Co-ops are socialism

So you admit to being utopian.

Do you not see the ancom flag?
You're not any closer to socialism than you were before, socialism is not a sliding scale.
That's literally the case though.

Read Marx.

It is not but Wolff's de is definitely better than the meme tier equation of social democracy with socialism. A start before you go deeper into it.

Hell no.

Stop with your smug faggotry. You should behave yourself like an adult and either develop the argument or post quotes rather than namedrop.

And what is socialism to you? You can't hold a monopoly on what it means.

It definitely as a concrete definition as a politics who's goal is the complete abolition of Capitalism, the creation of a classless and stateless society, a society without wage labor, private property, or production-for-value. Anything short of that isn't Socialism by definition. But thank you for the literal newfag "fuck you Dad!!" post.

Cooperative models are needed under Socialism. Wolff never claims that Co-Ops are the end all, be all. It's a form of alternative organization under Capitalism that can breed the seeds of more leftist forms of economic organization.

...

So you're saying that you aren't any closer to socialism than you were 10 years ago if you spent the last 10 years building up a revolutionary army and the next day you are planning your coup where you will instantly begin producing for use and not exchange?

Co-ops put more power directly in the hands of the proletariat and erase one facet of capitalist exploitation on top of that.

Right, and according to leftcoms, what would "real" socialism look like? Oh… none of them can tell you, will just mutter about "communization theory" and then instead of actually being able to explain what that is, will link you to something pages and pages long. Not that that means they don't actually understand anything they say and are basically just pretentious hipsters who like to shit on absolutely everything while offering absolutely no suggestions as to what to do instead.

I have never once seen a leftcom give a clear idea of what communiztion actually is, so please enlighten us all oh great enlightened one knower of literally everything

ahahahahahahah

wut

I should point out that Market Socialism could make sense as the "lowest stage" of Communism, but if you'rre an Ancom or Leftcom, i.e. if you reject Stagism, then not only is it pointless, it's downright counterproductive. Keep in mind, Market Socialism is almost exactly what the USSR had in it's own time, and co-ops have never been a constructive form of praxis, don't get me wrong, doing things like joining a co-op or a commune can be fun, but don't expect it to have any substantive effect on real material conditions, let alone to strike a blow against Capital.

this is the wrongest of the answers

That is not really the point. Imagine you were a liberal kid browsing the board for the first time, would you get convinced of anything if someone came smugly and told you to Read Marx without even telling you what to read and why is it relevant?

Even dropping Rafiq's quotes is better than that.

Now that was a hardy kek comrade.

If liberal kid was browsing leftypol by some chance, they'll be more likely to either be repelled by all the edgelords, LARPers, and egoists, or become edgelords/LARPers/egoists themselves. Neither is a desirable outcome, and either way a leftcom telling them to fuck off and read Marx would have very little effect, and the ones who care enough to actually want to learn are the ones we want, not some nutjob who will be unironically defending gulags in a few months.

is this supposed to be a point?

No but really explain communization theory without referring me to somebody else

Consider the case of /marx/. Ismail is probably the most patient motherfucker I've seen on a chan and he's pretty knowledgeable, at least on ML states and theory too, even if you disagree with him. It is far more likely someone visiting that board will be made to really think even if initially disgusted upon visiting (as happened to me when I first came here three years ago).

It's socialist in the ML sense that a fully cooperative economy would naturally transition to communism. It's the equivalent to the dictatorship of the proletariat in classical marxism. No one thinks market socialism would be an end point, but it will get us a hell of a lot farther than trying to immediately collectivize everything under the state.

If you actually read Marx you'd know that there would be a period where society and specifically the workers would become abstract capitalists before communism is fully realized.

Go back to reddit any time faggot

idk about that, I've read a bit about how markets won't exist in communism - it seems antithetical for a society to employ it as a means to strive towards it. While markets aren't inherently capitalist, as they've existed far before modern times, they've culminated into their ultimate historical role today (as can be compared to the Hegelian analogy that within the germ of a seed lies the whole contents of the tree that it will sprout). The point isn't to possess the current state of things and adapt it to our own ends, but in seizing them to change the things themselves. The bourgeois revolution in France, the revolution of the Third Estate and the Orders, resulted not in the rule of an estate or order but in their abolition as modes of rule altogether.

Anyways, enough of me rambling. Read this short Bordiga piece, he offers an excellent orthodox marxist critique of many of the "alternative" paths to communism/socialism/whatever that snowflake ideology desires.

And that made sense in the late 19th century and early 20th century but now we find ourselves in a world where the productive and computing forces have been developed to the point where we no longer need a transitional period of socialized capitalism.

Say what you will about the tankies and egoists, at least they'll explain what they're talking about instead of smugly sit in their pretentious arrogance.

Where are you confused?

The fuck are you talking about? What in the world is an "abstract capitalist?" Where does Marx ever talk about the workers becoming capitalists or establishing any kind of capitalist society to achieve communism?

Are you just confused about the proletariat taking the role of the capitalist class and employing the state towards their class's ends? Because the dictatorship of the proletariat isn't simply an inverse of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, with the other class taking the role of their former masters and extracting their surplus value just as they had before.

Cockshott's framework, and any framework that still primarily relies on human labor, will maintain the law of value. i still say that as a form of political economy pre-full automation, market socialism has cybernetic socialism beat on multiple accounts.

I already had this argument, and I prefer not to repeat all of it you can find it here
web.archive.org/web/20170601162542/https://8ch.net/leftypol/res/1697935.html

How can you fucks be so dense, your definition of socialism is shit-tier. It's like socdems calling themselves socialist. The leftcom is right.

