Beyond Surplus-Value

Congrats on being completely illiterate user.

Co-ops have socialized production because CAPITALISM has socialized production.

What makes co-ops unique is that they have socialized *property* to the extent they have socialized *production*.

And yes, in a market economy, co-ops will produce for exchange. But guess what we as Marxists now about Markets: they are self negating.

marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch32.htm

To Marx the issue was exactly one of socializing property, for he knew that capitalism would do the job of socializing and centralizing production to the extent that it destroys markets themselves.

Your first problem is that you've bought into the leftcom hysterics that the issue with capitalism is the firm, in which case you've just substituted the issue of surplus value for an even more retrograde humanist concept of alienation. If you read Marx over here you'd know that Marx had absolutely no qualms with co-ops as a unit. The most immediate problem with capitalist firms is a political problem, in that they produce capitalists. In a dictatorship of the proletariat, which is still capitalism, you will need to have proletariat control of not just formal political structures, but also economic and ideological structures. In a situation where the natural centralization of capitalism is not yet complete, that would mean cooperitization. Communism is the real movement that abolishes the present state of things, and in that sense, coops will absolutely be needed in the process of overcoming capitalism.

you know, if you'd read the other half of the post you'd know that a part of this is creating a plan, but co-ops can just as easily unite to make this plan, if not, it doesn't matter much as the very mechanisms of the market force consolidation and leads to the destruction of the market itself.

All you've done in your criticism is accuse people of trying to be ethical in capitalism, but this is not an issue of ethical capitalism, this is about creating a dialectical process that negates capitalism. A process which Marx was very clear about, came through markets themselves. The job of the proletariat is exactly expropriation and socialization of property, while the job of the market is the socialization of production.

It comes from markets itself because the market has inherent contradictions. The negation of capitalism does not come from friendly capitalism that changes nothing.

Socialized in the sense that a joint stock firm is socialized.

You faggots keep posting these threads like you aren't intentionally missing the entire point.

NOBODY IS SAYING CO-OPS ARE SOCIALISM. However:

The whole point of worker ownership as I understand it is that to place control of the workplace in the hands of the worker is to create the conditions for future value abolition. Why? Because the worker is currently alienated from the management of capital, therefore the worker generally does not understand capital, when the worker manages capital, they become organically class conscious. This is the main point to take away.

Most Marxists agree on a lower stage of the revolution. Every mode of production has had several stages of development, from early capitalism, to late capitalism, to early feudalism, to peak feudalism, to feudalism as it is today.

A co-operatively managed society is as you say, socialised capitalism. So just like feudal/tribal society>feudal society propery>feudal/capitalist society>capitalist society proper, you have feudal/capitalist society>capitalist society proper>capitalist society/socialist society>socialist society>socialist/communist society>communist society.

All that is really being suggested is a lower, lower stage, one which trains the workers to manage themselves first, which will at some point have to be the case, if we are to achieve a truly classless society.

Meanwhile, in the immediate, the conditions of the proletariat are improved, so you give them actual material, self interested benefits to fight for.

On top of that, every other idea in the first world at this point is simply larping. The fact is, you do not have anything close to a revolutionary organisation, and if the market collapsed in a years time, it would be to the benefit of reaction, and not to hours. This last part is a fact, not an opinion.

What else are you suggesting? Yet another "leninist" but in fact trot party? An anarcho-collective?

If you really honestly think armed revolution is happening the first world and be successful you are properly deluded.

Perhaps, in 10 years time, if we had built a network of co-ops, and it was suppressed, we could drum up the militancy to protect it, at the moment we have less than nothing, nothing to protect, no revolutionary structures.

The real movement will be dialectical, it will not happen in one sweeping motion, but will rock back and forth, the old modes of production creating the new, you socialise the capitalism and you have created a new mode, from which socialism proper is much more likely to emerge and be sustainable

Also, if the workplace is in the workers control, they are better equipped to communise, should the inclination take them

why do you keep saying this when it is just fundamentally wrong

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_cooperative

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint-stock_company

they are two different things

I'm not against co-ops as a revolutionary strategy (I don't know what sort of organs of working class power will form) but I don't think they're the best strategy.

