Workers' Self-Management

This is Part 2 of 3 of Work Sucks! This video is definitely not as good as my last video but I had to cover this information before moving to the next part.

If you haven't seen The Take, please see the following link. You can watch Workers' Self Management in action.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8149373547373833649#

On cooperation vs. competition, I would check out the book, No Contest: The Case Against Competition. The author debunks the myth that competition is better than cooperation by going over 500 studies and showing that in almost every case, cooperation is much better.

One thing I didn't cover was how to start a Workers Managed company. Obviously, there is no huge incentive to start one. In a Left-Libertarian society, communities and workplaces are highly linked to each other so starting a cooperative would be no problem. Of course, we dont live in this type of society. There are a number of ways to proceed. Anyone can start one of these companies which is a start but again, no incentive, except for humanitarian reasons. Some people have suggested anarcho-syndicalism. In a nutshell, anarco-syndicalism uses unions in a grass-roots fashion. Basically, unions connect with other unions and form a federation. At some point, the unions go on strike driving the companies out of business. After that, the workers start running the workplace on their own. This is pretty much what happened during the Spanish Civil War.




I'm not one for using government but here is another option. Instead of bailing out car companies, the public could force the government to hand over the workplace to the employees and let them run it. There are many other options but these ones are pretty popular.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Workers Self-Management
• Libertarian Socialism
• Work Sucks
• Cooperative
• Libcom
• Mondragon
• Corporation
• Chomsky

[Kinkspace]

A nice ideal.

Unfortunately it does not address the issues of direction, so if the employees say owned Monsanto would that mean that they would be more committed to pesticides and GMO regardless of environmental issues.

This is alas not the way froward, we have not evolved to the point where we have accepted our relationship to one another as humans let along our Eco system and environment.

[TheLeftLibertarian]

@Kinkspace: I actually agree with you. This is just a first step in the right direction. Remember, this is just part 2 of 3. Hopefully my next video will address some of your concerns. I think any time you have a market system, people will be forced to give up some of their own principles/ethics to feed the beast. This is the subject of my next video. Thanks for the comment.

[TheLeftLibertarian]

I received a PM from one of my watchers asking me if I deleted one of his comments. I do not delete comments and never have. For transparency, this was his message, ""Instant one star at 40 seconds in. I'm disappointed."

[Christ724]

As far as I know, left-libertarians focus on both the state and the corporation and the right-libertarians just focus on the government.

[TheLeftLibertarian]

@mparker18311: Thanks for the comment. I do not understand why you call something that exist today all around the world and clearly works a utopia. I do agree that it is in our human nature to abuse people below us. After all, we see it everyday. However, it is also human nature to not want to be abused.

[InvincibleNumanist]

@mikemat3307

Its odd you should say mutualist. Mutualists like Kevin Carson arent against the investors, most of his criticism is against the managerial role.

But lots of workers could still join together for the start up capital. I dont see the problem.

[RedMusicSinging]

long live Marxism Leninism. If you don't agree go to a firing squad

[fountainherz]

Very nice, I'd be very interested in collaborating in one, but the problem I have is my skepticism based on (probably sounds silly) the apathy of school group-projects, where only a few people did the work and the rest of the kids said "fuck it" and sat back. Any way to combat this besides democratic action, when the apathetic are the majority in the group?

[FreeTheWorker]

Worker Cooperatives are the way. It works, it's proven to work, and it produces a better society for all of us. Corporations in America don't even want you knowing about Worker Ownership business models, capitalists will go so far as to tell you they don't exist then call you a socialist for advocating them.

It doesn't matter, the top down business model fails, it's a system that's rigged to ensure that the rich always hold dominion over the poor, worker cooperatives work well for everyone.

[mojorhythm]

Very nice exposition of participatory economics!

[Scottit]

I vote myself a raise & a very long long vacation, but not to be the boss & there are no goals, targets nor incentives for whatever magical company, that produces nothing.

Oh, dude, you are lost in knowing human nature & econ.

[mikemat3307]

Most people can't even manage their own personal finances. If you want to "self-manage", be a freelancer or entrepreneur. I did it 7 years ago. You'll never work as hard as when you work for yourself.

The fundamental flaw in Mutualistic workplaces is, where does the initial investment come from? Who is going to 'risk' their money and capital? Who is going to pay the workers while the factory is being built? How about showing me a *real* business plan?

[Kinkspace]

@loewinful "We're talking about a worker cooperative, correct?"

I do more than talk :)

[Kinkspace]

@TheLeftLibertarian I have watched them all & left responses to others that you may or may not chose to view :)