Confused by the bit about poor workers influencing the policies of multi-million or billion dollar corporations mostly owned by a relatively small amount of people, such as the board of directors and whatnot

Most of them are bitter liberals or tankies clinging onto capitalism in some form or another, which is all their ideologies are actually good for.

I'm in a good mood so will explain it to you in a way even a five year old would understand.
If there's a slave, there's must be a slave owner, otherwise a slave would cease being a slave.
If there's a serf, there's must be a feudal lord, otherwise a serf would cease being a serf.
If there's a wage labourer, there's must be a manger of capital who distributes said wage labour while investing the surplus into the company(accumulating capital), otherwise a wage labourer would would cease being a wage labourer. Said manager of capital doesn't have to be a guy with a top hat and a monocle who owns the company thanks to the divine property right, as even a worker elected committee will simply start fulfilling that role of an abstract manager of capital.

Ah yes, M-C-M' is totally okay if that's a coop :^)

I can't believe it's that hard for people here to understand that socialism cannot have wage labour or production for exchange.

This user's right. See pic related, reproduction for capital is impersonal.

Well, like left communism, communization theory is a broad category. It has everything from insurrectionists to council communists to autonomists and everything in between. The only thing that really links then together is a rejection of stagism.

general prostitution of the laborer, and since it is a relationship in which falls not the prostitute alone, but also the one who prostitutes – and the latter’s abomination is still greater – the capitalist, etc., also comes under this head. – Note by Marx] 31 so the entire world of wealth (that is, of man’s objective substance) passes from the relationship of exclusive marriage with the owner of private property to a state of universal prostitution with the community. This type of communism – since it negates the personality of man in every sphere – is but the logical expression of private property, which is this negation. General envy constituting itself as a power is the disguise in which greed re-establishes itself and satisfies itself, only in another way. The thought of every piece of private property as such is at least turned against wealthier private property in the form of envy and the urge to reduce things to a common level, so that this envy and urge even constitute the essence of competition. Crude communism [The manuscript has: Kommunist. – Ed.] is only the culmination of this envy and of this leveling-down proceeding from the preconceived minimum. It has a definite, limited standard. How little this annulment of private property is really an appropriation is in fact proved by the abstract negation of the entire world of culture and civilization, the regression to the unnatural ||IV| simplicity of the poor and crude man who has few needs and who has not only failed to go beyond private property, but has not yet even reached it.

t. Marx, Manuscripts of 1844

He also previously defined private property as wages, and wages as estranged labor.

I knew that already my fellow. That is much, much better than namedropping Marx to newfags.

I should mentioned that there is no proposed alternative to what you just described. In every system that relies on human labor, there must be a force to discipline that labor, there must be a force which organizes reinvestment, unless you operate in a state of general abundance, which we do not.

Both yes and no, I personally started reading theory because people were constantly encouraging to do it and I didn't want to feel I'm left behind leftcoms, marxhead poster or even fucking Ismail.
So I guess "read X" works, even if not very much. After all I've never read any theory when I was browsing Holla Forums, there was never such encouragement.

This is wrong. Co-ops can either be exclusively owned by workers or they can invite members who pay to be a part of it (and to receive its benefits. Co-ops, in the very least, are managed by their workers.

Corps can be be owned by the workers, theoretically, if their workers pay for equity, i.e., shares of the corporation. In practice, majority shareholders are either the managers (in a closely-held corp) or rich investors who vote for a board of directors that guide the company.

I'd just say that co-ops are not a metric of whether socialism itself is achieved in any society, but I think they can, and in my opinion, will have their place in any anti-capitalist society.

Unless you're content fantasizing about FALC all day.

And yet Zizek also advocates for impersonal communism, whereby the individual is alienated, because, according to him, we want to be alienated. I agree with zizek on many points, but his arguments on what is impersonal and what is not don't ring true to me. On the contrary, in relation to your quite, the real problem with capitalism is that it is not egoist enough. If people put their own interests before "duty" capitalism would collapse in a week.

and in place of stagism, you would have?

I'm going to admit it influenced me a bit too. Just a few weeks ago I noticed the extreme intellectual bankruptcy in my ideology and took to reading seriously since then, from the very basics.

*in relation to your quote

It's a completely understandable extenuation of the Leninist concept that socialism is "worker control"

No, I'm aware, I'm a Leftcom, what I'm saying is that what Market Socialists are calling for is basically Lenin's NEP, when I say "lowest stage of Communism" I'm refering to something specific, it's what Lenin called the NEP, and what MLs call the first stage of a post-revolutionary society, as I pointed out in my post most Leftcoms and Ancoms reject Soviet-style Stage theory.

This is also his whole bullshit argument against local democracy

We can't.

I'd also like to add that the "lol read Marx" answers are shit. Even though a proper argument won't end the meme and only the immanent failure of the cooperative capitalist dream can end this disillusionment, we're on a place of discussion and it's therefore vital you actually put in some effort to at least end the meme on this board, where it's feasible.

This post gives the best explanation.
To add to this, we have to see that capital is a self-demanding entity. Not only does the worker fill in the role of allocator and manager of capital traditionally taken by the concrete bourgeoisie; he also needs to manage all the things capital itself requires. Under capitalism, the mode of production of generalized commodity production, it is again these impersonal, socially-upheld forces that govern subjects. Workers can utilize one another despite sharing an underlying interest in abolishing capital, because the reproduction of daily life under capitalism necessitates it. It is important thus to remember that porky is made to play the role of asshole; he does not have an innate or separately assumed role of exploiter without the parameters of the capitalist system itself.

