that is context I somehow missed during the Trump trade-wars.
:blob-no-thoughts:
Unless it comes from the comunism regions it is just sparkling socialism
I know its not a pure co-op structure in the Richard Wolf's bonner Mondragon sense or smth but you can call Huawai the largest co-op in the world i feel. And if you do the numbers for the largest co-ops globaly as well as for the numbers of people or % of the economy being in different co-op or communal structures, you will likely get China topping the charts
That must be a weird realization for some of the feverishly anti-china demsoc/libsoc co-op socialism lovers. Turns out China or places like Vietnam are the best examples of and the closest thing to co-op AES? well well well
Dividend distributions like this aren't unusual in the American O&G sector. Exxon, BP, and Shell all do big company bonuses like this, and its one of the reasons Houstonians defend their oil money so zealously. The Silicon Valley tech sector has a similar system. Google employees banked big when the firm went public.
This creates a kind-of Labor Aristocracy that Marx and Lenin bemoaned as contrary to class consciousness.
Is it really usual or comparable ? Exxon for example seems to have had similar profits as Hauwai in 2021 and has around 80k employees. The equivalent of what Huawei does would be an annual distribution or "bonus" of around 100k to their employees .From what i see their bonuses were at average 15k but in their bulk bellow 10k. With CEOs racking up dozens and dozens of millions over the years , even just in bonuses. And on top of that it seems that even the employee bonuses have been obliderated in recent years due to "oil crisis". justifications . Same seems to be the case with the other companies you mention. "average" bonuses of 10k (a lot under that and inflated due to CEO and other high level bonuses,) on companies where the equivalent clear profit/employees would put it at 100k . And also an abandonment of a lot of these bonuses in recent years
But Huwaei is relatively evenly dividing a majority of pure annual profits among the general employee population . And thats not as a bonus scheme but a direct result and part of Huwaei being majority ESOP structured in a very unique way, which also translate to worker control ,union and voting mechanisms inside the company. You can maybe argue that this counts as "labor aristocracy" only if you argue that fairer profit distributive among employees co-op/esop structures of large profitable tech company like Huawei exising makes their employes much better compensated compared to others. But thats not a problem with the structure , its a reason for more and more of China's and the worlds tech and other companies to be restructured like that. Also idk about comparing inflated monstrous oil giants that have exerted influence in some of the worst policies and disasters of modern times to Huawei
Also it seems like if this was anything in line with a western giant like Exxon or even some silcon valey company it would be easy after the economic warfare and sanctions the west and Trump(now biden) unleased against Hauwai, forcing them out of markets to find an excuse just not give "the treats" and instead trickle down the "losses" to their employees as an excuse for the ceos to get richer and for more individual accumulation of wealth. But the highest decision making body in Huawei is the Employee Shareholders' Representative Commission representing and being voted up in 1 share 1 vote stages from the 130,000 Huawei employees that own collectively 95%+ of the companies shares with no huge discrepencies of share holding between employees.
Also the more i read the more i see that their system is pretty complicated and interesting, more Based than just "its ESOP" but with also interesting peculiarities due to historical development
Fair enough. Huawei's bonus pool was exceptional in that it was so large. And that even base salary spread between lay workers and executives is far smaller than in a US counterpart.
But the idea of an annual bonus tied to company income isn't a novelty of Huawei. Nor is this a sign of a non-capitalist business model. It is simply an earlier stage of Capitalism.
You can maybe argue that this counts as “labor aristocracy” only if you argue that fairer profit distributive among employees co-op/esop structures of large profitable tech company like Huawei exising makes their employes much better compensated compared to others. But thats not a problem with the structure , its a reason for more and more of China’s and the worlds tech and other companies to be restructured like that.
Luxury cell phones occupy an economic niche that affords the firm high profit margins. I don't think you'd want this model of firm operating your plumbing network or electricity provider or your rail system or your grocery store chain.
That's not to say the co-op model isn't superior to the corporate investor model. But it is still a capitalist form of production, in which the incentives are stacked towards continuous growth and expansion.
