this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2024
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As long as we're shooting for the moon what say you and me and the mates at work all decide together how much, and how often, and even what we produce?
You mean like a worker co-op? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_cooperative)
Or co-determination? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Co-determination)
Things like Mondragon Corporation, as well as Germany's quality of life and economic prosperity since their adoption of co-determination laws, shows us that these are not the pipe dreams that capitalists want you to believe they are.
OH! i had heard about how labor gets on the board in germany specifically but never knew the term for it. Thank you friend!
Sure thing. Make sure to tell your friends!
Could you elaborate?
Also, it was interesting going through those two links and checking out the sections of different countries in the world that have them, and noticing that the United States has almost none of that. Seems like such an outlier, compared to Europe and South America.
What I mean is that the existence, and thriving of these models proves that they're not only viable, but can provide much better economic outcomes... There is a group of people in the US who work very hard to make sure nothing like that ever gets codified here. At least at the federal level.
Indoctrinating kids into "American exceptionalism" has left us with one and a half generations of "rugged individualists" who think they "pulled themselves up by their bootstraps," when in reality they're no different than anyone else. But now they've got this warped worldview ingrained in them that makes them believe that everyone who's ever been successful got there entirely on their own. When in reality, none of them did.
A well-written reply, thank you for that.
Granted, your painting with a broad brush, to offer a quick summarization, but I don't think you're completely correct.
I'm actually someone who figuratively did pulled himself up by his bootstraps (broken home, high school dropout, etc.), and at the end of my career I do have a small amount of wealth, which I earned all on my own, and was able to retire early.
I don't want to say too much because I don't want to dox myself accidentally, but there are those, even if it's just a minority, who do literally work the system to success, the way it currently is.
Shit man, I had this whole thoughtful response typed out, and then my palm must have hit the touchpad on my laptop and I guess clicked a link. When I went back, it was all gone.
I guess I will try to hit the main points... I think I started like:
First, the saying to, "pull one up by their own bootstraps," itself has actually had its meaning altered over the years into something nearly opposite the original. You see, what they've described is an impossible task. It is physically impossible to lift yourself up by your own bootstraps. The saying was being sardonic. A witticism. They were basically saying you were doing something absurd/impossible. So the irony there is always fun to point out (would normally get a source for this kind of thing, but literally just google the phrase).
Then I think I said something like...
With all due respect, you didn't pull yourself up by your bootstraps. It seems as though you've worked very hard to get where you are, and that's great and some may call it commendable. Others work harder for much less, and others do nothing for far more. That's inequality at work... Regardless, even if you did literally every piece of business yourself, you still cannot claim to have (at least by the current definition) pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, there were many (literally countless) others involved in the events that led you to where you are today.
I'm going to assume you are in the US, but correct me if I'm wrong.
Surely you've used township/county/state/interstate roads and highways? Ever cross a bridge and not die? You make use of wastewater and drinking water infrastructure that you don't even think about the existence of 98% of the time. The countless medications, devices, technologies, etc., that you interact with on a continuous basis, that would not exist if not for government funding. Which ultimately means paid by tax revenue.
Literally being lifted up by everyone who pays taxes in your community, state, and country.
I am glad that you find working that way fulfilling. And that you've been able to make something out of it is great. But maybe that's a similar feeling of fulfillment to what a guitarist might feel when they write a sick riff? Or when a graffiti artist makes a particularly amazing tag (and admires it for a moment before bailing)?
It sucks we live in a system where, in nearly every situation, those people are forced to do the thing that fulfills you (as in you specifically), while leaving themselves no time and/or energy to do the thing that actually fulfills them.
Ideally, in a post-rarity society where there are plenty of food and resources for everyone on the planet many times over, we should be able to do the thing that gives us that feeling; that fulfills us.
Instead, we're born shackled to this broken system that breeds hate, bitterness, where maybe single-digit percent of people actually get to do the thing that fulfills them, while the rest of us suffer until we die.
Fun stuff. Sorry, lately the brain's been in the mood for writing I guess.
You mean we'd be in control of the means of production? That's an interesting idea. We should come up with a recognizable symbol for this new concept. Something simple, like two silhouettes of tools, maybe crossed.
now just wait a goldarn minnit mister, im not talkin godless unamerican commie shit, i'm talking about returning pride to the workin man. self-determination and democracy at work! dont get it twisted now
Communism! Don't even consider it. Don't think about it. Those are bad thoughts, suppress them. Get angry at them. Lash out about it! Communism! It's evil! It's more evil than the term evil can describe!
Ok, ok. I'm done. I got to be honest, though. I don't know very much about communism. I'm not asking to learn this very second, I just wanted to throw that out there.
i don't know much about it either, friend, I've just read a certain manifesto, made a brief foray into das kapital, and read a long question about "what is to be done".
All jokes aside I started reading some theory out of spite (no lie, its sadly why i do most things lol). It just seemed so clearly and thoroughly detested by established economic thinkers, politicians, and pundits that I just had to know what the big effin deal was.
You did what?!?!? Did the government bust down your door and murder you?????? Are you a terrorist now????? Have you learned other degenerate habits????? Are you somehow now gay or more gay than you were before????
Absolutey. Terrified.
They have the forbidden knowledge, y'all. You can not trust this person.
Ask Jack London what he thinks about scabs.
Might I suggest the warm embrace of the 80 different social democratic and economic theories stuffed in a single trenchcoat made of forms signed in triplicate as an alternative? No fancy symbol perhaps but we serve cookies at the meetings.
If you want to do that, just start your own business with you and the mates.
We can’t even get 4 programmers to agree on how to produce something, if you really think you can get more people than that to agree on what to produce, you are really naive.