This is such bankrupt logic, look at Britain or Japan, we see capitalism flourishing perfectly next to feudalistic vestiges. As for the place of the lords and kings, they're position still existed, only reformed into the capitalist and the state. Places of power never really disappear, they only change in appearance or scope.

Those are issues where I disagree with Zizek. His fondness for the abstraction of bureaucracy shouldn't shape his view of future socialism.
I agree, and that's what Zizek says aswell. I like the idea that co-operation and mutual aid are the logical conclusion of rational self-interest.

The extraction of surplus value isn't the same thing as labor guided by some authority or other. It is something inherent to the relations of a capitalist society, which was why I brought it up.

The point is that while capitalists perpetuate a cycle of capital out of society's control in an anarchy of production (as Habermas identifies as something like a ship upon which the passengers have lost control, and more and more lose the ability to understand it), the proletariat's historical role is to seize the means of production worldwide such that it may be brought under the control of man, rather than the opposite. This is to say that society will organize its productive capacities according to its needs, i.e. a plan. Labor will still be organized, but it will universal labor organized universally by labor (no longer identified as a class thereby), rather than individually by an antagonist class as in capitalist society.

… and I thought anarchist were supposed to be the ones to reject organisation.

What are suggesting? That there should be no administration of resources?

There is literally nothing wrong with a proletarian democracy directing production.

You tell it like ideal communnism is where we go from capitalism to "things just working" with no organisation at all.

This can't seriously be your answer?

same goes for you, what do you suggest in place of this?

That's not what I said, I specifically said discipline, the force of competition that propels the law of value. In your central planning of socialism you have either replaced competition with bureaucratic and/or political measures that are equally impersonal and abstract.

Production under capitalism is highly centralized. Also, there's no reason that's a good thing either. There's lots you can miss by only operating control from the center, seeing things only in the aggregate and in summary.

To put it under the control of man, sure, I would argue that happens perfectly under market socialism in a condition of radical proletarian democracy. Through the state, labor can plan and centrally coordinate things, put limits on markets in ways that were impossible with the capitalist class in control. In their workplace, they should also have control on the micro level. As Wolff rightly points out, if there is no control on the micro level, there is no control at all.

The biggest contradiction though, is that you seem to think you can meet all of human needs AND form a completely centralized economic plan by means of politics. Now this is assuredly Utopian. The opinions of men are more discordant and anarchistic than any production under capitalism, even when informed purely by material factors such as local resources and geography.

also

This doesn't reject the theory at all, as the existence of the outdated institutions isn't what's at stake, but their power and influence on society. Yes, the Queen of England and the Royal Family are very absorbed within the spectacular public psyche and help to sway them, but its ultimately to the ends of the capitalist rule as it exists there. No one could seriously argue that the Queen rules a kingdom. Parliaments, republics, and bourgeois democracies hold power worldwide, not monarchies. Power now descends (or rather accumulates) through capital rather than blood, though inheritance circumvents this from time to time.

Not the one based on markets, since capitalist companies le worker managed coops will start the accumulation of capital for the sake of staying afloat while competing on the market against other capitalist companies le worker managed coops.
wtf I love living for the sake of accumulating capital now
Still didn't make up my mind if we can be under the "lower stage" or we must go immediately to the higher stage to prevent the danger of value-form reemerging, but anyways, I'll quote Bordiga's perspective as one of the example concepts, it might entail his ideas of organic centralism, just saying in advance:

Immediate communization. Which from my understanding requires a lot of organizing within capitalism prior to any revolution. This could take the form of worker's councils, parties, co-ops, cybernetic development etc. The point would be to establish communal relations between the proletariat that would become the precursors to a socialist society while simultaneously building up the worker's power/control in their workplaces and communities. These pre-established structures can then take on the task of implementing a socialist economy when the time comes.

And exactly what power would a market have over a state captured by the workers?

...

Right, great, I didn't ask you what it wasn't, I asked you what it was, do you see the difference?

This is not an answer to my point. Sure, none of us want to be living to accumulate capital, I'm asking how you intend to stop that.

in the this thread up there, a different left com is telling me that left coms reject "stagism" so which is it?

Instead of this copy paste, could you explain in your own words what bordiga's theory means to you?

Nonetheless I will engage,

also

there never was a mass system of barter, barter was generally used for piecemeal exchanges between strangers, this is a myth put about by adam smith with absolutely no evidence to back it up.

So the great left com answer is labour vouchers? and somehow exchanging your labour for a voucher is better than exchanging it directly for a share of your business output because?

Who is running all of this, how do they get to these stages of production… ? Is there a state?

Such as, for instance, getting everyone running their own co-op so they are actually in control of capital when this moment comes?

Explain me how "immediate communization" is any different from what Kropotkin describes in the Conquest of Bread? I.e immediate free distribution?

dogmatists i sweartagad

That's not really the point though. Communism is supposed to be a total negation of capitalism, what arises in place of it isn't necessarily the concern. If it turns out that what develops out of that destruction of capitalism is pretty shit, then you repeat the process of ruthless critique and try again.

Yes, but the point is that it is organized as such and entered into by individual groups of capitalists, not that it's centralized. That's not what Marx is referring to by the term "anarchy of production." This is basic marxist literature m8

"An economy governed by price signals is one in which market principles determine the value of all inputs and outputs within the economic process (including human labor power)."
"If the market is the only mechanism of rational economy, then it should govern all aspects of economic life (human labor-power would be commodified, wage-labor would persist dictated by market fluctuations)."

