is nothing wrong with the holder of the building even in common ownership setup being compensated. What is unfair is to demand control rights over the firm for this capital and make the workers at the company your employees. Not everyone against capitalism is a communist. There can still be economic incentives for productive activity

jlou,

Even if we ignore the artificially increased transaction costs and hold out problems associated with private ownership that make acquiring means of production more expensive, this point only justifies some sort of compensation from the workers as part of the negative fruits of their labor in production. It does not justify the capitalist appropriating 100% of the positive (legal right to produced outputs) and negative (legal liability for the used-up inputs) fruits of the workers' joint labor

jlou, (edited )

A better case for worker cooperatives is just pointing out they satisfy the moral principle that legal and de facto responsibility should match. The workers are jointly de facto responsible for using up the inputs to produce the outputs, but in a capitalist firm, the employer holds sole legal responsibility for 100% the corresponding legal claim to the positive and negative result of the enterprise while employees receive 0%. In a worker coop, this mismatch is corrected

jlou,

On the part of labor. No matter how causally efficacious capital is. It can never be de facto responsible for anything because responsibility is imputed through the tools back to the workers using them.

jlou, (edited )

It doesn't have to work like that. Instead of capital hiring labor, labor can jointly hire capital and structure the firm as a worker coop. There are good ethical reasons for organizing production in a worker coop as well

jlou,

Property's moral basis is getting the positive and negative fruits of your labor. Capitalism denies the workers this as the employer solely appropriates the positive and negative fruits of their labor. The core of property's moral basis is the principle that legal and de facto responsibility should match. Receiving wages is not sufficient because the workers remain de facto responsible for the whole (positive and negative) product of the enterprise and are entitled to it on that basis

jlou,

Seize the means of production comes from a conceptually separate part of anti-capitalist critique then workers' control/workers' self-management. It is common to conflate these two strands of anti-capitalist thoughts. It is technically possible to have common ownership of the means of production without workers' self-management and workers' self-management without common ownership of the means of production. Universal worker coops only requires abolishing wage labor not private ownership @memes

jlou,

Fair enough

jlou,

Here is a short introduction to an argument for all companies to be controlled by the people that work in them:

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/column-the-case-for-employee-owned-companies

It establishes an inalienable right to workplace democracy and an inalienable right to appropriate the positive and negative fruits of your labor

jlou,

Anti-capitalism is not necessarily socialism or communism. Anti-capitalism does not necessarily imply supporting the USSR's particular policies. The mistake that the USSR and others made was not using market mechanisms when they make sense.
Trump participates in the systematic denial of people's equal claim to land and natural resources with his real estate empire. Land and natural resources should be commonly-owned.
There is no reason innovation can't be rewarded under postcapitalism

jlou,

It is a straw man that democracy means every problem is put to a vote. Workers can jointly decide to delegate decision-making to executives and managers. The difference in worker coops is that these executives and managers are ultimately democratically accountable to the people doing the work

jlou,

The executives can be paid more. In a system where all firms are worker coops, it would be a much more compressed difference between the least paid and most paid worker in a firm than the absurd pay differences we see today.

A manger in a worker coop has the same decision-making rights as in any company. The difference is that they are democratically accountable to the workers instead of being accountable to the employer, an alien legal party. Essentially, workers hold all voting shares

jlou,

It depends on the material conditions what specific action would be required. For example, the legal system could abolish the employer-employee contract that violates workers inalienable rights to democracy and to appropriate the positive and negative fruits of their labor. Then, the contract could be reversed so that labor jointly hires capital rather than capital hiring labor. Amazon, in particular, has other issues that should be addressed, but we can ignore that for now

jlou,

Like I said, its like workers hold all the voting shares in the company, so these issues would resolved the same way that they are resolve in corporations owned by shareholders.

The rational action would be to adopt the new tech and instead of firing half of the workers, which is socially irrational due to the social costs of unemployment, dividing the remaining work among the existing workers. The extra time that each worker has could be used for producing something else

jlou,

Worker coops are better ethically not just based on opinion. The workers are jointly de facto responsible for using up the inputs to produce the outputs. By the usual ethical principle that legal responsibility should be assigned to the de facto responsible party, the workers should jointly be legally responsible for the produced outputs and liabilities for the used-up inputs.

  1. Worker coops can fire people.
  2. Worker coops can charge initial membership fee when a new worker joins.
jlou,

I never said that people couldn't get fired.

The incompetent relative example seems to be a problem with nepotism

jlou,

I never said anything about removing money.

What you are talking about is called social capital accumulation, which is a problem in any system.

A justification for worker coops is the moral principle of assigning legal responsibility to the de facto responsible party. In an employer-employee relationship, the employer receives 100% of the legal responsibility despite the employee being inextricably co-responsible. This violates the aforementioned principle

jlou,

Worker coops are a good thing because unlike employer-employee-based firms they don't violate workers' inalienable rights. The justification is a principled ethical argument.

The workers' voting shares should be inalienable and attached to the functional role of working in the firm. The employer-employee contract would be abolished, so there would be no mechanism within the legal system for having a capitalist firm.

An inalienable right is one that the holder cannot give up even with consent

jlou,

Shitty bosses are probably less likely if your boss is ultimately democratically accountable to you and not to the some alien legal party that is your employer

jlou,

If given a choice between democratically elected politicians and unaccountable dictators and autocrats, I would choose politicians.

By capitalism, I mean specific institutions. I have specific solutions in mind such as recognizing the inalienable right to workplace democracy, and common ownership of land, natural resources, and the means of production.

Land's inelastic supply, which can only be solved by socializing it, plays a role in housing costs.

Work issues remain unsolved by those two

jlou,

I agree with most of your points except the points about worker democracy. Being able to exit is not the same as having voice and exit, which is what worker democracy involves. The employer is not a workers' delegate. Their managers manage the firm in the employer's name. The employer appropriates 100% of the positive and negative product of the firm. The workers are de facto responsible for creating the product. This violates the principle that legal and de facto responsibility match

jlou,

  1. A FairPhone that can run GrapheneOS.

  2. Dual screen phone (separate screens not foldable) with that can run GrapheneOS

  3. Tablet with keyboard case that runs GrapheneOS and has support for Linux apps, so I can replace my PC with something more private and secure

  4. Don't know if this is possible but a keyboard where each key can show different icons depending on if the shift or control key is pressed to make keyboard shortcuts easier to learn, but still possible to type without looking

jlou, to philosophy

The Person/Thing Principle in

https://www.ellerman.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/KantianPrinciple-JEI.pdf

This article presents a rights-based theory of corporate governance inspired by aspects of 's thought.

@philosophy

jlou,

It isn't a great idea even in theory. Even ideally, workers inalienable rights to appropriate the fruits of their labor and to democracy are still violated. These rights flow from the moral principle that legal and de facto responsibility should match. In a company, employees are jointly de facto responsible for using up the inputs to produce the outputs, but receive 0% of property rights and liabilities. The employer is held solely legally responsible resulting in a mismatch

jlou, (edited ) to news

Follow the leader: "Rainer Sonntag helped fuel a neo-Nazi movement that still plagues Germany today ... and worked for Vladimir Putin."

https://magazine.atavist.com/follow-the-leader-nazi-putin-sonntag-cold-war/

"In the waning days of the Cold War, Rainer Sonntag helped fuel a neo-Nazi movement that still plagues Germany today. He was also a Communist spy—and worked for Vladimir Putin."

@news

jlou,

Yeah free as in freedom not as in price.

The closest anyone's come to a mechanism that would allow efficient financing of public goods like free software is quadratic funding. Unfortunately, there are unsolved issues with collusion and identity verification

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