https://x.com/DylanMAllman/status/1776649146675712146
Socialist professor explains how to get a PS5 under socialism.
— Dylan Allman (@DylanMAllman) April 6, 2024
Yeah, no thanks. pic.twitter.com/jpramvLIiI
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This guy is syndicalist IIRC, I listened to his podcast (Economic Update) for a bit and I do think he's well spoken.
I don't think his political goals are actually that threatening, he describes himself as "Marxian" because he does use Marxist economics (which have their own issues as !neolibs know better than me) but is very much against the whole "killing people" part of Marxism.
His overarching point is that unions and democratically controlled workplaces in general would be better for workers rights. I don't think this is incompatible at all with free market systems and people can test this theory in the marketplace like Mondragon does already.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_D._Wolff
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This person's ideology isn't very threatening but only because it's relegated to obscure corners of academia and the Twitter posts of terminally online people, that doesn't mean it's not r-slurred and wouldn't be a disaster if put in place.
The problem with this seems to me to be that all the negatives of capitalism apply with none of the positives. You can still lose your job if your fellow workers democratically decide you're not needed any more, and if that leads you to not having enough labor vouchers or whatever your landlord can democratically decide to evict you. The only difference is instead of market forces efficiently deciding where resources are allocated it's done by a series of increasingly convoluted administrative organisations. How are you supposed to buy an apple when you first need to convince the cashier, who needs to consult all their colleagues, who needed to work out an agreement with the distributor, then the farmer, then the guy who makes his cowtools, and the guy who mines the iron for those cowtools (who probably won't exist since no one will choose that job in a socialist utopia), all over a vague definition of who's interests are worth more worthy?
Also, why didn't you mention the most succesful Spanish syndicalist movement? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falange_Espa%C3%B1ola_de_las_JONS
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Jesse what the frick are you talking about??
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This is the thing people most overlook. Has nobody worked at a job where false rumors about people get spread? In most capitalist companies the managers know who the shit stirring tard workers are and ignore them, but with "democratic workers control" you'd absolutely have struggle sessions due to the arms race of false rumors, gossip and intrigue escalating as the most sadistic and machiavellian people could gain effective control of the company that way.
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That's why you get together and write up a constitution that calls for fair and free elections of governance.
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I will NEVER support that traitor FRANCO for what he did to the Falange!
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I listened to this debate and he unironically says one of valid definitions of socialism is "when the government does stuff".
And Mondragon is his go-to example when talking about co-ops but guess what, you can go and start a co-op right now. They're just unpopular because they're less efficient than standard company structure.
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that's a meme he does.
Yeah, and that's fine? You can attract workers by doing things less efficiently but better for workers.
I don't work at one now because tech is hot and I have leverage, but if I was a steelworker I'd give more of a shit about treatment from my employer.
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But what happens when this is scaled up to the entire system? If every business is worse for the consumer and better for the workers, won't that be worse for everyone, since you're a consumer for more companies than you are a worker? In other words, if your work pays 10% more but a slice of bread costs 200% more because every single one of the dozens of companies in the supply chain is less efficient, is this really of benefit to you? This is why capitalism is the least selfish system, it incentivizes people aggressively acting in their own self-interest to work in the interests of other people
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Nuh-uh. Here's him giving "3 definitions of socialism" (
)
"Those parties push socialist agenda by which they mean government regulations. You might not call it socialism, but the people involved do."
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every time
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I did work for a Union but it was retail which I'll maintain is r-slurred. If your life isn't at risk I don't think there's a benefit.
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ironically steelworkers unions are currently trying to scupper a 14 billion dollar Nippon Steel buyout of US Steel so that a domestic company can swoop in, buy the company for less, and provide none of the capital improvements Nippon has promised
don't underestimate the ability of workers to be r-slurred in ways that hurts their own pocket books down the line
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Isn't there a nationalist angle to that? It's probably not in the national interest to have an industrial company owned by a foreign entity.
I see what you mean from other aspects tho.
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That's besides the point, but the Japanese buying a US steel mill sounds fine since they'll most likely manage it better than those underbidding cheapass r-slurs. If it was Chinese buying full control, then I'd agree with your national interest point.
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Your job is going to be replaced by an LLM. Time to start caring.
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They are but so are you. I could see one replacing your job.
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This happened to the vegan grocery here. The actual entrepreneurs got tired of squabbling with smelly r-slurs about stuff that shouldn't be argued about (we sold X of Y item, it's our best seller and we need to order more). They left, the store literally ran out of product and closed
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Consumer co-ops are totally sensible.
Worker co-ops are just "what if we do stock options but in the stupidest way possible?"
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It's the easiest way to get people who know economics to tell me why I'm wrong, ex: this thread.
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Problem is the "killing people" camp usually wins out by killing people.
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Mondragon heavily relies on Spanish government gibs, though, and a lot of their employees are non-owners (a majority in some companies). It's obviously not something that can scale up to the entire economy.
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Also was only created because of the Franco regime.
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It's annoying that the USA has equally r-slurred gibs to corpos too though.
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I would shoot my peepee off before I took an active role in decision making at my job.
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Richard D Wolff used to be shilled aggressively in Bernie spaces back in the day, he's like the Bernie bro equivalent to Michael Parenti
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yes that's how I heard of him
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If they ever scaled up his system beyond their commune, they'd kill him. It's a very backwards ideology because it doesn't value private property rights.
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