"One of the greatest misconceptions about capitalism is the notion that these tendencies flow from the motivations of a class of private owners of the means of production. Yet the reality is quite different: the drive to accumulate by means of exploitation is inherent in the generalization of the commodity form. An economy based on that form, in which economic reproduction occurs by means of exchange according to market criteria (socially necessary labour-time), will inevitably produce all of its basic relations, irrespective of the precise form of ownership. For what is crucial to capitalism is not a specific form of ownership of the means of production, but rather the capital relation, that relation in which the direct producers are dominated by the means of production and the incessant drive to develop and expand them. ‘The rule of the capitalist over the worker’, insists Marx, ‘is nothing but the rule of the independent conditions of labour over the worker.’ It is not the capitalist who creates these conditions; these conditions create the capitalist: ‘The capitalist functions only as personified capital, capital as a person …’ This is what it means when Marx writes elsewhere that ‘capital is essentially capitalist’, capitalism refers to that specific set of social relations in which workers are subjected to the pressures of exploitative accumulation in order that the producing unit can survive in the world of commodity exchange."
from "Against the Market," I forget who wrote it.

Where do I say it will be centralized? And by means of politics? As class antagonisms are abolished, so too is politics as the state - the tool of class oppression - becomes obsolete. Additionally, Marx and Engels right extensively on the abolition of the dialectical antagonism between town and country (in reference to centralization) in communism. What do you think universal labor organizing itself as universal means? It is the whole of humanity guiding itself socially, without contradiction between authority (as invested in the whole) and the productive forces (the whole).
Doing my best to be clear, hope i clarified it for ya

Just calling it socialist, won't fix anything. Workers ownership if the effect of socialism, not it's cause.

Yeah. That's why I mentioned co-ops.
It's not much different. Leftcoms and ancoms have a lot in common.

so, to conclude, you will shit on everything with made up problems, but offer no real solutions at all.

No suggestions for organising, no suggestions for the revolution, no suggestions for after the revolution,

so.. nothing then, is what your theory has to offer.

misread sorry fam, you are the only leftcom I have spoken to who is pro co-op tho

What are the differences tho?

Bordiga absolutely shits on immediatism

well apparently Bordiga is pro labour vouchers so hes more of a Bakunin in this case…

Tbh, if it were not for leftcoms, I would have never read Marx or any serious theory.

That's not what I said? Abolition of capital requires organization, revolution, etc. but of course I'm going to shit on that organization if that organization is just a slightly more palatable capitalism

right.. what kind of organisation?

Personally I'm not going to make a final judgement about vouchers yet since I feel I didn't investigate enough into the problem of value form reemerging from the labour voucher system. But I understand that problem, see below
He might be referring to the concept of communization, a.k.a. going straight for the higher stage without being in the lower one. If we accept that concept, then you will have you answer of the replacement of market economy without it reemerging once the dust settles.

yall need to realize, we are all living on the surplus value of.. tesla, that guy who cured polio, etc
wealth comes out of innovation and technology, not central anything/more politics
and profit motive is perfectly legitimate way to innovate
politics is for losers

Fair enough

So what I don't seem to understand is how communization is supposed to be realised, or what the belief system for that is. I understand they want to organise free distribution immediately, by what structure is this organised is basically what I'm asking?

Mate put down the bong for real. I'm a daily smoker but put it down.

The dictatorship of the proletariat, workers councils, communization, etc. What comes after is simply a society that doesn't have capitalism.

It's because the state enforces Teslas private property that electric cars cost 100k. The software that keeps the batteries cool in Teslas is what makes them possible.

Something like 90 % of novel science and medicine is publically funded. 90% of porky r and d is spent on reverse engineering rival products, if anything capitalism is holding scientific progress back.

Don't even get me started on patents

No you got that wrong. A private corporation none of that happens. A public corporation it's not the workers that own stock it's the general public that places money into the stocks so the richest people being majority stock owners are who control it. You're thinking of Employee Stock Ownership Plans where stock shares are given to employees but this usually is just done for public corporations so again it's the rich that own and control it. In a co-op it's the employees that own and control it regardless of their financial background unless for whatever stupid reason they make it a public corporation co-op.

He litterally doesnt believe that coops are socialism. He simple sees it as a means to an end.

I see co-ops as a useful tool to organize and give the proletariat a sense of their political power. What I and most leftcoms take issue with is defining socialism as merely workers control or even worse subscribing to a theory that's based on that perceived limit of possibility. I think this little Dauve quote sums it up.

Tbh dude I'd have to go back and look at Conquest of Bread again to give you a good answer. I'll crack it open when I get home from work.

Well Bordiga isn't the entirety of left communist thought.

you are going to organise your revolution around the dictatorship of the proletariat and workers councils? So you're a leninist then?

I am asking you what communization is, you can't just say "communization is communization" that would be circular

and how would you structure that society?

That's not what surplus value means.

I completely agree

I'd say socialism is workers control and communism is the abolition of the commodity/exchange value form

As in what organizational structure will be "overseeing" the process of communizing as well as pushing the revolution? The typical answer would probably be: "whatever emerges from the group pissed off workers, be it ''organic party"-like thing or the councils, after all we're supposed to dissolve in the workers rather than put them in a particular frame".

and if this group of pissed of workers were to build a co-op network you would be okay with that?

