#liberal #anticapitalism

An #EconomicDemocracy is a market economy where most firms are structured as #WorkerCoops.

#liberalism
#coops #cooperatives

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  • There are ideologies that believe control rights over firms belong to the workers in those firms. In these ideologies, the control rights can’t be given up or transferred even with consent from the workers in the firm i.e. are inalienable. Neoliberalism specifically endorses the alienability control rights over firms. The non-democratic nature of the firm under neoliberal capitalism creates a class used to democratically unaccountable power





  • Capitalism v. communism is certainly a false dilemma. There are other alternatives such as Georgism as you noted. I would go further and advocate a Georgist economic democracy where all firms are structured as worker coops. Similar to the problem you identify with capitalism in that it fails to treat land and capital differently, the mainstream of Georgist thought fails to differentiate labor from capital in an important respect. Labor can’t factually be transferred unlike capital @196








  • Capitalism is the opposite of democracy. In a capitalist firm, the managers are not accountable to the governed (i.e. workers). The employer is not a delegate of the workers. They manage the company in their own name not in the workers’ name. Managers do not have to have dictatorial control. It is entirely possible to have management be democratically accountable to the workers they govern as in a worker cooperative.

    Capitalism v. Communism is a false dilemma. There are other options.

    @memes


  • Capitalism is not just when the means of production are owned by individuals. For example, in an economy where all firms are democratically-controlled by the people that work in them, the means of production can be owned by individuals, but such an economy is not capitalist because exploitative property relations associated with capitalism are abolished


  • Socialism is not when the government does stuff, so those institutions are not examples of socialism. Anti-capitalists are arguing for the complete abolition of exploitative capitalist property relations that violate workers’ human rights.

    This is a false dilemma. There are other alternatives to capitalism besides communism. It is entirely possible to have a non-capitalist non-communist system (e.g. an economy where every firm is democratically-controlled by the people that work in it)


  • This understanding of capitalism is a misunderstanding that both Marxists and neoclassical types share. It is not capital ownership that gives the employer the right to appropriate a firm’s whole product. The employment contract is what gives them that right. Sure, capital ownership affects bargaining power, but the root cause is that contract. Abolishing the employment contract while still having individual ownership is possible (i.e. a market economy of worker coops)





  • J Lou@mastodon.socialtoMemes@lemmy.ml*Permanently Deleted*
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    8 months ago

    LVT taxing the empty lot next door at the same rate as a multimillion dollar hotel is exactly what makes it so efficiency enhancing because it give land owners economic incentives to use their land productively rather than just holding it and waiting for it to appreciate in value. With LVT, prices would exclude the value of the land.

    LVT can be combined with other policies and taxes. You have to look at the whole package of policies to determine progressivity. LVT+UBI is progressive


  • J Lou@mastodon.socialtoMemes@lemmy.ml*Permanently Deleted*
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    8 months ago

    It meets the definition of a progressive tax.

    The broader Georgist program involves aggressive taxation of government-granted monopolies like IP, which both Musk and Bezos are indirectly beneficiaries of.

    LVT is 1 policy meant to solve 1 problem. It can be combined with other policies that address other problems.

    The labor theory of property, a negative application of which provides a moral rationale for LVT, also provides a justification for an inalienable right to worker democracy


  • J Lou@mastodon.socialtoMemes@lemmy.ml*Permanently Deleted*
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    8 months ago

    Land value tax is progressive. Due to land’s inelastic supply, this tax cannot be passed on to others. People that own lots of land bear the entire burden of the tax. Charging for unimproved land value encourages building denser on more valuable land. This increases housing supply thus making housing more affordable

    LVT is 1 policy. It can be combined with other policies. LVT is not an avoidable tax




  • J Lou@mastodon.socialto196@lemmy.blahaj.zoneRule
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    8 months ago

    Abolishing slavery did not prevent people from acting in a manner they wished. It prevented them from having the lack of rights of a slave. Similarly, preventing people from being wage laborers just means that that working in a firm would automatically confer voting rights over the firm and make management democratically accountable to the people that work in the firm


  • J Lou@mastodon.socialto196@lemmy.blahaj.zoneRule
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    8 months ago

    I am using the conventional definition of voluntariness. It is the people that are suggesting that wage labor is involuntary that are using unconventional definitions of the notion of voluntariness.

    Even if this more expansive notion of voluntariness was coherent, it would not be an argument against capitalism per se because capitalism can have a UBI.

    Hopefully, a teacher does not steal the positive and negative fruits of the student’s labor