this post was submitted on 10 Nov 2024
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Who runs the company then?
That's a fair question, but there are many different answers. Not all leftist schools of thought fully advocate for removing a management style hierarchy, though some do. Some ideas push for rotating management with either a round robin selection, a raffle system, or democratically elected managers. Not dissimilar to how many countries run their governments.
Alternatively, if it fits the workflow, a flat style structure where no one inherently has a defined role, so teams form naturally to work on what they want or deem necessary. Someone will still often fill the role of "project manager" mind you, but the who and how are determined based on what works best for the situation. Not unlike letting students form their own groups for projects.
If you are genuinely curious, there is no shortage of books, YouTube videos, and websites just waiting to opine about their preferred methodology that would give you a much more authentic and robust understanding. Or I bet if you thought about it, you could even come up with some variations yourself.
The important point to get across for leftists is that the structure of economic production should be such that its aim is to benefit the general populace as evenly or equitably as possible. This is opposed to an "owner class" who uses their power, usually in the form of wealth, to take control the economic means of production, who then sets out to have the workers create more value than they will be given in return, so that the "owner" can take the excess value generated by the workers to increase their own wealth and/or power.
tl;dr
The lynchpin question for leftists isn't "who runs the factory?", but "who reaps the rewards?".
It sounds very theoretical. I don’t know of a large modern example.
The main problem with organizing work is that it’s very very difficult to do and the more people involved the more difficult it is. A hierarchical structure may not be ideal, but as with American democracy, it’s the worst thing we can think of besides everything else that has been tried.
See, I would look at that as the linchpin question for capitalists.
I mean, it is the lynchpin question for capitalists as well, the origination of modern leftist thought was a critique of capitalism. They basically share all of the same questions.
And it is difficult to do, though no more difficult than our current systems. Large scale systems are always hard to manage. But how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. We don't need to completely undo society to start moving towards a more equitable future.
And it is highly theoretical, no doubt about that. That's how you start to improve anything, you theorize about solutions, impliment the best ones you can, and iterate overtime.
That's not actually true, work has been organized in a multitude of ways throughout history to various levels of effectiveness. And the outcomes of these structures have been largely situational. Saying hierarchical structures are the "least worst" is a broad generalization. Also, as I already pointed out, not all schools of leftist thought do away with hierarchy in the management of work. The only thing leftist schools of thought universally push for is changing the distribution model of value generated from said work.
Though if hierarchical structures are kept, how the hierarchy is determined is obviously usually changed as well. Given that our current model ties these decisions to the "owner" of the business, who's status as owner would need to be removed or at least reimagined to work within the new value distribution model.
Also, I have to refute your "American Democracy is the worst thing we have tried except all the others". That is just a thought killing statement meant to prevent discussions of better options.
We know for a fact that capitalism creates an ultra wealthy class that is comprised of a very small percentage of the population while also leaving a significant portion of the population in abject poverty. Even when it has the resources to support it's entire population, at least at a "base necessities" level, as is the case in America.
You could argue that you don't agree with the various solutions presented by any and all leftist (though it sounds like you really haven't bothered to research it either), but understand that it is this inherent and unnecessary cruelty that pushes people to seek out a better system. And from a leftists point of view, every single person in poverty is a failure of the current system, every person who dies from inadequate health care coverage a reason to rework our systems, every extravagant dinner a billionaire eats while a child goes hungry proof that this system is in dire need of change.
Maybe you believe capitalism is somehow the best solution to these problems, and that we could do no better, that we truly have reached the "end of history", but I doubt it. But if you think we could do more to help people, then you too might be more of a leftist than you realize.
And while most of us on the "far left" would love to see a future where we do away with the capitalist class, most of us would settle for health care and school lunches in the near future for now.
I like how you scrolled past a comment with a huge list of worker co-ops just in the US (there are also multinational ones) to tell someone else that it sounded too theoretical and complicated to work, lmao.
What huge list?
https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/comment/11507669
The one in that comment under the spoiler tag.
Wild, I didn't see that at all - like it should have shown up in my replies, but I didn't see it.
Well, it looks to be very similar to the other list I replied to, so I'm guessing it's probably the same although I didn't do a 1-1.
Suffice to say - yeah there are a lot of worker-owned businesses in the sense that it's at least 100 and a few of them (Publix, HyVee) are pretty big. Again, not a lot of technology in them, but more stable industries where the same equipment and processes year after year can produce good results.
Which is good!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_cooperative
Hey that sounds like a horrible process but good luck, it’d be great if that could work somehow.
Seriously, have you ever tried to get 30 or more people to work on a complicated project? Flat structures like that make it take 300x as long.
It’s great for, maybe metalsmiths? Or . . y’know, sanitation workers? Where the gear and scope is more or less always the same? But for software engineering it can’t work like that. Not at any real scale, anyway.