I really doubt this would function well, because that group of pissed off workers would probably start by taking over a factory, which would immediately result in a reaction from the state apparatus, so there wouldn't be a lot of time for doing coop stuff

so… you don't think it would function well because it wouldn't happen? Is what you are saying?

Well obviously, if co-ops aren't made, they won't work.

Why do they take over a factory? Why is that what they will definitely do?

What is wrong with these workers pooling resources to start their own democratic business and building from there?

This gives them a financial base from which to carry out their revolution afterwards.

When orders come from above, it matters little to the workers who's making them.

Now who has turned the market into a mystical entity beyond human control, with no beginning or content? The fact is exactly that the market and its effects are greatly controlled by effects of competition, state law, and raw power.

Yes, the capitalists's interests are born of his position, no one disputes this. But so to are the workers. To say the capitalists is only capital personified is precisely to say that the tendencies of capitalism flow from a class of private owners, and that that class has its interests produced by capital. To combine the place of the capitalist and the place of the worker, yes, by exactly changing the way ownership works, would perhaps continue the actions of the capitalist on the micro level (that of reinvestment) but remove their political consciousness thanks to the immediacy and tangibility of labor on people's lives. To criticize, however, the constant need for reinvestment by the capitalist is nonsense. Every system requires constant reinvestment, even Marx admitted that while people's needs and wants were not unlimited, there were constantly rising.

If you are to argue for "decentralized planning" you are not arguing for planning at all.

Ah yes, and usher in a completely apolitical, post-ideological world. Utopianism at its purest.

There is no such thing as "universal" labor. Only labor abstract and in particular. Stop trying to imagine a world completely free of contradiction, and try to come up with ways to deal with it.

And I hope I am being clear. This is hardly my first rodeo on this topic

nigger did you invent an electric car? no? ever built one? no huh?
THEN HOW THE FUCK ARE YOU ENTITLED TO ONE?????

I'm just giving suggestions on ways to deal with it. If they work then they work, if they don't then they don't. But just to be clear, most councilists are strictly anti-lenin

Read above

That's not for me to decide, that's for the proletariat.

(this next part only really applies if you consider yourself 'marxist')
The kinds of questions your asking are extremely positivist, when Marxism doesn't function around positivism, and that's not how marx went about his critique of capitalism. He didn't say "here is a set of rules and affairs that need to be established for there to be communism" rather he examined exactly what doesn't work about capitalism, why it doesn't work, and why it is likely to fail and be replaced and by what, he wasn't exactly sure. Marx made suggestions, but that's all that they were, suggestions.

you're*

Gee user, I guess those trillions in buybacks and dividends going to the capitalist class don't mean shit after all

A 100% cooperative economy is a dictatorship of the proletariat, as at that point the worker's have all the power of the capitalist class.

But you're not giving any real suggestions. All of these suggestions are no different from the organisational structures you relentlessly fling shit at.

How is it some big enlightened theory to want workers councils and the dictatorship of the proletariat and why does that totally negate the idea of using co-ops?

Biggest cop out in the world. What if the proletariat decide to have Leninism or Anarcho Communism?

You're saying your theory is not having any theory…

or any constructive theory at least

as to your last bit, I would say this is a major flaw in Marx's work.

Why suggest overhauling the system if you have no plan for after?

Or at least, why pretend you are anything more than a simple nihilist?

I agree, did it not read like that?

Wow boys looks like the left has been debunked

We don’t.

This is dumb. The supply chain involved with building a car is so vast that it would be impossible for anyone to claim sole responsibility for building it. It's construction is a social effort.

nobody has as much autism as a leftcom

Who's the Leninist now? You sure you're an anarchist?

Mostly since I assumed we were talking about the period of heightened revolutionary activity(ie. when communization were to take place). But even in case of a non-revolutionary period, when workers go on a strike just for higher wages as nothing better can be demanded, they still might go for the workplace occupation.
Wait, are you saying that we have a group of pissed off strikers, both revolutionary-minded and those who normally don't give a shit, and then they decide:
Has that even happened?

If the proles decide leninism or anarcho communism then don't be surprised when it sucks because capital still exists. I don't think proletariat isn't perfect and infallible, though that is the way it comes off.
I'm not trying to posit that left communist revolutionary theory is necessarily better (though I PERSONALLY think that they are, in general, because they better account for the nature of capital, etc.). I think that a cycle of critique and negation is better at dealing with the problems which society faces than a positivist approach.

Coops are simply a different way of acquiring capital, and while you're not wrong in that during the DoP capital hasn't been completely abolished, in a DoP they would be actively working to abolish capital, so it seems that keeping coops around are an unnecessary step. If, somehow, coops are the method in which capitalism is abolished, then I'm fine with them, but because coops rely on markets, wages, exchange, etc, they inherently rely on capitalism and only serve to prolong the capitalist lifespan.

That's a nice argument you have there. Is Marx autistic as well?

No fucking normal person thinks about that shit when they work. For an ideology supposedly concerned with materialism maybe try thinking about how things materially effect people.

By killing the "seize le means of production xDDD" meme. Through that meme gullible/uninformed people are lead to believe that all that is required for socialism to be existent is for the means of production being owned by the proletariat.

you are the parasite m8

The law of value entails falling rates of profit and consolidation of industry, say that increasing automation and market share mean increasing public control, and coops will phase themselves out in a perfectly reliable way.

I don't see the problem with that.

...

Struggling to figure out what you mean by this tbh (maybe it's my autism :-D). Do you not think about the wages you're being paid when you work? Do you not feel at least somewhat alienated by your labor? The antagonisms and contradictions caused by capital ARE material.