Commutiy Self Managment Collective Manifesto: Global North Protracted Peoples Urban Economic War

Find a group of people, criteria: Communist, willing and able to save up £$ Euroes,2000/3000/4000??, willing and able to take a central active role in planning and carrying out party activities, these groups should function democratically. The activities are as follows:

Each group should start a recruitment program based around education as a priority and as far as possible drawing membership from local communities, in the inital stage party members should set up a school of socialism that teaches a broad range of Marxist, Anarchist and general socialist theory, history from a left wing perspective, and about local class struggle and issues, as well as the network's aims and goals. This could take the form of a monthly or weekly gathering, from these schools and from the broader socialist community party members can be gradually brought in. Alongside this, party members should conduct physical and self defence training and build an armed wing, preparing specifically for the task of defending the network, with a view to the future of the network and the possible threats it may face.

At the same time, these groups should go into communities and find out how they can help them with their labor and resources, what they need. Inititally use this for sponsorsed fundraisers in order to build funds to purchase a business to be a co-operative, so that the task carried out can be funded by that co-operative and a real need is met and this provision is sustainable for the future. These events can also be used for recruitment and therefore the founding of other co-operatives. The groups should raise money in any other way they see fit besides borrowing at interest, but personal labor and sponsored community services must be part of it, this will also help in the creation of co-operatives, allowing them to come into being already connected to the communities they establish themselves in.

The party members will work in the co-operative,these co-operatives will : be directly democratic, pay in shares instead of wages, provide a needed community service free of charge, pay into a network fund for the expansion and improvment of the network as a whole, including the outright purchase of private property to become collective property, and benefits for the workers such as child care in the initial stage. They will also be constitutionally bound to remain collective property and to function in an environmentally sustainble manner.

As a network they will fund education(for instance by hosting the school of socialism and funding propoganda) and agitation (by providing representatives to help with wage disputes for example, enabling direct action) as well as physical resitance to the state and reactionary groups. At the early stage, these community needs will most likely be small scale, regular food drives, perhaps providing school tutors for struggling children.

Party members will recruit, guide and mentor new groups building new co-operatives.As well as this, once established, the party members able should begin again saving for new co-operatives in a different industry(but this time with the help of the network for funding), in the same community, that provides a different service. When they leave, the party should recruit directly from the local community while providing education to this new recruit so that they are equipped to understand the nuance of a democratic work place and the project as a whole, thus providing jobs within the community and creating the conditions whereby the community manages itself.

In the ideal situation, several co-operatives will have opened at roughly the same time in several different cities.Once established, the collective fund drawn from these will enable these projects to be scaled up, the network might begin providing a house call nurse for a community for example. A food drive might become a food bank, tutoring becomes a night school and so on. Similarly, the industries the groups enter into initially should be easy to access, however once the network is stable they may buy into industries with higher costs of entry, thus two cafes, a food truck, a bar and a corner grocery store, open a supermarket. New co-operatives should be focussed on, but not limited to key industries such as food.

At this stage or perhaps before it, the network should be considering setting up its own mutual bank, so that all funds in the network are controlled as directly by the network as possible, (it may wish to consider alternative currencies such as bitcoin).

From here, with a large and well established network, with popular support generated from community outreach, funds can begin to be accrued for supply chain integration, locking out the capitalist, cutting costs to be given back to the workers and the community around them, as well eventually allowing whole products to created within the network from scratch and therefore being able to be completely freely distributed without exchange value.Supply chain integration will naturally spread the network abroad, and allow for dramatic raising of third world working conditions, if one imagines what started as a cafe eventually integrating its supply chain to include coffee farms in central america, created and run by central american workers themselves with resources provided by the network. Alongside this, with larger and global, industrial spending power comes the ability to build whole power plants, hospitals, and schools, and other necessary services.