this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2025
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"Capitalism is when there's management"?
Many of the contradictions and crises of Capitalism are still present even under worker coop models in a market economy. Surplus value is still extracted, that money must be reinvested in the business to remain competitive. Meaning the Tendency of The Rate of Profit to Fall Remains, meaning capitalist crises remain. Imperialist incentives remain, and a worker coop nation-state would be equally imperialist as one with private corporations.
Profit falling leading to imperialism seems like its because of profit/expansion driven leadership which isn't impossible under a coop model but seems fairly unlikely and is more or less a certainty under a more undemocratic and authoritarian hierarchy under capitalist enterprises.
In fact, one of worker coop's "weaknesses" is that they have a tendency to not grow at all, which has been suggested as a major reasons why they don't dominate our economy despite tending to be more resilient than conventional firms.
Other than the end-state of communism, a stateless, moneyless society, I'm curious as to what you think counts as 'not capitalist'?
Lord.
You run an explicitly anti-capitalist community and don't believe in the TRPF?
I think socialism requires an explicitly anti-nationalist character and the elimination of the commodity form. This looks like production with quotas (use-value), probably labor vouchers (but its not a requirement) and some form of worker ownership, like workers councils.
Marx himself regard the tendency of the rate of profit to fall as an incomplete aspect of his theories. It's highly contested, and ultimately, while important to 'scientific socialism' conceptions of why capitalism must fall, is neither explanation nor justification for those of us who believe that capitalism should fall, but will not necessarily do so of its own inherent contradictions.
Marx was a brilliant theorist, and we are all deeply indebted to his contributions to socialist thought - that's not the same as thinking that every idea he put forward, with the limited evidence available to him, and him operating as a positive trailblazer in the 19th century as an exile in a deeply hostile society, was absolutely incontrovertibly correct.
I mean, again, though, that looks to me more like the end-state of communism. If that's all you're willing to accept as non-capitalist, that's fine, I suppose, but that's a very high bar to clear, and many want clearer intermediate steps which will create the conditions to implement that.
Upvoted for having a reasonable conversation, btw, this is what left discourse is for