Because there's more to capitalism than the means of production being privately owned

That's not my point dumbass. He was listing ideas, not material effects.

I don't really agree w/ your interpretation, but fair enough, at least you have some understanding and back your shit up with more than "well… uh… coops mean the workers control it so that means we have socialism yay!"

What more?

...

Where's that post from?

Kek. He became a billionaire because he got lucky when his company merged with the company developing PayPal. Musk like all capitalists leeches off the labor of others.

Ideas still affect you in a material way

I want to say "read marx", but I won't, I'm not going to really go into detail though (but srsly if you're truly interested please read marx).
Things that are capitalistic that aren't private ownership of the means of production:
-Money
-Wages
-Profit
-Markets
-Production for exchange (This is a big one)
-the commodity (so is this)
-alienation of labor
-commodity fetishism
and many more

So socialism means no currency? It sounds like getting rid of currency solves a lot of these issues.

Do you really think that most rich people did any of those things? Lay off the heroic entrepreneur kool aid.

this isn't leninist mate. Its pretty widely accepted abolition of the value form is communism.

Right but if you have your own network of co-ops you don't need to demand higher wages you just raise them.

Has, magical organic revolution where we go straight to free distribution, somehow, just however the proletariat feels, but DEFINITWELY NOT LENINISM OR CO-OPERATIVES, for some reason, if these are the organic choice the proles make, its the wrong one..

Its just a yuuuge cop out.

mate you haven't even actually told me what it is, so yeh, of course not.

I know it isn't co-ops, but it could be a dictatorship of the proletariat OR workers councils.

So far nothing I have been told distinguishes it from any other particular branch of leftism.

I have asked repeatedly what communization theory is only to be told its The Conquest of Bread only years later and no different but somehow different and more to do with "marx" and "muh theory"… somehow. Still waiting on that answer.

How is it better at dealing with problems when you literally have no suggested a single solution to the problems…

Besides, when did he use physics to pay his loans off?

RevLeft. Never been there, though.

Currency is more of a result as a need for a medium of exchange, a commodity with which all other commodities can be exchanged. This is why money holds so much power. For example, not many people are going to say "no" if you offer them 5k for 98 toyota camry with 100k miles on it. but they might say "no" if you offer them 1000 pounds of grapes for their camry. With money you could trade those thousand pounds of grapes for 5k if you found a willing buyer and then buy the camry.
Take currency out of the equation and you still have exchange, albeit exchange that is much less efficient and standardized, but still exchange none the less.

Jesus fucking christ this is retarded, by perpetuating the capital accumulation cycle you subject everyone else to the same. The problem with capitalism isn't simply that some douchebag with a monocle takes some of the value you produce, it's that capital accumlation inevitably ends up ruling our lives, consuming all our time and reducing work to tedious alienated activity, while denying us social control (as in at the level of society, not the fucking enterprise) over what is produced and for what purpose. It wrecks the environment, causes homelessness, creates oppressive domestic social structures and leads to war, and it would do all of this even if all businesses were co-ops. You only need to look at the way the mondragon corporation behaves to know that co-ops are perfectly capable of engaging in some pretty serious motherfuckery. Not because they're bad, but simply because they are responding to market forces. To capital.

When you "exploit yourself" you reproduce all of this shit and perpetuate our slavery.

Why do leftcoms think they are the only people that understand this? Why is it their only answer to every single question?

so you're gonna remove market forces, somehow, BEFORE your revolutionary strategy takes off… or should you be building a revolutionary network that work within these forces?

How is pointing out that there are forces of capital a refutation and how will other revolutionary strategies not be subject to the forces of capital?

NOBODY HAS SAID co-ops are the whole revolution. Nobody at all.

Basically the leftcom critique of co-ops is an epic strawman, where leftcoms pretend co-ops are the end game

And are you sure you know what we mean by exploitation of labour?

That would only be the case if you invented something in your garage then sold the rights, and the money it makes will still come from exploitation of labour.

You know the people doing medical research for PHARMACORP aren't getting much of the profit, right?

And you know the LTV wasn't Marx's invention, right?

Nice reddit spacing, but I agree with this.
Just plain coops are a potential vessel to bring us closer to "market forces" that are ruled as a society

So how would you get rid of the need for exchanging commodities? This is pretty fascinating.

The most simple answer I can give you is by producing for use rather than producing for exchange. In capitalism, use value doesn't necessarily disappear, but it is superseded by exchange value.
Since you seem truly interested, but at the same time probably don't want to read the 2500+ pages of Capital, I'll point you to a youtube series which explains what I'm talking about in more depth, although it is a little reductionist:
youtube.com/watch?v=dGT-hygPqUM

he isn't going to tell you how, because he doesn't have an answer

He will instead refer you to something else, instead of actually being able to explain his own beliefs

ahahahaahahahahahaha like clockwork

People think about wages, but they don't go "damn, I really wish I wasn't being paid a wage", they think "gee, i sure wish I was paid more so I could take care of my family better, eat better, sleep better, and get a nicer house" they don't say "I wish I wasn't alienated" they say "I wish I could have actually written that novel, gotten my dream job, ect". Try to learn how to talk like a real person and not some marxist dogmatic.