Is the implication that it is a stage before the declining rate of profit?
Its the stage during which domestic proles get to reap the benefits while foreigners eat the costs. Raw materials are still part of an extraction industry that's as soulless and merciless as ever.
I’m just asking because dividend payouts to employees does not denote a specific stage of Capitalism to me.
The co-op model of today is very reminiscent of the union model Americans enjoyed 50 years ago. Back then, big company bonuses were normal, too. But both Marx and Lenin predict that this period can't last. Eventually, you enter a market ripe for consolidation (typically recessionary downturn) during which bonuses like this will dry up and layoffs will become normal. Employees will be pitted against one another and investors will demand larger share of profit in exchange for access to liquidity. Then, the next business cycle will yield a smaller share of profit than the last.
Maybe I'm wrong and Huawei will be run differently. But that's been the historical trend.
Early Capitalism is shit like company towns, not employee dividends
Like any pyramid scheme, the folks who got in first get paid out best. I don't think this line
many folks who joined close to two decades ago are apparently seeing payouts north of a quarter mil
can be easily ignored. Its very normal for folks who work at Silicon Valley companies to make bank if they got in at the ground floor. Lots of newly minted Facebook and Google and Amazon Labor Aristocrats running around California today. Many of them have tossed their hats back in and aimed for the big Bourgeois banner by starting their own firms, echoing what guys like Dorsey and Musk and Gates accomplished.
The next generation of Huawei workers are unlikely to see the kind of payouts that this generation enjoys. At least, assuming the Chinese tech sector follows American trend lines.
if the workers actually have control of the means of production
That's the million-dollar question, of course. Do the democratic levers in a co-op connect to anything more than democratic levers in a union did? When times get tough and Huawei Execs have to choose between shareholders and workers, do the laborers have the power to discipline capital or will it be the other way around?
Under capitalism, we know the answer. I'm asserting that Huawei is - ultimately - a capitalist enterprise. And if the managers and shareholders can't extract a greater share of labor value from the workers, I'll gladly admit I was wrong.
Further, the union model in the US during that time was a series of reforms to ease long standing contradictions, not an early stage of Capitalism.
It was a reset following the Great Depression's collapse. And it set up a new era of Imperialism that was more successful than any before.
this is great and all, but where's the dividends payout for the coltan miners in the congo? (i'm not saying china created that situation because they didn't, we did)
(i’m not saying china created that situation because they didn’t, we did)
then why mention it on a post about a chinese company?
ya got so close to catching the sinophobia, pal and yet…
:cringe:
This exact line of criticism of coops comes up every time western coops or Richard Wolff is mentioned
“omg but hav u considerd other businesses tht arnt th coop???”
you can't have a smartphone without rare earth minerals, and huawei makes smartphones. arbitrary separation of supply chains creates these contradictions.
Well the coal miners are probably employed and payed by a Congolese or other country majority owned structure or company. China might have invested in building the infastructure , sends/has experts for tech transfer and specialization but they rarely own the place. A lot of time, at least in my country, the created capital and "means of productions" stays in majority ownership with the home country and not CHina. So China wont dictate or decide how the Congolese workers are payed or even treated by a not majority Chinese state owned company. Maybe during the construction of infastructure they do on some level , but generaly not.
You can see Varoufakis talking about how in the deals with China for various projects and infastructure in Greece the deals the previous government made werent worker friendly and he went to the (state owned) chinese company and said "if you want the deal and projects there will have to be strong labour protections, committing to dozens of millions to the development of the communities around the project, even larger % of capital staying in Greek hands afterwards etc" expecting for the deal to fail and for it to be some harsh negotiation but the Chinese were "sure ok no problem, terms like these were always possible for you to set" .
technically the employees are stonk holders if it's a co-op
Workers owning the means of production? If only somebody had seen this coming!
Bonus pools happen in plenty of large American corporations. My own company had a bonus pool north of $1B this year.
people be like "the chinese are just another capitalist hegemony replacing the US capitalist hegemony" and I disagree, but even if that were true, they are still indisputably more humane than the US :shrug-outta-hecks:
