From the recent Bad Faith podcast. Gonna read up on them. Seems like a decent first step towards full communism, with the added benefit of I don't think people have an immune response to the term.
"Democratize the workforce" is pretty close to "seize the means of production". I'll take it, for now.
“The workers owning the means of production” doesn’t mean “these specific workers at this one business owning this specific business”. If one auto plant becomes a co-op, they don’t control the mine, or the smelting plant, or the place where the electronics are made, or the transport chain that gets the materials to the plant, or the distribution network that disperses the finished product. They’re still just one tiny “worker owned” cog in a bourgeois machine. It’s essentially the same as big capitalist enterprises integrating petit-bourgeois small tradesmen into their operations, which is a thing that happens already.
Not to mention I have a feeling that co-ops would eventually be squeezed out of the market, like any other petit-bourgeois element, they will eventually be proletarianised.
Ok, so what if the smelter were worker owned, and the mine, and the electronics manufacturer, and the transport company? That is better, right? Even if they are operating in a market based economy?
Are the different co-ops all “co-operating” with each other, or are they in competition? Are the smelters trying to squeeze as much profit as they can from the auto workers? Are the transporters trying to squeeze the rest of the supply chain? Because if they are, congrats, you just invented capitalism with more steps.
But it isn’t though if the whole supply chain is coops? Squeezing will result in much more effective socially needed labor contraction/wage equalization. As one labor place becomes too highly compensated, it would spawn a second shop in market paradigm.
I think industries were this is not true is only extremely high tech sector (precision instruments/silicon manufacturing/space), where labor education takes decade plus. The issue wouldn’t be competition up and down chain, it would be exclusively top of the chain in imaginary market-economy coops.
I mean, yes, they are trying to lower the price of goods. And yes, this is a market-based system, so the balance of income for the co-op, distributed among its workers to pay suitable amounts, with affordability of the products will happen. But without the bourgeois ownership, without the leeches stealing surplus value, there is likely room for price changes while still providing the workers with their value.
Isnt this desirable? Workers would see increases in income, and products would potentially decrease in price. Or go up.
Anyway, I see what you're saying, but I think it is significantly different without the leeching class stealing value across the entire supply chain.
And no, its not capitalism with more steps - worker power is a real thing in this situation, and where is the capitalist class?