You dense motherfucker.

ah, glorious politics discussion
ITS THE KIIIIIKEEEEEEEEES WHY IM A LOSER
said the pol
==PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY IS A PORKY MEME, PORKY CONSPIRACY IS WHY IM A LOSER
said the leftypol

and at the end of the day both pol and leftypol produced 0 things, 0 effort, 0 value, and if the world is just they'd have 0 electricity to go with their shitposting too

meanwhile mister sensible centrist doomed the world in every conceivable way for the last hunders of years. YAAAY CENTERISM

I was responding to someone (you?) suggesting that self-exploitation was either harmless or simply self harm (comparing it to masturbation, wtf?). I wasn't suggesting that no other tendency apart from leftcoms are aware of this (in fact the vast majority of them are). I just found that particular post to be offensively stupid.

We're all aware that capital isn't going to be abolished over night, but many of us are very skeptical of the notion that co-ops are in anyway revolutionary, and would prefer both rapid integration of seized MoP into a unitary organistion, along with immediate communist measures being taken with regard to distribution (where possible). The market won't be abolished instantly but allowing independent firms to operate is just asking for trouble.

Fuck off liberal faggot.

What's important is that you found a way to feel superior to both.

This has been tried many times. How do you intend to seize means of production in europe in any meaningful way with no weapons or any other means to seize them?

Co-ops allow revolutionaries to build a social and financial base from which to operate.

Where is this revolution you speak of coming from? no such organisation exists and if it did it would be wildly unpopular.

You do know eating half the baby means the baby is dead right?

?

We're in a leftist forum you fucking dumbass, of course I'm going to use terms which are """"""dogmatic"""""" because those are the terms which best describe what I'm talking about.
I'm not trying to talk to my fucking grandma about how her labor is alienated or some shit.
You're also really not giving proles enough credit, you're acting like they're all a bunch of cretins that are incapable of wrapping their head around any marxist concept because they have a job or some bullshit.

Leave.

And I expect it would have worked had those places not been underdeveloped quasi-feudal shitholes (and if the world had modern computer technology at the time).

You're right, no such thing looks like it's on the horizon any time soon, though when conditions get horrible enough I expect revolutionary organs will start to form.

I'm really not sure how true this is, most co-ops go out of their way to distance themselves from revolutionary movements, they're businesses after all, and don't want any kind of trouble that could harm their operation. Once again: looks at areas with high concentrations of co-ops (eg. northern spain) they aren't any more revolutionary than any other country.

Except that network of co-ops still has to compete on the market, so you could not raise wages as infinitum, as part of workers' labour power must be reinvested into the company if the competition emerges, especially since the other guys won't give a shit about the wages as much as and therefore will have a bigger pool of resources to reinvest into their companies to gain the upper hand over you. I mean, you have a noble plan and all, you can try it, but all I can do is wish you good luck since you will have a harder time staying afloat than the cappies if you really think you can run a business on the "You wants a raise? Here you go!" model.
I haven't mentioned leninism anywhere, you must've mistaken me for the other poster.
But anyways, I don't think you understand me. Let me give you recent example from my country: recently, an ansyn union has managed to organize a countrywide strike of postmen and since the economic situation there was pretty shit, not only the revolutionary and lefty ones joined, but also the centrists, conservatives and people who generally do not give a shit about politics since the wages were that bad. In a way we could call the group that arose Organic™, since the postmen overcame their ideologies and became one group focused on class struggle.
From here I can see the exact problem with your argument that they should just organize le coop network. As I mentioned, the vast majority of them were not revolutionary minded in any way, they simply don't give half a fuck about your beloved coops, they just wanted higher wages and after the strike has ended, they have dispersed, once again into the embrace of their ideologies, with a few more of them possibly considering a vote for sucdems, which is the furthest when it comes to "class consciousness" in our shit east euro country. Real life isn't an imageboard for lefty edgelords, most people don't give a shit about your ideas enough to quit their jobs to make epic coops, because once thy get angry, they won't think coop network to peacefully compete on the market, but, like those postmen, about lynching the emissaries from collaborationist unions who said they should go back to work.

niggers, i am above politics

just like the whole agricultural sector: doesnt matter if its the x or y ism, people still need to eat
my point is: none of you faggots (pol AND leftypol) use any equations to prove/disprove your shit
none of your shit is even testable or falsifiable or scientific or even 'smart' whatever way you define it
its just a whole bunch of fucking complainers, blaming the people who found the way
hell, kill the 1% and you killed half the jews, kill the jews and you killed half of the 1%
pol and leftypol are essentially two sides of the same unemployable, impotent, worthless coin

it is reasonable to be pro-work ethic
it is reasonable to give everyone a chance, and equality before the law
it is reasonable to boycott the government when it demands taxes but fixes nothing
it is reasonable to allow immigration, to doctors and engineers
it is reasonable to ban immigration, to illiterate feral fundamentalists
it is reasonable to expect scarcities, and handle them trough rationing, priorities, hierarchies if it results with more people living trough the crisis

it is utterly unreasonable to be whiny, entitled, self-important, 'muh ism > your ism' / 'muh race > your race' internet shitposter not worth his bread and electricity
it is just a very, veeeeeeeeery unrewarding way of spending 10 hours of the day
it's all just so disgusting, worthless, irrelevant

hell im no better than anyone here, it's just that i drink beer and watch a movie instead, you guys are all who i talk with and it bothers me

To clarify, I'm not oppose to you operating a co-op under capitalism, do what you have to do to get by. If by some chance it does help in some political way then great, but I doubt it will.

Kill yourself.