Worker cooperatives don't have to have a flat structure. Smaller cooperatives might use a flat structure, but larger companies will delegate business decisions to management. The main difference is that the board of directors represent the workers instead of outside shareholders making it democratic
@politicalmemes
So from the parent comment if "liberals would want a woman CEO, while leftists wouldn't have a CEO" (paraphrasing) does that mean worker collectives don't have a CEO or that the CEO is 'good' because the board represents the workers (and therefore isn't leftist)?
Just means the parent comment made a kerfuffle in their verbiage. Leftist aren't against the job role of "Chief Executive Officer", or some other such Managing Director. They are against the idea of surplus value being given unnecessarily to a shareholder or owner, as well as unreasonable compensation packages to management, especially at the expense of the general workforce.
It's always funny when people say this can't work, when it constantly works better than any current hierarchical structure. All the collectives I'm in work great, and there are tons of worker owned co-ops going strong, one of my activist groups will often go for meals at one after a day of protesting.
Just because you can't imagine something different doesn't mean it can't work. It's not just a mess of everyone trying to dominate each other, it's cooperative and there are simple processes to facilitate it. It's possible to run countries this way.
Hierarchies exist to exploit and abuse.
Good to know. What do they do? What field are they in, I mean. How many people are in them?
The listing of worker collectives in one of the other comment showed mostly supermarkets and service industries.
There are many corporations structured this way or in a form closer to it the one with a board of directors and a ceo.
Anyone who can't see how it's possible is the same mind as those who couldn't imagine a country without king and lords.
CEO is the king and the board are the lords. For whatever reason leaders loves to implement this hierarchy and the plebs except it. Probably because the later enabled the former.
I assume you mean “in a form closer to it than the one . . . “
What corporations? When you say many do you mean like 10 or like 20,000?
https://www.nceo.org/articles/employee-ownership-100
@politicalmemes
Interesting - Publix is 255k and it says it's 'employee owned'. In fact most of the big ones are all Supermarkets for some reason. But it's an outlier in many ways, the next biggest is 22k, and the vast majority, 88%, are under 10k.
The rest are services (ambulance, call centers, tree services, maintenance) or for some reason architecture and engineering.
There's no software companies on there that I saw, which I think speaks, at least in part, to the issues I mentioned above about speed of decisions.
Software companies usually form as worker coops directly rather than using an ESOP mechanim
Here is a list worker coops: https://www.usworker.coop/directory/
There are some software companies in there under technology
Worker coops can delegate decision-making to managers and executives. This can ensure speedy decision-making. Having workers control the firm doesn't mean that every decision must be made by referendum. There can be delegation and more representative democracy
@politicalmemes
I would say the software industry's long running undercurrent of libertarianism and anti-worker/anti-collective action is a bigger deterrent to co-ops not forming there.
For an example that does exist there, see Motion Twin.
I'm aware of the Peter Thiels of the world and (prior to that, Bill Gates) and so on, but it's also where FOSS lives and Open Source itself is a collectivist process, albeit a very slow one in most cases.
The lack of co-ops is (IMO) more likely due to timely processes related to decision making. New code can be deployed instantaneously, but direction and all the bells & whistles all take time and it's just about impossible in a traditional heirarchical organization. I'd expect if there was no single entity making decisions it'd take even longer to do basic things.
Hilarious that you would bring up software engineering considering one of the largest names in PC gaming, Valve, has a flat management structure. Seems like they're able to manage running the Steam store, game development, and hardware development just fine.
I think I just read that Gabe has a fleet of yachts.
Where's the contradiction in it?
You think there are no large worker co-ops in the US? Embarrassing. You’ve never heard of Bob’s Red Mill or Publix?
And because I’m sure you aren’t happy with two examples, here’s an incomplete list of notable worker co-ops in the US from Wikipedia:
It’s fucking big
But yeah, dawg, worker co-ops are fake news.
PS: is there some reason you omitted the two sentences before that which make it clear this is one method of organizing worker’s co-ops?
One thing I think is telling is how corporate law firms, accounting firms, consulting firms, financial firms etc. will happily provide their services advising shareholder corporations on how to operate, but are themselves organized as partnerships.
The workers.
Neat. How do they do that? Big zoom meeting or something?
Democratically, generally.
It doesn't mean everybody has to decide and approve everything, but you could vote for who does. That's one method, at least. Some workplaces might find having no management at all better. But the important thing is it's up to the workers (who are also the owners)
Right but technically how does it happen? Does everyone have to gather in the same room? Mail-in votes? How long does it take? Are there 'campaigns' for leaders?
I don't mean to suggest it's bad, just that it seems really slow and potentially problematic from a lot of angles that current corporate structure doesn't have.