This makes you a centrist by definition, you dumb cunt.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

*sniffs*
*pulls shirt*

Learn not to give people (You)s you baitable retards.

the scenario was talking about what an average prole would be thinking. To the average person, working in a cooperative means a big change compared to a corporation. We're not talking about theory here, we're talking about the real actual effects of a specific thing. If someone comes up to you having started a cooperative, and you start babbling on about how that's bad because its still commodity production, I hope to god they slap you across the face.

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That's right, remove all the context you like to make yourself feel superior

A coop in a market is literally not any better than a corporation

well we could argue this till the cows come home

Why not get ahead of the game?

I'm not talking about just starting random co-ops though, I'm talking about starting a network of co-ops that has specific revolutionary aims and that provide community services, you then expand the scope of the organisation and begin to buy outright your MOP, while at the same time expanding you community services until there is no need for a state around the network

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Bitch please. You just don't know anything. if you're above politics then how the fuck are you so opininionated? Can't have it both ways.

I mean in your head you can, but to the rest of the population you just look like an edgy retard

Thanks for giving him a (You) faggot

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It is.
It's just half-assed socialism that won't work in the long run.

BUT it's the only way to make burgers see beyond their ideology.

yeh i mean this is the main point, we have tried socialism by force of arms, or socialism by common consent, but have we tried, socialism by stealth?

It's funny really, this is exactly what I though we should should do when I first got into leftist politics, however I rapidly came to believe that it is impossible for worker owned enterprises to beat normal joint stock corporations at their own game. Even the mondragon corporation only became as big as it is because it was insulated from market competition during its initial stages. It's not doing so well now and looks like it will continue to degenerate into a joint stock company over time.

If you're serious about using co-ops in this manner however, you should check out the "in-kind calculator" over at /gnussr/ (assuming you aren't already one of them). At least one of the posters there has suggested the calculator be used in such a context.

This.

Let me tell you I used to be a libtard and didnt know much about capitalism. After 4 years of listening to Wolff and reading some materials I am ready for some actual change or revolution.

would you look at all those non-arguments

marx did use the phrase "abstract capitalist" once in Capital I think but really the way he used it really doesn't help the marksucc's case

both of these things are true. coops and masturbation are both liberalism and should both be disallowed.

coopfags, keep in mind that this will be you in a couple years. all you are are liberals who took the democracy fetish a bit too far. you'll grow out of it soon.

I'd go maoist for her tbh.

kek, and when was this? For a few years in the 1920s?

You can and it does.

no I don't think that's true. what was critical for marx was the centralization of what was private property into a single body after the revolution. Meaning that somehow this altered society must consist from its beginning of all people holding all things in common or something along those lines. If there are separate workers organizations working with their own separated MoP, then they will tend to trade with each other. Value reemerges.

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They literally are.

Sounds like socialism to me but ok

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"Workers owning the means of production" is a shitty and vague term only good for attracting normalfags.

What ?

Read and

So, you mean utopian socialists weren't socialists ?

The read all the critisms of these comments and realise that leftcoms are nothing but hacks pretending to know things they don't.

Notice how one is extremely certain left com is about labour vouchers and the other that is is about "rejecting stagism"

None of them have a fucking clue what they are talking about, they just parrot shit they heard somebody else say because it sounds superior, totally surface level meme lords all of them, they have contributed nothing to this board but endless threads where they jack each other off and link Dauve.

They come from reddit r/ultraleft and thats why they have the superior attitude because they are fundamentally reddit.

I mean, if Marx himself called utopian socialist, "socialists", it's that they were socialists, right ?

The very fact they "identifty" as something that is an umbrella term for many and various ideologies should be a huge red flag.

They are just memelords who wants to try to be superior to both Marxists and Anarchists, so they pilfer bits of both but create nothing new with it, as witnessed by the fact that the "stagism rejecting" left coms want anarchist communism and the none stagism rejecting ones want labour vouchers (collectivism) (nothing new) Its for pretentious idiots and nothing else

Define what you mean by utopian. In what way is left com not utopian? The magical organic proletariat have a spontaeneous revolution where they instantly go from capitalism to communism and they do this just because… but somehow thats not utopian.

do you even understand the words that come out of your mouth?

First, I'm not a left-com, second, "utopian socialists" are the pre-Marx socialists (Henri de Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, Étienne Cabet, and Robert Owen), the term of utopian socialism was created to make a distinction between the first socialism and Marx's "scientific socialism".

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FPBP

It would be fine if they had actually shat on them, there is no strong argument here apart from "um, like, you still have the value form lmao" as if anybody here is suggesting its the end game and not a tool.

Which again, would be fine, but then you are told "its just because you don't read enough theory, not like me, i'm basically a university professor level academic don't you know, all us left coms are, because like.. we say so"

Oh you want me to explain my beliefs in a clear and coherent manner? Well heres a bunch of links with no context, its not my job to educate you, i just act superior

wtf I love capitalism now

We already have co-ops. It's called stocks.

Is this bait?

I've met retarded Holla Forumsacks who unironically believe this.

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Stockholders create way more value than the workers. It's all about the stock value, nobody gives a shit about what the company do or who works there

That just shows that there's no inherent value in many stocks, or the value of those stocks are heavily inflated. Stockholders aren't really valuable at all from a societal standpoint. They're simply people gambling and speculating on the economy. Meanwhile the CEO's have to suck their dicks and constantly make sure that the shareholders are making more money, even if it leads to anti-consumer and anti-worker practices like planned obsolescence and layoffs.
Shareholders are the parasites of our society. The CEO's are merely the figureheads despite the fact that the CEO's are usually the targets of leftist rage.

This is bait.